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>> now, current and foreign military officers on allowing women to serve in military combat. this comes after the defense department lifted all restrictions on women serving in combat roles including infantry positions, reconnaissance, and special operations roles. the new york city bar association hosted this event. washington where think tanks and panel discussions are a way of life but some of them are not so good. we have a great one tonight. we are here to talk about an important to truly the military and i would argue as a reporter that covers the pentagon, important to the nation.

allintegration of women in roles in the military including in combat roles. what happened for those of you that may or may not be familiar with the contours of this issue is 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 announcement, i found, because mr. carter, who has been the secretary since last year, is very interested in this issue, maybe the announcement with little fanfare and standing alone at a podium in what we call the pentagon briefing room. the optics of the announcement struck me, and occurred to me that 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. we had four 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. so, i think this is a good, timely topic for right now. let me just quickly introduce 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. i'm not going to read through this, but he is a former navy seal, who has a lot of service, and 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. and in 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 is a former navy that. -- guy. 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. that was her last big command. she serves also in a bunch of different roles over the years. most notably, as a recruiter in various forms. i think we can really yield 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 operations officer, and has become a novelist. he is the author of a critically acclaimed novel, and in january, 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. he has been in my own paper, the wall street journal. eden is a former enlisted marine 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. she also served as a photographer for her battalion.

she is now a frequent contributor and freelance writer to various publications like the new york times, 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. the title of this event tonight is a little bit racy, but the idea is to kind of bring out ideas about what the nation and what the military needs to think about as we integrate women in these combat roles. i think one of the -- there's a lot of different issues to think about.

how it is 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 give a quick, 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. do you want to start? >> 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 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 framed as, we need to launch 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. when i served in the infantry, i 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. i think 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 if we size -- 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 incidents that serve to blast them. there have been incidents like that. but i'm looking forward to the discussion.

mr. lubold: for the sake of diversity, why don't we go down to the other side. i don't want to make too much of this point pointing -- point, 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 the panel, i 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.

i'm really glad that the new 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. it depends on a 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. the marine corps' nine-month 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. the other big thing that the advocacy for women in combat depends on, 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 in 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. another part of my background is many years of martial arts he -- 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. that hand-to-hand fighting -- if you talk to anybody who has a lot of deployment experience and direct close combat experience, a lot of the times, they are

smashing heads. when the gun 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 injuries, even fit women -- i 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 ignored in favor of just pushing

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 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. the marine corps has trouble, 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. having two 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 males 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 twice in my two tours, as a 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 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 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. >> pleasure being here. it will be an interesting back-and-forth. i speak as someone with 20 odd years in special operations. i spent four years after 9/11 between iraq and afghanistan. i have been in every environment you can imagine, and i have 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 carter, the west point colonel, who filed a lawsuit against women in combat, they all said the same thing. we want women to be given a chance to fight and die for their country just like young men. that sounds good in theory, that 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 20. 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 overwhelming, in every -- beyond 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 marines might dispute that -- it is arguably the hardest training in the world. now, and i have trained and worked with my counterparts from all over the world, and i mean all over the world, and to a one, they come up to me and make a comment. that is what holds us to the 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. we have already seen it in the leadership.

from the sec def. 30% combat efficiency and an integrated unit. if you are on wall street and you get a company, and instead of hiring mbas out of harvard and columbia, are you going to go to community colleges in florida and except a 30% in efficiency? but we 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

rest, if the standards 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. so, there was a lot of stuff it 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?

and who -- i'm kind of being 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 before, we are marine corps-navy heavy, and i think that's really by accident, although it makes sense because, for different reasons, the other services concerns or non-concerns were not as 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 announced his decision, he said this has to be done in the name of combat effectiveness -- i am bastardizing the quote, but the point was he was making this decision in order to improve the effectiveness of the fighting force. he also talked about recruiting and all of that. but let's just talk about combat readiness. the study we have talked about -- and the marines -- correct me if i am wrong. i am a reporter, i am used to getting beat up, so if i say something screwed up, please tell me, but the marines are credited with doing the heaviest analysis 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 here a little bit -- our units with women integrated into them as effective of ones that are not? >> i think this is an amazing 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 sorry, three -- it was very carefully observed that they adhered to every standard. i don't think we can make that assumption. if that happened, i would be standing lock armed with dan saying that is wrong and that i 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 other in close quarters, but the 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. when 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 standards and say either you meet the standards or you don't. let's talk about the cultural standards. i was never particularly hot and bothered about this issue. if you will indulge me, i would like to share a brief anecdote. i was at a book party, and i bumped into an old marine colleague of mine. he was now 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 going all right, none of the 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. either your platoon past or your 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 woman can never call -- haul 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. now look, i am a proud marine, but i am a human being first, and to me, that is wrong. it's unfair and wrong. the standards didn't slip. it's not as if we are in a wartime incubator. it's dishonest.

