More Women than ever enter West Point

[USNA69]

Zaphod and USNA69 - I respect your right to your opinion that women should not be in the Army, as I hope you will respect my right to disagree.

Never said any such thing. I said women did not belong in the combat arms(I know this is an archaic term, but don't know what they call it now) and that WP, for survival's sake, should only support combat arms, therefore, under that caviat, women did not belong at WP.

Proactive offensive combat is a special category. Something that can only be taught at a military institution. Make that WP's mission.

Proactive offensive combat is not for females. Taking an incidential mortar round while being a nurse or an IED while in a vehicle is one thing, girding up and going out to actively seek the enemy, and not consider the mission a success unless they do, is something else entirely. Weapons, ammo, claymores, etc. causes the average soldier to be very heavily laden. Will male soldiers be even more heavily laden, impeding their ability to function or will critical munitions be left behind. Bodies get thrown around during battle. I have literally grabbed a stunned newbie by the ass and thrown him into a foxhole. Helos often cannot touch down due to terrain and hover at five feet of elevation or so. As squad leader, I was usually first to the extraction vehicle. Once, under fire, I literally threw my radio operator through the cabin of a Huey, in one door and out the other side. I want a squad who can assist their wounded shipmates, who can carry their fair share, and who can drag my ass out of the line of fire if necessary. It has nothing to do with chauvinism, sexism, or any of those other isms.

I was Lcdr. Dept Head and Detachment Officer in Charge when women first came into the fleet as aviators. If I gave you the names of those young women who worked for me, you could get extensive Google hits on at least three of them and would probably recognize the names of one or two of them. They did well. Very well. Because I supported them and helped them to achieve their full potential. I am not against women in the military.

 

[WAMom68]

Never said any such thing. I said women did not belong in the combat arms(I know this is an archaic term, but don't know what they call it now) and that WP, for survival's sake, should only support combat arms, therefore, under that caviat, women did not belong at WP.

Sorry about that - I did not mean to imply that you are against women in the military. But, I still don't agree with you that WP should only teach combat arms and therefore not accept women.

 

[USNA69]

I was somewhat overstating, just to get a conversation going. USMA does civil engineering very well. Women could join the Corps of Engineers. But the more they water down their syllabus to include support functions, functions which they can obtain more cost effective through ROTC and just as qualified, the more they run the risk of the next liberal non-wartime administration and congress questioning the necessity of their existance.

 

[Just_A_Mom]

First - I just can't see Congress messing with THE United States Military Academy - or USNA and USAFA for that matter. Yeah some ignorant freshman MOC may come in and ask the question but he will get his head bashed in and that will be the end of that.

Second - The Army needs USMA to produce officers. They cannot produce enough through ROTC and OCS to meet there needs. As much as we all would like to believe that kids enlist or become officers to "serve their country" - likely there are more altruistic reasons. They want something - for their sacrifice - the Armed Forces pays them back with education.
USMA and ROTC both have about 4000 enrolled. Congress voted to increase USMA but they can't increase beyond ROTC and ROTC did not have the numbers so USMA could not increase enrollment - this just happened in the last year or two.
Third - USMA has always been two things - a leadership school and an engineering school. Since the Army has to build bridges, roads etc - they have traditionally focused on civil engineering to provide officers for the Corps of Engineers which is a COMBAT ARMS branch - which had officer billets open to women. The focus on leadership, of course, is to provide leaders for troops. The tradional "leading troops into battle" has gone away - war is much more sopisticated now. West Point has always produced officers for both Combat Arms and Combat support units - well before ROTC.
Nevertheless, platoons both Combat Arms and Combat Support need good leaders. Make that Excellent leaders - many of those come from West Point.

FYI:
Combat Arms branches include:
Air Defense Artillery, Armor, Aviation, Corps of Engineers, Field Artillery, Infantry
Combat support brances include:
Chemical corps, Military intelligence corps, military police corps, Signal corps

All of the Combat support branches as well and Corps of Engineers and Aviation are open to women - there may be specific units that are not. I think there maybe some AD Artillery open to women -
As long as the Army draws officers out of USMA to lead troops in units that are open to women then future female officers deserve the same trainings as future male officers. The most important thing though is that our enlisted soldiers deserve to the lead by the best officers no matter what branch or unit they serve.

 

[Just_A_Mom]

The only officer career fields that are closed to women are Infantry, Armor and special forces. West Point training encompasses but goes far beyond those three fields. Female cadets undergo the same training as the male cadets.

 

[Zaphod]

Oh Zaphod - my advice - when she is of that impressionable age of between 10-14 don't take her anywhere near USNA - haha ! She will be in awe and want to go there and you won't be able to stop her

Too late. I took both of them when they were 5 and 6, and now both say they want to go.

