"gender-neutral physical standards for all soldiers "

[JJ_BPK]

Gender Neutral,, PC code for wimps...

Army Submits Plan to Open Combat Jobs for Women

May 15, 2013

Military.com| by Matthew Cox
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Female soldiers

U.S. Army trainers will soon lead an effort to create gender-neutral physical standards for all soldiers as part of a plan to allow women to serve in infantry, Special Forces and other combat arms jobs.

Training and Doctrine Command has launched “two major efforts in support of this full integration of women soldiers.” TRADOC has started a scientific review working with U.S. Army Medical Command, U.S. Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Army Research Institute to assist in the development of gender-neutral physical standards for all Areas of Concentration for commissioned officers and military occupational specialties for enlisted soldiers.

In addition, the “TRADOC Analysis Center is examining the institutional and cultural barriers related to integrating women soldiers into previously all-male specialties and units in order to develop strategies to overcome these barriers,” according to a TRADOC document released to Military.com.

Army officials will submit the service’s strategy for conducting these efforts to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday to satisfy the May 15 deadline for the services to present how they will fully integrate women into combat arms units by 2016, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Stephen Platt.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in January eliminated the Pentagon rule that prevented women from participating in certain combat units. The DoD goal is to open approximately 237,000 positions to women by 2016.

Some of the jobs being reviewed are infantryman, Special Forces officer, cavalry scout and armor senior sergeant.


But this does not mean the Army has decided to open these jobs to women yet.

“The Army will review these MOSs and make a recommendation to the secretary of Defense if they should remain closed,” Platt said. “If we find that the assignment of women to specific positions or occupational specialties is in conflict with the department’s guiding principles, exceptions to policy will be requested, which will prohibit their assignment to certain jobs.”

The review will analyze insights gained over the last 11 years of war as it relates to knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics -- or KSAOs, the TRADOC document states.

The plan is to validate gender-neutral occupational standards so servicemembers can be assessed and assigned to combat-arms jobs by September 2015, Platt said.

Using gender-neutral physical standards “will enable us to select those best qualified for positions and may reduce non-combat related injuries for both men and women,” Platt said.

Here is a list of the jobs previously closed to women:

11A Infantry officer

11B Infantry

11C Indirect fire infantryman

11H Heavy anti-armor weapons infantryman

11M Fighting vehicle infantryman

11Z Infantry senior sergeant

12B/21B Combat engineer

13B Cannon crewmember

13D Field artillery automated

13F Fire support specialist

18A Special Forces officer

18B Special Forces weapons sergeant

18C Special Forces engineer sergeant

18D Special Forces medical sergeant

18E Special Forces communications sergeant

18F Special Forces assistant operations and intelligence sergeant

18Z Special Forces senior sergeant

180A Special Forces warrant

19A Armor officer

19D Cavalry scout

19E M48-M60 armor crewman (Reserve Components)

19K Armor crewman

19Z Armor senior sergeant


http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...ESRC=army-a.nl

[mconneway]

I agree completely. Physical standards should be gender neutral for ALL Soldiers and MOS's.

Start working on your UBRR scores and ruck up, ladies!

[Dusty]

What a freaking nightmare.

[mark46th]

They can lower the standards all the want for the entry requirement. When the women put on a 80-100 pound rucksack then have to hump a 3000 foot elevation change, the truth will become self evident.

[sinjefe]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

IWhat I don't agree with, that is unsaid in article, is that lowering them would be a bad thing.

So, you think lowering the standard is a good thing?

[Sohei]

Standards are standards ALL the time. Once concessions are made, the standards will begin to degrade and will then become completely subjective to the individuals making the decisions on who to allow in.

Standards are -- and should be -- "genderless". You want the position...pass the requirements.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by The Sheepdog

Standards are standards ALL the time. Once concessions are made, the standards will begin to degrade and will then become completely subjective to the individuals making the decisions on who to allow in.

Standards are -- and should be -- "genderless". You want the position...pass the requirements.

Sorry that is "not" the way the military works.......

In the United States military we will lower the standards to "ensure" that "everyone" can qualify.

If you do not believe that just go and watch how Army boot camp operates. And how the standards have been lowered every year for the past 30 years.

[Sohei]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Sorry that is "not" the way the military works.......

In the United States military we will lower the standards to "ensure" that "everyone" can qualify.

If you do not believe that just go and watch how Army boot camp operates. And how the standards have been lowered every year for the past 30 years.

Indeed....everyone gets a trophy these days. There is no difference between first and third place. Everyone is a winner.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by The Sheepdog

Indeed....everyone gets a trophy these days. There is no difference between first and third place. Everyone is a winner.

Everyone is a winner until 3-5 hundred taliban launch a close quarters ambush against your unit.

I sure hope the "leadership" passes the Special Forces female Officer position......... Should happen about the same time there's a female heading up the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

And another thing that "Chief" word is very gender specific, we're going to need to change that ASAP. Along with Commander and Chief.......

