Controversy surrounds firing of Marines' female recruit battalion CO

[The Human Q-Tip]

One of the most heinous crimes an officer can commit is rocking the boat. Mediocre GOs and Field Grades hate initiative. Makes them look bad.

Generally, the Marine Corps is pretty good at not being like that. Disagreements, even with more senior personnel, were actually encouraged. The professional magazine for officers, the Marine Corps Gazette, often has running arguments on various tactical or other issues between officers of various ranks. Some full bird will write an article, and then some Lt. writes a letter critiquing it. Lt.'s were actually encouraged to do that stuff.

But this thing was "Political" with a capital "P", because it went to a core issue of gender integration/biases. And at that point, everyone runs for the hills rather than making waves, because that's a fight you can never win.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

They should all be trained as hard as possible. Everyone should be put through the wringer because that is what saves lives down the line.

Agreed.

The Corps didn't expect much from the female boots and some folks took it as an opportunity to sham.

There's truth in this. But there's a weird tightrope here. Unless you lower the male standards to the point of irrelevance, you cannot hold males and females to the same physical performance standards. So there is an inherent recognition that the women, overall, are not as physically competent as the men. And it's something that's visible almost every day in training, from the women generally being significantly slower when carrying gear, to lower walls on the obstacle course, knotted rope instead of smooth for rope climbs, etc.. It's unavoidable, and you can't help but notice and plan around it.

But that distinction creates a bit of a dichotomy with the basic ethos of every Marine being a rifleman, etc.. So the way the Marine Corps has handled that traditionally is to deal with it up front, and consider "WM's" a bit of a different animal from male Marines. They make great contributions, have a lot of great skills, but they're not the same, and the Corps has decided not to pretend that they are. But the recognition of that reality can easily create a tendency not to demand as much of WM's as they are capable of doing,

It is a tough thing for trainers, particularly male trainers. If I'm XO (tail-end Charlie) of a company of male Marines on a conditioning hike, I can be as hard as I want on guys that aren't keeping up because the standard is clear. You must keep up with the pace. But if there are women in the group...what then? I can't expect them to keep up with the men, so exactly how do I handle the women as they fall behind?

Fuck if I know. Sure, I can say "get your ass up there", but ultimately, there's no clear standard to which to hold them.

Of course, this situation involved a female officer trying to hold women to a higher standard. But still...exactly what standard is that? She wanted her company to march with the rest of the (male) battalion. Good for her. But they couldn't keep up, and that's inevitable. So what then? When she started berating the women for not keeping up, she ran headfirst into that tension between trying to get the maximum out of her Marines, and the inherent physical differences between men and women. So, it's tough.

Then along comes an officer who gives a shit and starts making everyone work very hard. Some took exception and complained.

My reading of the article was that it was female recruits doing the complaining. And that also puts the command in a tough position, because they need to graduate a certain percentage of women over time, and if she's running out women who aren't okay with her methods/standards...what then? It's just a horribly difficult situation.

Outside her unit it is not hard to see that some were either irritated by her methods and personality or otherwise didn't want to change the status quo.

Well, her superiors are getting bombarded with complaints from the female recruits that their (female) CO is using "gender-biased" language pushing "gender stereotypes", and overall just being rotten to them. And as soon as the "gender-biased" shit makes its appearance, the brass is going to act to quell it, because that's The Most Important Thing. I can't know if they handled it appropriately, but I have sympathy for the PC-vise in which they found themselves. Either chew out a female officer, or permit "gender-biasing" to continue. Shit.

That 71% on initial marksmanship was tolerated, much less accepted at Parris Island, is a giant red flag as to the priority that Col. Haas and BG Williams have placed on training female recruits. If I were the Corps Commandant I would fly out there and chew some asses.

This is a bit more ambiguous to me, because the amount of marksmanship training received has always be the same regardless of gender. The scores for the men also went up, which tells me that they made a substantive change to the marksmanship program as a whole. And if they added a few more days of snapping-in or prequel, that's going to have the biggest impact on those who had the least familiarity with firearms before arriving at the PI -- women. And the truth is that the CO's and series officers aren't responsible for marksmanship training anyway. That's all done by full-time marksmanship instructors. So despite the spin, the increase in scores likely had little or nothing to do with her.

