Marine corps mos list for females mac#

Marine corps mos list for females mac#

Though I agree with Mac Donald’s premise-that physical standards should be the same across the board-there is a problem with her argument. But, again, this is a standards problem-not a women-in-combat-arms problem. Once again, I agree with Mac Donald’s argument that physical standards should be the same across the board. For all those willing to lay down their lives and batter their bodies in combat to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, we should be grateful to pay those bills. Kyle Carpenter’s shattered arm, face, and brain. Nick Vogt, or the cost of treating Lance Corp. God forbid she ever sees the medical bills for my platoon sergeant, who nearly lost both his legs in an IED blast, or those of double-amputee Capt. Some people, regardless of gender, handle the strain of combat and training better than others.Īnd yes, as she points out, medical bills for combat-battered bodies are expensive. One of the Army sayings I hate most is, “You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.” But it rings true in the sense that combat (and training for combat) produces injuries.

Physical injuries are part of the job, part of pushing and trying to meet a standard. Years later, I assumed company command with Achilles tendinitis and a partially torn bicep, but I did not let that stop me from leading my company on runs, on ruck marches, and in combat training. As soon as I was medically cleared to start walking, I ran to Airborne School before eventually returning to complete Ranger School.

Pressing forward, I went to Ranger School, which I flunked after contracting pneumonia. I didn’t have time for surgery, so I carried on and went to Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, where I gritted my teeth through a collapsed arch in my foot. Upon commissioning, I weighed 155 pounds I soon tore my shoulder labrum while grappling in training with soldiers thirty to seventy pounds heavier. I am slimmer and slighter than most of my infantry peers, a problem many female infantry aspirants also face. That’s why standards are applied individually if an individual can meet the qualifying standard, he or she should be permitted to do the job. Most average Americans cannot meet the basic eligibility standards to join the military applying Mac Donald’s logic to that fact and ceasing to allow any Americans into the armed services more clearly demonstrates her logic’s absurdity. But an average is no reason to categorically ban a population. We are physiologically different and, on average, a man’s body can handle more weight and physical hardship than a woman’s. Mac Donald is correct in asserting that men’s and women’s bodies are different. They need to fix their standards problem. The US military’s combat arms branches do not need to ban women. While I agree with many of her premises and beliefs, I disagree with her conclusion. Last month, Heather Mac Donald’s Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that “women don’t belong in combat units.” In it, Mac Donald makes four main claims: first, that women are physiologically incapable of handling combat second, that women cannot meet physical standards next, that the “inevitable introduction of eros” will erode unit cohesion and, finally, that military policies should only be made to improve combat effectiveness. Women serving in combat roles is no exception: implementation and standards should be addressed, but the policy aim is right. Just because policies take time and adjustments to “get it right” does not mean that they should be abandoned altogether. It took America more than 130 years to declare that men and women should have equal voting rights. It took the US Supreme Court almost sixty years to decide that “separate but equal” was anything but equal and black Americans should attend school alongside white ones. It took the US cavalry twenty-five years to accept that armored tanks were better than horses against a machine gun. It took the US infantry fifty-five years and thousands of deaths to abandon the idea of trench warfare.