What tempers the steel of infantry

[WarriorDiplomat]

http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/wha...infantry-unit/

[Old Dog New Trick]

Horaaah!
(that's well said in Marine speak)

[WarriorDiplomat]

http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/wha...infantry-unit/

What Tempers the Steel of an Infantry Unit
Gregory Newbold
September 9, 2015

It is artificial to constrain the debate about women in the infantry to physical capabilities. This doesn't address what holds an infantry unit together in the worst conditions humanity has to offer.
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“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” –Rudyard Kipling, The Law of the Jungle, The Jungle Book.



The current debate about women in the infantry takes place in an artificial context, because it nearly always self-limits the discussion to physical capabilities. Within these incomplete parameters, the argument is then set, and the preamble is that physical standards and performance are measurable and what is not measurable is subjective and probably unfair.

Once physical quantifications are set as the only requirement that matters, it then stands to reason that if you can define infantry requirements in terms of, for example, a number of pull-ups, a hike with 60 to 80 pounds of extra weight, or carrying a 180-pound simulated casualty to safety, then you can assess whether females are suited to infantry units.

Honest and informed observers will acknowledge that medical science indicates that, in the physical domain, the two genders are an unequal match. Even a very fit woman is not generally the equal of a fit man. The competition is no competition in aerobic capacity, load bearing, reach, body fat percentage, and other germane measures of combat fitness. But (the informed argument proceeds), even if it is only the top 5 percent of women who can replace the bottom 5 percent of men, why not allow the 5 percent to integrate and thereby improve the combat efficiency of the unit? For example, it has been argued Ronda Rousey — the accomplished and undoubtedly tough mixed martial artist — could be an excellent addition to an infantry unit.

The falsity of this debate is found in its restriction of analysis to its physical context (as most recently demonstrated in an article published yesterday at War on the Rocks). Why is the debate limited to physical capabilities? For two reasons. First, supporters of full integration will not accept what cannot be irrefutably proven (and sometimes not even then). Second, practitioners of infantry warfare have great difficulty describing the alchemy that produces an effective infantry unit, much as it is difficult for those of faith to explain their conviction to an atheist. Try that by quantitative analysis. But allow me a poor effort to explain what tempers the steel of an infantry unit and therefore serves as the basis of its combat power.

The public understands that individuals who have engaged in brutal combat seldom want to talk about their experiences, and it is broadly thought that this is because of the horrors evoked by these memories. More generally, though, this reticence is due to an inability for one side to convey, and the other to understand, not only horrors, but the context of the fight. Saying that “It was hot” is a futile way to describe the 23rd consecutive day of temperatures over 100 degrees and flesh-soaking humidity, but the description does an even poorer job of conveying the exacerbating details — the burden of 30 to 80 pounds of personal equipment, mind-bending physical exertion, energy-sapping adrenaline highs, or the fact that the threadbare clothes you wore were unchanged for over three weeks and may have been “scented” by everything from food, to blood, dysentery, and whatever was in the dirt that constituted your bed. And don’t forget insects of legendary proportion and number. More importantly, a story thus told cannot explain that the fellow soldier or Marine who you tried desperately to put back together was the same one who shared the duties of clearing the urinals, the pleasures of a several nights of hilarious debauchery, and multiple near-death experiences — a comrade in arms who has heard more about your personal thoughts than your most intimate friends or family. So veterans of the true horrors of combat don’t talk about it. Please understand, then, that it is equally difficult to describe the ingredients of an efficient ground fighting machine, because the ingredients are intangible, decidedly not quantitative, and proudly subjective.

An infantryman’s lot is to endure what we think is unendurable, to participate in the inhumane, and to thrive in misery. Normal humans do not deliberately expose themselves to confront a machine gun that is firing at them over 10 rounds a second. “Smart” humans do not run toward the sound of gunfire. Logic does not tell you to lay down your life in the hope that you can recover an already dead comrade. And normal organizations do not strive, as their first priority, to evoke fear. For you see, the characteristics that produce uncommon valor as a common virtue are not physical at all, but are derived from the mysterious chemistry that forms in an infantry unit that revels in the most crude and profane existence so that they may be more effective killers than their foe. Members of such units deliberately reduce the individual and collective level of humanity and avoid all distractions so that its actions are fundamental, instinctive, and coldly efficient. Polite company, private hygiene, and weakness all step aside. These are the men who can confront the Islamic State, North Korean automatons, or Putin’s Spetsnaz and win every time. Believe me, you will need them, and we don’t get to choose when that will be.

