I am not sure why any woman would want to go to war with a company of infantry grunts. Yet, if we are to believe Joe Biden and several woke generals who are determined to use the U.S. military as a vehicle for social engineering, that is exactly what most of them are clamoring for.
I’m not buying it.
I don’t believe most women want to be crammed together like so many canned sardines into an armored personnel carrier or an amphibious assault vehicle with 15 to 25 hot, sweaty, and stinking infantry grunts as they move into harm’s way.
I don’t believe most women want to strap on a 70-pound pack, a 9-pound rifle, and several hundred rounds of ammo to slog through some jungle or across a scorching hot desert so she can be “one of the boys.”
First of all, in my opinion, she won’t be able to do it.
The first three women who attempted the Marine Infantry Officer Course in 2014 on an experimental basis were dropped after being unable to keep up with the hikes, Marine Corps Times previously reported, which involve carrying heavy equipment over long distances.
Since then, a total of 12 women have completed the grueling 84-day course out of 39 female Marines who have attempted it, according to a Marine Corps spokesman.
To be fair, a few dozen men have also washed out of the program since 2014.
That isn’t surprising when you look at a recent Department of Defense report that shows 80 percent of all American males are not fit for military service–and of the 20% who are, only about 15% will make it through basic training.
When I was in the Army, I went through basic and advanced survival-counter-intelligence training, and even though back then I was in great shape, I was ready to go AWOL after all the abuse we got from merciless drill instructors.
Granted, there are more wimps and weenies around today than there were back in the 1960s. Look at the male role models today in TV series or Hollywood movies in which men–especially white males–are portrayed as raging weenies, bumbling idiots, or weaklings.
What kind of role models are they? When I was growing up, we had John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, Gary Cooper, Marlin Brando, and Charles Bronson. Today, those men are considered examples of “toxic masculinity”–brutes who have no “feminine side.”
Too many of the role models for boys today are weenies and wimps–and that’s perfectly okay with the woke mob.
A sad commentary on our society. But as long as boys are discouraged from being boys by schools that are more interested in social engineering than education and are compelling little boys to curtail their natural maleness, I predict we will see fewer and fewer men capable of military service.
As long as schools insist on wiping out any semblance of competition by awarding each participant in every athletic event a trophy, even if they come in dead last, you are going to extinguish even the smallest competitive fires that may still be burning inside the next generation.
Schools today have “no tolerance” rules against any of the playful roughhousing boys used to engage in. Boys today are punished for defending themselves during after-school or playground scuffles that have always occurred between bullies and their victims. Girls, for the most part, are too intelligent to engage in such activities–at least, they once were.
Maybe that is why the military brass is now so eager to bring women into the military. They need women who are more “manly” than the pathetic male specimens they are getting today.
When I joined the Army in the 1960s, basic training was tough, and to say that drill sergeants laid hands on you is putting it mildly.
Recruits who couldn’t do 30 push-ups were kicked in the butt until they did. You couldn’t get into the mess hall for meals unless you did at least five snappy pull-ups–not chin-ups–on the iron bar outside the door.
I recall a couple of recruits who couldn’t lift their duffle bags filled with their army uniforms, fatigues, boots, hats, etc. As we walked down the battalion street inside Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., headed toward our assigned basic training barracks, the two recruits lagged behind, dragging their duffle bags along the ground.
“Pick up that duffle bag, solder!” a sergeant screamed at one of the terrified recruits.
“I can’t, Sergeant,” the recruit responded. He was probably no more than 5′ 5″ tall and probably weighed just a little more than the duffle bag he was trying so desperately to carry.
“By God, you can and you will, you maggot, or you will sleep outside tonight!”
With that, the sergeant lifted the duffle bag and threw it at the recruit, knocking him to the ground.
“Now get up, get that bag on your shoulder, and move out smartly!”
The recruit was so terrified of the sergeant and the adrenalin was pumping so fast that he actually got the bag onto his shoulder and managed to somehow shuffle and stumble his way to the E-3-2 Company compound and into formation.
Basic training was one epithet-laced berating after another. And when it wasn’t verbal, it was often physical. Punching, pushing, kicking, slapping.
We accepted it as part of our initiation into the U.S. Army. In fact, we came to expect it because we were convinced it was part of the toughening-up process. Surviving it meant that we were becoming effective soldiers.
As I understand it, that kind of abuse has been banned in the modern army. I was told by someone who went through basic just a few years ago that recruits who feel they are being mistreated or yelled at too much can ask the drill sergeant for a “time out.”
