But it's just one part of the bold agenda for a new Marine Corps.
Commandant Gen. David Berger last week instructed top Marine leaders to remove Confederate-related paraphernalia from the service's bases worldwide. The directive is one of several forward-leaning initiatives Berger said he is "prioritizing for immediate execution."Yes, sir, more young women in the combat arms, with a year off each if they bear children. Of course this is all a part of bringing perfect equality among the sexes, except for the part where the women get a year off; and it won't cause disruption or degradation of standards when the female members of the team vanish from training and deployment for a year. (A year, out of a four year enlistment!) No, only good things will come from this wholesale adoption of social justice ideals into military standards.
In his memo, a copy of which was obtained by Military.com, Berger also ordered leaders to find ways to move more women into combat jobs, to review the possibility of yearlong maternity leave for female Marines, and to extend parental leave policies to same-sex partners.
A humane, practical, beautiful solution.
13 comments:
" a year out of a four year enlistment."
why assume she is only going to get pregnant once?
Chesty Puller is getting a mite upset about now.
Is this new "COMMANDANTE " typical of the Obama holdovers? Where did he come from? Why is he in this position?
The frightening thing- is he typical ?
"Is this new "COMMANDANTE " typical of the Obama holdovers? Where did he come from? Why is he in this position?"
Indeed. Isn't part of the reason we elected Trump to clean out this nonsense?
I think of CS Lewis's first and second things. If you focus on heaven, you will get earth thrown in. If you focus on earth, you will get neither heaven nor earth. The Corps is now taking its eye off the main prize of being an elite fighting force to focus on secondary goals. In the end it will lose both.
Question: What would happen to a man in a combat job who went skiing, broke some bones, and needed 9-12 months to heal? Would he be discharged from the military? Welcomed back to his combat unit after he healed? Transferred to a non-combat unit?
And according to Wikipedia's entry on David Berger:
On March 26, 2019, he was nominated by President Donald Trump to succeed General Robert B. Neller and become the 38th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 5, and took command in a ceremony held July 11 at the Marine Barracks in Washington D.C.
It depends on the extent of the injuries etc. He might be transferred to a non-combat role, e.g. public affairs. He certainly might be medically discharged. But there are other options too (including banning skiing if it started to come up very regularly, instead of as a rare and unexpected accident).
Ultimately each case will be resolved independently based on the facts of that case.
So treating pregnancy as a pre-excused absence would be different, if I understand what you're saying. It seems to me then that it would be better to treat pregnancy as we would skiing injuries: transfer to a non-combat role.
As for women in combat generally, I think they should be there if they can meet the same physical standards demanded of men. I'm not much for quotas and affirmative action, however.
A background matter that is going on at the same time: the USMC has only managed to qualify two women to be infantry officers since it opened the program to women in 2016, and the first of them has gone on terminal leave after only three years in service as an infantry officer. Part of this is doubtless being driven by the fear that the other one might leave before any more qualify, thus leaving the USMC in the embarrassing position of having to admit that female Marines haven't proven to be up to the challenge of being career infantry officers.
But in general there's a big problem with declaring to the male Marines that the women are (a) to be treated as equals, but (b) held to separate and much more generous standards. For a long time the physical fitness test was a big issue (especially since it weighs heavily on promotion, the easier female standards led to female Marines being promoted over male Marines who were in fact much better performers in absolute measures).
Maternity leave vs. paternity leave has also been a long-standing issue, as paternity leave was a few weeks while maternity leave was already potentially months. The USMC recently attempted to solve this by changing its terms to "primary caregiver" and "secondary caregiver," with some circumstances in which a female Marine might not be viewed as the primary caregiver unless she actually gave birth herself. This new policy would not only restore the idea of "maternity leave," but inflate the time off they'd get as well.
It's a big issue. There's nothing wrong with a young, healthy woman getting pregnant and bearing children; civilization depends upon it. And children definitely need their parents, especially their mothers. Society benefits from having involved mothers, and there's no reason we shouldn't support it. Yet this move is destructive to both the combat effectiveness of the unit -- which is the whole point of having a Marine Corps, as AVI points out -- and the morale of many or all of its members. The women will know that they're never viewed as true equals because they're held to easier standards, and the men will know they're never going to be eligible for the generous benefits the women get for free.
Grim, I only have a minute or two and want to read this more carefully. But, real quick, it looks like the link for "the first of them..." is broken and I'd like to read whatever you're referring to there.
Yes, I broke the link. Try this:
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/02/25/first-female-infantry-marine-officer-leaves-corps-as-commandant-calls-for-more-women-at-infantry-officer-course/
Okay, so, first, I only understood about half the info on this at either link - I just don't know enough about the military. Second, if I understand what you're saying in your long comment above, I pretty much agree. I'm a dinosaur since I'm an old-time, hard-line second wave equity feminist which means I think women (and men) should have the opportunity to pursue any line of work for which they are qualified and in which they are interested. If there are specific physical requirements a combat Marine must meet in order to be a combat Marine then women and men should both have to meet them. I don't get trying to put women (or men) into jobs they simply can't do.
With regard to pregnancy, it sounds to me like the idea is that any female Marine can get a year of maternity leave, it's not just intended for combat units. I have to say I like your description of the primary/secondary caregiver idea more. And I still think for a combat unit, pregnancy should be treated like broken bones in a skiing accident. I'd like to think that any woman who wants to be in a combat unit and can pass the tests necessary to do so would not want to be sidelined by pregnancy so would be careful not to get pregnant.
But, bottom line, this is a mess. We don't seem to have a way to intelligently discuss what biological differences mean without people yelling and getting (in mine opinion) weird (not you, other people on both sides).Reportedly, the Scandinavian countries are quite gender-equitable and supposedly the result has been more women actually doing more traditionally female jobs. I wonder what their military looks like as far as women in combat units.
What is trum s military doing.
Even i do not know. Is this some super secret plan to fold marines into space force....
Because space force needs pregnant women for colonization of new lands.
They wont be occupying with that weak a ground force.
This is maddening.
I seriously considered a military career, but decided against it because I wanted a family too, and was not willing to deploy once I had children. Also, frankly, the likelihood that I would have found a husband who would agree to do what I did (put my children first and school/career aspirations second for the 20+ years it takes to raise a family) was pretty much zero. I love my husband, but there's no way he would have done what I did.
FWIW, our oldest son decided against the military because he had already found the woman he wanted to marry and he wanted to be there for her and their children. And that's OK - there are plenty of ways to serve your community. He became a cop instead.
I do think women have much to contribute to the armed forces, but doubt they have SO much to contribute that it outweighs the overhead of year long maternity leave/non-deployable status.
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