The process should be questioned, and nothing makes that clearer than the Army’s combat research on “Exception to Policy” (ETP) experiments, revealing the aforementioned injury rates. CMR explains the findings demonstrate disparate rates of injury in Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), such as field and air defense artillery where women were injured at double the rate of their male counterparts. “In the Field Artillery Surveyor Meteorological Crewmember MOS, for example, injuries for women were approximately 112% higher than men’s. In the Bradley fighting vehicle system maintainer MOS, the rate was 133% higher,” a CMR report reveals.
The U.S. Army Institute of Public Health provided CMR with another document revealing that even in basic combat training, the approximate average injury rates for women were 114 percent higher than for men, and in training for military police and engineers they were 108 percent higher. Moreover, while such training requires informed consent, CMR explains a sample consent form provided to them shows that injury rates were not included on it.
There are cost factors as well. Retraining women reassigned from positions beyond their physical strength would cost the Army $30,697 per soldier. An additional $17,606 in basic training costs, not counting individual recruitment expenditures that are higher for women, would be necessitated following decisions to drop out of courses. CMR wonders how the Army reconciles such “avoidable costs” with the reality that the Obama administration is determined to reduce America’s military to pre-WWII levels.
The British Ministry of Defence conducted a similar study, and the report it issued confirms many of Donnelly’s fears. While conceding that there will be elite women capable of passing entry tests for Ground Close Combat (GCC) units, “these women will be more susceptible to acute short term injury than men” and the roles requiring women to carry weight for prolonged periods of time “will be the most damaging.” Furthermore and far more important, the report reveals that “combat marksmanship degrades as a result of fatigue when the combat load increases in proportion to body weight and strength.”
Nonetheless, CMR notes the British report is laced with suggestions regarding how to “mitigate” such injuries, relying on social theories and unrealistic expectations completely undermined by the hard data contained in the same report. CMR insists those efforts are “not credible,” and that the burden to prove otherwise rests on “advocates of unprecedented changes affecting military effectiveness.”
CMR also received documents indicating the Army has prepared a Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy (DOTMLPF-P) analysis. The topics on the analysis, which were almost completely redacted, only address some of the major sticking points.
CMR insists a more comprehensive list would include higher costs associated with recruiting and training, new separate-gender facilities, the remedial training necessary to eliminate attitudinal barriers, and the extra personnel necessitated by pregnancy and other extended leaves. The analysis should also include what social service/legal specialists will be required to deal with sexual misconduct issues in the combat arms arena and the expanded medical needs associated with higher rates of female injuries and disability.
“By any measure, this is an expensive, unnecessary social experiment,” CMR concludes. “Non-disclosure of the full consequences and costs prevents Congress, the media, and the general public from evaluating and criticizing policy changes that will affect every man and woman in the military.” Those changes include the daunting reality that “sequestration budget cuts are taking essential resources away, while heavy burdens of social experimentation are being loaded on.”
Those burdens may be acceptable to those who view the military as the last bastion of resistance to the social engineering schemes they wish to impose on virtually every aspect of American society. But it is a fool’s errand in the military arena, especially during a period of global unrest that has reached ominous proportions. Inclusion is not, nor will it ever be, the ultimate barometer by which national security will be measured.
http://canadafreepress.com/article/74785?utm_source=CFP+Mailout&utm_campaign=ed115ce0a0-5_20_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d8f503f036-ed115ce0a0-297703129
No comments:
Post a Comment