combat

The United States Marine Corps is no longer requiring infantry officer candidates to pass the grueling Combat Endurance Test to qualify for the position, a move Marine officials say is reflective of modern needs but critics say is proof that standards are being watered down so more women can meet the criteria for difficult jobs.

“The U.S. Marine Corps will no longer require prospective officers to pass a punishing combat endurance test to graduate from the service’s Infantry Officer Course.

“Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller quietly made the shift to standards in November, altering the test from a pass/fail requirement to just one of many exercises measured as part of overall IOC evaluation,” reported the Washington Free Beacon.

The story was based off a report from the Marine Corps Times, which characterized the policy change as minor.

“In a slight change to the grueling initial stage of the 13-week Infantry Officer Course, Marines will no longer be required to pass the Combat Endurance Test to move on.

The Corps has come under criticism for what some have claimed to be unnecessarily high standards to graduate from the course. To date, only one unnamed female Marine has successfully completed the entire course,” the Marine Corps Times reported.

“’Over the past 40 years, the Marine Corps has made multiple modifications to Infantry Officer Course (IOC) program of instruction (POI) to reflect the requirements of the operating environment,” Training Command said in a statement to Marine Corps Times. “The quality of the course remains the same,'” stated the Times.

Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly isn’t buying it.

“Nobody’s going to be fooled by that. If the test is no longer pass/fail. if it’s no longer must-succeed, it certainly has changed. It’s changed a great deal,” said Donnelly.

“To make it just another evaluation point on the way to being an infantry officer changes the character of the program. It is a lowering of standards, and it’s not being done for operational requirements,” said Donnelly. “It’s not operational, it’s political because the pressure has been on the Marines to change the nature of the combat endurance test.

She believes a move like this proves that military readiness is not the top priority in the Marine Corps right now.

“It really is regrettable. It is an unforced error. He didn’t have to do this. The purpose is to reach gender diversity metrics. Metrics is another word for quotas. The quotas were imposed during the Obama administration. It’s a new administration and there should be official action to put them to an end,” said Donnelly.

Donnelly is calling on Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer to reverse the policy.

She also described what the Combat Endurance Test is and why she believes it needs to be a tool for identifying the best leaders.

“It’s a very tough, full-day, starts-before-dawn, exhausting exercise. It involves long marches, heavy loads. You’ve got to make your way through unknown terrain. You have to survive. It’s exhausting, deliberately so, people with bloody feet and falling because they can’t march anymore.

“This test is tough for a reason because infantry officers are supposed to lead men into battle so the test has to be tougher than it is for the enlisted soldiers and Marines. To say that officers no longer have to succeed on this test is indeed a major change, not a minor one,” said Donnelly.

When then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced ground combat roles would be opened to women in 2015, he was quick to assure the nation that standards would not be watered down to accommodate the policy change. Donnelly says this news seems to prove Carter’s promise wasn’t kept.

“Neller didn’t even announce this. He started it in November. Only now has the story come out that the Combat Endurance Test is now just a combat evaluation test. That it’s something different than what it was before. It’s the application of what wee call the Dempsey Rule.

“When Army Gen. Martin Dempsey was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 2013, he was asked what would happen if women couldn’t make the higher standards for the infantry. He said, ‘If the standards are too high so that women can’t succeed, we’ll ask why is it that high? Does it have to be that high?” said Donnelly.

It’s a bit ironic that the Marines are making such headlines. During the debate over whether ground combat roles ought to be opened to women, the Marines commissioned a major study showing the physical differences between men and women were substantial and that women were much more susceptible to injury in such capacities.

“We didn’t get to see [that] report. The administration brushed it aside and forced it on the military anyway. But in this case the Commandant of the Marine Corps said we’re going to do it even though he wasn’t ordered to do it. That’s what’s so disappointing, the way that this has happened not with a bang but a whimper,” said Donnelly.

Donnelly is also wondering whether the Marines lowered the standards on the endurance test before deciding that it wasn’t necessary to pass to remain an infantry officer. She says credible reporting from 2012, 2013, and 2014 showed an attrition rate of 20-30 percent among Marines attempting the endurance test.

Yet, the Marines claim attrition rates are now three percent, and just one percent in 2017.

Donnelly says no one should think less of women in the military as a result of this controversy. She says the leadership is failing.

She also says the bottom line is that men and women are different.

“There is a physiological inequality that needs to be taken into account. Otherwise, we’re going to lose a lot of good female officers who would otherwise progress in their careers. Why would we want to do that?” asked Donnelly.

“And if you make it possible for all the women to get through without being injured then you’re not going to be demanding as much of the men, and the men will be less prepared for battle,” she added.

The U.S. Army is rescinding its recently announced policy of allowing people with a history of mental illness to get waivers in order to serve in our military, a welcome move but one that should never have been necessary according to a former U.S. Army special forces commander.

