Will Joni Ernst speak. Former soldier. GOP platform - no women in combat? Oops.

[rdean]

Will she or won't she speak?

 

[Agit8r]

I'm sure she'll slip the bread-bags over her shoes and slog through it.

 

[Political Junky]

She's on now.

 

[Lakhota]

Pigs must be nervous as hell...

 

[sonic]

Will she or won't she speak?

If she does, it will be all bullshit. Politifact says 60% of the crap coming out her mouth is a lie.
She lies almost as much as Trump does.

 

[NYcarbineer]

She's on now. Holy fuck what a horse toothed man face!! Did she BITE the testicles off those hogs she castrated?

Isn't there a girl's basketball team somewhere she should be coaching?

 

[Agit8r]

She's on now. Holy fuck what a horse toothed man face!! Did she BITE the testicles off those hogs she castrated?

Isn't there a girl's basketball team somewhere she should be coaching?

Does she still have the Reagan hair?

 

[NYcarbineer]

She's on now. Holy fuck what a horse toothed man face!! Did she BITE the testicles off those hogs she castrated?

Isn't there a girl's basketball team somewhere she should be coaching?

Does she still have the Reagan hair?

Well, in an awesomely ironic twist, she's got the hair of Scott Baio, Charles in Charge version.

 

[The Irish Ram]

She's on now. Holy fuck what a horse toothed man face!! Did she BITE the testicles off those hogs she castrated?

Isn't there a girl's basketball team somewhere she should be coaching?

 

[rdean]

Joni and the Castration Nation.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Thanks to the Melania plagiarism, whatever political value Ernst's speech might have had for the GOP has been lost forever. The media is virtually ignoring it.

 

[waltky]

Womens inna Green Berets...

Two Female Officers Get a Shot at the Army's Green Beret
Jul 25, 2016 | WASHINGTON — Two female Army officers have been approved for initial Special Forces training, the first step in the long process to earn the coveted Green Beret, an Army spokeswoman said Monday.

The women are the first female soldiers to be accepted into the Special Forces Assessment and Selection and could report to the three-week program at Fort Bragg, North Carolina as early as October, said Maj. Melody Faulkenberry, a spokeswoman for the Army's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. Defense Secretary Ash Carter's order last year to drop all restrictions on women serving in front-line combat jobs and units paved the way for women to attempt the rigorous trainingthat soldiers must complete before entering Special Forces. The earliest the women could earn the Green Beret and Special Forces tab and be assigned to an Operational Detachment-Alpha would be in 2018, though they have not yet been officially assigned to an SFAS class, Faulkenberry said. The Army declined to name the women or provide information about their service backgrounds.

Faulkenberry said it would be unfair to publicly identify the soldiers. "We want to allow the soldiers the same opportunities everyone else has to attend Special Forces Assessment and Selection," she said. "If their names came out, it could possibly change the way they are treated … or add undue pressure on them in a course that is already very demanding." The Army had also declined to name female participants in its famously grueling Ranger School. Three women -- Capt. Kristen Griest, 1st Lt. Shaye Haver and Maj. Lisa Jaster -- graduated last year from the more than two-month-long class. They were not named publicly until the day before they graduated in ceremonies last August and October at Fort Benning, Georgia.

U.S. Special Forces Green Beret soldiers fire an anti-armor mortar system during a training exercise at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.​

The women selected to attend SFAS likely were commissioned in 2013 and are either first lieutenants or captains, according to an Army document describing the requirements for acceptance into Special Forces Assessment and Selection. The two officers accepted into Special Forces training were among nine female active-duty Army officers who applied. A total of 340 soldiers -- men and women -- applied for the program and 220 were accepted. Some of the soldiers who were not selected for SFAS -- including five of the women -- could potentially be chosen for other special operations jobs in civil affairs or Psychological Operations.

To be accepted in SFAS, according to the Army documents, officers must have been promoted to first lieutenant between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015, be cleared for world-wide deployment, possess a secret clearance and score at least a 240 on the Army Physical Fitness Test. To earn the Green Beret, officers must complete a strenuous physical assessment, SFAS, the Army's Airborne School, the Maneuver Captain's Career Course or the Special Operations Captain's Career Course and the Special Forces Qualification Course. The culminating "Q"course lasts 64 weeks. Generally, one-third of soldiers accepted for Special Forces Assessment and Selection graduate to the "Q" course, Faulkenberry said. Roughly 50 percent of soldiers who begin the Qualification Course graduate and earn the Green Beret, she added.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd alla time lookin' fer a few good womens too...

Marines turn to girls high school sports teams for recruits
August 13, 2016 — The U.S. Marine Corps is looking for a few more good women.

And this time the campaign is a bit different. Marine recruiters are turning to girls high school sports teams to find candidates who may be able to meet the Corps' rigorous physical standards, including for the front-line combat jobs now open to women. Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller says he wants to increase the number of women in the Corps to 1 in 10. "I've told them that 10 percent is where we want to go and they're working on it," Neller told The Associated Press in an interview. "Go recruit more women. Find them. They're out there." For years, only about 7 percent to 8 percent of the Corps, which numbers 184,200, has been women. It's the smallest percentage of women among all the military services. But on the heels of the Pentagon decision to allow women who qualify to serve in combat jobs, thousands of new infantry, armor and other front-line posts are now open. Neller said he wants to see women in some of those posts. That order now rests with Maj. Gen. Paul Kennedy, head of the Marine Corps' recruiting command.

