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Pentagon Opens All Frontline Combat Military Jobs to Women

Published

7 years ago

December 3, 2015

Pentagon Opens All Frontline Combat Jobs to Women

Women will be allowed to serve as fully-fledged members of front-line U.S. military combat units, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced Thursday.

“They’ll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars, and lead infantry soldiers into combat,” Carter said, so long as they meet the same physical standards as their male comrades. “They’ll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men.”

Female advocates cheered the change. “It’s a thrilling day for women serving in the military—and for women across the country,” said Nancy Duff Campbell of the National Women’s Law Center. “Thousands of women will now have the opportunity to be all that they can be and our nation’s military will be the stronger for it. Hip, hip, hooray!”

The impact of the decision will take some time. “Implementation won’t happen overnight,” Carter said. Women will have to be trained to fill the slots. While some have already undergone such schooling—three women passed the tough Army Ranger course earlier this year, for example—the Pentagon wants to ensure that it achieves a still-unspecified “critical mass” of such women before introducing them into previously all-male units. A senior Army officer has estimated that while half of incoming male recruits want to “go infantry,” for example, only 10% of female recruits share that sentiment.

The decision comes after decades of allowing women to move ever closer to front-line, direct-ground-combat units: infantry, armor and special operations. While they have been allowed in supporting roles alongside such units—in intelligence and logistics, for example—they were barred by Pentagon policy from standard service in most such outfits. While the Army had recommended to Carter in October that women be allowed to serve in all combat slots, the Marines had recommended against it.

Carter’s announcement represents an historic change for the U.S. military. But some of the leeriness accompanying it has been eased by the smooth integration of openly gay men and women into military service. In fact, the Marines also were the service most opposed to allowing them to serve in uniform, saying it would hurt morale and recruiting. Neither has happened in the four years since the ban was lifted.

There has been opposition to the change even inside the Army. “The average fighting load is 35% of average man’s bodyweight but half the bodyweight of an average Army woman,” William Gregor, a retired 23-year Army officer now at the service’s School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., wrote in 2011. “Keeping the men and women together can only diminish the training benefit received by men because the load or the march rate or both must be kept within the range of strength and endurance of the women.”

The Marines steadily built a case that their front-line units should remain all-male. “To move forward in expanding opportunities for our female service members without considering the timeless, brutal, physical and absolutely unforgiving nature of close combat is a prescription for failure,” an internal Marine study completed in August concluded. “Those who choose to turn a blind eye to those immutable realities do so at the expense of our Corps’ war-fighting capability and, in turn, the security of the nation.”

Gregory Newbold, a retired Marine lieutenant general, says physical strength is only part of the combat calculus. “It’s the fighting power of the unit that’s more relevant, and when you interject things that are corrosive, then you degrade fighting power,” he says. “It’s the sexual dynamic that’s important here—somebody has to get up early to clean the urinals and pick up trash, and Johnny says `Well Suzy isn’t doing it because they like Suzy,’ or Suzy says `I’m doing it because they hate me.’ That’s human nature, and it’s corrosive in small combat units.” But an internal Marine report disputes that. “Any initial detrimental effects on cohesion can eventually be mitigated with good training and solid leadership, it concluded.

Instead of simply setting physical requirements for individual Marines, the corps pitted all-male squads against mixed-gender units. “The majority of the operationally relevant differences occurred in the most physically demanding tasks, such as casualty evacuations, long hikes under load, and negotiating obstacles,” one internal Marine assessment said. “We have seen numerous cases of compensation during physically demanding tasks, in which males have shifted positions to take over certain aspects of the tasks from females, such as loading ammo into trucks or heaving loaded packs on top of a wall.”

The corps has pointed out that the more than 400 female Marines who earned combat decorations in Afghanistan and Iraq earned them in what might be called combat-lite. “None of those awards reflected a female Marine having to `locate, close with and destroy the enemy’ in deliberate offensive combat operations,” a recent Marine report said. “Rather, these actions were all in response to enemy action in the form of IED strikes, enemy attacks on convoys or friendly bases, or attacks on female Marines” assigned to all-female units designed to screen and interview foreign females. True enough, but hardly surprising: female Marines have been barred from “deliberate offensive combat operations.”

The advance of women toward the front lines has been a long time coming, and female trailblazers recall the challenges. Ann Dunwoody, the first four-star general in the U.S. military, recalls the Army banning barrettes and bobby pins to keep hair in place under jump-school helmets, claiming they were hazardous while parachuting. “It was an attempt to get us to cut our hair, and look manly,” says Dunwoody, who retired in 2012. She refused to go along. “I taped my hair to my head with masking tape—it looked ridiculous.” Eventually, the Army relented.

Darlene Iskra, who became one of the Navy’s first female divers in 1980, recalls the grueling physical harassment instructors would mete out during six weeks of scuba training. They’d yank off trainees’ masks and turn off their air supply, to ensure the fledgling divers were ready for dangerous undersea missions. Iskra spent her first three weeks in the pool with a female partner before each was paired with a male partner for the rest of the course. “We noticed after we got our new buddies that the pool harassment went down by about half,” says Iskra, who went on to become the first woman to command a Navy ship in 1990. “But our new male buddies said the harassment had gone up about half.”

In a perfect world, everyone wearing a U.S. military uniform would be an asexual brute with a stunningly high IQ who doesn’t eat much, is adept at following orders and leery of challenging authority. Given that such a creature has never existed, the nation has spent more than 200 years building its military, one compromise at a time. The Pentagon just made its biggest compromise ever about who can serve on the front lines in a U.S. military uniform.

