need to latch onto people liked jackie robinson, my cube or him making, who actually point us in the direction of what it might be liked to live in god's image. not to use it as a weapon or shield or force field against change, but convince other people they can change. mark twain said i think your point is that jackie robinson was able to link us up to the difficult experiences because he was experiencing them himself. robinson airs on pbs april 11 and 12th at 9:00 a.m. today, the conversation continues on the national press club. you can watch that here at 1:00. ken burns, come back again. thank you. pentagon recently lifted restrictions on women serving in combat roles. we will hear from current and

former military members. british prime minister david cameron spoke about the panama papers and his decisions to publish his tax returns. secretary jack lew on the global economy. ♪ >> madam president! we probably get 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states. ♪ now, current and former

military officers on allowing women to serve in military combat positions. this comes after the defense department lifted all restrictions on women serving in combat roles, including infantry positions, reconnaissance, and special operations unit. the new york bar association hosted this event. >> i come from washington, where think tank panel discussions are a way of life. but some of them are not so good. i hope we have a great one tonight. i think you are all aware that we are here to talk about an issue that is extremely iportant to the military, and would argue as a reporter who covers the pentagon and the military, important to the nation -- the integration of women in all combat roles in the military, including combat

roles. for those of you who may or may not be familiar with this issue is that the current defense secretary ash carter announced in december, after three years of study, that all jobs would be open to women across the military. it was an interesting becausement, i found, mr. carter, who has been the secretary since last year, is very interested in this issue, maybe the announcement with standingnfare and alone at a podium in what we call the pentagon briefing room. the optics of the announcement struck me, and occurred to me it contributed to the idea

that there has been some debate about the issue. and what we are here to talk about tonight is a lot about that debate. panelists, and we have set this up a little bit as kind of for and against integration of women. the timing of this panel is interesting, really because of the decision has been made, so we kind of move out on the decision. there will be integration of women. it is not necessarily for against, but we are at a point where the pentagon is trying to figure out how to implement this decision. good,think this is a timely topic for right now. introducet quickly the folks we had appeared -- up

here. and then what i want to do is ask a few questions, or ask each of the panelists to stake out where they said, and explain where their position is. i'm not trying to make this a point counterpoint, you are ignorant and you are stupid, just want to have a substantive interesting conversation. i hopefully -- you guys have great questions. i have some questions, but i hope you have even that are ones -- better ones, and we can get to the questions very soon after. let's start, let me just explain i carefully on the train rewrote these little bios, and i realized it was still too long. take it from me, these guys are all interesting people with varied backgrounds, different opinions. they have strong opinions on

these issues, and i hope we will get them out here. in no particular order, dan o shea is to my left. he is a combat veteran with more than 25 years service in the military. throughgoing to read this, but he is a former navy seal, who has a lot of service, .nd returned after 9/11 he served in afghanistan and iraq. he's recognized as a subject matter expert, otherwise known as s and e in military speak. asymmetric warfare, and knowledgeable about counterinsurgency, kidnapping, and hostage rescue, and managed interagency or donated -- coordination for more than 300 instances, and played a major role in every kidnapping

incidents in iraq from 2004-2006. he has a lot of stories. kate is an active lieutenant general in the marine corps. by the way, we are heavy on the navy. we have three marines, and dan -- guy.mer navy that. kate is still in service, at least for a little bit longer. most recently as the commander of recruiting battalion in paris island, which is where the only place where women are trained to be marines. big command.last she serves also in a bunch of different roles over the years. most notably, as a recruiter in various forms. yieldk we can really great answers about thinking about how this integration thing

happens, not only from the standpoint of training women, but also recruiting them. to her right is elliott ackerman, a former marine infantry and specialty and hasns officer, become a novelist. he is the author of a critically january, novel, and in published a new one. he is here with us, but based istanbul. he has covered the syrian civil war. his work, both fiction and essays have appeared in the new yorker, the atlantic, the new republic and the new york times. he got out of uniform in 2009. he served in a number of tours of duty in the middle east and southwest asia served as, an advisor to the afghan commandos,

one of the strongest fighting forces in afghanistan. he also served in iraq, where he led a rifle platoon in 2004 and the battle of falluja, where he earned a silver star and a number of other combat awards. been in my own paper, the wall street journal. marine a former enlisted sergeant. in 2003, she served as a data communication specialist. she deployed for eight months between 2005 and 2006. she served during the height of a lot of attention -- a lot of tensions, a very dangerous time. as also served photographer for her battalion. frequentw a

contributor and freelance writer to various publications like the breitbart, and others. what we had here is a little bit of a group here. these two are generally having concerns about the policy that has been decided upon, and these two are generally in favor of the integration of women in combat. event tonighthis is a little bit racy, but the idea is to kind of bring out the nation andt what the military needs to think about as we integrate women in these combat roles. -- there's af the lot of different issues to think about.

done, how it is done to be successful, how it is done to improve combat effectiveness, or if it is done in a way that is limiting, effectiveness, i think all of these various questions are ones that people have, whether they are on one side of the issue or not. i'm going to stop talking. i just want to ask everyone to for a five minute intro to where they said, how they think about the issue, who they are, and then we have a couple of questions. and then we open it up to the audience. start?want to >> sure. i view this as even before the decision was made, i wrote a little bit about it, is that it seems very likely the decision would be made. all of my observations and conversations with people i knew

close to the decision, to include officers who would be interest rate -- infantry officers, where the marine corps trains them, and was used as a test pad for women. the attitude and the conversation was very much to launch we need these multi-year studies to determine whether or not a woman's body is even capable of the incredible rigor in combat. to me, that really seemed like a smokescreen, because that was not the issue. the issue is a cultural issue. ien i served in the infantry, certainly had marines who were incredibly fit, but i also had marines in combat who were not fit.one of my collateral dooley's desk duties as a second lieutenant, was i was the body composition officer. that meant 10% of the marines

outside the height and weight standards would come to me, i would grab a tape measure around them, and tell them they would need to lose weight. they were outside of standards, and they continued to serve, and they did fine. sometimes to the outsider, there is a view that all marines are sort of marines, or soldiers, are these monolithic demigods who go to training and come out as superman. but that's not the case, they are regular people. so the argument that this is a physical issue, and that we as an organization needed to spend energy doing studies considering hip bone densities of women, and sought a 10% higher rate of since wins, that that would absolve them of combat, frankly that seemed disingenuous. i thought the issue was a cultural one. in preparation for the possibility of this decision,

that the leadership of the organization would be doing the organization a greater service by saying, we need to look at how we would reengineer what is, specific to the infantry, a hyper masculine culture, and one that works and promotes ideas of brotherhood and camaraderie through a very masculine sentiment. and that inspires men to do incredibly brave things to save one another on the battlefield. but that was not a conversation. in the lead up to this, i felt like that was concerning, because it sets up the core as an organization to fail. i think all of us regardless of position don't want this to happen. now, we are at a moment where the decision has been made, and to me it seems to be a appropriate conversation, to say, how can we implement this most effectively that the organization is stronger? in order for the organization to implement this effectively and be strong, and change culturally

as it needs to, those conversations will need to be had, and they will need to be had under the leadership of the marine corps, in my case. i think we are at a moment of truth, were at the most senior levels, the four-star level, there needs to be very clear guidance given. disappointingly thus far, what i have seen is there has been a perception of a quiet campaign that we are not happy with this, and we will proceed grudgingly. having spent a lot of time down in infantry platoons, with 19 and 20-year-old privates and corporal's, they hear the message. i would call myself sort of a concerned alumni of the organization, that would like to see it in the next 15-28 years -- 20 years doing it in a stellar manner, with no to blast that serve

them. there have been incidents like that. but i'm looking forward to the discussion. the sake offor diversity, why don't we go down to the other side. i don't want to make too much of point,int pointing -- point thing. >> share. in addition to the intro, part of why i have some credibility, not just as an enlisted marine, are the only enlisted person on was also secondary duty that i had at camp falluja was that i was pulled for entry checkpoint duty for explosives. so i was going in and out of camp falluja with marine corps infantry, being on the street on the outskirts of five different checkpoints, coming into falluja.