Are you kidding me? Is this our new woke military? God help us.
I can’t imagine any woman going through my basic training course with the hard-ass sergeants I had.
Most of them were WW II, Korean War, and Vietnam vets who had seen their share of combat. When we finally saw them in their dress greens during our graduation ceremonies, we noticed that almost all had won purple hearts and medals for valor in multiple theaters of war.
“This man’s Army ain’t for pansies, panty-waists, and wimps,” I recall First Sergeant Harrington yelling at us during our first day of basic training. “You will leave here ready to kill the enemy, or by God, you won’t leave here at all. We are here to kick your asses, and by God, I will put this size 12 boot all the way up your ass hole until it comes out your f…k’n mouths if I have to. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sergeant!” we yelled back in unison.
“Good, and now if there are any little girls in the ranks, I want you to fall out on the double,” he said.
No one stepped forward.
“Good, that means every swinging d..k here is going to be a soldier or die tryin’.”
I wonder what kind of welcoming speech drill sergeants will be making to recruits in the new woke coed infantry?
Somehow I don’t think it will be the same–and neither will the Army.
(Ronald E. Yates is a U.S. Army veteran, an author, a former Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent, and Professor & Dean Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois.)
His website: http://www.ronaldyatesbooks.com
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After basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Co. B-3-2, in 1977, I thought my name was “Sh*thead”. That’s what Drill Sergeants Cundiff and Mukowsky told me it was. One day a fellow “d*ckhead” recruit didn’t make it to the messhall for our 15 minute lunch. We found out why when we were marched back to the barracks. To our shock, said recruit was standing out in front of the barracks, crying with both arms dripping blood. Our head Drill Sergeant was standing next to him cursing him out with every name he could think of and many I could not. He told us the recruit had attempted suicidal with a razor while we were at lunch but was too much of a p*ssy to do the job right. The entire company was ordered to laugh at him until the Drill Sergeant got tired.
I totally agree with you. I know the cadences we used to march and run to would not be allowed in coed company. Our Army is being emasculated. The infantry is no place for a woman. Why would any woman want to be treated like a man? I honestly don’t know how we can win a war with China. I don’t think we will defeat the People’s Liberation Army by misgendering them.
I don’t believe the women passed without special “arrangements” being made for them
Drafted in 1969. My basic training was Ft Ord, D-2-1. Our DI’s were true professionals with most of the senior leadership having at least one tour in Viet Nam and one in Korea as well. They knew where most of us were going after basic and they did their very best to get us prepared. There are probably hundreds if not thousands of vets who are alive today because of the training we received at Ft Ord.
Volunteered into the Carter Army in ’80; our drill at Jackson was a proud, screamy bully who “taught the test” for the scored segments of our basic training. He wore the blue ‘honor platoon’ rope on his campaign hat and planned to keep it. He didn’t lead, he drove us. We got a week’s respite, tho, as our drill took some leave mid-cycle and a reservist drill filled in like a substitute teacher.
I wrote this some time ago. Believe it still stands.
https://jatticus.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/10-reasons-to-not-let-women-into-the-infantry/
James, excellent piece on the very consequential reasons against feminizing combat arms and the infantry in particular. A male/female integrated military is the main reason, and there are many more, our military is failing. Most men are not cut out for the infantry and certainly women are not. The accompanying comment to your article by Michael Toler is outstanding – a detailed, on the ground observed analysis of exactly why females should not be in combat arms. Every woman in the infantry represents one less man in the infantry. That is a degradation of our fighting capability, period.
Kill a soldier, you kill one, kill a female soldier, and you have eliminated a family. This is why the Israelis rethought their gender neutral soldier approach.
I had forgotten that. Good point. JAB
i want women drafted and doing the same jobs as men if at all possible. why? because when the draft is activated all those soyboys are gonna trans to female. actually, we need to be able to draft ANYTHING, including infants. why? because said soyboys will claim to be a dog, or a house or an infant or an 10million yr old person who is too old to draft. in fact, we need to draft from date of conception. after we draft non viable (like the babies, etc) entities, we can then make a decision as to who gets sent out. we need: that house, that dog, and that child. oh and dont forget we also need that embryo over there. we will also take that ancient one. something along those lines. cuz the soyboys will keep running for cover.
That goes against everything a real man who respects women wants. Crazy liberal (redundant, I know) policies are the problem and must be eliminated not encouraged.