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Cotton: U.S. Army’s Affirmative Action For Women ‘Is Going To Get People Killed’


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https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4063055/posts

 

"Only 52 percent of active-duty enlisted women, compared to 92 percent of the men, were able to pass the Army Combat Fitness Test.

It was gratifying to watch Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton questioning Christine Wormuth, the first female Secretary of the Army, at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Sen. Cotton, a Ranger-qualified infantry veteran, respectfully chastised Wormuth for the “fiasco” that the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) has become. For the past three years, the Army has tried but failed to implement “gender-neutral” standards in the new Combat Fitness Test — mainly because of high failure rates among female trainees.

After women in combat rules changed in 2015, the Army designed the ACFT to be sex-neutral, with identical requirements and scoring tables for men and women. The new ACFT would replace the long-standing Army Physical Fitness Test, which was sex-normed with different requirements and scores to allow for male/female physical differences. 

At that time, women were not eligible for direct ground combat (infantry) assignments. Now that they are, sex-normed training standards are untenable. There is no sex-norming on the battlefield.

Cotton read back to Wormuth her own 2021 testimony promising that the new ACFT would have sex-neutral standards. When former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter ordered all combat positions to be opened for women in 2015, he and the Army’s official Implementation Plan promised that concerns about combat effectiveness would be addressed by “effective leadership” and “gender-neutral standards.”

Dangerous Lowered Standards

Nevertheless, after several versions of the ACFT failed, this year the Army dropped sex neutrality and reinstated sex-norming. Secretary Wormuth acknowledged the Army’s stunning reversal, suggesting that the new ACFT was “more challenging.” Cotton responded bluntly: “The new standards are pathetic — They are absolutely pathetic.”

Cotton noted that soldiers qualifying for the infantry will have to do only 10 push-ups instead of 35. He also quoted the Army’s Frequently Asked Questions webpage stating that commanders may not set higher standards for acceptance or retention in a combat unit. “This,” said Cotton, “is going to get people killed.”  "
 
Senator Cotton gets it absolutely right.  Read the entire article.  When they say "equality", what they MEAN is special privileges for women.
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More from the article:

"Gender-neutral standards did not work in the ACFT, and as we have already seen in the Special Operations Forces Command, “diversity and inclusion” mandates encourage minimal standards, not meritocratic excellence.

A recent Rasmussen poll found that 59 percent of respondents favored women in combat, but even more, 66 percent, said that women should pass the same physical fitness requirements as male soldiers. What if women don’t meet equal standards?

Cotton said he was “disappointed and borderline appalled” by the situation, and he would not allow it to stand. He and Secretary Wormuth were talking about two different things — combat effectiveness on his side and “fairness” to certain “subgroups” on hers. Congress should re-evaluate female combat assignment policies, putting meritocracy and military readiness first."

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"Cotton read back to Wormuth her own 2021 testimony promising that the new ACFT would have sex-neutral standards. When former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter ordered all combat positions to be opened for women in 2015, he and the Army’s official Implementation Plan promised that concerns about combat effectiveness would be addressed by “effective leadership” and “gender-neutral standards.”

 

In other words, they LIED to the Congress and the American people,  and then quietly changed the rules to indulge the misbegotten badass fantasies of a few would-be Rambettes.

 

Just as I predicted,  and was repeatedly attacked for saying.

We MUST hold the DOD leadership accountable for this dangerous travesty.

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2 minutes ago, geeorge said:

We need to give them a chance to be completely equal in all ways

But doing so puts many other soldiers and sailors at extreme risk.   They lessen the capability of every combat unit they are assigned to,  including ships and submarines. 

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26 minutes ago, ChuteTheMall said:

When have women in combat ever won any wars?

Not just a sniper here and a pilot there, but actual combat warriors?

Never...in all of recorded human history.  Facts are stubborn things.

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3 hours ago, ChuteTheMall said:

When have women in combat ever won any wars?

Not just a sniper here and a pilot there, but actual combat warriors?

Pretty hard to be combat warriors when they weren’t allowed to be so.  

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