that the newad york bar association is putting this on. they are doing something here that the administration and congress have failed to do, which is to hold open debate and discussion. the reason the administration has suppressed debate on this is because the case for integrating london -- women has been so weak. and anytime what elliott would call is a smokescreen is empirical evidence, that women suffer -- not just average women, but active-duty women average 2-10 times the injuries men do in the military. that is a liability, not an asset, when you have that additional risk.these are very fit women. the argument for women in combat depends on ignoring that. false claim that

women are interchangeable with military men and infantrymen, which depends on ignoring decades worth of research, sports medicine, military medicine, military experience. nine-monthorps' integrations that he is only the latest in a series that have been done over time, and all finding the same conclusion, because we are talking about anatomy. no matter how culture changes, or societal norms change, you can't change human anatomy. these are differences that cannot be ignored. it ignores the problems that coed combat units already face with rates of pregnancy, sexual assault, unit cohesion. these are things that cannot be ignored and are being ignored. and ashton carter, and the secretary of the navy, said i

had a difference of opinion. they are to $36 million study. theother big thing that advocacy for women in combat is a swallowing whole. the big lie that this is an equal opportunity for women. with these rates of injury, before they are even on men's standards or infantry standards, that is unequaled for women. that does not do women any favors. nobody is doubting that women serve honorably. we can serve and 98% of the jobs and be successful. 98% of the jobs and be successful. but there is a difference between at deploying to the combat unit, which the general public is detached from. the difference between deploying, working in a combat zone, doing a dangerous job such as what i did, and being on the

direct around combat missions that are kill missions, going door-to-door, cave to cave, often killing at point-blank range, hand to hand. women are at a disadvantage against them men who want to kill them. isther part of my background many years of martial arts he for the marine corps, -- before the marine corps and during. i have trained with a lot of men. it always made me better against other women, but with men who really want to kill you, and this happens often. technology and modernity have not mitigated the need for direct combat. -- ifand-to-hand fighting you talk to anybody who has a lot of deployment experience and erect close combat experience -- experience, combat

a lot of the times, they are smashing heads. jams, linda ammo runs out. this is not mitigated by technological advances. these are a lot of the points that i feel are being ignored by the administration, and that are incredibly important that we bring these forward. the empirical data on women's -- iies, even fit women mean, twice the injuries is a baseline. it is 10 times the stress fractures, six times the acl tears and hip injuries, because a woman's gait tends to be smaller. they have to exert more effort when doing long marches under load. that is empirical data. the fact that it is being pushingin favor of just

this through and saying it is equal opportunity, when in fact it is not, i think it is a disservice. in terms of implementing, there is no successful way to implement a floodplain. i will -- flawed plan. i will leave it at that. so because i am still with active duty, i need to start with a disclaimer that my views are my own and not necessarily the marine corps. i want to start by saying i echo what elliott said about the culture. this is specific to the marine corps. we have cultural issues. it is a wonderful institution. i think whether you are a male or female marine, everyone serves with pride, and we are tied to the lineage. but all this realize every organization needs to succeed. trouble,e corps has

whether it has been about desegregation for african-americans, when it was asked -- don't ask don't tell, and now it is women in combat. i want to point out the fact that a lot of the data is unfortunately looking to the past. one of the things the marine corps services don't always do well is take cases of success, where things are going well, and replicating the things that are working within those units to mitigate risk. tours on recruiting duty and on the island where we recruit female marines, i experienced this first hand. what i thought recruiting was that the women were held to a lower standard when it came to the initial physical fitness requirements. they were not always required the way to male applicants were, and they were not pushed to the full exertion rates the way male

applicants were. they were not relied on to fulfill leadership positions after recruiting levels the way were, and they were not required to make significant gains in their physical fitness level before going to recruit training the way the males were. so having seen that on recruiting, and made changes as a in my two tours, commander and executive officer, to mitigate those risks, and change how we recruited and trained women to go to boot camp, what i found was that there are success stories that can easily be replicated, and can easily mitigate a lot of the concerns you have discussed. but we have not evolved the point we need to in the military. we have not looked to those commands that do have success stories. instead, what we can't to do is look at -- tend to do is look at the negative. that is what we saw in the marine corps combat integration.

the women who participated in the study were all exemplary women. they volunteered to serve in a capacity that wasn't popular, because of our culture, and they were successful throughout a lot of the training they participated in. but the fact that they were coming out of parrish island, where we were holding women to a lower standard, the fact that they were expected to do less on the island, mainly because of segregated training, the fact that these women were recruited and not held to the same standards for preparations as male counterparts, even before going to recruit training, these were the women who graduated and could do the bear minimum past the mail standards to participate in the study. but they were not the women who could have excelled in the study, had we had higher standards from the beginning. what i would say is as we are talking about this, it is what do we want to do, and how do we

want to do it in order to make sure that the institutions are successful in the nation's security is guaranteed. we are not going to do that if we keep looking backwards, and rely on studies that involve women who were always held to lower standards from the beginning. that is where i want to leave that. mr. lubold: thank you so much. here.asure being it will be an interesting back-and-forth. i speak as someone with 20 odd years in special operations. after 9/11r years between iraq and afghanistan. i have been in every environment and i havegine, served alongside women in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere in a variety of roles. i firsthand know the value and experience they bring to the table across many venues.

they are on convoy security, one of the most dangerous jobs, driving between bases in combat outposts. my comments and viewpoints are from a very different perspective. i listened to the comments coming from elliott, about changing the culture, especially the marine corps, and i have read some of the writings on the topic. i'm looking at it from, we are talking about holding people to standards. the reality is, of all the services and branches, it was the marine corps alone that said, with the air force and navy, they don't want to deal with it the marine corps said., if you want to hold women to the standard, and every one of them, although leadership, secretary colonel,he west point who filed a lawsuit against women in combat, they all said the same thing.we want

toen to be given a chance fight and die for their country just like young men. theory, thatood in we held them to the same standard. the marine corps did a number of things.they started off with the bare-bones minimum requirement for males is three bullets, maximum is tiny. every marine is worth his salt. if you are not a 300 marine corps officer, you are not going to promote. three is the minimum number of pullups. they put it out there, gave the women a year, they said the minimum will be three. they said a year later, if they can hold to the standard, more than 50% of every female recruit would have been drummed out because they could not do the there minimum.

it is a $36 million study. they said, let's put a marine corps company of all-male traditional company, versus the current -- versus an integrated one. not 50-50, but maybe 10% women, competing against 134 combat tasks, basic infantry tasks. what were the results? giambi injuries that were beyondlming, in every -- the injuries that were overwhelming, in every instance of getting over walls, shooting accuracy, evacuating wounded members of the battlefield, guess who performed better overwhelmingly? 68% the all-male company outperformed, in all but one category.

