You can work up to the pull-ups. It isn't as easy as push-ups for those first ones but you can do it.

I appreciate your faith in my arm strength, Ben. However, I'm just not man-strong.

NOTE: Sorry...Amy here...this originally read "Lastango." Computer "remembered" Lastango after I added a note to a comment.

Need more sleep! Sorry, sorry!

So: will Clinton or Trump continue this policy?

Which one will utter the words, "Relaxed standards are not conducive to a fit, ready United States Marine Corps."?

I have news for you: you have no business being in a combat billet if you can't work.

It's combat you should be ready for, not another Powerpoint presentation about diversity.

One thing people continuously ignore in their fantasies of being taken care of by a daddy figure is that Congress, not a President, sets up and funds welfare programs, but the White House and the Joint Chiefs run battlefield ops.

Yeah, that needs to be politically correct.

I assume it is because there are now a lot of jobs that just require being in front of a computer?

I hope that's why...

We might get more of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWHg7fWUZXE

Women in a new Marine Corps unit created to assess how female service members perform in combat were injured twice as often as men, less accurate with infantry weapons and not as good at removing wounded troops from the battlefield, according to the results of a long-awaited study produced by the service.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/09/10/marine-experiment-finds-women-get-injured-more-frequently-shoot-less-accurately-than-men/

The military is not like a video game and it is not a desk job. You have to hump heavy loads in combat (remember Iraq war?). If you get pinned down by enemy fire, you only have the ammo and water that you could carry. You can't tell them to stop shooting because you are "a little chubby" and couldn't carry any more ammo.
When young, I could do 23 chin ups (that is, chin over the bar, not a "pull-up") which is good enough for special forces, if I'm not mistaken. At 63 I can still do 3 and working on doing more.
Lowering the standards will cause people to die. The only reason that more haven't died from lowering standards for fire-fighters is that so few women want to be a fire-fighter. The guidance for women fire-fighters in a fire? Drag people down the stairs by their feet! Bump bump bump--brain bleed.

NOT in favor of lowering standards to accommodate women (or in pursuit of ANY social aim), but the tests should be directly applicable to the job. Pull-ups are notoriously harder for women--even extremely fit women. Does a Marine need to do the equivalent of a pull-up in the field? Are there equally effective, alternative ways to pull yourself over a barrier (if that's the purpose) using a combination of your own upper and lower body strength?

If the pull-up test is relevant to one's ability to be a performant Marine--and maybe it is!--then no workaround should be acceptable.

(Amy, you mention modified push-ups, but nothing in this article says that bent-knee push-ups will be acceptable. God, I hope they're not.)

This article downplays that standards are being lowered for men at the same time. Men can now choose push-ups over pull-ups as well.

Fitness and body-composition standards have become increasingly lax across all branches of the armed forces. I live in D.C. I'd say half of the service members I know are visibly overweight, including men who complain about women being unfit for combat while they themselves are pouring out of their khakis and straining their buttons.

I have wondered to myself why the military even makes uniforms in those sizes. "There is no uniform that will fit you if you gain another five pounds" seems like powerful motivation.

I expected 5'9"/179 lbs. to look worse than that. I have seen MUCH worse walking around here in uniform.

Back in the day, there was an LCDR attached to my unit who had spent six weeks out of 24 years on sea duty - and that was on a tender, which didn't leave port while he was there. All of the instructors there had serious sea time - I was among the junior guys with just over 6 years.
Since this marshmallow stressed his buttons, the rest of us, when speaking with him as part of our duties, would carefully and quietly step to one side to avoid impending button impact.
Being commissioned, he wasn't a petty officer, but he was a petty, officer.

We had annual fitness tests everyone hated. I hated the situp and pushup tests, but running was OK. Not only could I outrun my division officer, who was five years younger, but I caught two boot camp units in that 1.5 miles. Even in 1989, the new kids were soft.

Yes Lastango, most women can develop the strength to do a few pullups. You probably won't be joining Craig in doing 23. But one or two isn't outside reality. I do recognize that women will not be able to do the same number as a similarly healthy man. But if you can do a few pushups then you can train to do a few pullups. It just takes quite a bit more effort (for both genders).

My parents both were career military, and I saw LOTS of guys and ladies like your LCDR. As a woman I think I'd be extra self-aware because you've already got one strike against you in terms of being taken seriously.

Maybe it's just my location, but I feel like we're in this new age of psycho fitness. I see women around here in their cross-fit boxes, doing crazy stuff like one-armed pull-ups, jumping off boxes with 150 lbs across their shoulders, running 100 milers. They're in Tough Mudder races where they scale walls and crawl through water under barbed wire. Don't any of THESE chicks want to be Marines?

Soooo, Amy is posting as "Lastango" eh?

That means I get to impersonate Amy -- brace yerselfs, cuz the world is finally going to find out what I look like in a slinky gold dress!

No one should be allowed in combat who can't throw a hand grenade farther than the radius of the explosion.

I did wonder about that Lastango.

"I live in D.C. I'd say half of the service members I know are visibly overweight."

Your first sentence largely explains the second. You're around Pentagon types, who don't have a lot to do with the pointy-end guys & gals. On a base far removed from Washington, I don't see much of that. Some of the middle-aged officers and senior-level contractors have put on a few extra. But given that a lot of those guys have field experience going back to Panama and the Gulf War, I'd say that they have earned the right to a second slice of cake occasionally.

Fair point, Cousin Dave. I don't know how many service members we have stationed here or in other admin/support jobs vs deployed and combat ready, but I would assume that intended career path /within/ the armed services should be a factor. Does a nurse or lawyer need the upper body strength of someone in infantry? Or do they just need to not look fat as hell?

Inspired by this discussion, last night I used the assisted pull-up machine at the gym, and I needed more "assistance" than I actually weigh. (I am 5'11", 150 lbs.) I thought of myself as extremely fit. Not sure now.

"Does a nurse or lawyer need the upper body strength of someone in infantry? Or do they just need to not look fat as hell?"

Probably not (although nurses sometimes have to move heavy patients). But the military has a long tradition of requiring its members generally to maintain a level of physical fitness. There used to be fitness tests for all officers, which were graduated according to age, but no one got off scot free. Truth be told, though, it was enforced more by peer pressure, and the need to set a good example for the enlisteds and younger officers, than by regulation. Apparently that's not the case any more.

As for the assisted pull-up machine: For any kind of machine, the number on the weight stack doesn't necessarily mean much in itself. Depending on how the ropes and pulleys and levers are arranged, the force you actually have to exert may be either more or less than the amount of weight on the stack. My approach to machines is to strive for improvement -- can I bump it up 5 pounds this week? -- and not to worry about the number per se.

So, women can fulfill all the functions of the Marines just as well as men (according to Ash Carter). So, let them!

If something is so easy that even women can do it, then what is the attraction for men?

All female battalions, all the time, I say. We men can finally take a rest (or teach grade school) while the ladies subdue our enemies.

What could go wrong?

and I needed more "assistance" than I actually weigh

Insufficient Poison, the best way I ever found to build general body strength was indoor rock climbing. I'm a fairly slender bloke (6', 165lbs) and back when I did it a lot (mid thirties, not exactly young) I could not only do pullups easily, but I could put my fingertips on top of a door frame ledge and chin over the door. It's a lot better, and more fun, than going to the gym.