[Chairborne64]

Here is a copy of a letter to the editor that I sent the New York Times. I doubt they will publish it but I had to get my say in.

"Dear New York Times,
I read with some interest your article “For 3 Women Combat Option Came a Bit Late” published on January 26th. As a graduate of the Army’s Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Course, Ranger School, the Special Forces Qualification Course and veteran of over 20 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets) part of which time I was involved in training, assessing and selecting future Green Berets I know something about this matter. Your article makes it sound like these women would all have succeeded in the combat arms branch of their choice if the ban was absent. In reality all that it would have done, and all the current removal of the ban has done, is given women the right to try out. This is much like Title IX gave women the right to try out for their high school football team. Try out yes, make it, not necessarily. After 40 years of title IX seeing a girl on a High School football team is still a novelty.

One only has to look north to Canada to see how this will probably play out. The Canadian’s, who possess a very modern and capable military, removed all gender barriers in the 1989. In their Army, after 20 plus years of integration, the percentage of women in the combat arms is only 1.6%. In the infantry, the most physically demanding branch, it is less than .5%.

The same statistics have played out here in the U.S. The United States Marine Corps had hoped to get 90 women officers to volunteer to attend the Infantry Officer’s Course. To date they have managed to attract 4. Two of these attended late last year and washed out early in the course. The other two will attend in March. Remember, this is the entry level course for Marine Officers. The standards and physical prowess demanded for the Marine Special Operations Command or the Force Recon units are significantly greater.

This plays to the greater theme that if the standards are maintained and not “gender normed” or reduced for females there will be a disappointingly low success rate. Additionally, the number of women who truly want to do this is also very small.

Women have now been given the right to try out for these combat rolls. The 3 women identified in your article all stated that they had wished to try. However, the odds of them making it would have been remote."