i'm really sorry, but these facts are really uncomfortable things. there are very uncomfortable. without even getting into the unit cohesion. i am telling you as a guy who went through training,, and some greens might dispute that -- marines now, and i have trained and worked with my counterparts from all over the world, and i mean a oneer the world, and to , they come up to me and make a comment. to the what holds us standard. we went through the same training as my forefathers. our lineage goes back to world war ii. the joke is that i was in the last hard class. it in theready seen

leadership. def.the sec efficiency and an integrated unit. if you are on wall street and , and insteadpany of hiring mbas out of harvard and columbia, are you going to go to community colleges in florida and except a 30% in efficiency? tolerate that in military units? that is the challenge. every time the studies come out we say well, that doesn't matter, they need to change the standard. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has said if women can't do it, why is the training level so high? why is the standard? why is the bar set there? i am telling you, all the

training, ranger school and the standardshe are changed and lowered, that will be the impact. the marine corps is the greatest fighting unit this country has ever produced. we now somehow need to change it? we are not even talking about special operations or seal teams. >> things. so, there was a lot of stuff it all of that. -- thanks. inthere was a lot of stuff all of that. i want to get a feeling for who is here tonight and who has even thought about this issue to begin with, and who has a position on it. i actually would like a quick raise of hands. who has thought about this and has a position one way or another on this issue generally? of being- i'm kind

divisive here. who is very concerned about the policy decision that the pentagon made? and who is celebrating the decision? so, we're going to come back to hands later on to figure out if anybody was moved either way. and by the way, i mentioned it corps-navyare marine heavy, and i think that's really by accident, although it makes , for different reasons, the other services concerns or non-concerns were relevant. the marine corps, if you don't know, was the service that had objected to the policy decision and was essentially overruled when the decision was made to allow women in all combat roles -- in all roles.

so it is actually kind of good that we are a little marine heavy appear. i think the bottom line is, when the secretary of defense , he said his decision this has to be done in the name of combat effectiveness -- i am bastardizing the quote, but the point was he was making this thesion in order to improve effectiveness of the fighting force. he also talked about recruiting and all of that. but let's just talk about combat readiness. we have talked about -- and the marines -- correct me if i am wrong. i am used toer, getting beat up, so if i say something screwed up, please tell me, but the marines are credited with doing the heaviest .nalysis on this combat readiness is ultimately the bottom line.

there are ultimately a lot of other ancillary issues. but to the issues of marine units, based on this study -- and i am kind of bouncing around -- our units bit with women integrated into them as effective of ones that are not? amazingnk this is an opportunity to reset standards. i don't think anyone is saying we are going to lower standards. for the two women who made it through ranger school -- i'm very, three -- it was carefully observed that they adhered to every standard. that't think we can make assumption. if that happened, i would be standing lock armed with dan and that i is wrong don't agree.

everyone is talking about the credibility and that it close -- at close quarters it comes to skull bashing. i spent a month in falluja going house to house, very close quarters, and there came a time when guys were shooting each ther in close quarters, but greatest issue i found was not who was battling hand to hand but heat casualty, guys going down with heatstroke, and it was always marines. and i appreciate that you think all marines are 300 pft are, but they are not. they are not. you are hanging out in the trenches with pfcs and lance corporal's, they're not. and they don't have to be. they are fit young men, but

there is a spectrum. i think in many ways, this is a great opportunity to reset some youdards and say either meet the standards or you don't. the culturalout standards. i was never particularly hot and bothered about this issue. if you will indulge me, i would like to share a brief anecdote. , and it a book party bumped into an old marine colleague of mine. the director of the infantry officers force, a place that the comet on handpicked to say this is going to be our incubator to see if women can make it. it had just happened six months before. i said how's it going? and to be the director of entry -- of infantry forces is a big deal.

it's a big organization, but a small club. he was like yeah, you know, it's , none of theht women rains have made it through. i said no one has come close question -- women marines have made it through. i said no one has come close? he said it's different from when we went through. i said how? when i went through in early 2004, the iraq war was flaring up and it had gone from being a hazing course to the sense that hey, these young men are going to war. we have to make sure they are ready. it was much more of a technical course. it's not like that anymore. we used to do hikes. everything was graded as a platoon event. past or yourlatoon platoon failed. that has changed.

i thought that was probably a good thing because there were guys who made it through that course who should have never made it through and probably were not ready for combat. but still, none of the women made it through? he said you can't tell me that a -- hauln never call supplies away 40 or 50 pounds -- that way 40 or 50 pounds. but what happens when it happens ? what happens when a woman who was ranked in the crossfit games shows up and says she wants to make it and she does? he says it's never going to happen. marine,, i am a proud but i am a human being first, and to me, that is wrong. it's unfair and wrong.

the standards didn't slip. in anot as if we are wartime incubator. it's dishonest. we are an integrated squad. what does that look like? a squad needs a squad leader. that means a soldier who's at least six years in the infantry, a good one. so you are going to put women in who are not trained. who areprinkle women in not trained infantrymen, they are not going to perform at the same level. you look at this, and again, i find it ironic. i am not some big champion of women's rights. my wife says i'm a real sister on this issue. i laugh because i don't feel like i am. but this just doesn't feel right to me. at the end of the day, if you haven't gone through a

transparent process, it's going to come out in the wash. that has always been my concern. i will leave it there. i sure you will have plenty to rebut. do you want to just talk about and explained to folks what combat effectiveness is and one of the kind of standout issues of the marine corps study , you know, the ability of take a body off the battlefield if need be, which is what happens in war, sometimes. others, but that was the one that always got to me, that women would not be as effective in these units. want to then come back to you and ask a little bit about -- i want to then come back to you somesk a little bit about

people thought the study was a fraud or the approach was a fraud. you want to talk about what that means and why it's a big deal. of all, the females were top-performing females. they had made the men's minimum pft standards, the physical fitness test. enlistedcompleted the infantry training, and they weren't fresh recruits. they were lance corporal's, corporals. the corporal, typically, means your two years in. and they were competing against average men. they were not competing against top performers. and yet and still on 134 combat tasks, their performance was significantly lower, significantly weaker, as a fatigued faster. this is not a smokes green -- smokescreen. women have smaller lung

capacity, less bone density. t a matter ofs training, professional sports and the olympics would've been integrated long ago. they are not men. they have a different physiology. adding excess training actually , whichhes their estrogen in turn reduces their bone density, and that causes greater rates of injury. just say well, if we reevaluate the standards, and women couldif make men's standards so easily, they wouldn't need to be reevaluated. there are some women who can make it, and by the way, a crossfit female competing for at her utmost is

no competition for a male crossfit performer competing at his utmost. that aisn't it true ter couldossfit potentially compete against -- maybe not the top male crossfitter -- >> that's what i was about to say. even if you have a couple of women who can make the standards -- we have female rangers -- even if you can do that, they are rare. you do not make sweeping policy based on a couple of exceptional women. second, it does nothing to solve the problems of sexual relationships that are always a problem. >> this is a cultural issue. a i would like to make

