Female Cadets at West Point have to take boxing now, with predictable results

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Army cadets Kiana Stewart and DeAdre Harvey squared off in a boxing ring at the U.S. Military Academy this month, circling each other with their gloves up. Watching classmates already had suffered bloody noses, but the women stayed aggressive, bouncing on the balls of their feet while delivering the occasional jab.

The female cadets are part of a first at West Point: women who must box. Beginning this fall, West Point officials shifted from allowing female cadets to take the course as an elective to requiring it for all approximately 1,000 students in the Class of 2020. The move follows the Pentagon’s historic decision last year to fully integrate women into all combat roles for the first time, and allowing women to box marked the fall of one of the last barriers to women being allowed to do anything they are qualified to in the U.S. military.

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“At first I was kind of upset, but now I’m getting into it,” Harvey said, after the metallic clang of a bell marked the end of her match with Stewart. “Hitting is not something I want to do necessarily, hand-to-hand, like, if I don’t have to.”

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Adding women to the mix may complicate efforts to continue reducing concussions at West Point. Several medical studies suggest that young women are significantly more likely to sustain concussions than men.

Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., the superintendent and top military officer at West Point, said the academy’s boxing program has become increasingly conservative in how it handles suspected concussions, keeping cadets away from boxing until they make a full recovery. 

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Washington Post

A couple of things to consider:

1)The concussions are from women boxing women.

2)These are the future officers of our nation's Army.

3)They seem surprised they have to learn how to fight someone.

4)Are we supposed to believe that women will really fare as well as well as men in combat?

I have said this before, but its worth repeating- this decision will cost many service personnel their lives (both men and women).