Earlier this week, the Army announced it instituted a policy in August that allows waivers to be issued so that potential recruits could circumvent the ban on service members with a history of mental illnesses ranging from bipolar disorder to depression to self-mutilation and alcohol or drug abuse. The Army admitted the move was designed to boost sagging recruiting numbers.

On Wednesday, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley said the Army is reversing course. Milley says the policy on waivers was never actually implemented but was being debates with the Army’s leadership.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin, who spent most of his career in special forces, says the Army is making the right call after entertaining a terrible idea.

“I will take the chief of staff of the Army’s word for the fact that it was still being studied but it’s disturbing that we’re even studying this,” said Boykin, who believes the Army’s sudden shift is due more to public relations than because it believes this was a terrible idea.

“I think they were unprepared for the blowback. I’m appalled that in a world that’s so transparent today you’d think you could do something like this and that this is not going to be a major story,” said Boykin.

He says the idea of allowing people with mental illness to serve in combat arms has never been embraced even when manpower was desperately needed.

“We didn’t even do this in Vietnam,” said Boykin, who says the biggest shift in standards was allowing GED recipients to serve rather than insist upon high school graduates.

“This is as low as the Army has ever dropped in terms of a lack of focus on readiness and quality people,” said Boykin. “It’s hard to brag that we have the highest quality people that we’ve ever had in our military – which our Army does regularly – and then look at the fact that we’re bringing people in that have a history of self-mutilation.”

Boykin says combat already takes a great toll on the mental health of our soldiers and that putting people with mental health problems into the fray is a recipe for disaster.

“Combat itself is probably the most stressful thing that a human can do. It;s not just the fear associated with it but it’s the long-term effects of seeing people that you care about die and be wounded in severe ways. That marks you.

“That has an effect on an individual that is different for each individual but ultimately becomes a very emotional thing. To bring people in that are already struggling is just insanity. It makes no sense,” said Boykin.

Boykin says the very top of our military’s chain of command can and must do better.

“I’m disappointed in the leadership of our military. Also, our president needs to step in and say, ‘Stop this nonsense. We’re not going to do this. We’ll do whatever we have to do to recruit a professional Army but we’re not going to do this nonsense,” said Boykin, who adds there is no way recruiters could weed out all the people with mental health issues who might pose a threat to themselves or members of their units.

One reason the military brass did not immediately kill the waivers idea is because they wouldn’t be tasked with dealing with problem recruits or the punishments related to their conduct.

A retired senior non-commissioned officer who served in Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom who prefers to remain anonymous says it’s young officers and enlisted men who would be tasked with diagnosing these issues.

“The lowest level leadership are corporals, SGTs, SSGs, SFCs, lieutenants. All guys 18-24 years old, have no inkling how to spot a potential suicide or mass shooter. They’re also the guys that the command is going to hang out to dry if something happens for being “poor leaders” and not spotting something in time,” the Army veteran said.

He also says there is no protocol for dealing with mental health issues once a person is in the service.

“The low level leadership hasn’t been trained to deal with these people. There is “suicide prevention training” which is a joke, but it’s more oriented towards a normal guy that’s had too many deployments, combat stress or family issues – it’s not tailored at all to somebody that already mentally ill,” he said.

Boykin also also appalled that at the very time when mental health problems tend to be an issue in many mass shooters, yet the Army either decided or was close to deciding to give guns to people with some of those same diagnoses.

Boykin also says this slide in standards is an ongoing symptom of the way the Obama administration treated the military.

“It is a reflection of eight years under a commander-in-chief who paid no attention whatsoever to readiness of our military. That’s why you’re having trouble recruiting,” said Boykin.

“It’s because moms and dads during those eight years, when their son or their daughter had to give up their faith for example, or had to come in a military that was being used for social experiments, people got turned off to coming into the military,” said Boykin.

He says parents will have the same reaction to the Army considering allowing to people with a history of mental illness to take up arms.

Boykin urges the military to make all decisions based on one simple criteria.

“No decision regarding our military should be made until the question has been asked, ‘How does this impact the readiness?’ Is it a positive? If it’s a positive, it’s OK to do it. Is it a negative, it’s not alright to do it. If it’s neutral, then it could go either way. In this case, you have to know that this is a negative,” said Boykin.

But what if recruitment numbers aren’t met? Boykin says there are more important things.

“I’d rather go into combat with ten good men that were reliable that I could trust than a thousand that were questionable,” he said.

Boykin says a laser focus on readiness will make the U.S. military the dominant fighting force it always ought to be.

“We can turn this around. Stop the social experiments. Change the rules of engagement, where men and women can go into combat to win and restore the military budget to where they know that they have the necessary equipment to fight the nation’s wars and be victorious,” said Boykin.

combat

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