Marines Separate Sexes In Basic Training Marine Commandant Promises To Keep Dual Training Policy Despite Pressures

While the Army sex scandal has renewed a debate about whether men and women should train together, the top Marine general said Thursday he would insist that his service continue to separate the sexes in basic training.

“Why aren’t we integrating gender? We don’t think it’s a good idea to do that,” said Gen. Charles C. Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Krulak said it was best for women to first learn “the ethos of our precious corps” and to train with female sergeants and officers before being integrated with men. The four-star general said female trainees he talked with supported segregated training.

“We want to look up to a role model that we can identify with,” Krulak recalled the trainees saying. “We want to look up and see the battalion commander is a women. We’ll see enough guys in the next four years or 40.”

Krulak’s comments came in response to questions from the audience following his address to the U.S. Naval Institute’s meeting at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

The Marines are the only service in which female recruits train separately from men, and Krulak - a 1964 Academy graduate - has taken recent steps to make the training tougher for women. The Army sex scandal that erupted at Aberdeen Proving Ground and spread to Army posts worldwide has renewed the debate of whether men and women should train together.

“We’re not knocking how anybody else does it,” Krulak said of other military services. “We’re just saying for our corps it works for us and we’re not going to change no matter how much pressure is put on.”