comment. >> sex is not a cultural issue. you put men and women together sex.hey are going to have >> it's a leadership issue. >> no it's not. it's a human nature issue and they haven't been able to solve it for decades, up until this point. smalls going to be a number, but the top-performing crossfit woman is going to be in better shape than the fatty i was dealing with, and i would rather have her in my platoon van that guy. so if the issue is too few women , then it is a cultural issue. >> then you phase that guy out. you get the washouts out. and we do need better ways to get the washouts out. one of the things the marine corps study found was we see areas where we need to tighten standards for men as well. there is a lot to be gleaned from this marine corps study. to say that because some men wash out or are unfit, that

means that women are automatically and are changeable with them is false. >> the marine corps did not say we should not integrate women because our culture doesn't accept women. they said we cannot integrate women because of these physical issues, and to me, that's disingenuous. >> i would like to talk about why it's rare for women to meet those standards. let's go back to recruiting and training. it's rare for women to meet the standards because for decades we have allowed women to underperform at recruit training. we have created an environment in the marine corps where we are the only unit that only trains women in the entire department of defense. women are held to lower standards while in the delayed entry program. pushare not required to themselves. they are held to lower

standards, and that sets the standard for how males perceive them. their male counterparts automatically think training is going to be easier for them because it has to until that point. then they get to parris island and step on the yellow footprint, which is the first ceremonial duty of every recruit, to stand in those footprints and be welcomed by a drill instructor, and the females are pushed to the back of the formation and they stand in formation of until the ceremony is complete, and then they are pushed to a battalion that is separate from the males in geography, time, and space. so the males already have a negative perception about their female counterparts. and i am talking about averages. i am not talking about the success rates i mentioned when i started speaking. but the bottom line is that the perception of the training for it's easier.

and that it has been easier. is no physiological reason women should not be able to shoot. and i know. i was a terrible shot until the last year. but for decades, women achieved an initial qualification rate at the rifle range between 68%-70 2%. -- 72%. what does that mean? every marine is a rifle man. one third of each class was being dropped to remedial training or discharged because they could not qualify on the range. was that because a physiology? no. because mentally they cracked under pressure? no. it's because there was a language acceptance and perception on the range that women could not shoot. last year, women shot just under

92%. do you know how that happened? we didn't get bigger recruits. we didn't give them a next row week to prepare -- an extra week to prepare. we didn't give them extra training. we held them to a higher standard. the only thing we did was change the expectation that just because they were women they couldn't shoot. and they rose to the occasion. and that wasn't the only area where we saw women rise to the occasion in one year. we saw women rise to the occasion in terms of physical of filling terms leadership responsibilities within their platoon, because the drill instructors expected it and demand it. but i am telling you, up until that point women were expected wedo less, and not because had a system of training that whisked the women away after they had not been held accountable to reaching high standards, and then it's a mystery?

how do we get female marines? i don't know. they are in their own compounds, doing their own things, and it's easier. >> if you do a psychological marine,f every soldier, and you look at their perspective and attitude toward , and they are taught to respect women from day one, if they did a psychological profile and weeded out every officer who has a negative attitude about a [inaudible]bility logic, inn, by your 1950, we would have applied the same test toward african-americans because in 1950, most marines were white,

male, from the south, and didn't like african-americans. the logic doesn't work, dan. that logic is saying that because men don't like women, women should be allowed in. [indiscernible] look at the straight, empirical data. crossfitto your example. professional athletes. women that are performing and start training in their teens or preteens, they go on to become professional athletes. some join the military, but they are still not getting the numbers. i got a letter saying i was going to ranger school. i went home to san diego.

they said you can't recycle. it's an army course. don't embarrass us. the women that did go through rangers,e corps, the they identified 140 women, willed it down to 22, the women were given sixte months to prepare for the and you are going to change policy based on three graduating? >> yes. >> women aren't showing up ready to integrate. [indiscernible] that is exactly what the study did, and they showed much weaker performance.

>> one of the time. this is great conversation, but one at a time. >> the recourse study show -- and kate wants to say this is in , the results were released this past fall. that's like yesterday, not some age-old thing. marine corps study was like can you do it or can you not do it question mark these are typical combat tasks. can you do it -- or not do it? these are typical combat tasks. can you do it or not do it? it doesn't matter if you can .ake standards here is a study of a battalion in 2010 that was deployed to iraq, army brigade. were sent home for non-battle, noncombat reasons three to four times the rate of , and 74% of the time it was

due to pregnancy. that's catastrophic. on average, 12% of women in the military are pregnant at any given time. stop hyaline -- this is regardless of standards. this -- let's not pile on. other set ofole issues regardless of standards. i had a marine friend who said he had women come into his unit in afghanistan and the unit was not trained in not prepared for these women, female engagement teams, coming in to help -- they serve similar to the role -- >> exactly right. guyhey came in, and this was explaining that there were a lot of problems with that and --

with sex and with other things, but what he came to realize was were discipline and leadership issues, not, oh my god, women are here and suddenly -- >> right. and that's a copout. this is a human nature issue. men and women, all ages, all ranks -- and part of the problem is we have it where it is really just now being addressed in the past several years that leadership has been just as guilty. it's not just the people in the enlisted side. leadership has been guilty of subject --and not inappropriate relationships, sexual assault, fraternization, misconduct, but this is a human nature issue, and you are talking about putting women in the units with the most alpha of alpha males. the hyper masculinity that eliot

talked about is precisely what isis, who arebat on methamphetamines, by the way, making them even harder to kill. this is no joke. weare piling onto issues haven't been able to solve in general. we tolerate this stuff that is expensive and distractive. it's bad enough that we aserate it in the military a whole, but to put these added , toens and distractions compound the problem is idiotic. >> how would you address these issues if you were in an integrated unit? >> you have to look at it logically.

would definitely concede, if you wanted to create the most effective, lethal, headley fighting force in the world, you would probably go to some town in appalachia, find the toughest 30 guys in the town who have spent their lives hiking the and send them over. but guess what? our military also represents who we are as a nation, fundamentally. it does, in summer spec. i think the idea of saying this is the standard, and if you can meet the standard, you are allowed in. the idea that we cannot allow women into units because you have senior officers the hazing inappropriately, sexually assaulting women, i don't know

what to say to that. it's not logically. >> it's everybody in all ranks. >> women get pregnant. elite lawgic, at women we should have no because they get pregnant and that will hurt the firm. >> it would be catastrophic. and youre on a mission have to pull out -- >> i think catastrophic -- about if a woman gets assaulted? its $30,000 to then reassign her somewhere else. you have to pull out the guy to do the legal side. .> if i could what we're saying is we have such a low threshold for how human beings treat each other, we are going, and

to leave it at that, and yet, by the same token, we are saying the military has a higher standard for conduct. it makes no sense. the bottom line is the issue of how men and women behave when they are in integrated units has been tested for decades in many different capacities and it has been successful. has there been problems? yes, but those were in units were problems already existed. the number one concern is intimate relationships. that's the number one concern that men have. the number one conserve -- concern that women have beyou're saying we shouldn't training men and women to a higher expectation of conduct to they're there to fight for their country and -- it makes no sense.

