Marines in mixed-gender unit: Navy chief threw us ‘under the bus’

Marines who participated in a study that found all-male ground combat units outperformed those with women are pushing back after a Navy official criticized the report’s findings.

“Our secretary of the Navy completely rolled the Marine Corps and the entire staff that was involved in putting this [experiment] in place under the bus,” Sgt. Danielle Beck, a female anti-armor gunner with the task force in the study, told The Washington Post.

Last week, the Marines released a summary of a nine-month study to evaluate integrating women into service jobs.

{mosads}The Marines’s report said that all-male squads were faster in each tactical movement than those with both genders, all-male rifle groups had better accuracy and women had more injuries, such as stress fractures.

The military faces a January deadline from the Pentagon to open all combat jobs to women, but the services can ask for exceptions to the order.

After the report’s release, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told NPR the conclusions were based on generalizations and bias. He said those who conducted the study started out thinking women wouldn’t succeed.

“They started out with a fairly largely component of the men thinking this is not a good idea, and women will not be able to do this,” he said. “When you start out with that mindset, you’re almost presupposing the outcome.”

But the Marines who took part in the study say they felt undermined by the secretary’s comments and were frustrated that he did not accept the report’s findings.

“What Mabus said went completely against what the command was saying the whole time,” Sgt. Joe Frommling, one of the Marines who monitored the study, told the Post.

“They said, ‘Hey, no matter what your opinion is, go out there and give it your best and let the chips fall where they may.’ ”