In the coming month or so, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be transformed into a laboratory as some 90 researchers and 650 Marine volunteers and staffers embark on a first-of-its kind experiment to test the dynamics of co-ed units in combat. The work of the Marines’ Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force is to devise gender-neutral physical standards for ground combat units by determining precisely what it takes to do the job of, for example, an infantryman or a machine gunner. The experiment will take roughly nine months, including a rigorous training workup and a “deployment” to the West Coast afterward. The team must meet a tight deadline: According to a Defense Department mandate, all service leaders, including the commandant, owe a report to the defense secretary by the end of 2015. Unless the services successfully make a case to keep specific combat jobs closed to women, all fields that remain closed will open to women by the end of 2016.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 11:29:48 +0000
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