is if we'reine going to have a military and we're going to say that the highery is held to a moral and ethical standard, it needs to start with how we maybe good order and discipline. i can see somebody having a heart attack in the audience. >> okay. has got -- >> that's right. we're going to come to you. don't worry. don't think i'm not going to get you. a hand. who has a question? and then if you want to ask hearstion, we'd love to what you have to say. >> my question is, with regards to the arguments about the women outside of inadequacies, cohesion of the unit and military sexual trauma and such, with the recent changes to our nation's ideals with regards to identity, traditional gender roles, even the family that be anyow would

different that the military is to address the challenges of, you know, having integration of women into the military itself, what is the military going to do if there is jointleman who wants to into a combat unit who has a different gender identity, and to addressy going that? >> great question. >> i mean -- i mean -- same problems. isean, now the lgbt thing rendered -- has now taken away the neutrality that once with the sexes being separated, you know. guys amongst themselves or when you had don't ask, don't tell. guess -- i mean, you may be better able to answer this.

you know, now you've taken that wasneutrality once there, because now -- and actually, same-sex assault is military. rise in the now people can serve openly and identify as whatever they want. all kinds of -- >> i'm trying to get away from the marine corps topic. elliott's point, the appalachian guys you're an odaing, that's what is, special forces guys in particular. they're all southern boys. on your platoon -- >> that's not true. in the seventh group, they're latino. sorry. that's not true. i mean, they're actually a pretty diverse crowd. with them a lot. >> all that is white noise. all this other stuff is white noise. in a seal platoon -- commander in the

1990's. you know what we had to worry about? going to worry, women. was appointed i to the middle east. my entire career has been the middleer than east. they don't have alcohol, 7-elevens. overseas, you've got nothing that focuses on the mission, which is killing the mi. that's what we do. that's our only focus. stuff is white noise. it's a distraction, complication. go, listen, i'm here to focus on the mission, safe.is keep this country and the don't ask, don't tell, guys are like, don't bring your to the team room. if you've got stuff on the weekends going on and we need to help you, we'll take care of you. but focus on why you're in the team room. period. period. >> i agree. bio, i did two years

of paramiramonte. women -- paramiramonte. paramilitary. worked with jessica. all the guys called her slay jay. professional enough, and i think you'd agree, most people are professional enough six-monthyou go on a deployment, and there's a woman sitting next to you, you can on. your pants [applause] >> there are women within special operations. i probably can share more stories together, not here because it's not on topic. with you 100%. you keep things professional and there aren't those issues. it's about leadership and about recognition. and there are absolutely values a woman in certain environments, especially other parts of the world. now we're announcing to the world that now we have women going through. taking away an arrow out of the quiver of how we operate

overseas. what we're all arguing for is lower standards. that's what the leadership wants. on.ang let me just say -- >> all the studies have come out. they've all said you need as a to justify why -- >> absolutely false! >> no. it's absolutely true. absolutely true. the standard. he said we need to reevaluate the standards. and the standards have lowered overbeen decades. you know, and what they do is certain tests where women don't excel, so that matches, or they make the two men -- used to be a two-man litter carry. a four-man litter carry, because they found that when women were integrated into stuff, youes and know, and they would test the men but they found that two carry the litter up the ship ladder. but two men could. order to accommodate and get the gender diversity

metrics -- what they care about is gender diversity metrics. words ofouth the combat readiness and say this will improve it, but what they care about are gender diversity metrics. >> i think it's ironic when we talk about lowering standards when the standards are already low, the point being is that everyone sitting here believes that we should have a high standard. but it's rare for people on that the table to acknowledge that we have held women to a lower standard. through -- >> it's separate standards. i totally disagree with your assessment. havee range does not separate standards. the target is the same whether period. woman or a man, >> boot camp has all the same requirements for women that it for the men, except pst, pull-ups and some of the academics, stuff like that. everything else is the same that's required. yet women have underperformed. >> let's take an analogy they

all relate to. let's take professional sports. women have trained their whole on college basketball scholarships. wnba vs. the nba. women are physical freaks of nature, just like the male counterparts. they train their whole life to be able to do things that the average person can't do, the high school basketball player can't do. but at the end of the day, if number one wnba team that won last year's championship and you put it the nba team that lost or maybe a division 3 program, game? going to win that we're trying to say we don't hold the same standard in professional sports. now we want to hold it to the same standard or make things womenent because the aren't given the right to be standard?higher >> hang on. >> women are held to a separate standard because it's a recognition of physiological differences -- >> no. >> and that their injuries are on theirreater even

lower standards. >> their injuries are greater because they're not held to a higher standard for physical performance. i read the same study! >> okay. okay. >> it's a lower standard? >> please. going like his voice is to be loud enough for all. but we're not arguing here. okay? discussion.aving a >> you indicated that -- so when recruit female marines, they come from some island, like island, or are they just simply from the standard population? answer.nk you know the >> you're right. i do know the answer. now, mr. ackerman, you indicated that it's just a matter of people being dishonest. if anything, i think you're dishonest. these individuals that are making these efforts to test the smartestre not the men, your fellow officers. okay? fellow officers. marine corps officer myself. they're not dishonest.

i've already done the count. half of this room i think is women. i think the other half is men. i want you to take a look at who you're sitting next to. i want to put all the men on side. i'm going to put owl the women on that side. gauntlet and said, now, fight to the death, who is this room? of >> what's your real question? i need a question. i need a question. i need a question. >> my question is this. that, as aou know recruiter and as a battalion officer, you know that these standards -- you said you were not a good shot until last year. stopped you from being a good shot? >> i was convinced that i wasn't shot. when i told myself that i was going to hold my recruits to a higher standard, i said it had to start with me. so i forced myself to go to the pistol range for a month before to qualify so i could become more confident with my weapon. it worked.

for the first time, i shot exert. so it can be done. >> how many years in service? >> 20. >> and it took you that long, at the basic school -- and you know, because we went through the basic school together. we all qualified right then and there and there was nobody telling you at that time that you're not -- you're not familiar with language expectancy. roll your eyes. the point is, if women are told women can't shoot -- was never told that, through my entire four years. >> you may not have been told that. is, if you look at the dec decades of shooting res, that was clear that the case. and when we change that dynamic, we saw the results. period. >> just because somebody wears the marine corps uniform does they cannot be intel intellectually dishonest. i'm saying this study was

intellectually dishonest. >> i would like to get -- um... joe. one.ck >> okay. in today's... please.the microphone, >> the wars we fight today, pretty much -- how do you expect to locate -- [inaudible] false premise. a completely false premise. it's actually -- first of all, if we were to represent the society as a whole, then we need to accept the disabled, the blind, the old, all of these things. if we're really representing okay?y, discrimination, one of the definitions of discrimination is to decipher and to be able to goodbetween something has

value and something that has negative value. okay? corps must on --trate based discriminate based on ability. pool.ot a 50% >> you've never deployed, sir. overseas, it's menall -- it's not just all deemploying. you deploy with a package of humans. be amazed at how many women -- >> you do not need to dumb down we this audience, because have quite a few veterans in here. joe is one of them. >> 50%? maybe you weren't in afghanistan or where i was the last decade, how much of a role being played by women. let me give you an example. at a combat outpost, a company ofrint of a soldiers. i was all over afghanistan for a year. alanded on a cop and saw

woman walking across. i looked to the guys, is she stuck? who is that girl? they said, that's susie, she's one of the officers. my first question wasn't, who is she having sex with? who is she messing with? no. my question is, is she good at her job? to --e guys i was talking >> the question was, is she good at her job? he's talking about the recruitment pool, though, dan. >> at her job. about --lking [inaudible] >> i don't speak that, no. could you?id, no. >> women are already being utilized in those capacities. >> they were able to get -- >> wait a minute. repeal thet need to combat exemption to utilize alreadye way they're being utilized, for just that kind of work. >> if you or i are making any arguments that women don't belong, did i state that women don't belong?

