USMC and women in infantry

No male genes...x and Y chromosome...and oestragen and testosterone...

 

Pardon the OT but ...

When I was in high school one of the father of one of the other scouts in my troops who was very into mountain climbing started an informal sub group of us scouts that were interested in climbing. Our biggest accent was to the top of St Helens (several thousand feet taller then than it is now) but for our glacier training we used some of the glaciers on St Helens. There were a couple of nice ones not far from the "Dog's Head" a formation about half way up the NW side of the mountain near the old Spirit Lake.

I'm not sure we hit 3 mph the time on St Helens. We might have as we were all in pretty good shape and my pack was by far the heaviest (I was about 5'6" and 150 lbs then). Since I thought we were going to establish a base camp near the parking lot at the foot of ST Helens (and right off Spirit Lake) I through everything into my pack that I thought I might need. 2 sleeping bags, air mattress, tent, msic food, etc and the Trapper Nelson pack frames weren't particularly light on their own then there was a camera bag with a fair amount of equipment and film in it.
One of our hikes up on the Cascade Crest Trail a buddy and I came in a day late though and that time I think we did hit or even exceed 3 mph but from what I recall my pack was probably around 70 lbs that time. Most of the longer hikes we didn't come anywhere close to that speed though as we traveled as a troop and had some fairly young scouts along.

In essence I had enough experiance to have an idea what effort was involved in Price's march. Not sure I could have done it even with training and almost certain I couldn't even in my best shape (not having been through any military training).

 

Conditioning is an interesting area that a fair amount of research is currently being conducted on. If you push things too far you can do more damage than good. In some cases conditioning that increases short term performance may have a long term detrimental effect. NPR for instance recently had a series of articles on back problems among nurses. They pointed out that while there was often a key event when thier back "went out" that the key event was the culmanation of a series of minor trama's that built up over time. I recently heard that there have been a number of people in the medieval recreation group I'm in that have had neck problems due to wearing heavy helms for significant periods (although I don't have any and have had one of the heavier ones for the last 30+ years). If you want to get someone to peak performance it looks to me like you are talking customizing their training routine. From what I've read since we started discussing this it sounds like one might even want to have different focuses of such training between men and women. How to figure out what the absolute minimums as far as performance are and after that what mix of levels above those absolute minimums are acceptable is a difficult problem to solve but critical if one wants a system that is both fair and the best possible.

 

That's cool, I've never done it but my roommate at the 300F1, Special Operations Medical Sergeant Course, was big into that, the SCA IIRC? He was from Florida and talked quite a bit about getting me to come down to one of their events. He was also a practitioner of Kendo, and was apparently quite advanced. I thought an appropriate martial art for his hobby.

Well, that could be a problem, because training performance minimums on tested events are designed for a certain acceptable amount of attrition, but not too much. You have a minimum standard you must exhibit upon ascension to a course. Then they begin training you up, building you up during the course, with a higher performance level expected to graduate. The example I gave was from the SF Selection and Assessment phase. You had to successfully complete it to move on to the actual Phase One Special Forces Qualification Course. In other words the final physical requirements there were the starting physical requirements to start the next level of training.
Real world deployments if all goes well are generally more demanding, but not by a huge percentage. If things go south, well they can become extremely more demanding.
A hypothetical based upon the previously mentioned test. You're inserted into a hostile area and are to meet up with a group of partisans at a specified, prearranged time, an overland distance of 12 miles from your insertion point, four hours after insertion. The partisans will remain at the rendezvous point for two hours, one hour before the assigned time to secure the area and to be there if you arrive early. If you do not make the rendezvous they will assume your team has been compromised and will rapidly depart the area in order to not be compromised themselves. You've travelled six miles at a 4 mile per hour pace, when you approach a pass through the mountains you had planned to use, you notice a sizeable presence of enemy forces in the vicinity. You consult your map and there is an alternate route through a pass two miles further on. You've added at least four miles to your route. Two to the alternate pass and two to get back to your initial planned route. You've used an hour and a half of your time, the detour will add an additional four miles (now 16 miles) and one hour. You'll have six miles left once you've returned to the original route so, 1.5+1+1.5 and you're still within your four hour planned window, but you've lost the one hour cushion you had built in and the additional miles may slow your pace. Well two of your team are only capable of the bare minimum so when you hit the 12 mile point they are done. You have to slow the pace to 2.5 miles an hour for the next three miles (1hr 12 minutes), then stop completely to let them rest for 10-15 minutes. You have a mile left and 33 minutes left to make the rendezvous and have burned through the two hour planned contingency time. (The extra hour you allowed for the march and the hour dwell time by the partisans at the rendezvous point). You can still make it but can't stop and observe the area before the meeting to make sure everythings Kosher. I'd push on at the 4 mph pace so I'd still have 15 minutes to observe the meeting point, but what about the bare minimum performers? Leave them behind? Let the mission fail by missing the rendezvous? Rush into the meeting without observing the meeting point and risk the whole team? If you have peak performers when things first went bad you'd have stepped up the pace to make up some of the lost time, and you wouldn't have been left with no good choices at the end.