we are an integrated squad. what does that look like? a squad needs a squad leader. a squad these squad leader, right tackl? you are going to put women into many of these leadership programs. of course, when you sprinkle ween into the squads, they probably will not perfor at the leve as trained infantry. ironic.i find it i'm not some champion of women's rights. this just is not right. it feels dishonest.

at the end of the day, if you have not gone through a transparent process, it will come out. that has always been my concern. i will leave it at that. one of thehe st -- was women would not be as effective in the units. i want to come back to you and , i think somebout people think the study was

flawed, and the approach was flawed. you want to talk a little about what that means, and why it is a big deal? females of all, the were top-performing females. minimum eight the men's standards, the physical fitness test. they had completed the investment training. training.ent they were not fresh recruits. there were corporals among them. they were competing against average men. they were not competing against the top performers. , their 134 combat tasks performance was significantly lower, significantly weaker, they fatigue faster. smokescreen. women have less lung capacity,

less bone density. training just about and holding them to different standards. ,nly women to men standards they are not men, they have a different physiology. adding the excess training reduces their bone density, and that is what causes greater injuries. you cannot just say, if we reevaluate the standard, and by make menif women could standards easily, they would not need to be reevaluated. we need to reevaluate the standards, and elliott has echoed that. by the way, a crossfit's e-mail

competing at her utmost is not crossfiter a male performing at his utmost. >> isn't it true that a female potentiallyould compete against, maybe not the top male crossfiter, but -- >> even if you have women who , whoake the standards could do that, first of all, they are fair. you do not make sweeping policies that affect the entire military base on a couple of exceptional women. second, it does nothing to solve the problems of sexual relationships that are always a problem. >> the cultural issue. > sex is not a cultural issue.

he put them together, and they will have sex. >> it is leadership. >> no, it is not, it is a human nature issue. >> if the reason we are keeping women, because the number will be so small -- the is-performing crossfit women in better shape than the fatty i was dealing with, i would rather have her in my platoon. phase that guy out. we do need better ways to get the washouts out. we see areas where we need to tighten the standards for men as well. there is a lot to be cleaned -- story. from the

,ecause some men are unfit women are automatically interchangeable with them is false. >> the marine corps said, we cannot incorporate women because of all of these physical issues. to me, that is intellectually disingenuous. again, i'm not a huge advocate, but it does disingenuous. >> i would like to talk about why it is rare for women to meet those standards. it is rare for women to meet the standards because for decades we have allowed women to underperform at training. we have created an environment specifically in the murray core where we have segregated training with the only unit the trains women in the entire department of defense -- women are held to different standards. they are not required to push

themselves. ale their me ired counterparts think that it will be easier for them. they get to paris island, and step on the yellow footprints, to the females are pushed the back of the formation. they are put in the battalion that is separate from the mails and both geography, time, and space. the males already have a negative perception about their female counterparts right from the time they join the program. i'm talking in an average year, not those success stories by that i mentioned. the bottom line is the perception is training for women is easier and, by the way, it

has been easier. let's talk about the rifle range. there is no reason why women should not be able to shoot. i know, i was a terrible shot, until last year. the bottom line is for decades, between 62achieved and 60%. the third of each class was being dropped that because they cannot qualify on the range. was that because of physiology tackle no. was it because they cracked under her shirt? absolutely not. it is because there was a perception on the range that shoot.ould not

last year, women shot just under 92. you know how that happened? we did not give them a next her or give themre extra training. we held them to extra standards. we did not add anything to the training schedule other than supervision by the actual drill instructors . they rose to the occasion. that was not the only area where women rose to the occasion in one year. we saw women rise to the occasion in terms of physical , and filling leadership responsibilities because drill start -- instructors expected and demanded to raise up until the point, they were expected to do tless.

