SitRepDiscuss Military May Lift Ban on Women in Submarines.... in the Military Matters forums; WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top Pentagon officials are calling for an end to the U.S. military's historical ban on allowing women ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top Pentagon officials are calling for an end to the U.S. military's historical ban on allowing women to serve in submarines.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top U.S. military officer, advocated the policy change in written congressional testimony distributed by his office to reporters on Friday.
"I believe we should continue to broaden opportunities for women. One policy I would like to see changed is the one barring (women's) service aboard submarines," Mullen said.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said he was "moving out aggressively on this."
"I am very comfortable addressing integrating women into the submarine force," Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said in a statement.
Women account for about 15 percent of the more than 336,000 members of the U.S. Navy and can serve on its surface ships. But critics have argued that submarines are different, pointing to cramped quarters where some crews share beds in shifts.
Nancy Duff Campbell, an advocate for expanding the role of women in the U.S. armed forces, said it would be easy to resolve problems associated with so-called "hot-bunking."
"They say, 'How could we have the women sleeping in the same area as men?'" said Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center (NWLC).
"But they already separate where the officers sleep from the enlisted, so it's not like it can't be done."
Roughead said the problem of sorting out accommodations on the U.S. fleet of 71 submarines was not insurmountable.
Allowing women on submarines would be another step forward in expanding the role of women in the U.S. military. Last year, a woman was promoted to the rank of four-star general for the first time.
Women are still barred from traditional frontline combat roles in the U.S. military. But female soldiers often run the same risks as men in Iraq and Afghanistan, where bombings and other insurgent attacks can happen almost anywhere and target any U.S. unit.
Awkward aint the word... Ive been deployed on Subs in the past, attack subs only tho.... There is ZERO privacy and no room on the Subs for seperate female accomodations...
Imagine having 12 women on board a Ballistic Sub that never surfaces and goes out on 3 month deterrant patrols....
U wanna talk about problems, Christ Almighty.... What the hell are these people thinking???
After 3 weeks at sea, these women will be the target of every stiff dick in the tube....
Seems to me that there's an easy solution to this problem: Drop the ban on homosexuality while you're at it, and crew the subs exclusively with gays and lesbians.
At least that way, the women won't be the targets of all the 'stiff dicks'. And maybe living aboard a pig boat will be a little nicer once it's been tastefully decorated...
All aboard the fabulous USS San Francisco, sweeties!
"Russian sub! I've got Ivan at 3,000m on an intercept course, he's flooding his tubes"
"Sound general quarters! Turn her into the attack, increase speed to eight knots"
"Aye sir"
"Flood tubes 1 through 4"
"Sir, I can't"
"Why not?"
"They're full of shoes"
"Goddamn!"
"Bridge to torpedo room - who've we got down there?"
"Torpedo room, Ensign Betty Boop reporting"
"Ensign Boop, get those damn shoes outta my tubes NOW, lady"
"Oooooh grouchy! One thing atta time willya? I'm doin' my hair down here"
"Russian sub! I've got Ivan at 3,000m on an intercept course, he's flooding his tubes"
"Sound general quarters! Turn her into the attack, increase speed to eight knots"
"Aye sir"
"Flood tubes 1 through 4"
"Sir, I can't"
"Why not?"
"They're full of shoes"
"Goddamn!"
"Bridge to torpedo room - who've we got down there?"
"Torpedo room, Ensign Betty Boop reporting"
"Ensign Boop, get those damn shoes outta my tubes NOW, lady"
"Oooooh grouchy! One thing atta time willya? I'm doin' my hair down here"
"We got our own ammunition. It's filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes pretty pictures. It scares the hell out of people. We got a loudspeaker.
When we go into battle, we play music very loud. It kind of... calms us down."
My cousin served in the Navy in the 1980's and he said the USS Enterprise was called "The Love Boat" because of all the women who got knocked up during the deployments.
IMO, no matter what is decided this is not going to work very well.
I do remember one deployment at the end of my Naval career where one of the support ships, which had a compliment of 200 females on board, came back into port with 60 pregnancys....
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Originally Posted by lesofprimus 
Les! 
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