Without knowing the full details, my immediate impression is that this was a travesty. I hope Congress re-instates her and the Corps takes a harder look at how they train their female Marines.

One of the things I noted from the article was that the academic scores of her troops decreased.. So my guess is this:

She made physical conditioning and performance a higher priority for women than it had been previously. This had two effects: First, it meant less study time, so academic scores dropped. Second, it kind of shone a spotlight on the differing physical standards for men and women, and the tensions created by that. That latter effect was enhanced by her use of language like "the men won't respect you if...." etc....

It's a tough situation because at least some of what she did -- pushing the women harder when she had them in the field, etc. -- was great. My guess is that she was sunk by 1) her choice of language, and 2) complaints by female recruits.

I'm just glad I wasn't above her in the C-O-C, because that's one nasty little tar baby.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Are debilitating stress fractures common in male military?

Much more common among women.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'll get to the rest of your stuff later, Torn.

I think that Parris Island intends to use these test scores to show clearly why women shouldn't be in combat units for 2016.

.

They likely wouldn't use boot camp data for that. They're actually running women through the infantry course to compile that.

 

[Soda]

Fair point. But, what do you specifically have in mind?

They can step-up the curbing of misogynistic practices that women have been subjected to. It's there because a culture has been established that had been predominantly male and, thus, objectivity of women has been the norm. It can be adjusted as more women join, but they should continue to actively assimilate females into the culture of the armed forces. Additionally, sexual assault related issues probably shouldn't be handled by the chain of command. I feel like there's a better way to deal with it.

I'm not sure if this is already the case, but in conjunction of trying to have women reach the physical demands of men, they can develop specialized training for sensitive situations. This is a "stereotype" of my own, but I feel like women in the military would be a more welcome face to civilians in a war-zone than their male counterparts. We're in a period in wartime where brute force isn't the only tactic; strength alone is more futile than a comprehensive strategy. Women are unique compared to men in more ways than just sexual. After some experience with women on the front-lines, I'd be willing to be that the military will better understand how to approach forming a unit.

 

[Tornicade]

They can step-up the curbing of misogynistic practices that women have been subjected to. It's there because a culture has been established that had been predominantly male and, thus, objectivity of women has been the norm. It can be adjusted as more women join, but they should continue to actively assimilate females into the culture of the armed forces. Additionally, sexual assault related issues probably shouldn't be handled by the chain of command. I feel like there's a better way to deal with it.

I'm not sure if this is already the case, but in conjunction of trying to have women reach the physical demands of men, they can develop specialized training for sensitive situations. This is a "stereotype" of my own, but I feel like women in the military would be a more welcome face to civilians in a war-zone than their male counterparts. We're in a period in wartime where brute force isn't the only tactic; strength alone is more futile than a comprehensive strategy. Women are unique compared to men in more ways than just sexual. After some experience with women on the front-lines, I'd be willing to be that the military will better understand how to approach forming a unit.

They have this its called Greenpeace.

Changing tires on their vehicles, carrying their weapons. pulling out fellow soldiers of burning vehicles. being able to pull themselves out of a fox hole.

this is basic training and not imposing those standards on the women is exactly the type of behaviour your preaching against.

Its not an issue of women not being capable it an issue of lowered expectations leading to lower results and not doing the ones who will participate in infantry training any favors.. largely by increasing their risk for injury by being completely unprepared for the next stage.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

They can step-up the curbing of misogynistic practices that women have been subjected to. It's there because a culture has been established that had been predominantly male and, thus, objectivity of women has been the norm. It can be adjusted as more women join, but they should continue to actively assimilate females into the culture of the armed forces.

I honestly don't know what any of that actually means. It's like a too-verbose Powerpoint slide from a diversity training seminar.

I'm not sure if this is already the case, but in conjunction of trying to have women reach the physical demands of men, they can develop specialized training for sensitive situations. This is a "stereotype" of my own, but I feel like women in the military would be a more welcome face to civilians in a war-zone than their male counterparts.

.

That depends on exactly what they want the soldiers in question to do, doesn't it? If they want bad guys killed, then I'm not sure seeing women would be more welcome.