>> [indiscernible] you do a psychological survey of women, and they want to weed out the young marine that has a negative fellowe about their enlistments, you not only have a smaller ou output of women, but also men. >> and by your logic, in the whites from the south

not like african-americans. it is the same logic saying that because men do not like women, women should not be allowed in. it is the work -- it does not work. so, we should not let women in because men have a bias? data.'s go to empirical your crossfit analysis. if women start training in the teens -- 13, and go on to become professional athletes -- you still to market the numbers to get them through the training. i was on deployment in the middle east.

i got a message saying you are going to rangers goa school in january. see you here in 72 days. the women that went through the her whittled down -- were whittled down, and the -- youho did graduate will change policy based on three women graduating from the course? we have to go back to the presidential unit standards. >> that is a set of what the

course study did. >> one and a great conversation, but one at a time. >> the marine corps study showed, and kate wants to say, , this wasn the past like yesterday. some age-old thing. the marine corps study was like, can you do it or can you not to it? the answer was clear. not only back, but women were distracting to the men, and vice versa. there's no mitigating for that. battalione study of a in 2010 that was deployed to iraq. they found that women were sent home for non-battle, noncombat times theree to four

rate of men, and 74% of the time due to pregnancy. that is catastrophic. pile -- this is regardless of standards. there's this whole other set of issues you are adding on more problems that do not exist by themselves. >> i have a marine friend who said he had women come into his unit, and they were innocent. they were untrained and not prepared for the women. but with the name -- what was the name? serve similar to the role right. they came into the unit, and the sky was explaining that there

.re a lot of problems what he came to realize is these were disciplined and leadership women. not >> this is a human nature issue. this isthe problem is really just now being addressed that leadership has been just as guilty, it is not just spend e enlisted side. leadership has been guilty of doing this. is a human nature issue. the hyper masculinity is exactly

our enemyed to kill fighting, isis, who are on methamphetamines, by the way. pierre piling on issues that we have not been able to solve in the military. , and it is bad enough that we tolerate it in the military as a whole. to put these added ordinance distractions and disruptive and expensive problems on the combat unit is idiotic. >> how would you address these if you were in an integrated unit? logical.to me it is

if you want to create the most effective lethal deadly fighting force in the world, you would probably go to some town in appalachia, and find the 30 town, anduys in the send them to fight. guess what? our military also represents we are as a nation, fund and -- fundamentally. it does in many respects. i think the idea of saying, this is the standard, and if you can make the standard, you are allowed in. the logic that we cannot integrate women into these units because you have the senior says who are behaving inappropriately, sexually assaulting women, i don't know

what to say to that. that's not logical. by the same standard, that would get pregnant.en so, out of the law firms, we should have no women because they have to take maternity leave. catastrophic.e you are on a mission, and somebody is pulled out. it is catastrophic enough when someone is pulled out. >> [indiscernible] what about if a woman gets $30,000 toand is redefine her somewhere else. you have to pull out the guy. what beerould -- saying is we have such a low threshold for how human beings treat each other.

that is ok, and we will leave it at that. by the same token, we are saying the military has a higher and ethics. conduct the bottom line is the issue of how women and men behave has been tested for decades in many different capacities, and it has been successful. have there been problems? absolutely. within the units, they were already problems that existed. that's talk about what the concerns are in the integration process. the number one concern, intimate relationships. the number one concern that women have -- we are basically saying should not be training men and women to a higher expectation of conduct to make sure they're there to fight for their country and -- it

makes no sense. the bottom line is if we're going to have a military and we're going to say that the military is held to a higher 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. who 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. raise a hand. who has a question? you and then if you want to ask a question, we'd love to hear what you have to say. >> my question is, with regards to the arguments about the dangers of women outside of physiological inadequacies, cohesion of the unit and military sexual trauma and such, with the recent changes to our nation's ideals with regards to gender identity, traditional gender roles, even the family structure, how would that be any

different that the military is going to have 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 a gentleman who wants to join into a combat unit who has a different gender identity, and how are they going to address that? >> great question. >> i mean -- i mean -- >> it poses the same problems. i mean, now the lgbt thing is now rendered -- has now taken away the neutrality that once existed with the sexes being separated, you know. with the guys amongst themselves or when you had don't ask, don't tell. and i guess -- i mean, you may be better able to answer this. but, you know, now you've taken

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

1990's. you know what we had to worry about besides going to war? women. when you go -- i was appointed to the middle east. my entire career has been nowhere other than the middle east. ieast. they don't have alcohol, 7-elevens. when you go overseas, you've got nothing that focuses on the mission, which is killing the enemy. that's what we do. that's our only focus. all this other stuff is white noise.