In this direct ground combat environment, you do not fight for an ideal, a just cause, America, or Mom and apple pie. You endure the inhumanity and sacrifices of direct ground combat because, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This selflessness is derived from bonding, and bonding from shared events and the unquestioning subordination of self for the good of the team. But what destroys this alchemy — and, therefore, combat effectiveness — are pettiness, rumor-mongering, suspicion, and jealousy. And when fighting spirit is lessoned, death is the outcome. So “fairness” is an obscenity. Fairness is about individuals. It’s selfish. And selfishness can kill.

Nineteen-year-old males everywhere are from Mars. They, and their early twenty-something brethren, are overloaded with testosterone, supremely confident about their invincibility, and prone to illogical antics. This sometimes produces intemperate behavior in everyday America, but the same traits are, by the way, nearly ideal for direct ground combat. The same youthful ingredients produce unacceptable behavior in the pristine and low pressure environments of boarding schools, academic institutions, and cubicle farms. Truth be told, in later stages of life these traits also lead to humiliating interactions on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Why, then, do we suppose that sexual dynamics — or mere perceptions thereof — among the most libido laden age cohort in humans, in the basest of environs, will not degrade the nearly spiritual glue that enables the infantry to achieve the illogical and endure the unendurable?

Two women just graduated from the Army’s very, very difficult Ranger School. The surprise of that is that it surprised anyone. There unquestionably are women who can pass any physical challenge the military may require. We should celebrate those who succeed and encourage others. They are worthy role models, and certainly not just to women. But the issue we’re now debating has to include a recognition of cohesion and the cost of sexual dynamics in a bare-knuckled brawl, amidst primeival mayhem, in which we expect the collective entity to persevere because it has a greater will and fighting spirit, and not because it is bigger, faster, or more agile. The championship team in virtually any professional sport may only coincidentally be the most physically talented, but it most assuredly will be the most cohesive. Why not appreciate the same ingredients in infantry units?

Finally, you may bet your future earnings that the current effort to integrate the infantry will not cease with a few extraordinary females, but will eventually accommodate a social engineering goal by changing standards. Think I am wrong? It’s already happening. Read the words and understand the goals of the current Secretary of the Navy (an arsonist in the fire department) and the Secretary of the Air Force, and examine what we now call “the Dempsey Rule.”

If I’m wrong, the cost may be denied opportunity to strong and impressive young women. If you’re wrong, our national security is shaken and there is a butcher’s bill to pay. Make your choice. The line forms on the left.



Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.) is a former infantryman, having commanded units from the platoon through the 1st Marine Division. His last assignment was as Director of Operations, the Joint Staff.

[Dusty]

Outstanding thoughts.

[bailaviborita]

The feminists don't buy anything they say is a social construction. In fact, they want to use integration to change society. Many actually state that they are anti war and don't think we should have a military at all, much less a strong one...

[Badger52]

Excellent. (Trying to find a single money quote in there is futile.) Well thought out General.

[The Reaper]

I am envious that the Marines produce leaders such as this, and our Army counterparts seem so willing to openly carry water for the politicians, damn the cost or consequences to the force.

TR

[Sohei]

Well said, Brother...well said, indeed!

I wish there were more like him.

[the squid]

http://www.washingtonian.com/1979/11...en-cant-fight/

Written by Jim Webb way back in 1979.

Prophetic words. Wonder if his feelings have changed since then.

[Streck-Fu]

Originally Posted by the squid

http://www.washingtonian.com/1979/11...en-cant-fight/

Written by Jim Webb way back in 1979.

Prophetic words. Wonder if his feelings have changed since then.

Foretelling many service secretaries but very striking considering what Mabus is doing today:

Civilian political control over the military is a good principle, but too many people, especially those involved in the political process, have lost their understanding of what that principle means.

Bravo:

It was worse when McNamara and his whiz kids began social experimentation by instituting “Project 100,000,” whereupon 100,000 borderline intellects were dumped into the military, and the military was then faulted for having failed to make them good soldiers (Harvard and Yale at that time having decided to sit out the war, and Johnson choosing to go after the mental rejects rather than the deferred leaders of tomorrow). But it has become absolutely intolerable during the 1970s. The military has a politician’s toy, a way to accommodate interest groups without losing political support in the home district. a test tube for social experimentation.

And here we are .... almost 40 years later:

The Washington Post ran a front-page feature story last July that lionized one female midshipman, showing a picture of her bracing up a plebe. Late in the article, the reporter quoted two male midshipmen who had mentioned, while drinking in a bar, that they thought the presence of women at the Academy was debilitating, and that the women midshipmen were not of particularly good officer potential.

