By Javier Manjarres
One of the country’s leading politico’s who is raising questions about the recent lifting of the ban on women serving in combat, such as in infantry and artillery units is former Congressman and current Director of Next Generation programming for PJTV, Allen West.
Unlike some other national politicos, like Senator Marco Rubio who have come out in favor of lifting the ban, but have never served in the military, West served twenty-two years in the U.S. Army and knows all to well the impact that females serving in these combat units could bring to the cohesiveness and readiness of the unit.
West is not concerned that female would be fighting along side with males, because they are already doing that. West is more concerned with the ability of these female soldiers to physically perform to standard in these infantry and special operations units, that call for soldiers to meet more strenuous physical conditioning standards.
West also adds that he doesn’t know if the American people are “culturally” ready to see women in these units, this after the highly publicized capture of a female soldier who was sexually assaulted by her captures during the Iraq war.
I remember the young soldier who was captured back in the early days of the Iraq war and how there was such an outcry in this country about how we needed to quickly rescue her, and find her, I think then we come to find out that she was sexually assaulted. So I don’t know culturally if the American people are ready to have women in infantry units or in some of our Special Operations units.
The biggest concern that I have is that the standards must be maintained, we cannot adjust the standards. We want to maintain a high level of readiness and that’s the most important concern as we’ll continue to fight against a very determined enemy.-Allen West
We asked West if female soldiers wanting to serve in these combat units should have to match up to their male counterparts. West stated that “it should be the same standard.”
Absolutely, if you look at the Army’s physical fitness test you will see that currently there is a difference between the standards for push-ups, sit ups, two-mile run for males varying with the age group, as opposed to females. And I don’t believe that all of a sudden you want to get rid of the standard or adjust the standard, that is not the right thing to do, standards have to be high, they have to be maintained, and that is my big concern that people have not thought that through.
West added that female soldiers have already been carrying weapon, going out on different types of missions like resupply, military police, and flying attack helicopters. The real issue for West is female soldiers being assigned into elite units within infantry, Rangers, Marine Corp RECON, Navy Seals, Delta, and other elite units.
There are very elite standards for these elite warriors, and we need to make sure these standards are maintained.-Allen West
West added,” that means there could be some man that cannot make that standard to get in some of these elite units or to be in an infantry unit, but that doesn’t mean you lower the standards.”
The military is not so much about fairness and equality-Allen West
We then asked him if he thought that a female soldier could posed a risk to combat preparedness considering their monthly ‘changes.’
You bring up a great point about physiological differences and that we have to look at, because it affects the readiness.
You are not afforded at some of these small, close-quarter combat units the ability to have separate facilities, and things of that nature especially when you have remote forward operating bases where you are living very Spartan, so those are the types of things, when such as if you are talk about units that have to go in and train with foreign internal defense, with other countries like we have done with Mali, like we have done with the Afghan military, the Iraqi military, will we really be able to effectively implement this with females in infantry, combat, special forces type of units.-Allen West
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12 Responses to “Allen West On Women in Combat- ‘Maintain Same Standards’ as Men”
I agree with Allen West- women should be allowed as long as the meet the same standards as men. I hope to see Allen West again in the politically arena. The country needs him.
Thank you, Col West. I feel the same way. I do not have your military expertise, but I think this is only common sense. I honestly hope that my grandsons never have to depend on any of my 5’2″ granddaughters for their “on the ground” survival!… and I hope none of my granddaughters are ever “drafted into combat” (which is the next step), and if they are and are captured may God help them. Lowering the standards puts our military at great risk. Every day it seems that our people are placed more and more in grave jeopardy!
As a female, daughter of a wounded vet, sister of a former MP, mother of a National Guardsman I will say there must be NO LOWERING of any standards in order to fit females in fighting forces!
A woman who cannot pull a 250 pound fellow soldier to safety does not belong in forward combat areas. A woman who cannot heft her own gear and march to forward positions does not belong in forward combat areas! A woman who cannot meet and defeat an enemy in hand to hand combat does not belong in forward combat areas.
There are many positions throughout the military that females could and should fill BUT our COMBAT QUALIFICATIONS, FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CONCERNED, SHOULD NOT BE LOWERED IN ANY WAY!
As any politician (I hope and am sure that the politics didn’t see his back forever…), Allen is choosing his words carefully. I don’t need to and can be blunt: Only people who never slept in a tent with 10 other men and did not use a pine tree for a toilet can bring gays and women to military field operations. I did in the Soviet army and can tell you a lot of stories… I understand that American military forces have much more lawyers than not so politically correct Russians, but should the lives of people on the front line be aggravated and even endangered just to satisfy insatiable feminists’ quest for equality? For the last 100 years they are trying their best to prove that there is no difference between men and women. I wonder if they ever were given a chance to see a man’s “stuff” – for just to see the difference…
The military can make the inclusion of women in combat units work but standards will have to be different for men and women. Col West is correct in his concerns but he leaves two very significant points out of the discussion. 1 The all volunteer military is not attracting the quality. Quantity and under current rules meet the future requirements of our global defense missions, so we must change the military by opening up opportunities to recruit more gays, women etc. 2. We are entering a sustained level of lower conflicts and can risk the lowering of standards and functionality of our Military.
I never thought I’d see something like that from a Sergeant Major. We’re truly screwed.
to SGM T McCracken: “We are entering a sustained level of lower conflicts”……..????????? Do you really think that very soon we will be singing Kumbayah with the muslems, russians, chinese, and all other American “friends”?
If our volunteer enlistments are not meeting the goals of our Military, I suspect it is likely due to the lack of trust in our Commander in Chief and his continuing and increasing politicization of the Military.
He did not take any steps to save an Ambassador in Benghazi so what would he do for a mere GI. (about politics in the military, the two generals in charge are afraid to admit they never received orders to intervene which they would need to cross Libyan borders. That’s fear of political repercussions!)
The old adage: The war is too important a thing to leave it to generals. I’d say that the war is too DANGEROUS of a thing to leave it to damn politicians.
We must all understand what this really means. It’s a step towards including both men and women into the “draft”. Do you really want your sons AND daughters included in a military draft? The voluntary enlistment will be no more allowing for every one to be eligible to serve no matter what your gender.
Rick, of Rick and Bubba, just had a good story of a girls’ basketball game played this past week. With a few seconds left to play in the game, a pass was thrown to a girl standing under the basket. She missed the catch and the ball hit her in the face, blooding her nose. All the girls ran over to see how badly she was hurt. The basketball just bounced around on the floor while the girls gathered around the girl with the bloody nose. A guy in the stands turned and asks the grandfather of one of the girls, “What happened?” The grandfather said, “The same thing that is getting ready to happen to our military!”
Think about it!!
What usually happens to standards in these situations is the current standard for men is lowered rather than kept at the same level. It is lowered to a point where women can meet the criteria. Now this might not happen right away but after several years of seeing too many women fail to meet the current requirements, someone in the power structure will bend to political pressure under the guise of fairness. We see that in school testing and other areas of competition right now. The experiment in social engineering of our continues…