it's a distraction, complication. it makes guys go, listen, i'm here to focus on the mission, which is keep this country safe. and the don't ask, don't tell, guys are like, don't bring your personal stuff 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. and in my bio, i did two years of paramilitary. i worked with jessica. all the guys called her "slay jay." we were all professional enough, and i think you'd agree, most people are professional enough that when you go on a six-month deployment, and there's a woman sitting next to you, you can keep your pants on. [applause] >> there are women within special operations. and you and i probably can share more stories together, not here because it's not on topic. but i agree with you 100%. you keep things professional and there aren't those issues. it is about leadership and it's about recognition.

and there are absolutely values to having a woman in certain environments, especially other parts of the world. but now we're announcing to the world that now we have women going through. we're 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. >> hang on. let me just say -- >> all the studies have come out. they've all said you need as a unit, you need to justify why -- >> absolutely false! >> no. it's absolutely true. absolutely true. reevaluating the standard. he said we need to reevaluate the standards. and the standards have consistently been lowered over decades. you know, and what they do is they take out certain tests where women don't excel, so that absolutely true. it matches, or they make the two men -- used to be a two-man litter carry. now it's a four-man litter carry, because they found that when women were integrated into the academies and stuff, you know, and they would test the men but they found that two women couldn't carry the litter up the ship ladder. but two men could. but in order to accommodate and get the gender diversity metrics -- what they care about

is gender diversity metrics. they'll mouth the words of 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 side of the table to acknowledge that we have held women to a lower standard. you went through -- >> it's separate standards. i totally disagree with your assessment. >> the range does not have separate standards. the target is the same whether you're a woman or a man, period. >> boot camp has all the same requirements for women that it does for men, except for the pst, pull-ups and some of the academics, stuff like that. everything else is the same that's required. >> and yet women have underperformed.

>> let's take an analogy they can all relate to. let's take professional sports. women have trained their whole life on college basketball scholarships. wnba vs. the nba. those 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 average high school basketball player can't do. but at the end of the day, if you took the top number one wnba team that won last year's championship and you put it against the nba team that lost or maybe a division 3 program, who is going to win that game? 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 different because the women aren't given the right to be held to a higher standard? >> hang on. >> women are held to a separate standard because it's a recognition of physiological differences -- >> no. >> and that their injuries are so much greater even on their

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. i feel like his voice is going to be loud enough for all. but we're not arguing here. okay? we're just having a discussion. >> you indicated that -- so when we recruit female marines, they come from some island, like amazon island, or are they just simply from the standard population? >> i think you know the answer. >> 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 being dishonest. these individuals that are making these efforts to test the marines are not the smartest men, your fellow officers. okay? fellow officers. i'm a former 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 this side. i'm going to put owl the women on that side. if i drop the gauntlet and said, now, fight to the death, who is walking out of this room? >> what's your real question? i need a question. i need a question. i need a question. >> my question is this. you know, you know that, as a recruiter and as a battalion officer, you know that these standards -- you said you were not a good shot until last year. what stopped you from being a good shot? >> i was convinced that i wasn't a good 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 i went 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 -- >> clearly you're not familiar with language expectancy. you can roll your eyes. the point is, if women are told women can't shoot -- >> i was never told that, through my entire four years. >> you may not have been told that. but the point is, if you look at the decades of shooting results, it's very clear that that was the case. and when we change that dynamic, we saw the results. period. >> just because somebody wears the marine corps uniform does not mean they cannot be intellectually dishonest. i'm saying this study was intellectually dishonest. >> i would like to get -- um...

joe. a quick one. >> okay. in today's... >> with the microphone, please. >> the wars we fight today, they're pretty much -- how do you expect to locate -- [inaudible] >> it's a false premise. a completely false premise. first of all, 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 society, okay? discrimination, one of the definitions of discrimination is to decipher and to be able to tell between something has good

value and something that has negative value. okay? the marine corps must demonstrate based on -- discriminate based on ability. it's not a 50% pool. >> you've never deployed, sir. unites deployed overseas, it's not all -- it's not just all men deemploying. you deploy with a package of humans. and you'd be amazed at how many women -- >> you do not need to dumb down for this audience, because we 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. i landed at a combat outpost, a small footprint of a company of soldiers. i was all over afghanistan for a year. i landed on a cop and saw a

