Tag Archives: women in combat

Former SecDef Explains Transgender Policy: We had no choice.

President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has been doing interviews to hawk his book, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon, and spoke with the Military Times in September. In the interview he explained away the complexities, morality, and responsibility of some of the key DoD decisions with the simple “we had no choice.”

On the continuing presence of US troops in Afghanistan [emphasis added]:

I really do believe we’ve been on the best course, and the only course available to us.

On integrating women in combat arms within the US military [emphasis added]:  Read more

First Woman on a Fast Attack Sub Raises Interesting Question

Even though neither President Trump nor Secretary of Defense James Mattis issued any kind of “gay pride month” proclamations, quite a few lower level military units are proceeding with such celebrations anyway.  In that spirit, Ashley Broadway’s American Military Partner Association, a homosexual activist group, recently posted a picture to its Facebook page of the “first woman to report to a fast attack submarine.”

In the picture, then-LtJG Kara Smith sports a hat from Read more

Air Force NCO Models Intolerance at Official Women-Only Event

A women-only mandatory briefing held by the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard AFB a couple of weeks ago has already gained some notoriety on social media both for its content and the manner in which it was held. It apparently had good intentions:

Five NCO’s [sic] and the base’s director of Military Equal Opportunity stood at the head of the auditorium ready to lead an honest conversation about being a female in a male dominated career.

But you know which road they say is paved with good intentions.

Some joined the online conversation to call the very concept of the meeting unwise, if not discriminatory. (Consider, for example, if the Air Force had officially called a mandatory meeting of only white Read more

US Navy Redesigning Submarines. For Women.

US military defense contractor Electric Boat is reportedly laying out the designs for future submarines that will be [emphasis added]

built specifically to accommodate female crewmembers.

This may be “fake news,” since the genesis of the “women in combat” argument was that women were there already, and that there would be no actual logistical changes necessary to legitimize what was already happening.  Still [emphasis added]:   Read more

James Dobson and Gen Robert Barrow: Women in Combat and the Draft

The following article has been edited slightly for length. You can read the full letter here. The Congressional testimony referenced in the letter can be viewed here.  Formatted for readability.

By Dr. James Dobson

While most of us Americans were thinking about something else, a decades long struggle has been going on within the leadership of our Armed Forces and the political decision makers to whom they are accountable…It concerns an effort to redesign and reshape our military and has far ranging implications for the security of this country.

Since the early 1990s, each branch [of the military] has been under unrelenting pressure to conform itself to the principles of political correctness. It has been driven by powerful left-wing social movements, including radical feminism, the gay rights movement, LGBTQ ideology, and most recently, transgender influences that have swept the nation…This revolutionary social experiment has weakened the U.S. military and made our troops march to a different set of drums. But, that is where we are headed.

For example, Congress first began considering the radical notion of authorizing women in combat 26 years ago. Hearings were held on that concept on June 18, 1991, which featured generals, senators and feminists who testified on behalf of what has never been permitted in the 217-year history of this country.

Gender studies confirmed what has been known about male and female physiology, psychology, sexuality, family issues, gender norming and other dimensions of military life. What had to be considered is the undeniable fact that most women can’t run, swim, fight, climb, carry, or endure hardship like men. [Women] were designed by the Creator Read more

Air Force: Female Pilot Follows Mother’s Boot Steps

Capt. Jamie LaRivee, a 21st Airlift Squadron C-17 Globemaster III pilot, saw her mother as a role model, and watched her excel in an Air Force career, making LaRivee certain she would follow in her mother’s boot steps…

“You can’t pretend that we are built the exact same way as men. But, there are so many ways that we can, if not overcome it, become better,” LaRivee said…

In a 1996 speech made by LaRivee’s mother, the message of femininity in the military rang out.

“One of the biggest challenges of being a woman in the military has Read more

Rescue Pedros, Mary Jennings Hegar, Humility and the Value of Others

Major MJ Hegar is a heroine. She saved not one but three helicopter crews in Afghanistan, as well as multiple US ground troops, and she did so all while being abandoned in combat by her cowardly peers and held back from her true potential by The Man.

At least, that seems to be how her story is being told.

US Air Force Major Mary Jennings Hegar was a US Air Force HH-60 helicopter rescue pilot in Afghanistan in 2009. (The Air Force rescue helos are know as Pedros — and, yes, they use a sombrero wearing mascot that would probably offend someone if they thought about it long enough.)

On July 29, 2009, her mission as the lead Pedro 15 went infamously sour. Hegar received a medal — and a Purple Heart — on that mission, and she now uses the story of that mission on the speaking circuit while she advertises her upcoming book — the movie rights for which have already been optioned (Angelina Jolie is rumored Read more

US Marine Corps: Males, Females will Bunk Together

The US Marine Corps — which was the only Service to significantly push back on gender integration last year — announced that it would make no special accommodations for mixed gender units in deployed environments.

That includes training for deployed environments.

Marines in the field stay in everything from a large, single room shelter filled with dozens of cots to sleeping under tarps or nothing at all, said Maj. Charles Anklam III, executive officer for 1st Battalion, 8th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina — the first gender-integrated Marine infantry battalion…

Anklam said female Marines deployed to conflict zones have shared tents with their male counterparts at times. But this marks the first time female Marines will be doing so during their regular training with their combat unit.

In 2013 then-Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen Mark Welsh noted the “hookup mentality” of society contributed to the culture of sexuality in the military. He was criticized for his frankness, which was ultimately a statement of the obvious.

Speaking on the same topic of military sexual assaults that same day, future-President Donald Trump criticized the “geniuses” who decided to put men and women together and Read more

1 2 3