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Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting

Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.

Published

2 years ago

August 4, 2021

Alexis Sostre

Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting

Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.

In the operation, dubbed “Operation Child Protector,” undercover officers posed as 13- and 14-year-old children on social media and online dating apps between July 27 and Aug. 1.

The undercovers made contact with each of the suspects before proposing they meet at a location in Polk County, where they were busted.

In total, the arrests led to 49 felony and two misdemeanor charges. Those arrested were aged 26 to 47. All were from Central Florida except for one 33-year-old man from California.

“What you see on this board … are deviants. Incredible deviants,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference on Tuesday, motioning to photos of the alleged pervs. “They travel from as far away as Clewiston, Florida. One even came from Los Angeles.”

“Much to their chagrin, instead of meeting with young children, they were met by law enforcement officers who were online undercover posing as children.”

Kenneth Javier Aquino, 26, a lifeguard at Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney World, was arrested while still wearing his Disney polo shirt and swimsuit, according to the sheriff’s office.

Aquino engaged in an online conversation on social media with an officer, posing as a 13-year-old girl, authorities said. He then asked the “girl” to send photos, and sent her an explicit video of himself, police said.

Aquino told officers he is a Navy veteran and has a pregnant girlfriend.

Jonathan McGrew, a 34-year-old custodian at Disney World, was nabbed by an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.

McGrew allegedly told the “girl” that he wanted her to come over and have sex with him and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Savannah Lawrence, who also works as a custodian at tourist mecca.

McGrew sent her explicit videos of him and Lawrence performing sexual acts on each other, authorities said.

A rep for Disney World didn’t immediately return a message.

News

China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus

China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.

Published

2 years ago

July 19, 2021

Alexis Sostre

China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus

China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.

He began experiencing nausea, vomiting, fever and neurological issues, and died in May.

Blood and saliva samples were tested and researchers in April found evidence of the Monkey B virus, also known as the herpes B virus.

Researchers said a male doctor and female nurse who were in close contact with the victim tested negative for the virus.

The Monkey B virus is prevalent among macaque monkeys but infection among humans is extremely rare. Since the virus was identified in 1932, just 50 cases have been reported, with the majority of those in North America. Untreated B virus infections in humans are serious, however, with a fatality rate of about 80 percent.

Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and progress to more serious complications such as swelling of the brain and spinal cord.

Laboratory workers and veterinarians in close contact with the animals are most at risk as people typically get infected with the virus if they are bitten or scratched by an infected macaque, or have contact with the monkey’s eyes, nose or mouth.

But the virus is unlikely to mutate in a way that poses a problem to the general population. Just one case of human-to-human transmission of the virus has ever been documented.

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U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions

Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.

Published

3 years ago

September 11, 2020

Alexis Sostre

U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions

In New York, a dispute over coronavirus-safety precautions is leading to split-screen remembrances Friday, one at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center and another on a nearby corner. The Pentagon’s observance will be so restricted that not even victims’ families can attend, though small groups can visit the memorial there later in the day.

Trump and Biden are both headed — at different times — to the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Trump is speaking at the morning ceremony, the White House said. Biden plans to pay respects there in the afternoon after attending the observance at the 9/11 memorial in New York.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence is also due at ground zero — and then at the alternate ceremony a few blocks away.

In short, the anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.

Still, 9/11 families say it’s important for the nation to pause and remember the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade center, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, shaping American policy, perceptions of safety and daily life in places from airports to office buildings.

“I know that the heart of America beats on 9/11 and, of course, thinks about that tragic day. I don’t think that people forget,” says Anthoula Katsimatides, who lost her brother John and is now on the board of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum.

Friday will mark Trump’s second time observing the 9/11 anniversary at the Flight 93 memorial, where he made remarks in 2018. Biden spoke at the memorial’s dedication in 2011, when he was vice president.

The ground zero ceremony in New York has a longstanding custom of not allowing politicians to speak, though they can attend. Biden did so as vice president in 2010, and Trump as a candidate in 2016.

Though the candidates will be focused on the commemorations, the political significance of their focus on Shanksville is hard to ignore: Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both. Trump won it by less than a percentage point in 2016.

Around the country, some communities have canceled 9/11 commemorations because of the pandemic, while others are going ahead, sometimes with modifications.

The New York memorial is changing one of its ceremony’s central traditions: having relatives read the names of the dead, often adding poignant tributes.

Thousands of family members are still invited. But they’ll hear a recording of the names from speakers spread around the vast plaza, a plan that memorial leaders felt would avoid close contact at a stage but still allow families to remember their loved ones at the place where they died.

But some victims’ relatives felt the change robbed the observance of its emotional impact. A different 9/11-related group, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, set up its own, simultaneous ceremony a few blocks away, saying there’s no reason that people can’t recite names while keeping a safe distance.

The two organizations also tussled over the Tribute in Light, a pair of powerful beams that shine into the night sky near the trade center and evoke its fallen twin towers. The 9/11 memorial initially canceled the display, citing virus-safety concerns for the installation crew. After the Tunnel to Towers Foundation vowed to put up the lights instead, the memorial changed course with help from its chairman, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Tunnel to Towers, meanwhile, arranged to display single beams for the first time at the Shanksville memorial and the Pentagon.

Over the years, the anniversary also has become a day for volunteering. Because of the pandemic, the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization is encouraging people this year to make donations or take other actions that can be accomplished at home.