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? and the guys i was talking to -- >> the question was, is she good at her job? he's talking about the recruitment pool, though, dan. >> at her job. >> i'm talking about -- [inaudible] >> i don't speak that, no. >> if you did, could you? no. >> women are already being utilized in those capacities. >> they were able to get -- >> wait a minute. >> you don't need to repeal the combat exemption to utilize women the way they're already 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. >> they have access. >> okay. too many voices. i'm going to go to this gentleman right here. >> thank you to everybody. this is a fascinating issue. all around, i think the points are being expressed very well. i think one of the spral points that -- central points that came out was whether or not this is going to result in a higher or lower standard. we heard, oh, that's true, oh, that's false. i think the corollary is whether, if 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. but if we extract the cultural element, the societal element, what does the panel think about other countries, israel, denmark -- >> israel does not put women in

direct combat roles. they tried it in 1988 and it was an unmitigated disaster, so they never did it again, because the injuries were too high for the women. they found the arab enemy became much more ferocious knowing it was fighting the enemy. there's a myth that radical islamist are loathe to fight women because they won't get their 72 virgins. i'm sure if i was interested in 72 virgins, i would fight more fiercely. but they fought much more fiercely knowing that there were women on the opening side -- opposing side, because it's so humiliating to lose to women in battle. any of the other nations, canada lowered their standards. they have a tiny amount of women who have gone with the infantry. and they have sheltered them.

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

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

success, we will continue to have this debate for decades. >> quick question -- >> i was stationed in the north. i was in bed with the norwegians. the norwegian force, they did not allow forces to go on combat operations. i was in norwegian -- the koran issue popped up. and lo and behold, the prt, whose sole purpose was to rebuild schools, dig wells and build churches. they couldn't go 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 both home on leave at the same time, because of the generous leave policy of like three weeks every two months at war. i'm not kidding. so the guy turned to me, because we were on the advisory team, he said, we need help. can you give us advice? and what the norwegians planned

to do was take a statement, all 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, which you're in the afghan culture, not probably a good idea. well, when the base got attacked, a bunch of vehicles were destroyed. they were burned. turned out all the vehicles that were destroyed were the cars from the local interpreters and others on the base. these were afghan locals whose cars were destroyed. when we asked them, what was in your car? they said, oh, my computer, my mac book computer. they were thinking we were going to give them a new computer. they also said my koran was burned. what we ended up doing was countermessaging, basically said

we recommended -- listen, you protest the burning of korans. we were able to use their religion against them. whatever you want to call it. i've been next to the norwegians and god bless them all. they don't have an inkling of 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. is there a risk -- and i'll ask you -- is there a risk of taking those hard-charging women who are more likely to meet these standards and break down, because of their physiological whatever limitations there are? that's a legitimate question. >> it is. he can answer. >> i think that this whole couching of that is like, you know, that it's so unfair to these women, right? if they would volunteer to go

into the service and find out that the service breaks down their bodies, you know, like that's horrible. oh, my god. we didn't realize being marines was hard on the body. you're a marine. you're a seal. you're getting shot at. like you are handing your body to the government as a man. i mean, i'm sure all of us who serve -- i'm sure dan has a broken body. i have a bit of a broken body 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 don't see combat. if you do see combat, you're getting shot at. that's the nature of the beast. i kind of don't know what to do with that argument, because it's sort of like saying it's unfair 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. it was a very thorough study. but it is interesting that when the study was presented to congress and to the public, there were elements that were

picked out of the study to support the idea that women shouldn't go into combat, ground combat jobs. so the interesting thing is, when you read the 900 pages of the study, as i have and as jude probably has, what you find is that that difference, the delta in breakage between men and women, over time, when physical fitness no longer becomes a deficit, 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 standards when it comes to 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. regardless of where you're coming from, integration is happening. so what are your thoughts on how we should move forward in actually training?

because i think there's something to the idea that there is a physical training standard to it but also a moral ethical training standard to it. i thought what was really interesting is we talked about holding them to these high physical standards but we still have these low moral standards where people still say things like, sexual misconduct is an occupational hazard and where, you know, stuff like that i think is trainable. there are things that i don't believe are just human nature, because it's going to happen, and aside from seeing people like -- like noncontact professional sports, where you're getting paid a lot more than you would in the military, and you're actually fighting for your country. but in the context of asymmetrical warful, and we've seen gains where isis is actually afraid of kurdish women fighters, because they're too embarrassed to be killed by them elm? >> not true.

