THE news was spread far and wide this weekend that three women had passed the Combat Endurance Test required to enter the Marine infantry. What the headlines didn’t highlight was that out of 24 women who have attempted the course, only four have passed.

Apropos of this high failure rate, here is a relevant essay, “Why Women Do Not Belong in the U.S. Infantry,” from a recent issue of the Marine Corps Gazette. Marines Weapons and Training Instructor Capt. Lauren F. Serrano (give this woman a medal!) gets to the heart of the matter in this top paragraph below:

Female Marines who want to stir the pot by joining the infantry ranks are more interested in their careers than the needs of the Corps—they are selfish. 2dLt Sage Santangelo’s recent article in The Washington Post about why women are failing Infantry Officer Course argued that “the Marine Corps needs to set women up to succeed in combat roles.” Why? How will that contribute to a better fighting force, the needs of the Marine Corps, and the success of young enlisted Marines? The time, energy, and conflict associated with setting women up for success in infantry billets will not make the Marine Corps more combat effective.

I have no doubt that there are women who can pass initial infantry schools—and I applaud their strength. However, as Capt Katie Petronio argued in her 2013 Gazette article, “Get Over It! We are not all created equal,” long infantry careers for female Marines will eventually lead to career-ending medical conditions as they get older and their bodies are unable to withstand the years of constant infantry training.3 For the already fiscally strained military, this will lead to an increase in medically retired Marines who rate medical financial support for the rest of their lives.

Women who claim that they are not afforded traditional leadership opportunities by not being infantry officers are clearly not aware of the plethora of leadership opportunities in the Marine Corps. There are many other MOSs that provide great opportunities for leadership, some even more so than in the infantry. For example, communications or logistics lieutenants could have as many as 60 Marines in their charge. Great Marine officers embody leadership principals regardless of the MOS or billet they are assigned. Marines are taught to “grow where planted,” and a female Marine officer, regardless of MOS, can be just as successful as a male infantry officer if she is truly a leader and puts the needs of her Marines above her own. Success is about performance, not MOS. Women should seek opportunities to serve where they will be of most use to the Corps, not where the Corps can serve their personal career interests.

— Comments —

Henry McCulloch writes:

Excellent post!  I spent four years of my relative youth as a Marine infantry officer: rifle platoon commander; battalion assistant operations officer; rifle company commander.  While Marines aren’t all the supermen the advertisements would have us believe, one needs a certain physical and mental toughness and resilience to succeed in Marine infantry, and the pressures are greater on officers than enlisted Marines (I know many enlisted Marines, present and former, would dispute that; officers do have greater responsibilities, however).  In the field, the job was very physical.  In garrison, the training was very physical, with psychological pressure thrown in to toughen us.

One of the weaknesses of U.S. infantry, Marine as well as Army, is that grunts are required to carry too much stuff on our backs all the time.  “Light Infantry” is, we used to joke, a contradiction in terms in the American way of war.  Grunt life can be exhausting for large, fit men.  As Capt. Katharine Petronio, USMC, pointed out last year in her Marine Corps Gazette article, that regimen is physically destructive of women.  But even lightening the load would not make the grunt’s life in the field and in training anything but gruelling, and actually debilitating for almost any woman.  Why should any nation ask that of women?  And I haven’t even mentioned the particular degradations of infantry combat.

The atmosphere in the infantry Marine Corps was also exclusively male, and pretty rough around the edges at times.  But that milieu bred a camaraderie I don’t believe we could have had if our infantry regiments were coed.  There were women, including officers, in the Marine Corps then, but not that many.  I recall no agitating among them to be in the combat arms, but as a grunt I spent almost no time around women Marines.  There were some rabble-rouser lady officers already in the Navy, but they were asking — for promotion purposes — for the right to ride ships or fly aircraft, rather different occupations from the face-in-the-mud life of the grunt.  And infantry Marines were extreme enough to be proud of being the ones with their faces in the mud!  I expect that’s true of Army infantry as well.

Friends in the former military world forwarded me copies of Capt. Petronio’s, 2nd.Lt. Santangelo’s, and Capt. Serrano’s articles.  (Question for our correspondent Don Vincenzo: Is the U.S. Marine Corps becoming more Italian as it becomes more female?  That’s a lot of names ending in a vowel…) 2nd.Lt. Santangelo’s Washington Post article was a Headquarters Marine Corps plant in an Establishment news organ.  Of that I’m sure.  And I’m sure it will be very good for her career, should she choose to make a career of the Marine Corps.

Both Captains’ articles, though, are something different, and vanishingly rare in what today’s officers will say openly to the world outside: the truth.  Both have my respect and sincere thanks for their willingness to tell the public the truth.  Both, I am sure, will pay for it in career terms – even though they have published in what is effectively the Marine Corps’ house organ.

The rush to force-fit women into being grunt soldiers and Marines is only one aspect of the collective social insanity, and I would say immorality, that is the bane of America and every other Western nation.  While I am very grateful to Captains Petronio and Serrano for standing up and being voices of sanity, it will take more than two captains, still quite junior officers, to turn the listing supertanker of the U.S. military.  It will take generals and admirals with four stars — and more than just one of them — respectfully but firmly protesting these idiocies and explaining why they are idiocies.  And they will have to be active-duty and holding commands, not safely retired.  And they will need vocal political support.  They would get none from any Democrat, of that we may be sure.  And while they would have the support of the rare Republican conservative such as Senator Sessions of Alabama, war hero Senator McCain and his sidekick Graham would be just as quick as any Democrat to stick a shiv in their ribs.

Nothing will change until principled four-stars are willing to sacrifice the remainder of their careers, putting at risk the usual post-retirement sinecure with a defense contractor, and fall on their swords in protest of this deliberate — for deliberate it surely is — destruction of their services.  The flaw in that statement is that men of that calibre are most unlikely get any stars in today’s military, much less four.

People are starting to notice that all is not well in the U.S. armed forces, and among their civilian bosses.  The United States has not won a war since Desert Storm in 1991, although America has spilt a lot of blood and blown a lot of money on overseas interventions ever since.  And, except for one day of war-at-sea in the Persian Gulf in April 1988, until Desert Storm the United States had not won a war since 1945 — and not for lack of fighting them and again spending incalculable blood and treasure.

I guess the United States will have to lose something akin to a world war before Americans really wake up.  At that point, it will probably be too late.

Paul writes:

I know I have posted this many times, but it needs repeating. Women are prevalent in the American military mainly because we men refuse to join or to vote for a return to the draft, of any men. It is a disgrace that I have never heard mentioned in the Media. It stems from the knowledge that liberalism is not worth fighting for. At this rate, people are going to demand secession.

Please follow and like us: