Personally, the two women who are scheduled to graduate from the U.S. Army’s Ranger school are a phenomenal success. No woman ever before has met the standard, and they are to be congratulated, according to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy group.
But when it comes to making America more secure through a military that is stronger, more agile, more advanced and more aggressive than the enemy, the development is a setback, she contends.
Donnelly blames politicians in military uniforms for the Army’s engagement in a social experiment at the expense of having troops “that are fully trained, equipped and ready to deter or defeat any adversary.”
The Army Times reported this week that two of the 96 members of the military who are graduating from Ranger school at Fort Benning, Georgia, are women.
The Army said the women both are officers and started the Swamp Phase of the course on Aug. 1 after three tries at the school’s first phase, known as the Darby Phase, and one try at the second phase, known as the Mountain Phase.
The women are still barred from direct ground combat and will not be allowed to serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Army’s top light-infantry outfit.
While Donnelly offered congratulations to the two, she pointed out that their personal success still doesn’t support the conclusion that seems apparent in the social engineering pursued in the U.S. military: that women and men are interchangeable in combat arms units such as the infantry, armor, cannon field artillery, Special Operations Forces and Navy SEALs.
The evidence shows otherwise, she told WND.
Her organization’s policy analysis, based on documentation from the military itself, shows that already in the Army’s combat research “Exception to Policy” experiments, “female soldiers suffered twice as many injuries as men.”
“It is easy to take our military for granted – it is the best in the world,” the analysis explained. “It will not stay that way, however, if officials combine severe budget cuts with misguided social experiments to achieve what former Joint Chief Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen called ‘diversity as a strategic imperative.'”
She explained her organization worked with the Thomas More Law Center to get documentation from the military and found women were suffering injuries more than twice as often as men in the same positions.
“In the Bradley fighting vehicle system … the rate [for women] was 133 percent higher,” the analysis noted.
“In basic combat training, approximate average injury rates for women were 114 percent higher than men’s. In training for engineers and military police, they were 108 percent higher.”
That, inevitably, will mean higher costs, the analysis said.
“What will happen when large numbers of women are ordered into formerly all-male units, such as a tank battalion maintenance sections, but the assignments don’t work out? According to documents CMR has obtained, reassignment and retraining would cost the Army $30,697 per soldier. Decisions to drop out would cost an additional $17,605 in basic training costs.”
The analysis said America’s “shrinking Army will have to sacrifice more important things to cover these avoidable losses.”
“More importantly, personnel shortages could cost lives,” it said.
Just the simple physical demands of a military unit highlights the difference, the analysis said.
“In a test simulating ordnance stowing, for example, ‘less than 1 percent of men, compared to 28.2 percent of women, could not complete the 155 mm artillery round lift-and-carry [95 lbs.] in the allotted time [2 min.].”
Besides Mullen, Donnelly explained, “politicians in uniform” include Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert, who reportedly now wants women in Navy SEAL teams, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and just-retired Army Gen. Ray Odierno.
“These officials and more in this administration are putting gender politics above national security and the best interests of both women and men in the military. All of them are disregarding previously undisclosed military combat experiments, which show injury rates among women twice as high as men’s.”
She said it’s “unfair and unseemly for high-ranking admirals and generals to pressure the military services to politicize major decisions at the expense of the majority of women, especially enlisted women who do not want to be treated like men in military occupations that are beyond their physical strength.”
“Posturing politicians cannot justify disproportionate harm to female soldiers’ health, without informed consent, in direct ground combat positions that would have to be assigned on the same involuntary basis as men. No one should forget that in 2013, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey admitted that standards too high for women would be questioned, and ‘significant cadres’ of women would be used to achieve a ‘critical mass’ in formerly all-male units.”
Donnelly told WND that if national security is defined by having a strong military, the social engineering implemented on President Obama’s watch “does nothing.”
“Our nation is not defended just by weapons systems, planes and ships,” she said. “Not just the hardware. It’s the people.”
Instead of focusing on honor, courage and commitment for soldiers, the nation’s leaders are taking them down the path of “gender diversity metrics” and quotas.
Donnelly said she’s worked with members of the military for many years, but the leaders she cited are a mystery.
“I do not understand the mindset of people … [who] are pursuing a political agenda.”
The current direction is cause for “grave concern,” the CMR analysis said.
“In theory, gender integration is supposed to occur without lowering standards or combat effectiveness. That goal is on a collision course, however, with mandates to achieve ‘gender diversity metrics.’ At risk are the best qualities of military culture: personal honor and courage, selfless commitment, honesty, integrity and mutual trust for survival and mission accomplishment,” the report said.
