U.S. Marines WEAKEN fitness requirement for women, won’t make them do three pull-ups

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• Damn here we go. Political Correctness running wild. Yet all the NAGs want to put women in combat. If they can't do three pull ups how are they going to be expected to drag a wound comrade, or carry a full rucksack. Which by the way can weigh up to 80lbs.

  There's nothing wrong with women in the service, changing the requirements to qualify is only going to cause more deaths and injuries that could easily be prevented.

  • Okay, I'll say it because I believe it, women do not belong in a combat role. Period. As the head count of the military continues to shrink, a female population within that diminished head count weakens our combat readiness. Can they pack parachutes or perform other service support functions? Maybe but given the aforementioned reduction in force, I say THAT is a bad idea too.

    Strina, I knowing I'm pissing you off and I am sorry but I was an infantry officer and I clearly recall my friends in the support battalions constantly complaining how their female troops always found a way to avoid the field or deployment, which weakened those units.

    If I'm missing something I'm open to a different point of view.

• I'm 54 and although I haven't tried to do pull ups in many years, I think if I worked at it a little, I could do that.

• If they can't do 3 pull-ups, how in the hell do they expect them to haul around a 50lb backpack and a 6 or 7 lb rifle all day?
  This is all part of Quagmire's brilliant military strategy, just make like the French and surrender.

• No worries. The UN is voting on a resolution that will force armies that encounter female troops on the battlefield to "not try as hard" and use smaller bullets. Armies using female troops will need to "declare" such with the use of pink smoke grenades on the battlefield as everyone looks alike in camo. France is proposing to amend this resolution with the use of pink flags in case they need to hand the country over to an all female German commando unit.

  • Pink smoke ? Pink flags ? I think you are thinking of another recently admitted sub-group .

    • .223 isn't small enough?

• Women can do pull ups if they are physically fit. If they can't do them...they probably aren't fit enough to perform the other fitness requirements. They actually should be stepping up the requirements...not lessening them.

• This new rule creates a lose/lose situation. The women that can do the pull-ups are denied the opportunity to prove themselves. The women that cannot do the pull-ups are denied the opportunity to push themselves, which will give them the true confidence they will need. The resentment felt by the men will deny the women the respect they must have to be a trusted member of the team.
  While no standard should ever be created to keep one group of people out, lowering the standards for one group will keep them ostracized and weaken the whole team.

  • You have just described the entire history of affirmative action.

    • That, sir, is a brilliant and scathing observation. I wish the above exchange could appear on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

    • This is affirmative action, just in camo.

• Didn't we discuss this in a thread at IHTM about a year ago, and didn't I predict they would lower the physical requirements so women could pass the fitness tests?

  Here it is, more than a year ago: https://www.ihatethemedia.com/obama-wants-women-in-combat-infantry-units

  We talked then about lower requirements for women, and look how prescient we were.

• Beat swords into knitting needles

  • Or barrettes.

• Funny, I always thought the Marine Corps was a fighting force, not a jobs program. I must have been mistaken.

  • It's run by the EEOC now.
    The Generals have all been fired and replaced with social workers.

    • And the benefits cut.

• Saturate the pillow with chloroform...

  • Or pig's blood.

    • ... or Diane Feinstein's (I know, redundant!).