On 27 June 2016 the Army announced that every Army Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) would be open to women. The decision was the culmination of decades of political and social pressure and more importantly a 3 year study and trial by the Army and Department of Defense. While women had slowly been integrated into the vast majority of MOSs, Infantry, Armor, and Special Forces remained the lone holdouts of “male only” positions. Heralded at the time as a major victory for women and equality, its about to become the grim reaper and a lesson in “careful what you wish for.”
Background
(This is a VERY simplified version)
From 1943 to 1978, women were restricted to the Womens Army Corps (WAC). In 1979, women were integrated into the regular Army. In preparation for that, women were admitted to West Point in 1976. At the time women were restricted to Combat Support and Combat Service Support jobs. Combat Arms – Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Engineers, Air Defense and Special Forces – were male coded with some exceptions. Women were allowed to be Pershing Missile (Artillery), Corps and above Engineers, and Corps and above Air Defense. Additionally, Military Intelligence, Military Police, Signal and Chemical (Combat Support Branches) had restrictions by type of unit. Finally, Aviation restricted women by platform – Utility yes, Attack no. This was essentially the status quo from 1979 to 2013.
For outsiders this might seem like a pretty reasonable thing. The vast majority of all Army jobs were available to women and the ones that were not were also some of the least desirable for the majority of enlisted soldiers. When I joined in 1986 the guys who got stuck in Infantry and Artillery were often “Cat IVs” (dumb as a rock). If you were smart, you went to jobs with actual civilian skills and better quality of life. Key word in all this is “enlisted”. For officers, it was a different story.
Officer and enlisted careers are drastically different. Promotions in the enlisted world are very supply and demand dependent and are tied to actual observed performance until the most senior levels. Officer promotions are essentially time based but with strict requirements for “Branch Qualification”. The more senior you get, the more important the type of officer you are becomes and in the Army, Combat Arms Officers occupy the most senior positions. So as an example, the Chief of Staff of the Army (most senior Army Officer) has always been Infantry, Armor (previously Calvary), Artillery, or an Engineer. The current CSA is the first ever Aviator to ascend to the Chiefs office. By preventing female officers from being in Combat Arms, you were also preventing them from qualifying for the most senior jobs in the Army. I wont argue right or wrong but I think we can all agree its messed up to tell a group they can do the nug work but not the important stuff.
Fast forward to 2013. The realities of the world forced the military to stop pretending that women were not involved in combat and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta formally lifted the ban on women serving in combat. This in turn triggered the 3 year study that culminated in all Army positions being open to women. Our sister services, being slower and less enlightened, are still working on total integration. I wont speak of them. So win for equality! Wooo hoo! Newton’s third law says think again.
Reaction
The initial reaction to women in Infantry and Armor was as predictable as the sun rising – mixed genders in close quarters. Sex, sex, sex! Yes, 18-25 year olds are going to have sex. They figured out how to do it when women were not in infantry units so the only difference is less sneaking around. The second reaction was a little different.
When I talked about quality of life being a reason not to join the Infantry I was not talking about apartments. Infantry sucks. An 81mm mortar system with its basic load weighs 121 pounds. That 121 pounds is distributed across a 5 person team. That is in addition to all the other gear you carry – food, water, rifle ammunition, pistol ammunition, rifle, pistol, grenades, radio, body armor, shovel, medical gear, cold weather gear, clothing, etc. The last time I had to do light infantry stuff I weighed 140lbs. My gear, not including body armor, weighed 140lbs. In Afghanistan my body armor with ammunition alone weighed 45lbs. And you walk everywhere. In Armor you don’t have to carry huge loads on your back or walk but it is still physically demanding. Tank rounds weigh 47-53lbs (depending on type) and have to be loaded in under 1.5 seconds repeatedly. When I got a new loader I would work them to exhaustion practicing. Reasonably fit male soldiers would frequently start making mistakes and slowing down after the 10th round. There are 44 in the hull storage area. Everything on a tank is heavy. Road wheels are 40lbs, a single block of track is 60lbs, the hull access plate (bitch plate, because it’s a bitch to move) is over 70lbs. Breaking track, something every crew does routinely, involves moving an entire side of track, 156 60lb blocks. It is an extremely upper body strength intensive job. Artillery is the same but with heavier rounds but slightly lighter track. Towed artillery trades track for wheels but has to be dug in. By hand. Now none of this is to say that women cant do tasks that require physical strength, some can. But those women are not the norm and many of them are not in our recruiting pool.
Currently, the Army has a single physical standard for all MOSs. The Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) consists of three events – pushups, situps and a 2 mile run. Scores are a 0-100 standard in each event with 60 being a passing score. Grading is weighted by both age and gender. Standards are higher for males in the pushups and 2 mile run. Situps are the same. Once women started integrating into physically intensive MOSs it became obvious that the APFT was no longer adequate. Less capable women could not be excluded from the units because they passed the APFT yet they lacked the physical strength to do the job. The result? On 1 October the Army will begin testing soldiers using a 6 event Army Combat Fitness Test. I have a lot of issues with the ACFT and the logic that is behind it that I wont get into here. No matter what the reasons given, its real purpose is to eliminate women from the Army and its going to do that exceedingly well.