>> ultimately, this is about how to make this policy which has already been made a success. jude or dan, you can jump in. and if kate has something to say -- so i mean, it is what it is. we love to say that. the policy has been made. >> and it can be repealed administratively just like it was -- >> let's assume that the policy is 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 best way, to address some of the issues that you guys have. what is it? >> again, i don't think there's a successful way to implement a flawed policy. what kate is saying about the injuries is false. when women are just as fit as men, they get fewer gains from extra training. and the injury rates, they don't diminish with fitness. women decline at a much faster rate.

and that's -- where the physical 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 already averaging two to ten times men's injuries. that's not a culture issue. that's a physiological issue. that's an issue of differences in anatomy. that's why separate standards exist for men and women. so there's no -- i mean, you can make women try to achieve men's standards. but in terms of everything that kate was talking about in recruit training, there's no long-term study on the impact, the added impact and the added injuries of holding them to that much higher standard. and a lot of women are going to not even make it through an enlistment, let alone a 20-year career.

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

pushing therms to the point -- themselves to the point of failure, the men will start to believe that women are no longer the other. i'm using physical fitness because it's the most visible demonstration of what makes a marine a marine. >> did you make the argument that the women recruits could be held to the same pt standards as men? if you want them to compete in the infantry -- >> clearly you haven't read anything about my release. i told my 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. >> i'll try to answer the question. [laughter] >> and i'm going to risk giving my friend, dan, a brain aneurysm when i do it. [laughter] >> and i mean 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 behind that is because -- >> special operations. >> special operations forces. >> because there are going to be fewer women who can meet these standards. the standard has to be the standard. the second it goes down, there's going to be plenty of argument, with merit, that this is a flawed 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 few who can do it, like three who pass the ranger school. you take those women and soft them into spo units. let's 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. this is one that puts a premium on maturity of the operators and it's one where i think you're going to have a much easier time culturally integrating women, as

evidenced by the fact that women serve widely in the special operations. when i served as an infantry officer, i literally did not see a woman for the three years. our administrative roles were filled only by men, even though those were roles filled by women. my thought being if you integrate spo, you show there are women successfully working in those units, you can point to them. it will sort of hot-wire that argument that women just aren't integrate spo, you show there tough enough. that's my thought. >> i'll take the comment that a marine just admitted that seals, rangers, he just said that -- >> i was a marine. i can say that. >> let's take the ranger. i went through the training back in the day.

i got full benefit. a ranger qualified officer does not make you a ranger. no junior officer, who takes 124 52 day course a -- you get two chances, not three, they will never be given the shot. by the way, how many women have school?d rangers >> send them in. set the standard, let them show up. the numbers of people willing to volunteer for any of

this? >> i also wanted to mention in answering the young ladies question, there already are lots and lots -- military and marines, already through a lot of sexual harassment training, and briefings. elaine.me get a she is sitting here suffering. >> i just want to comment on some of the things already said. >> then, get your question. no speeches. >> you started out downgrading , then you gotdy into the discussion -- true.eally is not the hypothesis of the study was

very simple. gender-neutral standards with extra training going in going up against average men, the hypothesis was that they would perform equally well as men. all of the empirical evidence went to the contrary. when the empirical evidence comes in, and you don't like it, you question the study. >> what is your question. i would stick you with you. we interpret the study differently. 12-15erage man can do pull-ups. the women who graduated and went roughly to the experiment are averaging 3-5. , there is a difference. >> asked the question, and we will get a response. proving -- you two

are proving the point. you don't like to use the bone structure study. they did not come out with the conclusion you wanted. i know,tion to you is because i have studied and researched this, there is not a single study that proves what you are trying to imply. >> that is actually not true. >> i agree. hang on. no speeches. make a very quick point, please. >> then, we started talking about the other conversations. you cannot have it that way. you have to look at the big picture. my question is how does it benefit the marine corps, the introduce physical what does that make

the military? >> that is a good question. what are we trying to achieve ?ere how with the military be better in 10 years if this goes through ? >> 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 he will have 50-50, how full be within, and half will be then. there are huge physical differences. just because most women cannot meet these standards to mean that none should be able to try. done. none. there are fewer women serving as .eos than men in this country >> this is not an office job.

