This pilot effort will simulate the functions of an expeditionary unit’s ground-combat element, Smith said.
“It will look somewhat like a small version of a battalion landing team in that it’s got an infantry nucleus, and then it will have those attachments – tanks, artillery, (tracked amphibious landing vehicles) and the like, with a headquarters element,” Smith said.
Planners also intend to send the task force to the Corps’ premier combat training center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., and to mountain-warfare training in Bridgeport, Calif.
“We expect them to deploy for training into those two locations, in addition to what they’ll do at Camp Lejeune,” Smith said. “They may be based at Camp Lejeune, but our units deploy … to train in those very, very different environments with unique demands associated with those environments.”
The task force’s headquarters element – slated to have a male commander and a female senior-enlisted advisor – is expected to stand up sometime this summer, with volunteers arriving in the fall.
Female volunteers accepted for the task force’s combat-arms cohort must first report to military occupational specialty schools to learn the entry-level tasks for respective ground-combat-arms jobs.
Since October 2013, 40 female Marine volunteers have completed infantry rifleman training at the School of Infantry in Camp Lejeune; however, the Corps needs to continue measuring female performance beyond entry-level tasks, Smith said.
He said all Marines must have “the physical capacity to meet the demands of those occupational specialties in the operating forces, which in some cases is significantly different and greater than what we find in our entry-level training pipeline.”
Smith gave hiking as an example and mentioned the 20-kilometer hike required to complete entry-level infantry training. He said although it is “something to certainly be proud of,” it is a one-time event that must be sustained in the operating forces. He went on to describe the standard, progressive hike program a Marine must undergo at an infantry battalion – conceding it was an extreme example: “You do a hike program over the course of many months. You’re hiking, week in and week out, extended distances well in excess of 20 kilometers.”
Responsible research, he said, must account for the physiological differences between men and women when studying the “sustained wear and tear on the body,” and the physical endurance associated with increasingly more demanding individual and collective tasks.
“The only way to truly understand the potential challenges for our female Marines out in the operating forces is to develop this purpose-built experimental task force and put that task force through a training syllabus,” Smith said, adding that such training requires a building-block approach that progresses into increasingly more demanding individual tasks. “We need to do that by simulating an operational environment.”
By late summer 2015, researchers from within the Marine Corps and external agencies are expected to present their data to the commandant of the Marine Corps to “inform his best military judgment as to how he wants to proceed in making recommendations to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense,” Smith said.
“It’s important for everybody to understand that (full integration) is actual law,” Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos said during an interview with MarinesTV Feb. 29. “And there’s no force on the face of the earth that obeys laws more than the United States Marines do. We not only obey them, we enforce them.”
Data collected from the task force will support other efforts the Corps is conducting, which officials announced March 12:
- Since 2012, female officers and staff noncommissioned officers have had the opportunity to serve in more than 20 ground-combat-arms battalions that were previously closed to women. Sergeants and corporals will now have the same opportunity, and females will now be assigned at the company and battery levels.
- Female Marine recruits will have the opportunity to volunteer for more ground-combat-arms schools following their graduation from boot camp, much like the Corps has been doing with its infantry rifleman training since September 2013. The additional schools include more infantry training such as machine gunner, mortarman, assaultman and anti-tank missleman courses, as well as artillery cannoneer, tank crewman and assault amphibian vehicle crewman courses.
- Pending completion of Congressional notification, the Marine Corps will open 11 occupational specialties in three previously closed fields: artillery, ground ordnance maintenance and low-altitude air defense. Following the opening of these military occupational specialties, the Corps will have 20 of its 335 primary MOSs closed.
The efforts are unprecedented; however, Smith pointed to the Corps’ decades of incremental integration: “I’ll use the aviation-combat element as an example: We’ve had fully integrated combat squadrons for 20 years. We just had our first female squadron commander a couple years ago. They’ve performed tremendously in Iraq and Afghanistan – pilots, aircrew, maintainers; you name it – fully integrated, fully cohesive, high-morale squadrons.”
The recent research efforts are near-term but Smith said they are meant to shape the Marine Corps for decades to come: “As we do this, the commandant has been absolutely clear that we are going to maintain the highest levels of combat readiness – the combat readiness that America demands of her Marines.”
Smith said female Marines have time and again expressed to the commandant that all they want is the opportunity to compete on an equitable playing field, and given the mandates of the Secretary of Defense, the Marine Corps must gather all it can in the next 18 months “to ensure that when we open an MOS, that our female Marines are going to be successful in that MOS.”
And success, Smith said, must be measured beyond entering into that occupational specialty and getting to that unit: “It is being successful over a truly viable career path, over the course of 20 or even 30 years.”
The Corps may request an exception to the Department of Defense policy if opening certain units or occupational specialties by deadline does not meet specific guidelines. That includes ensuring mission readiness as well as viable career paths.
“We are not going to lower the standards, and I want all Marines everywhere to understand that,” Amos said. “We are America’s premier fighting force. When the Klaxon sounds, and they say, ‘Send in the Marines,’ we are going to be ready, and we better be ready because the first time we fail, then America quite honestly doesn’t need a Marine Corps anymore.”
On behalf of the women out here i would just like to say thank you
for giving the females marines a chance. After all they made. it. thisfar.
I have never, in my entire career, seen a female marine ever complete a hike with all her gear OR completely fall out of formation. Ive also yet to see one do 3 pull ups. Ever.
Just because you or a very few can doesnt mean they all can, or should.
What woman do you know is capable of wearing 80 lbs of gear, then drag a 200lb man with 80 lbs of gear 30 feet without stopping?
EQUAL RIGHTS IS NOT SPECIAL RIGHTS
well i am only seventeen and i can do 7 pull ups with my marine corps recruiter approval on everyone!!!!!! so dont act like it cant be done … we can do what you do just takes us a little more time to be able to but then we can do it just as good…
we have the passion….. we have the dedication… so what if we have vaginas:)
Well if females want equal rights they should not be held to a different PFT standard, therefore, maxing the run and pull-ups should be the same 18 mins and 20 respectively. Granted there are males that can’t max or even pass their PFT, they shouldn’t be combat deployable either, however, if a female can meet the same physical and mental standards as the males in infantry I see no reason why they couldn’t be a part of the infantry. They just haven’t found one that is wanting and able as far as I know.
[…] this year, 40 females passed the less arduous enlisted infantry rifleman training at the School of Infantry in Camp Lejeune and […]
Women don’t belong in the military much less the USMC infantry. If the USMC allows women in the combat arms MOS they just destroyed the USMC. They might as well as disband it. Look at the history of the USMC. Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Chosin Reservoir, Khe Shan, Battle of Hue, Fallujah, etc…..No woman would have survived these battles without jeopardizing the safety of the male Marines. I’m sorry, that’s the cold hard truth. Chesty Puller is rolling over in his grave at the terrible direction the USMC is heading.