There are times when the military uses females to make liaison with local females in non-combat situations. It's a common sense thing to do, and nobody really opposes it.

We're in a period in wartime where brute force isn't the only tactic; strength alone is more futile than a comprehensive strategy.

That's always been true, but it has nothing in particular to do with gender.

 

[Tornicade]

Agreed.



There's truth in this. But there's a weird tightrope here. Unless you lower the male standards to the point of irrelevance, you cannot hold males and females to the same physical performance standards. So there is an inherent recognition that the women, overall, are not as physically competent as the men. And it's something that's visible almost every day in training, from the women generally being significantly slower when carrying gear, to lower walls on the obstacle course, knotted rope instead of smooth for rope climbs, etc.. It's unavoidable, and you can't help but notice and plan around it.

But that distinction creates a bit of a dichotomy with the basic ethos of every Marine being a rifleman, etc.. So the way the Marine Corps has handled that traditionally is to deal with it up front, and consider "WM's" a bit of a different animal from male Marines. They make great contributions, have a lot of great skills, but they're not the same, and the Corps has decided not to pretend that they are. But the recognition of that reality can easily create a tendency not to demand as much of WM's as they are capable of doing,

It is a tough thing for trainers, particularly male trainers. If I'm XO (tail-end Charlie) of a company of male Marines on a conditioning hike, I can be as hard as I want on guys that aren't keeping up because the standard is clear. You must keep up with the pace. But if there are women in the group...what then? I can't expect them to keep up with the men, so exactly how do I handle the women as they fall behind?

Fuck if I know. Sure, I can say "get your ass up there", but ultimately, there's no clear standard to which to hold them.

Of course, this situation involved a female officer trying to hold women to a higher standard. But still...exactly what standard is that? She wanted her company to march with the rest of the (male) battalion. Good for her. But they couldn't keep up, and that's inevitable. So what then? When she started berating the women for not keeping up, she ran headfirst into that tension between trying to get the maximum out of her Marines, and the inherent physical differences between men and women. So, it's tough.



My reading of the article was that it was female recruits doing the complaining. And that also puts the command in a tough position, because they need to graduate a certain percentage of women over time, and if she's running out women who aren't okay with her methods/standards...what then? It's just a horribly difficult situation.



Well, her superiors are getting bombarded with complaints from the female recruits that their (female) CO is using "gender-biased" language pushing "gender stereotypes", and overall just being rotten to them. And as soon as the "gender-biased" shit makes its appearance, the brass is going to act to quell it, because that's The Most Important Thing. I can't know if they handled it appropriately, but I have sympathy for the PC-vise in which they found themselves. Either chew out a female officer, or permit "gender-biasing" to continue. Shit.



This is a bit more ambiguous to me, because the amount of marksmanship training received has always be the same regardless of gender. The scores for the men also went up, which tells me that they made a substantive change to the marksmanship program as a whole. And if they added a few more days of snapping-in or prequel, that's going to have the biggest impact on those who had the least familiarity with firearms before arriving at the PI -- women. And the truth is that the CO's and series officers aren't responsible for marksmanship training anyway. That's all done by full-time marksmanship instructors. So despite the spin, the increase in scores likely had little or nothing to do with her.



One of the things I noted from the article was that the academic scores of her troops decreased.. So my guess is this:

She made physical conditioning and performance a higher priority for women than it had been previously. This had two effects: First, it meant less study time, so academic scores dropped. Second, it kind of shone a spotlight on the differing physical standards for men and women, and the tensions created by that. That latter effect was enhanced by her use of language like "the men won't respect you if...." etc....

It's a tough situation because at least some of what she did -- pushing the women harder when she had them in the field, etc. -- was great. My guess is that she was sunk by 1) her choice of language, and 2) complaints by female recruits.

I'm just glad I wasn't above her in the C-O-C, because that's one nasty little tar baby.

both of those "reasons" can most likely be found in Any CO being targeted . just like in the corporate world. The raising of expectation and request for coop hikes earlier in the boot camp were refused.

The chiding for finishing a march a half hour later than the men wasnt a coop venture . it was what she was using as barometer just as she did with the weapons.

The programs she implemented did significantly improve these trainees times and the amount of injuries reported reduced significantly as a result.