>> how do you locate, through the enemy -- >> we're already doing that. special operations. have access. >> okay. too many voices. to go to this gentleman right here. everybody.u to this is a fascinating issue. pointsund, i think the are being expressed very well. i think one of the spral points came-- central points that out was whether or not this is going to result in a higher or lower standard. heard, oh, that's true, oh, that's false. i think the corollary is there's a lowering of the standards, whether that's because of physical reasons or cultural reasons, my question is we're not the first society to be confronting this question. admittedly, united states has its own cultural history that may be playing a role here. extract the cultural element, the societal element, does the panel think about israel,untries,

denmark -- >> israel does not put women in direct combat roles. they tried it in 1988 and it was an unmitigated disaster, so they again, because the injuries were too high for the women. enemy becamee arab much more ferocious knowing it was fighting the enemy. myth that radical islamist are loathe to fight women because they won't get their 72 virgins. if i was interested in 72 virgins, i would fight more fiercely. but they fought much more fiercely knowing that there were side -- the opening opposing side, because it's so humiliating to lose to women in battle. any of the other nations, canada lowered their standards. amount of women who have gone with the infantry. sheltered them.

the women complain about it. they keep them on the base. them.on't utilize any other nations, they have women- in france, the have like zero, next to zero interest in being there. and no other nation -- look, we need to repealy women's combat exemption. we're already utilizing females. thean absolutely utilize amazon females we have. we want lots of really strong military. our they are serving, you know, with honor and distinction. repeal -- or we didn't have to repeal the combat to utilize those females. they're already there, already forg it, already recognized their actions. other countries have no to us.lity we're huge. israel is tiny. example? we take their

women serve in a couple of light battalions. they only do guard duty on borders that are their allies. only -- everybody has to enlist. but women have many exemptions. to -- they serve less than two years. men have to serve a mandatory three. serving but they're not serving the combat. >> got it. foreign have a sense of nations now. >> so i just had a really interesting conversation with a gentleman from norway who told me they don't have this issue in norway. have a stigma about women serving with men. they don't have issues with being in particular roles and it all goes back to society. a rul culture issue -- cultural issue, just like elliott said. at this as alook military cultural issue and we seek solutions on how we're change the culture and expand the culture to make it more conducive to everyone's

we will continue to have this debate for decades. question -- >> i was stationed in the north. i was in bed with the norwegians. norwegian force, they did combatow forces to go on operations. norwegian -- the koran issue popped up. lo and behold, the prt, whose sole purpose was to rebuild schools, dig wells and build churches -- they couldn't on combat operations. they said, death to america! let's go attack the norwegians! and the base came under attack. they freaked out. at one point, the battalion commander, his j2 and j3, were leave at the same time, because of the generous leave policy of like three weeks war. two months at i'm not kidding. so the guy turned to me, because the advisory team, he

said, we need help. us advice?e and what the norwegians planned statement, alla these apologetic statements, all these statements, with the typical, blah blah blah, and they were going to translate that to the radios, to the locals, some of which were coming from hillary clinton, the afghane in culture, not probably a good idea. well, when the base got a bunch of vehicles were destroyed. they were burned. turned out all the vehicles that destroyed were the cars from the local interpreters and others on the base. afghan locals whose cars were destroyed. when we asked them, what was in your car? said, oh, my computer, my mac book computer. were thinking we were going to give them a new computer. my koran wasd burned. what we ended up doing was

countermessaging, basically said we recommended -- listen, you burning of korans. we were able to use their religion against them. it.ever you want to call i've been next to the norwegians and god bless them all. ofy don't have an inkling our threat overseas. we're not in the -- >> it sounds like an attack on norwegians -- hang on. what i want to ask is this question. which is a legitimate question, raised by marine leadership in particular. there a risk -- and i'll ask you -- is there a risk of taking whoe hard-charging women are more likely to meet these standards and break down, of their physiological whatever limitations there are? question.egitimate >> it is. he can answer. >> i think that this whole is like, youhat know, that it's so unfair to these women, right? they would volunteer to go into the service and find out

the service breaks down their bodies, you know, like that's horrible. oh, my god. didn't realize being marines was hard on the body. you're a marine. you're a seal. getting shot at. like you are handing your body to the government as a man. us who i'm sure all of serve -- i'm sure dan has a broken body. broken body of a too. i think that's just sort of an odd argument that it's unfair to women because it's hard on their bodies. it's hard on male bodies if you combat.e if you do see combat, you're getting shot at. of the beast.ure i kind of don't know what to do with that argument, because it's it's unfair saying to a race car driver because they might crash their car. you're signing up to be a race car driver. >> we've been talking about this combat integration study. very thorough study. but it is interesting that when the study was presented to public, and to the there were elements that were toked out of the study

support the idea that women ground't go into combat, combat jobs. so the interesting thing is, when you read the 900 pages of i have and as jude probably has, what you find is deltahat difference, the in breakage between men and when physicalme, fitness no longer becomes a ficit, the breakage rate declines and is negated. we're back to, what do we need to do to make this a success? make sure that we're treating men and women to the same requirements and the same it comes toen physically preparing to come into the service. >> please, ma'am, there. >> my question is -- i just wanted to step aside from the studies and look to your own personal views. where you're coming from, integration is happening. so what are your thoughts on how move forward in

actually training? because i think there's idea that there is a physical training standard to it but also a moral ethical standard to it. i thought what was really interesting is we talked about these highm to physical standards but we still have these low moral standards say thingse still like, sexual misconduct is an where,ional hazard and you know, stuff like that i think is trainable. i don'te things that believe are just human nature, because it's going to happen, peoplede from seeing like -- like noncontact professional sports, where paid a lot more than you would in the military, and you're actually fighting for your country. the context of asymmetrical warful, and we've where isis is actually afraid of kurdish women fighters, because they're too embarrassed to be killed by them elm?

true. >> ultimately, this is about how to make this policy which has been made a success. jude or dan, you can jump in. to if kate has something say... so i mean, it is what it is. to say that. the policy has been made. >> and it can be repealed like itratively just was -- >> let's assume that the policy going to be -- is going to continue in the same way. i mean, if you don't have a view, that's fine. but if you have a view about how it can be implemented in the way, to address some of the issues that you guys have. it? is >> again, i don't think there's a successful way to implement a policy. what kate is saying about the injuries is false. women are just as fit as men, they get fewer gains from training. and the injury rates, they don't diminish with fitness.

women decline at a much faster rate. the physical where demand in these combat units is so much greater. military women, who are already very fit and already being held to greater standards than average women, you know, they're tenady averaging two to times men's injuries. that's not a culture issue. issue.a physiological that's an issue of differences in anatomy. separate standards exist for men and women. you can's no -- i mean, make women try to achieve men's standards. terms of everything that kate was talking about in noruit training, there's long-term study on the impact, the added impact and the added injuries of holding them to that much higher standard. to a lot of women are going not even make it through an enlistment, let alone a 20-year career.