 

remember that big deal about the Olympic track girl? they wanted to test her for male genes? chromos, whatever...I was really half-joking on my post http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/26/caster-semenya-and-the-ioc-s-olympics-gender-bender.html

 

They might want to check for fishing tackle...or unusual high testosterone levels...but wouldnt be checking her genes....

 

Good example...and i agree...cant help thinking "best laid plans" and all that...the moment you make a plan...some aspect changes and you have to think on your feet...those unwanted scenerios might well play out anyway. Thanks for the insight.

 

The problem with that example is it only looks at one phase of a mission. I would assume other skills/abilities are also important to completeing the mission. What if someone who's not as physically fit can perform other required tasks at a higher level than those who are physically fit? Certainly if they are required it would help if they are in the best shape possible and know as much about how the team works as is they can. In the above example if the group were large enough I would suggest breaking it into two components one to move as fast as possible and link up with the partisans to inform them about the delays. If possible I'd also form choose the insertion team with that possiblity in mind. Of course such things aren't always possible. One of the people on the team having a spontaneous stress fracture of the leg or hip would also throw a bit of a monkey wrench into things as well.

One example of this sort of thing that comes to mind is the inclusion of one or more women in some of the Marine patrols in Afghanistan. It payed big dividends when addressing the female population of the villages (the women were much more willing to talk with other women). On the other hand it meant that the patrols were limited in other ways. Increasing the physical capabilities of the women involved would have helped at least some. How best to do that is an open question, making them a permanent part of the infantry units would be one way but it's not clear to me what the best way is or even what all the alternatives are.

 

Just ran across this article:
www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/04/07/last-ioc-in-marine-experiment-drops-two-officers/25418867

 

But most aspects of a mission are inter-related. In the example I gave lets say Sgt. Mary Jane was a communicator, best communicator to ever graduate the course. If she doesn't reach the rendezvous point because she can't make the hump and the mission fails, would not it be better to assign the task to a more physically capable soldier with slightly lower communications capabilities. Let's insert her without the extra batteries for her commo gear, or let's cut the equipment from two alternate types of commo to one. Does her greater ability as a communicator offset the loss of capability she brings due to lack of equipment and supplies? I don't think so. Or do you cut the length of the mission because she can't hump enough food and water to sustain he for as long as her comrades?

That's a possibility that exists, things happen and if the mission fails because of that it's bad luck. However, why go into a mission where you knowingly increase the odds against you? This really is an unfortunate example because females are greatly more predisposed to stress fractures of the hips and legs than males. It's the physiology.

That is an option, but you try not to split your forces beyond supporting range when in enemy territory. Depending upon the nature of the mission, it would probably be better than mission failure. I'd keep the bulk of the force with the slow/weak segment, so they can better defend themselves and send a small two, three man team (depending upon the force size) to make the link up. We'd select the strongest and take/redistribute some of their load so they could move faster, but understand, you've now placed everyone at greater risk, when cutting the weak links before you deploy would have obviated having to take such a risk.

Very true and something I had mentioned earlier. They were however only used in relatively secure areas, where the likelyhood of heavy contact was minimal. The infantry units expecting a fight had already cleared these areas and were patrolling further out where they could interdict threats to these areas. Even so, the Taliban attempted to limit, with some success, the ability of the FET's to make a difference, by having small groups engage patrol's containing FET's to force the patrol to return to their operating base. The enemy could do so with relative impunity because the patrol's were light and weren't equipped for a heavy fire fight, and wouldn't follow them for fear of bringing on a general engagement were they would be at a disadvantage. It's a balancing act, the pluses in this case far outweighed the negatives. The inroads made with the female population, due to cultural restrictions, would have taken male troops much longer if it were even possible to reach the same end result.

 

"Last IOC in Marine infantry experiment drops female officers"

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/04/07/last-ioc-in-marine-experiment-drops-two-officers/25418867/

 

I saw that Mcoffee.....I think there is a reason why wars have been fought by men, generally speaking....it's a physical activity....through evolution, if you believe in that, males have been formed to fight better than females....I think the link Mcoffee has posted, and the other reasons posted here, clearly proves this...even if you don't believe in evolution

 

So much depends on what's possible and planning. Is the time table locked for some reason? If it is then this particular mission is on the edge from the beginning I would think. Again not an expert but I wouldn't plan on being able to travel at anywhere near maximum speed in enemy controlled territory. If the timetable is not fixed then can the insertion be done earllier to give you a bit more flexability or the link up be moved back. How critical is it that the people you are linking up with be their early? Can that end be moved back? What's available as far as human resources go? I assume you want to stay with established teams for the most part with the possible insertion of an expert or two if necessary. For something like a commo expert I wouldn't expect the difference in skill levels to be that critical however if it was say a translator then it could be. Other fields might be more or less sensative. In an operation of this sort it would seem to me that the more capabilitiy you have in any area the more flexability you have as far as planning and reacting to circumstances. Physical performance is just one but an important one and it's a mix of individual and group capablities. Not trivial to find the best solution by any means.

