The 30th female Marine to attempt the service’s demanding Infantry Office Course (IOC) just flunked out, making it to day 11 out of a total of 84.
The name of this female Marine officer has not been released, though she said she will try and repeat the course later this summer in July, Military.com reports. Officers trying for an infantry military occupational specialty get two tries.
“All are being placed into the Marines Awaiting Training (MAT) Platoon and will have the opportunity to re-enter training in July with class 4-16,” Marine Corps Training and Education Command spokesman Maj. Anton Semelroth told Military.com.
This female passed day one, which seems to take out the vast majority of females who have tried their hand at the course in the past, though she did not make it as far as two others, who got up to day 18.
While the attrition rate of the course is generally 25 percent, not a single female has passed from 2012 to 2016. The Marine Corps previously ran volunteer experiments with IOC as part of the massive effort to study women in combat.
This particular female was ready and eager to hit the course, with the announcement of her attempt coming only a few days after Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s acceptance of Marine Corps integration plans in March.
Although many Marines are worried about the prospect of lowered standards, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus explicitly addressed IOC while at Camp Pendleton earlier in April.
“One of the questions I got at IOC was, ‘OK, five years from now, no woman had made it through IOC. What happens?'” Mabus said. “My response was, ‘no woman made it through IOC. Standards aren’t going to change.'”
Despite Mabus’s public statements on the matter, there’s still a lack of trust in leadership among rank and file Marines because of how he mishandled the Marine Corps study showing that mixed-gender units vastly underperformed relative to male-only units.
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