Kirk W Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 From the Jan. 21, Navy Times............. I'd not want to be part of the change as the early phases will be interesting, to say the least. Good travelin !...............KirkFull-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horizon36 Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 I agree. Full time since August 2010 2002 Itasca Horizon One fur kid - a Shih-Tsu rescue Jeep Grand Cherokee Ltd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIBERNUT Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 I wouldn't either. Bump into one of them by mistake & get accused of a whole laundry list. 2000 Volvo 635 A/S, N-14 Cummins"The Phoenix"'03 KA 38KSWB http://s918.photobucket.com/user/sibernut/library/?sort=6&page=1Furkids- Sibe's CH. Sedona & Tseika Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamtracy Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 I was stationed on a combat ship in Bremerton, WA in the 90's when female sailors were integrated on-board and the day they were coming aboard the XO wanted to send buses to pick them up so they wouldn't have to walk with their seabags. (In Bremerton the ships are isolated so you either take a bus or walk) The ship went ballistic and he almost had mutiny on his hands. Everyone was yelling "no one picked me up when I checked in"!! It was crazy. I had 5 women on my staff and lost 3 in the first six months due to pregnancy. These were unplanned losses so you know how long it takes to get replacements when that happens. Other than that it wasn't any different integrated with women then when it was all males. I never had the "bump into of them by mistake" situations. You treat everyone the same (sailors and human beings) and you minimize your issues. IMO they are doing it right by putting on the senior enlisted first. I lived first hand that Men and Women can live and work together on Sea Duty. James 2024 GMC 3500HD DRW Denali Diesel 2019 Keystone Avalanche 396BH USN Retired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIBERNUT Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 I admit I haven't been on one of the new boats, maybe there's enough room to separate. Seems like where there's room to separate, there's places to copulate............. But I do take offense at the comment separating sailors and humans. 2000 Volvo 635 A/S, N-14 Cummins"The Phoenix"'03 KA 38KSWB http://s918.photobucket.com/user/sibernut/library/?sort=6&page=1Furkids- Sibe's CH. Sedona & Tseika Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamtracy Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 Sibernut my bad. Don't take offense. I wasn't separating them as I wrote it. I re-read it and I see where you are coming from. 2024 GMC 3500HD DRW Denali Diesel 2019 Keystone Avalanche 396BH USN Retired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 Where most of the problems with integrating women into the units I was assigned to in the Army came from was leadership. So many stupid things, all unnecessary from the point of the mission but done out of fear, ignorance, resistance to change or the worst one, political correctness. The worst thing of all was the lowering of standards so more women could qualify for many of the positions they had not been able to before. Sometimes the standard was not related to the job and should have been re-done, women involved or not but many times the standard was there for a reason. Lowering the standard not only allows women who can't actually do the job be trained and assigned to it it allows men that can't do the job to end up with it too. DUMB! One particular task that this bit me still burns me up, the job standard was to lift a 100 pound barbell weight from the ground to over your head. They just dropped that test completely! Somehow when the folks of either sex got to the field and had to lift their end of a 150 pound antenna to just over five feet in the air to install it on the base so it could be used there was still the requirement to lift. What really sticks in my craw is that the team leader had to drive to several sites to assist her teams with installing the antennas, every deployment, every movement. Really dumb to be driving back and forth in your deployment area, even dumber if you are looking at actual hostilities. Adding an hour or two of driving time to the time to become operational or to prepare to move to a new site wasn't great either. Yep, the team leader was female and could put that antenna up by herself, while two of her four two person teams were skinny nerds that should have been in a rear echelon position where their skills could have been used, not out in the field where they couldn't do the job. All the other problems were there too, pregnant and non-deploy-able, single mother with no child care, trading sex for perks, shirking the hard jobs either intentionally or when a male decided they were "too hard" for them. I had a sweet but dumb girl I hauled to the hospital three times for abortions. All problems to one level or another and all fixable - if - the leadership wanted to fix them but all paled in relation to the issues from lower standards. Today the Marines are being pressured to lower their standards for officer training since the tests are so far flunking out all the female applicants. It will be bad if they lower the standards for the women applicants, far worse if they are "fair" and lower them for both sexes. You can take little pride and will earn little respect in accomplishing a sham test that has been watered down. Pride and respect are earned, not gifted. First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day. Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed6713 Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 "Today the Marines are being pressured to lower their standards for officer training since the tests are so far flunking out all the female applicants. " This statement is clearly false. There are hundreds of women officers in the Marines and a few general officers I'm aware of. Here are the facts you overlooked about the USMC. Gets your facts straight before one of these Marines kicks your butt. http://www.womenmarines.org/wm_history.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Sorry you feel you need to threaten me over what I posted. You may not even have take a moment with Google to see if you could find anything related. You did come up with a straw-man argument: This statement is clearly false. There are hundreds of women officers in the Marines and a few general officers I'm aware of. That had nothing to do with what I posted, although I could have been clearer on exactly which test was the problem: Today the Marines are being pressured to lower their standards for officer training since the tests are so far flunking out all the female applicants. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/16/26-female-marines-drop-out-of-infantry-officer-cou/ The failure of two Marine Corps officers to to pass the Jan. 8 first-day Combat Endurance Test of the infantry officer course brings the tally of female dropouts to 26.[/size] http://freebeacon.com/blog/pressure-grows-for-marines-to-lower-standards-for-women/ Perhaps there is less enthusiasm in covering this most recent turn of events because, unlike the three officers passing the CET, their subsequent departure from the course is part of a repeating and, as yet, unbroken pattern: By my count, 27 female officers have attempted the course, and zero have made it to graduation—with 23 not making it past the CET on the first day. (Roughly a quarter of male lieutenants also do not graduate.)The law of averages being what it is, if the Marine Corps continues on this course long enough, a female officer will eventually graduate from the course. This Marine will have every right to be extremely proud of herself and of her accomplishment.But advocates outside the Marine Corps are getting impatient, and pressure is beginning to grow on the Marines to lower their standards. Again sorry to have offended you so badly. First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day. Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AprilWhine Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Stanley, there is a double standard already in place for that test: men are allowed to retake it if they flunk out but women only get one shot. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/04/marines-will-let-women-try-infantry-officer-course-second-time/ Back when I enlisted, in the dark ages, women had to have a high school diploma, while men did not. Women's entrance test scores had to be higher. But to be fair, there was a party in the jungle that consumed lot of men at the time. It hasn't been many years since a female yeoman had to score much higher to make rate than a male yeoman.I read about that in the Navy Times less than 10 years ago. Maybe opening billets at sea will do away with this double standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striper Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Hmmmmm I kinda feel for the guys in this particular situation. PMS going on while your locked in a Sardine can 300 feet below the surface of the water for months on end is not gonna be good. Joe Joe The "Doghouse" 04 Tiffin Phaeton 40TGH TOAD--2008 Dodge Dakota Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffMan Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 I think a push for body cams and mounted security cams for self protection may be in order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yzg Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 We have had them since '01... time that you guys catch up ! http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=navy-opens-submarine-service-to-women/hnmx19og Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjim Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 I had read the information Stan mentioned in the past but had not kept current. I was not aware of the information AprilWhine provided. It just goes to show if we don't lose our heads and keep an open mind we might learn something. I am an old guy so I have some issues with the female intergration into the combat positions but I am willing to learn. I truely don't want one person to have to die or be maimed while they practice getting it right but if push comes to shove I want the one that is capable and has my back at my six. I'm still dealing with the gays in the military but thats on me and I feel the same about having the best person available at my six. However when it gets back to normal I don't want the gay troop to kiss me on the lips whereas I have no problem with the female doing it. I know I was born a clean slate and learned a lot of crap but there is no requirement to stay that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 When I enlisted we still had the WAC (Women's Army Corps) and things were very different. Some things were good but many more weren't good or even bad. I remember the howling and rending of hair, from both sides, when women were first required to qualify with the M16. Seemed like a darned good idea to me, being able to pick up a weapon and defend yourself when things are going into the pot sure beats being a prisoner, more-so with our current set of enemies although southeast Asia was no picnic either. That weapons training thing applies to men too, we lost a lot of folks back in the 70s when the M-60 gunner got hit and the guy that grabbed the machine gun to keep firing jammed it and destroyed the feed system putting the gun out of action - since they had never been showed how to load a new belt. Not everyone can be trained on everything but being shown how to stick the ammo in one end and point the other at the enemy seems like a good idea. I have seen the same thing April has where the standards are set to discriminate against women, that is no more fair than ones set to give any group an advantage. Not fair isn't always wrong though, if there has been past discrimination then maybe giving the group of folks that were cheated a break isn't a bad idea BUT the individuals given the break still must be qualified to do the job. If that means they move ahead of a better qualified person from a group that was not discriminated against that is unfair to the individuals involved but maybe not as unfair overall as letting the past discrimination stand. Tough call but if you want to lead you'd best be ready to make it. Come up with real standards that are directly related to the ability to do the job and apply them to everyone equally. If the selection order of fully qualified folks has to be tweaked for any reason at least the folks being considered for preference will be able to do the job. First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day. Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted January 26, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Jim, there have always been gay guys in the military but they just didn't broadcast it. Even submarines had a few but they kept to themselves on such issues and most didn't stick for long, at least in the era that I served. Theft was the worst offense when I was there and to get caught was to risk your survival to get off of the boat. Because of the conditions in which we lived, guys took respect for the territory and property of others extremely seriously. From what I am reading the enlisted women won't be on most existing boats as there is no way to adapt the living quarters but the new boats now entering the fleet seem to have made adaptations for them. One thing I am sure of from talking with our sons who all served and especially with our youngest who just recently retired from the Army; this is a very different world for the folks of military age from what it was when most of us served. Attitudes of society and of the people involved are far different from what they were back in the 60's and before. Most of the surface Navy has adapted to coed crews and while there were a few bumps, it has worked out reasonably well and this most likely will also. But I still expect that the period of change, where most of the male crew come from the all male submarine service will have some incidents that could be career destroying, even if the accused happens to be an innocent victim. There has already been an incident with two female officers having been video recorded in compromising state of dress and that video shared at least to some extent. There will be more such incidents at first while the service adapts and the old-timers who don't want them there work their way out of the Navy. That is what I am happy that I'll not be experiencing. Good travelin !...............KirkFull-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray,IN Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 For comparison, look into the Israli military makup. When I was an Army drill sergeant, I had the dubious honor of working with one of the first all-female BCT companies. There were many road bumps to solve, resolve, and re-learn what we already knew when training males. One fact has stuck with me ever since. Males have this ego thing working against them constantly. Females are the opposite, most of that company were unsure they could perform to standards, having never been exposed to that side of life. Perhaps the thing that surprised me the most was their determination once they knew what was required of them. You should have seen the jubilation in the company when the CO told them they had out-scored the male training companies in the battalion on the M-16 rifle range record fire course.(there can be no double-standard for that, one either hits the bullseye or misses) I don't care what the duty, the primary job of any military member is to fight when called upon. If you can't shoot accurately you fail. I usually had to browbeat some males to perform to their utmost. Females, no; tell them what they must do, how it must be done, and the time limit; then get the he@# out of their way(so to speak), because they didn't have that ego thing to keep them for embarassing themselves in case they did something wrong. IMO women focus on the task-at-hand more than most men. It is a fact men are physically built for strength and endurance, women are built for other strengths. Making those physical differences compatable on the battlefield is above my pay-grade. IMO, It's going to take the U.S. military perhaps another decade or two to reach where the Israli military are today(integrating men/women into a cohesive fighting force)-if ever. Today we still have that "men must protect women" chivilry thing getting in the way. The above is my opinion and just one personal experience with women in the Army. 2000 Winnebago Ultimate Freedom USQ40JD, ISC 8.3 Cummins 350, Spartan MM Chassis. USA IN 1SG retired;Good Sam Life member,FMCA ." And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy 20 Jan 1961 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjim Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Your actual experience is great for helping anyone understand that is willing to learn from it, RayIn. But it won't unless they are willing. Its all about the Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray,IN Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 From the same website- http://www.warriorlodge.com/blogs/news/15924164-miss-draftee-women-and-the-selective-service-draft another perspective on this subject of women's role in the military. 2000 Winnebago Ultimate Freedom USQ40JD, ISC 8.3 Cummins 350, Spartan MM Chassis. USA IN 1SG retired;Good Sam Life member,FMCA ." And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy 20 Jan 1961 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Doesn't make any sense to draft women under all the other US rules and nonsense today since they have an easy path to exit the service that men don't. Until the politicians make some hard decisions and enforce them on the senior military a universal draft isn't really a viable option. Equality sounds great as a slogan but real equality means a lot of changes that are going to have impacts on a lot of areas, many of them unwelcome surprises to folks that haven't spent time thinking about ALL the issues, side effects and fallout. Making changes this fundamental to our system is not puppy dogs and unicorns, much closer to making sausage. Maybe the sausage will be tasty (easy to mess it up in so many ways) but the path from the farm to the grocery is not something most folks ever want to think of much less get elbow deep in. -------- The question asked in the article about what to call the current wars has been well answered with a lot of insight into what to do and what not to do by William S. Lind. http://www.castaliahouse.com/authors/william-s-lind/ WILLIAM S. LIND is one of the most significant and influential military theorists on the planet. The author of Maneuver Warfare Handbook and the leading founder of 4th Generation War theory, Mr. Lind is respected by military officers and political strategists all over the world. He is particularly well-regarded by the U.S. Marine Corps, with whom he has long had a close relationship. A former aide to two U.S. senators, Mr. Lind was a central figure in the military reform movement of the 1980s. Don't be reading him if you want to sleep soundly in your bed all assured that our current leadership (for the last many years not just the current crop) has a handle on the situation and all will be well. First rule of computer consulting: Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day. Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJW Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 I would take a pissed off woman in combat covering my 6 any day and twice on Sunday. Dennis USA Master Sergeant Ret. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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