The 6 events are as follows:
Maximum Dead Lift
Standing Power Throw
Hand Release Pushup
Sprint Drag Carry
Leg Tuck
2 mile run
The grading standard is gender and age neutral but has three passing standards based on the type of unit and MOS you are in – moderate, significant and heavy physical demand. Instead of going through every event, I want to focus on three – Dead lift, sprint drag carry and 2 mile run.
The Dead lift is pretty straight forward – lift the bar. Minimum passing is 140lbs (Mod), 160lbs (Sig) and 180lbs (Hvy). Want to be an Infantry officer? You have to be able to dead lift 180lbs. Not a huge barrier. But that is the minimum. Officers don’t get away with the minimum. Maximum? 340lbs. I sure as hell cant dead lift 340lbs and I don’t know many women who can. Even getting to the 90% standard – effectively the minimum for an officer – is 280lbs. With some training I could get there and Im sure some women can too. But some never will. Strike one.
Sprint, drag carry is a 4 part event. Run 25 meters up and back (50m total). Drag a 90lb sled up and back. Run sideways (don’t ask) up and back. Carry two 40lb kettle bells up and back. Run up and back a final time. Its an absolute butt kicker and kills your legs. More importantly, the 90lb sled is proving to be a significant obstacle to some of our smaller soldiers. Newton’s first law says that 90lb body wants to stay at rest. You have to apply 90lbs of force to move it. If you only weigh 107lbs (I saw her try) you are going to struggle. Strike two
2 mile run – Only event carried over from the current test, the 2mile run gives us the best metric for predicting success or failure in the ACFT. Minimum passing score for the 2m is 21:07 (Mod), 19:00 (Sig) and 18:00 (Hvy). Here is where the Army decided to stick it to women. Based on the testing during the trial phase, male soldiers are losing 2-3 minutes off their current 2 mile time, mostly due to the sprint, drag carry. Female soldiers are losing 3-4 minutes. Under the current standards, a passing run time for an 17-21 year old female is 18:54. Max is 15:36. Assuming you run a 15 minute 2 mile now and add just 3 minutes due to the 5 previous events, you are right at the MINIMUM for a “Heavy” MOS. Remember when I talked about 90% being the effective minimum for officers. 90% on the run is 14:40. I can count on one hand the number of female soldiers I have seen run a 14:40 in the last 32 years and they didn’t have to blast their legs 10 minutes before starting. None of them could dead lift 280lbs. The number of women who can reach the 90% standard on the run is going to be in the low double digits across the force. It gets worse. Under the current age based standards, a 37 year old female maxes out the run at 17:00. Based on the 3-4 minute loss that same 37 year old is in extreme danger of failing the bare minimum standard and has zero shot of making the “heavy” (read combat arms) standard. That same female soldier only needs an 18:54 to meet the 90% standard currently, which is likely a failing score under the new test. If you are a female soldier over the age of 36 and are not currently maxing your run, you are almost certainly going to fail the new test. If you are any age and are not currently running the 2 mile is under 18 minutes, you are probably going to fail. And if you are a female who aspires to be a Combat Arms Officer, thanks for playing. Your chances of meeting even the minimum are low and your chances of meeting the 90% standard are almost non-existent. Strike three.
I said at the beginning this was a lesson in “careful what you wish for”. The vast majority of people clamoring for women to be allowed into combat arms were not in the Army. Most had never served in the military at all. Many openly despised the military and saw an opportunity to justify their hate. They screamed “women are just as good” without ever stopping to think what the second order impacts of that might be. There is a difference between equal and the same. Women and men should be treated equally. You can do that while acknowledging that women and men are different. Despite being male, I was never going to be Chief of Staff of the Army. Why? Because I choose to leave Combat Arms for Military Intelligence. No MI officer has been the CSA and none ever will be the CSA. But I, and my female MI peers, could be the G2 or the DIRNSA or the Director of DIA, something no Infantry Officer could do. I wasn’t being treated unequally, just differently. The response was always “but you had the opportunity to seek the other path.” True. But I was self aware and knew it wasn’t for me.
I worked for General Dunwoody, the first female Four Star Officer in any branch of service. She was a great leader but there is no way she would pass the ACFT meaning we would have been denied the great leadership she provided. Two of my most important mentors were female officers. Again, incredible leaders and mentors who would not pass the ACFT. Without the mentorship of one, I would never have become and officer. Without the mentorship of the other, I would have departed the Army in 2003. I like to think the Army is better off because I was exposed to those two great mentors.
Because of the rigid, almost dogmatic, adherence to equality meaning the same, women are no longer going to have opportunities for long and successful careers in the Army. The Army, and by extension the nation, will be much worse because of this. We need women in the Army. We need women in senior positions in the Army. We need the kind of leaders that the military creates like Tammy Duckworth, Amy McGrath, Gina Ortiz Jones and so many more. Not only is that not going to happen, but an entire generation that got told “you can do anything” is about to be wiped out.
Careful what you wish for.
