Women in Ranger School

[Jericho941]

Don't get me started on "Jericho's 5-step Plan for Fixing Military Gender Issues."

You will NOT like it. But. Neither will the people you don't like.

[Kommander]

Don't get me started on "Jericho's 5-step Plan for Fixing Military Gender Issues."

You will NOT like it. But. Neither will the people you don't like.

Go for it, though I would argue that as long as our society has gender issues our military will, so the real work must be done there.

[Jericho941]

I'll try and keep it brief. This applies to active duty only, as I'm sure at least point #1 would be untenable in the Guard or reserves.

1.) You join, you get snipped. Vasectomy for the dudes, hormone IUDs for the dudettes. The men stop creating dependapotami but retain the testosterone, the women don't have a get-outta-deployment card, and the Mirena minimizes their womanly bullshit. You don't like it? Tough. It's a military, not a jobs program. Reversal isn't even an "apply for waiver" option until you've completed at least one real-world deployment. That is, at least six months honorable service in a non-vacation hellhole. If you broke your arm and got rotated back, it doesn't count. No mama drama. "Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!" The military will get its money's worth out of you before you start putting down roots. Down the line when restored? Oh, your wife's having a baby, Chief? Well, would that staff sergeant get a ride home from Asscrackistan for his kid's birth? No? Neither do you, asshole.

Knock it off with this business of pushing marriage on the new kids like it means something. You wanna get married in tech school? Too bad, you haven't earned the privilege. There will be no leaving early to pick up your little goblins from school or showing up late 'cause you had to drop them off. For new enlistees, existing dependents will be a bar to enlistment. No waivers.

2.) Line up officers' careers against the wall and give 'em a GAU-8 gun run. Figuratively speaking. You know the saying "too many chiefs, not enough Indians"? The military is absolutely bogged down with deadwood. If you're a fucking full bird colonel with 30-plus years in with nothing better to do than shark around base looking for unbuttoned pockets, your very existence is a criminal waste of taxpayer money. You're not helping. GTFO. Replace these regulation-snorting dipshits with officers who have the balls to fight someone who doesn't have to stand at attention when they talk to them. Otherwise, all of this is moot.

3.) Stop this mincing bullshit that PT standards are about "health" rather than ability to perform a task. It's insulting, telling everyone that you expect them to be some kind of Tricare mooch down the line. The notion that by simply keeping an arbitray waistline measurement, you'll be 100% healthy for the rest of your life is horseshit. When you do hard work, you get tend to get hurt. This stigma is a huge barrier to veterans seeking the VA benefits they've earned and require, because they feel they haven't earned them. If your whole branch has a PT standard, you hold the whole branch to that. Obviously, some jobs will require more than others. They can add to, but not remove from those standards. These will be applied per career field, equally to both genders. This is not because I have a desire to remove women from the military; on the contrary, I knew many sharp females that were still not respected because, at the end of the day, they still were not held to the same basic standard. As long as the military gives them preferential treatment by regulation, every achievement, every award they earn WILL be undermined by the perceived treatment that grows from it.

All units must have dedicated PT time. If this detracts from the unit's man-hours to the point that it hinders the mission, then there's an obvious manning problem, not personal time management. To that end, throw open the eligibility doors. Washout rates are supposed to be a source of bragging rights, aren't they?

4.) Stop losing the propaganda game. You know what a great tool in that field was? The video game, America's Army. People loved its combat first aid mechanics. Get a contract going with EA or whoever for the next blockbuster military FPS game with exclusive rights to neat-o looks at shiny hardware, and instead of having a tutorial level dedicated to practicing point-and-click mechanics everyone knows, the game starts with an unskippable SARC/SAPR class. THERE'S a realistic military experience we can all get behind! The media would eat it up. "Military teaches kids not to rape." Yes, gamers would complain, because it'd be about as much fun as the Onion's version of Call of Duty, but only for the half hour rape class. After that, it's back to the arcadey, Michael Bay-esque explosion-fueled helicopter-crashing extravaganza we've all come to accept and be less and less entertained by.

