The Marine pic scandal is about one thing. Integrating boot camp.

I've been following the story on the Marine pic scandal with much interest.  The more I read the more I'm convinced that this is another setup.  That issue with the "Task and Purpose" blog was too smooth.  The distribution of the story too perfect.

This was a planned ambush on the Corps.

Even worse?

The aim of it is simple.  They want the Marine Corps boot camp to go co-ed.  This is the final aim of USNI Blog, Task and Purpose and War on the rocks blogs.  This is all part of the women in combat meme and its designed to break the Marine Corps.

All you guys that said nothing yet call yourselves Marines deserve every ounce of future pain.  I don't feel sorry for you at all.  As far as the Commandant is concerned?  The bastard could face enemy fire but cowers in front of a female senator that is talking to him like a dawg?  He makes me want to puke!

We once had greats that stood for what's right.  It seems like those days are over.  Remember Colonel Ripley?  USNI Blog doesn't.  Check out this blast from the past.

COLONEL RIPLEY: I, too, would like to begin with prepared remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I’ll start with my background. Very briefly, my association with combat. I served my first combat tour as a young Marine captain company commander of a rifle company for a year in Vietnam, along the DMZ; from Khe Sanh, virtually all of the fire bases, over to the Tonkin Gulf, Con-Tien, Rockpile, Khe Sanh and the jungles in between.

My next tour was with the Vietnamese Marines four years later, where I served in virtually the same area. At the time, Khe Sanh was abandoned, and I had the distinction of being the last American there, having been shot down there twice on two consecutive days.
I also served a tour with the British Royal Marines, where I commanded a rifle company in 4/5 Commando, deployed with them to the Arctic for two years—correction, two winters—and during that same tour, I deployed to Malaya, where I served with the 1st of the 2nd Gurka Rifles and 40 Commando on a post-and-station tour that, to my surprise, in the jungles of northern Malaya, also included combat. I wasn’t supposed to know that.

I had been trained exceedingly well by the Marine Corps. I am one of two Marines who have completed all four schools preparatory to reconnaissance training; airborne, scuba, jump, trained with the Navy SEALs at the time they were not SEALs, they were UDT, and, finally, the British Royal Marine Commando Course. There are only two present active-duty Marines so designated.

I give you this information simply to acquaint you with my background and also to say that I feel I have some degree of expertise in this subject, although I personally do not like the term “expert.”

During my tenure as a company commander in Vietnam, my company was lost three times over. At the time, my rifle company weighed out at about 210 Marines; 212 perhaps. When you added your attachments, your engineers, scout dogs, and others that joined that company, it could be perhaps another 25, 30 Marines in addition.

I lost my company 300 percent in that 11 months, killed and wounded: 13 lieutenants killed, all my corpsmen, three senior corpsmen and an additional 15 corpsmen, killed and wounded.
(5:34 p.m.)

COLONEL RIPLEY (Continuing): I feel I have a basis upon which to comment, and I would like to read this statement: First of all, this subject should not be argued from the standpoint of gender differences. It should not be argued from the standpoint of female rights or even desires.

As important as these issues are, I think they pale in the light of the protection of femininity, motherhood, and what we have come to appreciate in Western culture as the graceful conduct of women.

We simply do not want our women to fight. We simply do not want them to be subjected to the indescribable, unless you have been there, the horrors of the battlefield.

The oft-intoned surveys that we have heard have yet to show you even a reasonable minority of women who feel that they belong in combat units. Survey after survey and question after question, ad nauseam, is answered with the overwhelming majority, around 97 percent, with “No, I do not want to be in a combat unit. There is no purpose for me being there,” and the only purpose which has been stated, as we know, is for that pathetically few who strive to gain higher command and feel that they must have served in a combat unit to achieve command, or perhaps higher rank.

The issue then becomes, “I want to be in a combat unit or to serve in that unit, to serve in combat, to qualify myself for promotion,” and this, I must tell you, is the worst possible reason, because it is self-serving. It is self-aggrandizing. The only purpose is to further the interest of the individual, as opposed to improving the unit.

Now, combat Marines will tell you that any leader, junior or senior, who focuses on himself, as opposed to the good of the unit, is completely worthless as a leader and he will never be followed willingly, and he will never gain the respect of his Marines.
Combat Marines will also tell you that they distrust any leader who puts his own wellbeing and his own ambition ahead of the mission of the unit, or the good of the unit. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what is happening here. These extraordinarily few would-be generals are saying, “It is more important for me to be in a combat unit, so that, I may profit from that and become promoted than it is for the unit to be combat effective, combat ready, and successful in combat.” And that is precisely what they are saying. That’s exactly what this issue is. (It comes down to, “My ambition, my personal needs, are greater than the effectiveness of the unit or the wellbeing and the welfare of my Marines.”)

I think that is the issue to be decided. You must ask yourself, then, “Should we permit this aberration of good sense, of logic and the good of the unit? Must we permit that in order to permit an extraordinarily few to become generals and admirals, as they would wish to be?”

I cannot comment to you accurately, or even with experience, on whether a woman would be an effective pilot in combat, never having been a pilot myself. I will tell you at the same time, having been shot down in a helicopter at Khe Sanh on two consecutive days, different aircraft, that no woman could have sustained the crash of the aircraft or the physical effort necessary after the crash to evacuate myself and another 16 dead and wounded in order to remove myself from this combat necessity. No woman could have done that.

No woman remaining alive after such an event would have had the physical power to extract those killed and wounded men; the pilots and the crew, absolutely no one. To see them effectively out of this enemy sanctuary, with no friendlies around me, while I remained behind, I don’t think any of them would have done that, would have been physically able to do that, and if in fact they had chosen to do that.

Read the whole thing here.  Are we living in a fantasy land?  Do people really believe the movies where a 105 pound female kicks the dogshit out of a male attacker?

America is setting up its daughters for much pain and misery...and that's before they get to combat.