Taking away the chairs for ceremonial hikes because the men didnt have chairs was what she faced when she first got there. by the time she was fired the women didnt need or want the chairs anymore.
Col Thornbush had no time for private benjamin in the marines
MCTE did advise after their investigation that the amount of Drill trainers was insufficient for the battalion and recommended a command survey that only allowed one survey per person. both matters that created issues between the training Haas and the Germano

The commander also had 2 investigations and neither of them made any supporting determination that fell in line with the commanders interpretation of the 300page report.
Seems the standards for what is "abusive" behaviour for a Woman battalion CO is significantly different from a Male CO

 

[Tornicade]

From Last year.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Milita...arine-infantry-course-are-asked-to-leave.-Why
These women passed the entry physical and then were dismissed along with three males for falling behind the hike group.
It was a nine mile hike which was tasked to take three hours. No group made it within 4.
In the past these types of hikes noone is supposed to go faster than three miles per hour and one questions that pacing that was set for this hike.

some people were upset that a group got dismissed for a hike failed by all the groups that participated.. Them da rules though.


Maybe the Women werent ready to meet the demands of the officer training class or maybe there were some within the class trying to make it harder for these women to succeed. or maybe a mixture of both.

regardless the women themselves said it was a good experience and didnt cry foul.

maybe they had no reason to or maybe they did but they werent gonana let it get them down because they had earned the right to try.


this is the type of scrutiny that wil occur whenever the Women marines fail to meet objectives or vice versa.

but it demonstrates that once out of boot camp The women face the same litmus test as the men so boot camp should be no different

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

both of those "reasons" can most likely be found in Any CO being targeted . just like in the corporate world. The raising of expectation and request for coop hikes earlier in the boot camp were refused.

The problem with joint marches is that the male units would have to go more slowly so the female unit could keep up. That may be great to raise the expectations of the women, but not so good for challenging the males. Either that, or they're going to be strung out almost immediately, which defeats the purpose of a joint march in the first place.

Taking away the chairs for ceremonial hikes because the men didnt have chairs was what she faced when she first got there. by the time she was fired the women didn't need or want the chairs anymore. Col Thornbush had no time for private benjamin in the marines.

I completely agree with what she did there. Chairs were dumb, and it was a good move to get rid of them. Doesn't seem like she was disciplined or criticized for that, thought.

The commander also had 2 investigations and neither of them made any supporting determination that fell in line with the commanders interpretation of the 300page report.
Seems the standards for what is "abusive" behaviour for a Woman battalion CO is significantly different from a Male CO

Depends on your perspective. Maybe a better way to word it is that the standard for what is "abusive behavior" towards female recruits is different than the standard for what is "abusive behavior" towards male recruits. Or maybe that the standard for how the command responded to generic bitching by male recruits is different from how they'd respond to allegations of gender discrimination by female recruits.

The issue here was female recruits* were making allegations of gender biasing and gender stereotyping against that female colonel, and she wanted her command to back her up. She claims that complaints from male recruits regarding their male commander were generally dismissed more readily. She's almost certainly right about that, but the distinguishing factor may not be her gender, but rather the gender of those complaining and the "gender-biased" nature of those complaints.

To put it differently, let's say it was female recruits saying that a male commander was engaging in gender bias and gender stereotyping. What would have been the reaction from the brass in that situation? My guess is it would have been the exact same, or maybe even worse. If he was lucky, he'd be told to knock it off. But in any case, if he was told to back off and didn't, he'd likely have gotten slammed.

*I keep saying that the complaints were coming from female recruits, because the article does make it clear that some recruits complaints. But there's kind of a missing link here of everyone else in the chain of command between her and the recruits. She would have had Series Commanders and Assistant Series Commanders (all officers) under her command, as well as the enlisted drill instructors and assistant DI's, plus her Sgt. Major and staff. All of them would have been female as well. And the article doesn't tell us if any of them complained, or what they said about her during the investigation.

I absolutely agree with the general thrust of what she was trying to do. I'm just not sure that the way she wanted to do it ("men won't respect you if you can't keep up") was consistent with the policy decisions/guidance coming down from civilian leadership with which the Marine Corps has to comply.