One of the problems I see with some of these efforts is a tendency to concentrate on what's "fair". It's a problem because they seem to define "fair" to be equal opertunity for carreer enhancing positions or equal opertunity to fill desired positions. If the unit is likely to see combat however I think I want to include things like maximizing the probability of the every one in the unit serviving and in acomplishing the mission. Defining "fair" in that maner or even seriously taking that into accounts might not fit with the political agendas of some though.

 

There are a number of other factors but in regards to this. There was one of the early step "tribes" that was famous for having quite a few women warriors. The last time I read much about them was an anthropological paper that analized grave goods. Almost all graves associated with female warriors contained archery equipment, while for male warriors close combat equipment was present in most or all. The implication of course was that women were giving "fire support" while the men fought in the front lines.

 

Here's an article about a couple of sisters who completed the enlisted infantry course:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/careers/marine-corps/2015/04/11/sisters-make-it-through-marine-infantry-training/25403629/

 

Motivational story. Kudos to the sisters for their success. However, it must be noted that females that went through the enlisted course were not required to complete the male PFT/CFT at the end in order to graduate, they were required only to meet the female standards on the PFT and CFT. While it may not seem significant, your body is pretty beat up at the end and makes the PFT/CFT a bigger hurdle than normal. That being said, it was the correct decision by the Marine Corps because they needed graduates for data and female Marines to go on to test units. There were also female NCO mentors assigned to the Enlisted Course to ensure the females were not targeted, but also to motivate them and help maintain a the proper mindset (I don't think the two sister's in the story needed it, they seem pretty self motivated), but the males all had to draw upon their inner strength/motivation. There was no babying them, if their spirits flagged and they gave up mentally they were dropped. The Officer course has not modified standards for females and has not provided outside mentors to help them pass.

 

Didn't look back to check but I seem to recall that they didn't go on to infantry positoins either. IMO that may be part of the "success story" here as well. If it weren't so expensive haveing infantry training as part of say standard high school curiculum would probably be a huge benefit both to the individuals and the country. Whether or not it would be enough to off set the costs in another question.

 

No, they didn't go to regular infantry units, some went on to their primary MOS', but some went to a special gender integrated test unit so that more data could be developed. That of the physical, performance effects of longer term service in an infantry billet and to study some of the psychological/sociological aspects that might arise.

 

Another article this time talking about both the army approach and the Marine approach.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/18/army-marine-corps-women-differences/
And one about women and the Ranger course:
www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/04/18/3676644_20-female-soldiers-expected-to.html?rh=1
and an update with 1st day washout numbers:
http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/2015/04/20/women-ranger-school-pt-test/26088039/

 

You can tell that the political push is on. The headline of the above article you posted states:

Only 3 women fail Ranger School PT test, 16 remain
Only three? It should read all 16 females pass initial PFT. The only reason most males fail the initial PT test is that they show up unprepared. You are expected as individuals to show up in good enough physical condition to begin the assesment phase, which determines if you have sufficient basic skills, physical condition and most importantly motivation to continue on the the rest of the course. That is all that's being tested. Yet each of these women were extensively screened and went through special preparation before being sent to the course.
The next headline's from the Washington Post:

In major step, eight women make it through Ranger School’s grueling ‘RAP Week’
That is just the first four days of a 62 day course, you'd think they'd graduated. The real news in the story and a positive for those pushing to open infantry and Special Ops to women is that the failure rate was comparable for men (51.7%) and women (57.9%). This figure however is a bit misleading in that only a portion of males go throught the two-week RTA program to prepare for Ranger School, depending upon where the candidate is coming from they may or may not have been through that selection process, so there are a significant number of males showing up for the Ranger Assesment Phase "cold". They needless to say probably have a higher attrition rate.
The Ranger Training Assesment Program (the two week pre-course) had a male pass rate of 53% and a female pass rate of 19%. Again, I need to stress that all females went through this program, only a portion of males starting the Ranger Course do. That's why you have RAP week.

The rest of the course, the next 58 days if they don't fudge the standards, will show if the women have the physical capability and mental toughness to complete the course. My personal opinion is that they have the mental toughness, you'll probably have two more drop because they don't want it bad enough. Of the other six their bodies will break and most if not all will be dropped for medical reasons.