Brass Knuckles

“Jack Dunphy” of the National Review has a column up about a movement at high levels within the LAPD to lower the SWAT team standards so that they are “more inclusive”. 

This lessening of standards has predictably met resistance from current SWAT team members, some of whom spoke to Parry and to Times reporters on the condition that their identities be protected. More interestingly, the changes have also aroused considerable outrage among these officers’ wives, some of whom have written to city officials asking them to reconsider the new selection criteria. “We are concerned,” one of them wrote, “with the safety of our husbands, the fathers of our children, if they are expected to go into these highly dangerous situations with someone who got in under a compromised standard.”

These are more than theoretical concerns. The debate comes just weeks after Officer Randy Simmons was killed in a gunfight during an abortive rescue attempt in the San Fernando Valley. Simmons was the only LAPD SWAT officer killed in action in the unit’s history. A second officer, Jim Veenstra, was seriously wounded in the same incident but survived. The SWAT wives wonder, quite understandably, if a female officer, or any officer selected under these new criteria, will be able to pick up and carry a wounded comrade to safety. A SWAT officer might weigh 250 pounds or more when loaded down with weapons and other gear.

I remember similar concerns some years ago when there were rumors that the Army was going to drop standards so that females could enter the Army’s Ranger and Special Forces qualification courses.  Thankfully, those changes never came to be.

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the military should be; some believe that it should be a microcosm of society, reflecting all the wonderful progress that has been made in integrating and diversifying the civilian world.  Why shouldn’t women be allowed to command a Ranger platoon? Why shouldn’t a woman be allowed on a SWAT team?

The answer lies in their mission.  The Army Ranger Regiment is not a sociological laboratory, it is an organization designed to close with and kill the enemy.  The physical  standards are nearly impossibly high even for athletic 18-25 year old males, for a reason.  Any member of the fireteam not pulling his weight and then some is forcing that load onto the remaining team members, and there is not a lot of slack capacity; the combat loads are optimized to the mission.  If even one person on the team is physically unable to carry as much as the other members, or is otherwise unable to perform to the same standards, that team is compromised.  I’m sure the same is true of LAPD SWAT.

Once upon a time, I remember having a surprisingly enlightened converation on a train in a faraway land with some Special Forces operators.  The question came up and was asked to one of the teams sergeants, a really big northern Italian guy from Massachusetts, as to whether Vanna White should be allowed on his team.  He’d already answered the question about women in general, so he was a bit agitated.  “Vanna White?” he asked.  “Look, if that [expletive] wants on my team, she better be able to hump her own [expletive] gear.  I don’t care who the [expletive] she is; I’m not humping somebody elses [expletive] gear.”

 Substance over form.

Via Michelle Malkin