I'm not completely absolving the command. There may be some hard-headedness/resentment regarding the gender push, so when they got complaints regarding gender bias from female recruits, they basically laid down and said "fuck it, we're not dealing with this shit", and so gave in. But I don't know that for sure, and we also don't know what the past history has been regarding how prior claims of gender bias/discrimination at PI impacted the Command. They may have been through the ringer a few times with the diversity police, and simply felt they had no choice but to err on the side of eliminating "gender-bias".

The ironic part of all this is that she complained about the claims of gender bias made against her by female recruits, then turns around makes her own claim of gender bias against her superiors. I can imagine the brass at PI bitching about the "damned if we do, damned if we don't" inevitabilities of having the gender police go after the military.

 

[MikeOC33]

Can't they just make all the female recuits cooks or something like that? Aren't there weapons that need to be cleaned? Parade ground gardens to keep and that sort of thing? Come on, let's be real here people.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

btw, the comments below the article are really interesting and worth reading. Good number of people who knew her/served with her. Basically, the thrust of most of them is that she was basically shining a light on a problem that everyone knew existed (lower standards, softer treatment of females) but nobody wanted to address. Some men who served with her really respected her.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/...corps-female-recruit-unit-commander/29763371/

It really sucks. I think most of us here would agree that she was trying to do the right thing, but the reality is that toughening up standards for women as a whole is going to meet with a ton of resistance from some of those women because that's not what they signed up for. Of course, there also will be some hard-charging women, like her, that would really like to see tougher standards, etc., and they'll eat that shit up. But the military branches have their personnel goals and staffing requirements, and those can't be met just by hard-chargers. Plus, there will be pushback from some gender advocates that toughening up on women is really just a disguise for harassing/forcing them out.

it's a shitty problem.

ETA: If anyone has the interest, that link also contains a copy of the full investigation, which includes all the witness statements, etc.. That's obviously even more enlightening because it provides more specifics. IT's clear that complaints were coming not just from the recruits, but from other officers and NCO's.

Her "blaming the victim" for sexual assaults seems to have been a major concern, especially given how sexual assaults in the military have become such a cause celeb. I still don't think she's wrong, but it's also clear why she was relieved. It's great reading the comments attributed to her by complaining parties, though. Clear she was a no-bullshit type of leader.

 

[Marcus]

Sounds like she's getting the raw end of the deal here, honestly. I've seen way too many soldiers that have slipped through the cracks and been able to get away with being a height/weight and PT failure for years, who aren't even that useful in other areas, either. The chain of command always talks about chaptering these people out, but it never happens. I've seen one soldier in the last four years get barred from re-enlistment for PT, which was a shame because even though he was lower enlisted, he was more knowledgeable than most of the other soldiers in my company and was able to flat out get shit done.

Seeing people slip through the cracks like that, witnessing firsthand what toxic leadership can do... it's not hard to understand why the military is currently struggling with retention.

Regarding the blaming of the victim in sexual assault cases, however, I can't excuse that. That's just wrong, if true. That and suicide are two of the hottest issues in the military right now, and unfortunately there are several instances where the two go hand-in-hand. I can appreciate a no-bullshit leader who wants to get things done and get the most out of her personnel, but that is inexcusable.

Hopefully as the war in Afghanistan winds down, there will be more of a focus on weeding these substandard personnel out of the ranks -- the ones who can't pass a PT test, do their jobs, malinger, have a poor attitude, don't even want to be in, etc. It's not difficult to at least meet the minimum standards to avoid getting flagged. I don't have an athletic bone in my body and I'm able to pass a PT test pretty easily, and female fitness standards (I can only speak from an Army perspective, but I'm sure it's similar across the board) are notoriously easier than male standards, too.

Regarding the draw down, the Army is supposed to be cutting 40,000 soldiers from its ranks over the next two years. Hopefully they will be targeting the people that shouldn't be there. I don't know if there are any similar plans for the other branches.

I've always been of the opinion that if a female wants to be in a combat arms MOS, they should be required to pass the same physical fitness/readiness standards as males, where applicable. Or just put together one list of gender-neutral standards.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The "blaming the victim" claim was in reference to her telling the women not to get drunk at a guy's place. To me, that's just sound advice, but some didn't see it that way.