[BKKMAN]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

...I would like to see the run standard replaced with a ruck standard. The US forest service standard is 3 miles in 15 minutes with full gear and 45 lb ruck sack. Male, female young or old it does not matter. It is a pass/fail no points either you meet the standard or you do not...

I believe you mean 3 miles in 45 minutes (15 minute per mile pace).

I like the McCall Smokejumpers physical fitness requirements:

McCall Smokejumpers

All smokejumper candidates are required to pass the standard smokejumper physical training (PT) test on the first day of smokejumper training. Candidates must do seven pull-ups/chin-ups, 45 sit-ups, 25 push-ups, and a 1.5 mile run in less than 11 minutes (McCall's elevation is 5000'). The test is taken in one time frame with 5-minute breaks between specific exercises.

Smokejumper gear and tools weigh up to 115 pounds per person. Smokejumpers must be able to carry this gear to the nearest trail, road, or helispot after suppressing the fire. This may be a distance of 10 miles or more in rough terrain. During training, smokejumper candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to pack 110 pounds of gear a distance of three miles in 90 minutes or less, over a level course.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

The current standard, male or female, has no bearing on combat reediness [sic].

True. That is why its called the Army Physical Fitness Test, and not the Army Combat Readiness Test. Its goal is to measure general fitness, not a soldier's performance in simulated combat physical requirements.

I would like to see the run standard replaced with a ruck standard...It is a pass/fail no points either you meet the standard or you do not. Why do you ask? Simple. You dont usually go into combat running in PT gear and running shoes. You usually have weapon, helmet ruck etc etc. It's the whole train like you fight crap I heard about in the 1980's I guess.

I haven't seen many soldiers carry an Olympic bar, dumbbells or a bench on a patrol, either; does that mean soldiers shouldn't use those tools to improve their fitness when not performing combat operations?

I'm not sure the push up and sit ups are a gret standard either. Great for training during PT but does not equate to combat very well unless I am missing something.

I think what you might be missing is the difference between physical training and combat readiness. There are plenty of 'vintage' guys here that ran miles upon miles in flat-insole combat boots for daily PT. Ask them how their knees and backs are doing nowadays. Training as one fights is a good goal for certain training, but not all types of training. Look at the Marines--they've recognized that a general physical fitness test is not always a good indicator of combat related physical tasks. Did they do away with the general fitness test? No, as they understood that assessment is also important, so they created a different test to measure this new metric. You have to use the right tool for the job.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Do you know why the Army picked 2 miles as the run? Because that is the blast zone of a nuclear weapon.

I was tracking with you right up to this point.

Source for this tidbit?

TR

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

I think you missed my point. As I said push ups and general PT is great for training. I am a big fan of weight training as well. My issue is that in today's Army your running ability is what everyone cares about yet many of these "PT studs" do not hold up in combat according to the Armys own report that is why they were going to change it. They didn't for political reasons. As for running miles upon miles in boots that is plain stupid as well. What I AM saying is do more ruck marches with gear along with the running pushups etc etc in PT gear. At the end of the day we are training to fight and our test should reflect that ie ruck march not PT run unless we are training to drop our weapons and run away from the battle.

Do you know why the Army picked 2 miles as the run? Because that is the blast zone of a nuclear weapon.

Push-ups have been part of Army PT for a very long time, to include the post-WW II fitness test. The reason they were retained in the '46 test is because it was thought that the movement was very similar to that used to get up out of the prone firing position--a combat-relevant task.

As for adding combat-related physical tasks to PT such as ruck marching, there's nothing stopping a unit from doing just that. The APFT is the minimum PT requirement; if a unit wants to raise the standard, they certainly can.

As for the idea of fragile "gazelles", I recall seeing squads and fire teams of Rangers from 3/75 running like their hair was on fire and their asses were catching all over Benning during morning PT in the mid-90s, and most of those studs could ruck like machines just as readily. Being able to break 12:00 on the 2-mile didn't seem to hinder many of my peers in the Q course, Ranger School or later on in combat with SOF units, either.

Some of the folks that designed the 3-event PT test were guest lecturers when I was completing the Master Fitness Trainer course. The main reason for the switch from the 5-event test to the 3-event test, according to them, was to reduce the dependency on specialty equipment or courses (think horizontal ladder, run-dodge-jump lanes) so that the test could be administered nearly anywhere, and to improve throughput. I don't recall any of them correlating the 2-mile run distance to a nuke blast, though; like TR, I'd be interested to hear your source for that.

[sf11b_p]

Heh... gender-neutering.

[Razor]

If you preface everything in your last post with "In my experience...", then that'll be fine, because your use of "many soldiers out there", "gold standard", "in today's Army" certainly don't appear to apply universally, both in GPF and SOF.