no equal opportunity for women. >> so i'd like to focus on the thing, the linchpin, to making this a success. specifically to the marine corps. the culture has to start at the most basic foundational level, which is training. it's where the most individuals who are in the marine corps come in for their training, because fewer officers obviously than there are enlisted marines. that right now women are treated as "the other." treated as warriors. training is completely separate. segregated to a battalion and held to lower standards. theonly way to change perception of women being the other is by not making them the other. able to compete with their male counterparts throughout the 13 weeks, if to be standing on that pt field every day for pt, the mene same pt, and are able to see the women pushing therms to the point --

to the point of failure, the men will start to believe that women are no longer the other. fitnessg physical because it's the most visible demonstration of what makes a marine a marine. you make the argument that the women recruits could be same pt standards as men? them to compete in infantry -- >> clearly you haven't read anything about my release. recruits unless they were willing to push themselves to become strong enough to compete with their male counterparts, they were always going to be the other. you've proven my point. the'll try to answer question. [laughter] >> and i'm going to risk giving dan, a brain aneurysm when i do it. [laughter] that with love, because we're just having a debate. i don't want him to get too angry. so i actually -- i just think a way to do it which might be smart is that you don't

integrate the infantry first. that the first place you integrate is -- my thinking because -- is >> special operations. >> special operations forces. going to behere are fewer women who can meet these standards. the standard has to be the standard. goes down, there's going to be plenty of argument, with merit, that this is a plan. if the standard is the standard, there are going to be not a lot of women. i think there are going to be a can do it, like three who pass the ranger school. and softthose women them into spo units. talk about the culture in that community, because it's different than the culture in the infantry. the culture in the infantry is macho, masculine, put your head through a whole. premiumone that puts a on maturity of the operators and it's one where i think you're easier timee a much

culturally integrating women, as evidenced by the fact that women widely in the special operations. when i served as an infantry did not seeiterally a woman for the three years. roles weretrative filled only by men, even though roles filled by women. my thought being if you spo, you show there are women successfully working point tounits, you can them. of hot-wire that argument that women just aren't tough enough. thought. >> i'll take the comment that a seals,just admitted that rangers, he just said that -- >> i was a marine. say that.

>> think the ranger analogy. i got full benefits as a ranger. the fact is, a ranger qualified officer doesn't make you a ranger. >> no junior officer who takes 124 days to take a 60 day cou they are notmes, going to be given a shot to go to rangers. you put 141 through the pipeline and 22 in the course. how many women have graduated from the rangers course? >> and no one passes, you never integrate. >> we do have usual numbers who are willing to volunteer for any of this. mentiono just wanted to

an answer to the young ladies question, that there already is -- marines in military already go through lots and lots of sexual harassment training. >> let me get elaine. >> i just want to comment on some of the things already said. >> no speeches. >> he started out kind of downgrading the marine study. then, you got into the discussion and said the women for the as prepared ground combat forces. that really isn't true. the hypothesis of that study was very simple, that women with

gender-neutral standards go again, which they did, they had extra training going in, and they went up against average man -- the hypothesis was that the der-mix would perform equally as well as the men. all of the empirical evidence went to the contrary. when the empirical evidence comes in and you don't like it, you immediately question the study. >> what is your question, because i'm going to disagree with you/ ? 12-15erage man can do pull-ups. the women who graduated and went to this experiment were averaging 3-5. right there, there is a difference. >> i stand on what i said. you two are proving the point that dan makes.

you don't like to use the bone structure study. the marines had to do it this way, they had no choice. the only flaw with these exercises was that it didn't come up with the conclusion you want it. my question to you is -- i know because i studied and researched this, there is not a single study that proves what you are trying to imply. with a little preparation, we can do just as well as men, there are none. >> hang on, no speeches. they started talking about all the other complications, you can't happen that way. you have to look at the big picture. my question is -- how does it benefit the marine corps or the military to introduce the physical issues, the sexual issues, the cultural issues?

>> that is a good question. what are we really trying to achieve here and how will the military be better in 10 years if this goes through? >> can i make my point. i will be brief. i think we have fundamentally different values at a baseline level. i believe -- i don't think that suddenly you're going to have happy infantry battalion is going to be women and half will be went -- b men. just because most women cannot meet these standards doesn't mean that none should be able to try. i'm sure you're very accomplished, but there are fewer women serving as ceos then there are as men. >> this is not an office job. >> it reflects our values as a society. that is the answer.

you're being very dramatic. >> it is this going to improve over 10 years? >> how will that improve the military? can one of you guys answer that? isthis argument -- and this what i think is intellectually dishonest, that combat effectiveness is this monolithic thing. if you wanted maximum combat effectiveness, you would have the white boys from appalachia. haggling --ou stop stop heckling. at a certain point, our military does represent our values. it just does. that is why we repealed don't ask don't tell.

how do we become more combat effective? we have units, and the culture of those units are representing what the united states stands for. >> the bottom line is, if you look at the marine corps, we're the service leading in the number of sexual assaults. we talk about the fact that we have cultural problems. one of the ways we make units more combat effective as we prevent people from doing stupid things, by disrespecting persons of the other sex just because they were girls, as dan would say. if we change the culture in the military and expand the quality of the pool we are drawing from, it will have an impact that is favorable or national security in terms of combat effectiveness. , i am trying to stay in the marine corps fight here. >> one little point before your story.

said assumes that the fault is all-male. there problems with the females, too. females come on demand, too. this is a day one-sided thing. we are all human beings. just a little bit of discipline will take care of this -- it is human nature. you are fighting against hormones. don't misconstrue what i am saying here. i am talking about sex in general. i'm not saying it is human nature to sexually assault or anything. but women in these combat units are going to be at higher risk for those things with the most alpha of alpha males. no privacy, in the dirt training. often, in the furthest reaches of the globe with no privacy. and then, they are at much greater risk.

there is a risk of assault, but there is also the natural what happens between men and women. >> listen, you and i, we will have more in common than we don't. my point is, not everyone -- rand did a huge study. 85% of special operations across the spectrum from airsoft -- from air force, navy seals, rangers -- they are brought up all the topics on issues of conflict. at the end of the day, the point is bottom line. how would this improve the combat fighting lethality of what we do for a business, for a possession -- 48 profession? for us, it would destroy the team, destroy the ethos. i can tell you straight up --

the very small element that is itting al qaeda every night, was less than 100 men every night for about 8 years. the appellation boys you were talking about, they had one mission to focus on. anything to disrupt that legal capability should be a nonstarter. the military serves one purpose -- to win our wars. i am all about integration. women inrked alongside many forms and capacities. i see the value they bring to the table. that is not the topic. there are women doing things, and those things need to be kept to the shadows and that aired out. it will not make the unit better. >> i/o this guy a question. i'm glad we have so many questions. andse try to make it quick we will try to get a couple responses.

>> to the point about allowing women to try even though many i am wonderingt is, if you only have so many spots for so many special operations forces training regiments, like there is only so many training slots to be a navy seal, if you are putting more then through those, and attrition rate for women is higher, but you produce fewer seals them what you might have otherwise produced? >> question to him. >> fewer special operators to do the mission? screenereve there is a to run the selection. to even go down there, you have to pass certain physical tests. that doesn't cost them a school seat. you go to your unit, i want to take this test, a sergeant and a

seal will monitor you and take your scores. my current understanding, the current way it is done, you wouldn't have that issue. >> i can speak to this point blank. i have been mentoring young seals for decades now. there is a waiting list for buds. we don't need more recruits for the training program. my freshman year is when they opened up the billet. before that, anyone in your class rank could get a shot. the bottom line was, you had to do the training programs. it came out of your physical fitness test. competed. guys those billets, there wasn't a didn't have ast score of 20 plus.