And this was at Parris Island, so it was her toughening it up for all women regardless of MOS. But it obviously has some relevance to the issue of putting women in the infantry.

The more I think about this, the more I suspect she thinks that male and female recruits should be held to the same standards across the board.

While it's certainly possible to debate the merits of that, it's pretty clear that is not the direction that civilian leadership has gone. Because if the President or SecDef had ordered the same standards regardless of gender, the standards would already be the same.

 

[Tornicade]

The problem with joint marches is that the male units would have to go more slowly so the female unit could keep up. That may be great to raise the expectations of the women, but not so good for challenging the males. Either that, or they're going to be strung out almost immediately, which defeats the purpose of a joint march in the first place.



I completely agree with what she did there. Chairs were dumb, and it was a good move to get rid of them. Doesn't seem like she was disciplined or criticized for that, thought.



Depends on your perspective. Maybe a better way to word it is that the standard for what is "abusive behavior" towards female recruits is different than the standard for what is "abusive behavior" towards male recruits. Or maybe that the standard for how the command responded to generic bitching by male recruits is different from how they'd respond to allegations of gender discrimination by female recruits.

The issue here was female recruits* were making allegations of gender biasing and gender stereotyping against that female colonel, and she wanted her command to back her up. She claims that complaints from male recruits regarding their male commander were generally dismissed more readily. She's almost certainly right about that, but the distinguishing factor may not be her gender, but rather the gender of those complaining and the "gender-biased" nature of those complaints.

To put it differently, let's say it was female recruits saying that a male commander was engaging in gender bias and gender stereotyping. What would have been the reaction from the brass in that situation? My guess is it would have been the exact same, or maybe even worse. If he was lucky, he'd be told to knock it off. But in any case, if he was told to back off and didn't, he'd likely have gotten slammed.

*I keep saying that the complaints were coming from female recruits, because the article does make it clear that some recruits complaints. But there's kind of a missing link here of everyone else in the chain of command between her and the recruits. She would have had Series Commanders and Assistant Series Commanders (all officers) under her command, as well as the enlisted drill instructors and assistant DI's, plus her Sgt. Major and staff. All of them would have been female as well. And the article doesn't tell us if any of them complained, or what they said about her during the investigation.

I absolutely agree with the general thrust of what she was trying to do. I'm just not sure that the way she wanted to do it ("men won't respect you if you can't keep up") was consistent with the policy decisions/guidance coming down from civilian leadership with which the Marine Corps has to comply.

I'm not completely absolving the command. There may be some hard-headedness/resentment regarding the gender push, so when they got complaints regarding gender bias from female recruits, they basically laid down and said "fuck it, we're not dealing with this shit", and so gave in. But I don't know that for sure, and we also don't know what the past history has been regarding how prior claims of gender bias/discrimination at PI impacted the Command. They may have been through the ringer a few times with the diversity police, and simply felt they had no choice but to err on the side of eliminating "gender-bias".

The ironic part of all this is that she complained about the claims of gender bias made against her by female recruits, then turns around makes her own claim of gender bias against her superiors. I can imagine the brass at PI bitching about the "damned if we do, damned if we don't" inevitabilities of having the gender police go after the military.

she had 3 drill instructors. the other battalions had 5 each.

Her recruits never made any complaints about gender bias.

she complained about gender bias in her superiors allowing her to perform her job.

A female recruit complaining they feel "less safe" because of something the co said is not a gender bias complaint.. you made it up and put it in there.

you also seem to go back to integration as slowing the men down.. thats not the case at all

they take the same hike at the same time. this doesnt hinder the male company .

There is no justification for the refusal of the commanders at the CO's attempts to further decrease segregation amongst the men and women battalions.

What you have here is a Senior Officer Haas putting an argumenaitive woman in her place.

If Haas was really concerned about the womens complaints he would of followed the MCTE suggestion and done the survey that only allowed one entry per soldier.

Haas declined to increase the amount of drill instructors.

He reprimanded her for contacting the recruiting station to get general background assessment information on her recruits. a common practice by other Co's at parris island in the past when trying to determine a course of action to address training problems.