You can skip it on subsequent playthoughs but don't get the achievement for beating it on a higher difficulty level, because you're behind on mandatory training. Press F to make a restricted report.

The benefits to this are twofold: the low-information types' stereotyping of the military as one big unapologetic rape party are weakened, and people enter the military already knowing what to do if their instructor wants to play hide the swagger stick.

5.) [strike]Fetch me a magic lamp so I can wish for a Congress that would make this possible.[/strike] Actually plan for gender integration, instead of throwing women at the wall and hoping they stick. Start with gender-segregated units within career fields if you have to. This absolutely requires points #2 and #3. As of right now, every commander seems to duck and sweat, hoping the doe stops on some successor's desk. When it happens, we see the half-assed bullshit that has typified integration thus far and shows no signs of stopping. Of course, everyone has to sign up for the selective service now.

[Kommander]

The only issue I see is with the first point. Not that it's a bad idea in itself, but I just can't see meeting enlistment needs with that kind of restriction in place. Combine it with a draft and it might work though.

[skb12172]

Also, didn't the IDF already prove that women in front-line combat was a bad idea?

IIRC, they took a different route. After all, Israel has universal conscription/national service.

Basically: The chicks that make the cut are some razor-sharp, scary bitches. The snowflakes get shuffled right the hell out.

They can afford the attrition rate, because their recruiting pool is "the entire nation."

It was my understanding that women usually ended up in signaling or other non-direct combat roles.

[skb12172]

As for Jericho's Five Points, it would defy the previous SCOTUS decision I mentioned, which made women Selective Service exempt.

[Termite]

As for Jericho's Five Points, it would defy the previous SCOTUS decision I mentioned, which made women Selective Service exempt.

With a 2/3s majority, Congress can pass a law and exempt it from SCOTUS review. They just don't have the balls(or tits) to do it.

[Aaron]

I would whole heartedly support the inevitable mutiny should anyone try to institute Jerichos first point. We get treated like slaves in enough ways as it is. Any attempt at forced sterilization will be met with a hearty fuck you with a side of violence.

[Jericho941]

The only issue I see is with the first point. Not that it's a bad idea in itself, but I just can't see meeting enlistment needs with that kind of restriction in place. Combine it with a draft and it might work though.

Oh, people would balk at first, but they'd get over it. A draft wouldn't be necessary, because the military's downsizing. I am pretty sure that, barring actual Russians charging in across the Canadian border, drafting people into a program that also came with mandatory sterilization would result in... unpleasantness.

Besides, the program would have to be put on hold in the event of a draft. Otherwise, it wouldn't do much besides boost Canada's population.

I would whole heartedly support the inevitable mutiny should anyone try to institute Jerichos first point. We get treated like slaves in enough ways as it is. Any attempt at forced sterilization will be met with a hearty fuck you with a side of violence.

No need for mutiny. Instituting the policy would come with a review of service records to determine eligibility for exemption. Anyone denied has the option to stay in and go through with it, or separate early.

[Aesop]

You know if we wanted to be really brutal we could set it so that a certain percentage of the military must be female, but also must pass Aesop's requirements, and women would be continued to be drafted until said percentages were met.

Unfortunately, SCOTUS ruled on this in the early 80s. Women are draft-exempt.

But the rationale for that decision was based almost entirely on the fact that they were also combat-arms exempt, which is no longer operative.
They can't plead the exemption having laboriously vacated the entire rationale underpinning said exemption.
Equality, true equality, jammed up the ass like it was a NASCAR Chevy in top gear, always brings interesting consequences, mostly unintended.
I love it when a plan comes together.

Alternatively, they can put their skirts back on, keep the exemption, and forego ever being allowed to serve in combat-contiguous billets, forever.
That works too, but personally, I'd rather give them the equality they're begging for, and they can find out how things work when theoretical sociology gets headsmacked by the brick wall of physiology and biology.