> how does it make> us better? it reflects a society -- our values as a society. sooner.re going to die >> it is a fair question, how with this improve over 10 years. > how will combat> effectiveness improve, and how will it improve the military? argument, and i think this is what is intellectually dishonest is if you wanted combat effectiveness, he would have to wipe waste from appalachia. heckling. you stop thank you very much. 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 reflects what the united states of america stands for. >> the bottom line is if you look at the marine corps, we are leading in a number of sexual assaults. why is that? we talked about having a cultural problem. one way we become more effective is prevent people from getting .n trouble the bottom line is if we change the culture in the military, and expand the quality of the pool be our drawing from, it will have an effect that is positive and favorable for national security. is -- i'm trying to stay out of the marine corps fight here -- >> can i make one little point before your story?

> he had the floor>. >> what kate says is it assumes the fault is all-male. .he fault is also females .e're all human beings it is human nature. you are fighting against hormones. you know? don't misconstrue what i'm saying. i'm talking about sex in general it is human nature to rape were sexually -- or sexually assault. women in combat units will be at higher risk with the most alpha of alpha males. no privacy, in the dirt training, and off in the furthest reaches of the globe with no privacy.

there is a risk of assault, but also the natural what happens between men and women. listen, we have more in i'mon -- if you're buying, irish. poll, 85%s they did a of special operations from , thes the spectrum universally brought up all the topics that my counterpart has done on issues of conflict. at the end of the day, bottom this improve what

we do as a business, a profession? their position is it does not, and it would destroy the team, ethos. i can tell you straight out, every night for eight years. appellation boys you are talking about, they had one mission focus. anything to disrupt that lethal capability should be a nonstarter. the military served one purpose, to win the war. i'm all about integration. i've worked alongside women in many deployments in many 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'm glad we have so many questions. please try to make it quick and we will try to get a couple responses. >> to the point about allowing women to try even though many may fail -- what i am wondering 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 women through those, and the 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? >> i believe there is a screener 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. roughly 80 guys competed. those billets, there wasn't a guy on that list didn't have a score of 20 plus. we -- i ended up scoring, i think, third on the test.

at the end of the day, the guy 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? the process was so thorough that 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 for years and 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.

what your bench press is is not 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. >> i am the director of the american civil liberties union of its rights project. we brought a lawsuit in november of 2012, challenging the combat exclusion ban. 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. my question is, a lot of the 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. what has been the effect of those integrations, and have any of those fears come to light? >> that is a good question, i think. >> the racial integration has no component whatsoever. racism is an irrational prejudice. the opposition women in combat.

it is based on knowledge of what the job in combat requires, and 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 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. there is a 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 been a backlash that was 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 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 women shouldn't be in the military. women have been serving for decades.

they are 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 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% of women 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. i think also that the top performer in an entire study was a woman, overall. i wonder 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 risk of injury, their 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 infantry. right now, we don't have any who have applied of the ones who were in that integration study or who have gone through marine infantry training battalions. we had a lot of trouble finding any women who want to. this is a deterrent for recruitment as well.

there is a 2012 study of the marine corps, 54,000 covered, that found that, about 4% of women who are staying and would not stay in if involuntary assignment was on the table. i'm 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.

[inaudible] >> 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. did combat readiness degrade? >> everybody that i know from 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 units can exist as integrated unit. >> i am a reporter. when i go into interview, i tried last the interviewee, please make me smarter.

i hope that despite some rancor, a lot of passion, that everybody feels a little bit smarter. if you want me to, i will ask how many people may change their minds in anyway based on the conversation tonight. does anybody feel any differently about this issue having sat through two hours of discussion? i see one hand. >> i saw three hands. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> bono along with retired general james jones testified about violent extremism and foreign assistance. live coverage from a senate subcommittee hearing at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 3. had a couple of meals in a steam shovel. and i think, again, it is one of the other ironies, to be so antigovernment and owe your entire fortune to the government's largesse. >> sunday night, author sally denton talks about her book "the lookteers," which takes a at the back tell corporation, one of the largest construction companies of the world. >> who else is the united states government going to get to build these projects throughout the

world and i think, it's fine but if thel, american taxpayer is paying, it seems the taxpayer should have access to information about their, the contracts, the amount s'safety, the worker the political relationships. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern "q&a."pan's >> thos month we showcase our student cam winners. is road to theme the white house. what issues do want presidential candidates to discuss? second prize high schoolur east winners are from sandy spring, maryland.