Major Shanelle Porter, USMC, is commanding officer at Recruiting Station Chicago. The U.S. Marine Corps is looking for a few more good women.​

Kennedy is aggressively recruiting women for the service. He's sending targeted mailings, changing advertising to better represent female Marines, and traveling the country to meet with coaches and female athletes who may be well-suited for the rigors of Marine service. In particular, Neller believes female wrestlers are good candidates. "We looked at that and said, 'Wow, that's kinda what we're looking for,'" he said. "They're disciplined, they're fit, they're focused on their mission." According to Kennedy, the Marines, for the first time, are mailing recruiting literature to thousands of high school girls. Also, updated advertising will show active-duty female Marines doing their jobs on the battlefield. "The biggest complaint that we've heard and we're reacting to is that we were showing women in some of our material — whether it's commercial or print or whatever — and they were always training," Kennedy said. "And that was a mistake."

Already he's gone to the Women's Basketball Coaches Association conference and has targeted wrestling and other sports gatherings this year. In those sessions, he said, he is working to debunk misconceptions about women in the Marine Corps, including worries about sexual harassment and sexual assault, limits on career options, lack of stability and difficulties having a family life. "We got to talk to them, got to show them there are plenty of female married officers and enlisted, that it's not a good ol' boys club anymore when you talk about the career issues," Kennedy said in an interview in his office at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

MORE

 

[waltky]

And then there was one...

One Woman Remains in Marine Special Ops Training
Aug 16, 2016 | Five days into the first U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command assessment and selection course to admit women, one female Marine has washed out and one remains.

Capt. Nicholas Mannweiler, a spokesman for the command, told Military.com that two women, a staff sergeant and a corporal checked in Aug. 9 at the command's headquarters near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and began the first 19-day phase of assessment and selection on Aug. 11. The staff sergeant washed out of the course the following day during a timed ruck march, Mannweiler said. The news was first reported by Marine Corps Times. Both the corporal and the staff sergeant came from administrative military occupational specialties, Mannweiler said. He did not disclose their identities or ages.

Mannweiler said he couldn't say how many started the A&S class for operational security reasons, but noted that 32 Marines, including the female staff sergeant, have departed the course so far. The first phase of assessment and selection tests physical fitness and a range of aptitudes to ensure Marines are physically and mentally prepared for what will be 10 months of intensive follow-on training to become Marine Raiders. Alongside physical training, Marines receive classroom instruction in land navigation skills, MARSOC and special operations history, and nutrition and fitness. In January, Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, then the commander of MARSOC, called A&S Phase 1 a holistic profile for the Marines who qualify to enter the training pipeline.

Marines with the Lioness Program refill their rifle magazines during the live-fire portion of their training at Camp Korean Village, Iraq​

Military.com broke the news in March that a female staff sergeant had been accepted for A&S, just months after a mandate from Defense Secretary Ash Carter had required all military services to open special operations jobs and other previously closed fields to women. Osterman said then that MARSOC leadership had leaned into the new reality, reaching out to all eligible female Marines through the command's recruiting arm to give them the opportunity to apply. The current A&S phase is set to conclude Aug. 22. If the female corporal in A&S can make it through this phase, she will enter a second, more secretive three-week A&S phase. Following that is MARSOC's individual training course, which covers survival, evasion, resistance and escape [SERE], special reconnaissance, close urban combat, irregular warfare and more over the course of nine intensive months.

Those who wash out of A&S have up to two chances to re-enter the pipeline, Mannweiler said, as long as they have enough time left on their contracts and until their next promotion, and the command has enough boat spaces to accommodate them. While MARSOC recruiters have received interest from other female Marines, the command is not currently processing any other applications from women, Mannweiler said.

One Woman Remains in Marine Special Ops Training | Military.com

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd likes women dat know how to handle a gun - long as dey don't use it on him...

First Women Graduate US Army Infantry Officer Course
October 26, 2016 — U.S. Army women hit a milestone Wednesday, as the first women graduated from the military branch’s Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course.

Ten women received their Infantry blue chord at Fort Benning in the southern U.S. state of Georgia, officially making them infantry officers and giving them the ability to lead an Army platoon of infantry combat soldiers. The Army’s infantry is its main land combat force, responsible for defending the U.S. against ground threats, and capturing, destroying and repelling enemy ground forces.

Ten U.S. Army women were the first women graduated from the military branch’s Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course, at Fort Benning, Georgia​

Including the new graduates, there are 11 female infantry officers in the U.S. Army. Capt. Kristen Griest became the first female infantry officer earlier this year after completing the Army’s Maneuver Captains Career Course and transferring into the infantry.

Ranger school

Fort Benning public affairs officer Chris Warner told VOA Wednesday that rather than leading a platoon right away, all 10 women graduates have decided to continue the “unspoken tradition” of moving from the Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s course to Ranger school, the Army’s elite combat training course. Only three women — Griest, Capt. Shaye Haver and Maj. Lisa Jaster — have completed that elite course since it was opened up to women in 2015. Haver and Jaster are not infantry officers.

Students from the Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course Class 07-16 celebrate with their families and fellow classmates after graduation, at Fort Benning, Georgia​

Officials anticipate a higher likelihood of success from Wednesday’s female graduates, since the Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course produces the highest success rates for Ranger School graduates. The Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s course and the Armor Basic Officer Leader’s course were not open to women until this year. The Army is currently training 15 women at the Armor Basic Officer Leader’s Course at Fort Benning, which will be completed at the end of November. The Army's armor division carries out tank and forward reconnaissance operations on the battlefield.

First Women Graduate US Army Infantry Officer Course