Since our military is about to have its combat ability severely weakened by placing women in close combat units, it’s worth knowing what the training is (at least in the Army) that we’re talking about.
Currently, the US Army has certain enlisted Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) that are male only. A new enlistee must attend Basic Training (BCT), which is currently 10 weeks long. Then he or she must attend Advanced Individual Training (AIT); graduation from AIT produces an MOS; in most cases BCT and AIT are two separate schools. There is one variant called OSUT (a 14-16 week cycle) that is BCT plus AIT.
Male only BCT is conducted only at Fort Benning. All other BCT sites are gender integrated. (Forts Jackson, Sill, and Leonard Wood). The trainees work and train as a team but females sleep is a separate platoon bay, with doors locked and alarmed (since 1997 or so).
The Army’s male-only MOSs (and their training sites) are:
At Fort Benning: 11B (Infantryman), 11C (Indirect Fire Infantryman), 19D (Cavalry Scout) and 19K (Armor Crewman). All are trained using OSUT.
At Fort Leonard Wood: 12B (Combat Engineer) uses OSUT.
At Fort Sill: 13B (Cannon Crewmember), 13D (Field Artillery Tactical Data Specialist), and 13F (Fire Support Specialist). All are trained using BCT and AIT.
If you’re curious about the special operations fields (Ranger, Special Forces, etc), here is how those skills affect MOSs. There isn’t an MOS for Airborne Ranger – it would be a Special Qualification Identifier which comes after their MOS. For example, Infantry is the “11” Career Management Field. A Private coming out of AIT would be awarded the MOS 11B1O, with “11B” being the MOS, “1” being the skill level – in this case, 1 to indicate ranks Private through Specialist, and the “O” is the Special Qualification Identifier – in this case, “O” means he has no special qualifications. Now, if he completes jump school, he would become 11B1P, with the “P” indicating he’s jump qualified. After a couple years, he graduates from Ranger school. Now, he’d be awarded a “V” Special Qualification Identifier for “Ranger Parachutist” (i.e., Airborne Ranger), so his MOS would read 11B1V.
I will be discussing the specific reasons why close combat units remain male-only on Frontlines of Freedom starting this week and continuing for a total of four weeks. I will post those comments on this blog site as they’re broadcast. There are a significant number of compelling reasons why having women in these units will spell disaster.