The two men were severely reprimanded for stating their beliefs. Both were invited to resign from the Academy, and one man did leave the summer detail program. I ate dinner in the mess hall that night with a plebe summer squad. As I watched the so-called indoctrination on the mess-hall tables, several first-classmen stopped to speak of their disgust both for the article and for the treatment their classmates had received. None would speak for attribution, however. The system had scared them silent.

Interesting point but I don't think the graduates of those institutions would allow it.:

What are the other alternatives? We could stop allowing women to attend the academies at all. ROTC scholarships and OCS appointments would remain available to women, as would career opportunities short of combat roles. Or, if it is the consensus of Congress that the service academies no longer perform their historic function of preparing men to lead in combat, but are now primarily mere academic institutions, it would be logical and cost-effective to close them down. If the taxpayers, now spending $100,000 for each Academy graduate, want simply to buy a brain with military training, they can purchase that combination through an expanded ROTC program at a fraction of the cost.

[sinjefe]

Originally Posted by the squid

http://www.washingtonian.com/1979/11...en-cant-fight/

Should be required reading for those in decision making positions.

[Box]

meh

all good to read, but never really acted on by the politicians that have the power to fix it
Many of those that author and publish these article do little to actually address what they write about.
Most of them just want to be published somewhere.

I wonder if this is presidential candidate Jim Webb or Space Telespcope/politician Jim Webb?

Either way, both are democrats, the champions of talking about shit being bad while still making sure that it succeeds.

[Pericles]

My money quotes from Webb's article:

I broke down plebe year. We all did. I went around to an upperclassman once with three M-1 rifles and held them in front of me all 33 pounds until it was physically impossible to do so. Then I held two, straight in front of me, straining until my arms hit my knees. Then one. Then seven books. Then six, five, four, three, two, one. Then a pencil. Then a toothpick, as the upperclassman gathered his friends and they surrounded me, talking about the irrelevance of pain as the toothpick hit my knees, demanding answers to questions, imploring me to resign and go home. The next night, after physically running me to exhaustion, he and three others took turns beating me with a cricket bat, telling me they would stop if I admitted it hurt. Finally they broke the bat on my ass. I returned to my room and stuck my head inside my laundry bag and cried for fifteen minutes, standing in the closet so my roommates wouldn’t see me. I hated the upperclass and I hated the Academy. But I had reached a place deep inside myself, and when I got up at 5:30 the next morning and began preparing to enter that man’s room yet another time, I knew something about myself that I could never have learned in any other way.

That may seem a sadistic and barbaric way to learn self-truths, and I would not suggest a reinstatement of plebe year to that extreme, but I will say this: When I watched 51 of my men become casualties over seven weeks in Vietnam, and when I sat down next to number 51and cried like a baby, I’d been there before. It was a lot easier to pick up and keep going, and by then I was not merely Jim Webb, plebe, trying to survive a morning of a malicious upperclassman; I was a Marine platoon commander.

I don’t see anything at the Naval Academy anymore that can take a person deep inside himself.

I went to Texas A&M and the women cadets were segregated into two companies. The guys at least had some of that experience. The cadet companies are integrated now.

During the 1975 congressional debate on the amendment that allowed women to attend the service academies, one congressman offered a substitute amendment that would have required the Secretary of Defense to conduct a study on establishing a separate academy purely for women. Under this plan, one academy could train women to be commissioned.......

The female midshipmen I interviewed unanimously resisted this possibility, claiming that it would not prepare them for leadership positions over men.

I suspect there is much more to this - are these women seeking power over men as a psychological need? Is the underlying motivation for attending the Academies and the combat arms schools and assignments?

What we won't get is a study of women in the military who are toxic leaders.

[bailaviborita]

Originally Posted by Pericles

My money quotes from Webb's article:



I went to Texas A&M and the women cadets were segregated into two companies. The guys at least had some of that experience. The cadet companies are integrated now.



I suspect there is much more to this - are these women seeking power over men as a psychological need? Is the underlying motivation for attending the Academies and the combat arms schools and assignments?

What we won't get is a study of women in the military who are toxic leaders.

I think each woman is different- but a lot of them have been indoctrinated to believe they can be men. That the sexes are social constructions...

[Joker]

Originally Posted by bailaviborita

I think each woman is different- but a lot of them have been indoctrinated to believe they can be men. That the sexes are social constructions...

Until they get popped in the face or their ass slapped...