There are plans for women to be able to join the SEALs, Green Berets and Army Rangers, but US. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is suggesting that there will be little to no new training, due to budget limitations. This could make it difficult to meet a Spring deadline for tryouts for women looking to join.
A Pentagon-sponsored survey by the Rand Corp. found that 85% of men in the special forces oppose integrating women, saying it will lead to lowered physical standards.
“Men in special operations forces do indeed have another reason to feel stressed, for reasons worse than budget cuts and stepped-up deployments,” Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness, told the Washington Times.“Vertical cohesion, meaning mutual trust up and down the chain of command, has been shattered by USSOCOM leaders who are failing to defend their interests at a time when Pentagon authorities are imposing social experiments that will cost lives and missions in special operations forces.”
Donnelly is unhappy with the way the Rand report seemed critical of men who oppose female integration.
“Based on our survey of SOF personnel, opposition to opening SOF specialties to women is both deep and wide, with high levels of opposition across all SOF elements,” the Rand report detailed. “Opposition is also deep-seated and intensely felt.”
“The principal sources of this opposition [include] the belief among SOF that women do not have the physical and other capabilities to meet the demands of their SOF specialties.”
“This endeavor is a complete waste of time. Filling out this survey is yet another example of how administrative issues, such as sensitivity or gender training or other surveys, will take away from my training time. I could list hundreds of reasons why women cannot do the job that a Green Beret is required to do, but as I only have 1000 characters, I will choose the one that I think is the most important. A woman cannot physically do what I can do! I weigh 225 pounds, and 280 pounds in full kit, as did most of the members of my ODA. I expect every person on my team to be able to drag any member of my team out of a firefight. A 130 pound female could not do it, I don’t care how much time she spends in the gym,” a Green Beret told Rand researchers.
Women seeking to join SOF will be asked to complete agility and strength tests to determine if they can handle the specific physical demands of the force.