Of course, the older one wants to be a vet, so I don't think USNA will be the best choice.

but you would be a proud dad for sure!

More than you can possibly imagine!

Of course, it would also send their mother into hissing fits, so....

Then with your luck she will probably come out a Marine!

Still better than Army.

 

[WAMom68]

We recently watched the DVD called “West Point- The first 200 years”. Congress threatening to close West Point is nothing new. I was surprised to find out that West Point has been through this several times since it was created. Every time they came close to shutting the place down something happened to change their minds…usually it was a war. The officers West Point produces were desperately needed so that was the end of talk to close the academy.

In my opinion the value of the academy is more than just producing officers for the Army. ROTC can produce fine officers. West Point is total immersion in the Army; you don’t get that with ROTC. While doing ROTC most of your day is as a regular student and a small part is as a soldier. At West Point you are a soldier all day, every day, along with attending college classes. My son chose West Point over a 4 year AROTC scholarship because he wanted this total Army environment. He knows he would have been a good officer through ROTC but he felt West Point would make him the best officer he can be.

 

[subskipper]

Women in Submarines

Using that logic - women should be banned from USNA since they are not allowed to go Subs.

If you were to ask the Navy leadership in the Pentagon about women in submarines they would say, "That's a fleet issue. Go talk to the people in Norfolk." If you were to go and ask the Atlantic Fleet leadership in Norfolk they would say, "That's a Pentagon issue. Go up and talk to them."

So in reality the issue of women in submarines is about halfway between, stuck on I-95 north of Richmond, near the King's Dominion amusement park.

 

[Zaphod]

So in reality the issue of women in submarines is about halfway between, stuck on I-95 north of Richmond, near the King's Dominion amusement park.

Wouldn't surprise me. The traffic there is horrific!

 

[Just_A_Mom]

So women are not barred by Congress from serving on subs? Perhaps that was lifted in the 90's when they were allowed to serve on ships?
Is the excuse the Navy give for keeping women from subs because of "close quarters" or "danger" ?

I think the issue of women in combat units in the Army is the same way - not specifically denied by Congress but the Dept of the Army says they are abiding by the "intent of Congress".

By the way - For West Point grads - the Dept of the Army requires 80% of the male grads and 20% of the female grads to branch Combat Arms. The rest go Combat Arms support or combat services support.

 

[WAMom68]

By the way - For West Point grads - the Dept of the Army requires 80% of the male grads and 20% of the female grads to branch Combat Arms. The rest go Combat Arms support or combat services support.

Last weekend at our local WP parent's club meeting we heard a presentation about the branching process. I found out that the only two branches women cannot join are infantry and armor. This was news to me because I thought they weren't allowed in artillery either. He also gave us branching numbers for class of 2007, showing each branch and the numbers of men and women choosing that branch. It was a very interesting presentation.

 

[Just_A_Mom]

Here is a great link from the USMA webiste on Females in combat arms:
http://www.usma.edu/dmi/pdf/femalesincombatarms.pdf

The "problem" with women branching artillery - esp field artillery is their options are severely limited. Even in the Corps of Engineers - most junior officers go into a combat engineer unit but females are barred from combat engineer units.

Last year we were told the 3 most popular branches were infantry, armor and aviation - this was for ROTC grads - did they give you any indications on popularity of branches? The last stats I saw indicated that about 85% of USMA grads got their first choice.

 

[WAMom68]

He didn't tell us the popularity of each branch but I can post the c/o 2007 totals by branch if that helps. He said if your son or daughter is in the bottom 25% of his or her branch of choice, they are vulnerable to not receiving their top choice. But, a cadet volunteering for "BRADSO" can bump out a cadet holding a higher cadet performance ranking. (BRADSO = commit to an additional 3 year of active duty and get your branch of choice.)

c/o 2007 - The following numbers are # of males/# of females/total:
Combat:
Infantry 199/0/199
Armor 99/0/99
Field Artillery 125/0/125
Air Defense Artillery 62/2/64
Aviation 90/15/105
Engineers 118/15/133
total combat arms 693/32/725

Combat Support:
Signal Corps 41/6/47
Military Intelligence 67/27/94
Military Police 11/13/24
Chemical Corps 3/10/13

Combat Service Support:
Quartermaster 9/6/15
Ordnance 6/7/13
Transportation 9/6/15
Finance 2/2/4
Adjutant General 0/20/20
Total for CS and CSS 148/97/245

Special:
Medical 15/2/17
Medical Service Corps 10/10/20

Total of all for class of 2007 866/141/1007