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As Pentagon Opens Combat Roles to Women, What are Special Forces' Concerns?

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Wed, 12/30/2015 - 3:20pm

As Pentagon Opens Combat Roles to Women, What are Special Forces' Concerns? By Anna Mulrine, Christian Science Monitor

With the lifting of the ban on women in special operations forces earlier this month, female service members are no longer automatically disqualified from being Navy SEALs, Delta Force operators, and Army Rangers because of their gender.

The Pentagon’s next big step is figuring out how to make it work. To this end, Defense officials launched a couple of big studies earlier this year to give them a sense of the major concerns and points of resistance among the troops who do these jobs.

What they found was that, while the men in these elite units express concerns about women meeting the grueling physical standards, they are generally quick to concede that they all know a woman or two who could make the cut…

Read on.

Comments

Wolverine57

Wed, 12/30/2015 - 10:02pm

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I just recently listened to a Senate hearing on climate change. One of the participants noted that scientists involved in climate change had a special contract with Obama. For those scientists who would question or disagree with the existing narrative, there was a chilling effect. The deniers were threatened with RECO prosecution, had to move on, or retire. Let me now apply this to the situation of women in combat, specifically Special Forces. I believe there is an administration narrative and if one might disagree with the accepted narrative, they have to move on or retire. I believe we have leaders who are so far out of touch with our Christian heritage, traditions, values, and practices, they fail to see what is happening. We have ethical and moral lapses, 20,000 sexual assaults (most against men)last year, readiness issues, and training issues. It is not smart to ignore our heritage, practices, values, and traditions. I really don't believe we lead a beach assault with our women. I really don't believe we conduct raids, ambush patrols, or hunt-to-kill operations with our mothers or daughters on point. Don't toss centuries of experience out. At a survival level, we do not put women on point.