-- i ended up scoring, i think, third on the test. day, the guy the that interviewed you look at your collective package. where were you in the summers? were you doing the things to prepare you to become a seal? thatrocess was so thorough the 19 guys that got those slots, that was the most competitive billet on the planet. now they are grooming. if she is given a slot, taken away from a guy who spent quite even if he did do the same training programs and she goes and failed out of the training program, that is another seed of that resentment. they are going to lower standards and shipped the scale.

>> let me get the gentleman in the back. >> thanks for the discussion. my question is for commander crochet. you have obviously been at the top level of combat effectiveness. you have a navy seal, went through ranger school, you have performed at the top echelon. earlier, you cited -- i think you called it a fairly evident example of the different between the wnba in the nba. i wonder if, at one point you life you think you could have competed in the wnba? >> i was the best best of all player in my parochial school and then i got to high school. i am not a basketball fan or a player. >> i would make one brief point. >> i spent plenty of time in combat operations. is is notbench press

hugely relevant when you were in a complex night raid or you are dealing with the security of an afghan valley that has incredibly complicated and arcane tribal issues. these things are important, but i will say -- and anyone that has been in combat here, i think, might agree with me -- they are a sliver of the pie when you're fighting a war. the director of the american civil liberties union of its rights project. we brought a lawsuit in challenging2012, the combat exclusion band in january -- exclusion band. in january of 2013, the secretary of defense lifted that band. our lawsuit is still pending and we happen following this and

waiting for full implementation, which without happened january 1, 2016. now we're looking at april. theuestion is, a lot of fears that are being espoused in this argument are the same fears and arguments that were made against integrating racially and integrating, allowing lgbt members to serve. the effect of and have anytions, of those fears come to light? >> that is a good question, i think. nothe racial integration has component whatsoever. racism is an irrational prejudice.

the opposition women in combat. it is based on knowledge of what , andob in combat requires what happens every time we test women against men's standards, which is that they don't perform as well and the injured more than twice as much. >> one of the arguments that was made about the lifting of don't ask, don't tell is that when you have open service, you are going to create huge unit cohesion issues. i do not know the answer to this question, but it seemed to be, and then circulate has views on this, that the end of that policy left with a whimper. >> it hasn't really been studied. >> the lifting of don't ask

don't tell -- >> the issue with someone being gay or lesbian, that is a personal thing. the issue for the operator is the standards. the standards are going to be changed. that is all they care about. if the guide your left or right, or the girl, can perform to the same capabilities of everyone in the unit. they are talking about gender normal. they are saying that if is too hard we need to lower it down. that is lowering the standards, and that is the slippery slope of destroying the ethos of the greatest fighting force. >> i completely agree with you. >> i would like to go back to 1945-1950 and talk about the segregation issue. at one time in this country, it was a very common notion, and it still is in some parts of this country, that african-americans were not as intelligent as white.

-- as white men. to say there is no comparison is really a false statement. the same arguments that are being used today about women going into ground combat and how that will impact cohesion are the same arguments that were used in 1950, 1945, and during don't ask don't tell. comparison, and i think that if you look at the don't ask don't tell process, i would say that it has been successful and that there hasn't that wascklash anticipated by the leadership, because it is generational. i think every person who has served in the military has worked alongside someone who was gay. you knew it, and maybe they didn't come out, but they were still gay and you knew it. they were maybe average or really good or not good at all, but it wasn't because they were gay. it is a nonissue for the

generations serving today, minus minor pockets. when we see women succeed and we hold them to a higher standard, we will see that this is a nonissue, too. >> when we went into korea, our military was very depleted, and we had to put almost everybody on the front line. why do we have women in the general -- military in general? >> women are excellent at certain essential field. there are fields in which women excel especially compared to men. intelligence, communications, medicine. nobody here is arguing that the military -- that women shouldn't be in the military. women have been serving for decades.

serving in our deployments. >> special operations in many roles. the perception is that we still have unit that employment don't have a woman in the unit. that is completely false. it is not say that there aren't roles to be played by women. the argument is the fundamental question. i think the lane brought it up. elaine brought it up. they getting to this baseline will some how make them better perform their mission. >> back here. we're almost in the 5 to 6

minute period. >> there is a saying in the marine corps that the bottom 10% takes up 90% of your time. i found that to be pretty commonly held. it basically means that the bottom 10% of any unit is just not performing at the level that you need to to get your entire unit functional and combat effective. getting rid of that bottom 10% will make the rest of that 90% more combat effective. am i interpreting this wrong? when you look at the study that a day, which fixed -- that they did, which takes into account all the fitness problems, injury problems, there is a part of the study that says that the top 10% will match with the bottom 50%, 35% of men. seems to be that you could take those top women and knock out

the nonperforming men and replace them with women who are exactly equal or potentially better than the men. topink also that the performer in an entire study was a woman, overall. if that is sort of a compromise position that everyone would agree that we need to get rid of the low performing people in the marine corps. we keep the standards and get women who do meet them. >> i am not a marine, but i can tell you right now. 50% or 60%. >> the problem is, all the other risks involved. even if you have this one woman -- why are we changing the policy based on one woman?

the problem is this is just about a couple of women who want to. first of all, now women are subject to involuntary assignment, because that is what repealing the combat exception means. the women who are willing and maybe able, when they succumb to their two to ten times greater theirf injury, replacements are going to come from the pool of the unwilling, and most women in the marine corps and in the overall forces are not interested in the introductory -- in the infantry. whot now, we don't have any have applied of the ones who were in that integration study or who have gone through marine infantry training battalions. finding lot of trouble any women who want to. this is a deterrent for recruitment as well.

study of the12 marine corps, 54,000 cover that that -- and people found that, about 4% of women who are staying and would not stay in if involuntary assignment was on the table. sorry, that is if the exception was going to be repealed, the numbers are even greater, like 20% for women. >> i hate doing this, but if you could ask a question and then the woman asks.

>> hang on. good. >> i was one of the first women to serve on the ship in 1994. the arguments made then was that we were told that we would degrade combat readiness. i'm just curious, because we have now had many years of war to study this. -- combat readiness to grade readiness degrade? know fromdy that i

the navy refers to ships as -- if you like high school, you will like this. that doesn't exactly speak to your combat readiness. i can't really speak to what the navy thinks about combat readiness on ships after women were serving on them. that is a huge problem. again, it is a huge problem that is not addressed by standards, regardless of physical standards. >> i would like to thank you for your service during the transition, and i think a lot of lessons learned during your era are lessons we don't look backwards to do that type of reflection. i would say, having served on ships, we didn't have any issues with the women in terms of how the mission was achieved. i think that the secretary of the navy would be hard-pressed to say otherwise. >> could anyone speak to the gentleman's question about the rangers?

>> i think, in some ways, it is not necessarily a parallel argument, is the women who had been working on those teams had different duties than the men on those units. i served in special operations units with the women, and the women were doing different work then the man. there has been this argument that women have been in combat for a long time on convoys. it is not synonymous, because the units we're talking about integrating his units where the actual purpose is close combat. i think those are interesting points to show that there was success, but to say that, because they have been doing this, they can automatically do these other jobs, isn't a one-to-one, although it shows they can be out of the field, these exist -- these units can exist as integrated unit. >> i am a reporter.