Women Should Be Allowed In The Military

There are many reasons not to allow female Marines to be integrated into Combat Arms Military Occupational Specialties’ (MOS), it is known that females are on average physically weaker than the males, they are more susceptible injury and cannot to maintain hygiene in a field environment, and they would serve as distraction to the all-male infantry platoons. Overall, females would not be able to compete physically with the males, and would serve as a constant liability their platoon’s and degrade their combat effectiveness. Personal hygiene in a field environment is paramount, and is a fact the females cannot maintain their cleanliness overextend periods of time. Lastly, females would serve as a constant distraction to the Combat Arms community,

Let’s take a step back a look at this at from a sports point of view. If men and women are physically the same, then why aren’t they playing NFL football, fighting “Iron” Mike Tyson, or grappling Mixed Martial Arts champion Gregor McConner? If women aren’t allowed to engage in co-ed contact sports, then why should they be allowed in combat? Unnecessary risks like this cost Marine’s their lives. At minimum, our infantry need to have the ability to drag our wounded that wear in excess of sometimes over 100 pounds of extra gear to an extract point. No one wants to explain to a Marine’s family that their son expired on the field of combat, due the lack of physical ability. The average female Army recruit is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4 fewer pounds of muscle, and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit. She has only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the lower-body strength (Mitchell, 1998, p. 141). With that being said, it’s hard to believe that a female that would be assigned to a machine gun section within a Weapons platoon would not be able to carry the minimum of 70 pounds of ammo, a 30 pound 240B machine gun, and an additional 100 pounds of standard gear worn in a combat in environment. There are a small percentage of women that can physically outperform the males in the infantry, but they are more

Combat Arm’s MOS’s are known for operating and traveling via foot to dirty, nasty, and areas of operation that do not have running water or other means to adequately clean yourself. The Marine Corps deemed females undergoing entry-level training were injured at more than six-times the rate of their male counterparts 27% of female injuries were attributed to the movement under load, compared to 13% for their male counterparts (Lamothe, 2013). Females also run the risk of urinary tract and yeast infections caused by the inability properly attend to their “womanly” needs, and often would need an extraction for medical treatment. Combat is hard enough while sustaining injuries from our enemies. America needs to know that our Marines on the front line of combat are thriving and taking the fight our enemies, not barely getting to the objective and having reassess themselves for injury. It would be devastating to a Marine in combat if his squad leader needed to be extracted for avoidable injury, or even worst, a hygiene issue. These genetically self-inflicted ailments are just the beginning of all of the distract females would bring to the Combat Arm’s