(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Air Force Special Tactics has lowered its physical standards to make it easier for women to enter the elite unit, according to a Heritage Foundation report.
“The Air Force reduced its standards for special tactics training,” wrote report author John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. “Worse, it is attempting to mislead the public about it.”
The allegations stem from an anonymous email posted on Instagram and subsequently shared by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas.
We cannot sacrifice training standards. Ever. Full stop. If this account is true, our military needs to address it now. @SecDef https://t.co/Lw3c7QofKW
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) January 5, 2022
The letter accuses the Air Force Special Operations Command of offering preferential treatment to a female captain who had quit during the program.
“Captain Morgan Mosby . . . quit during a rigorous pool session, but remained at Phase II and was given the chance to finish,” the anonymous author wrote. “This was my first known instance of preferential treatment towards a woman within the ST community.”
The Air Force immediately pushed back on the anonymous report.
“We can unequivocally say the standards — which are tied to mission accomplishment — have not changed,” Air Force Special Operations Command chief, Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, told Stars and Stripes in early January.
Venable noted, however, that Captain Mosby had herself confirmed the preferential treatment in an after-action report obtained by the Air Force Times.
“I believe the change in standards invalidated me with a majority of my team,” she wrote in April 2021. “One [instructor] cadre member had a conversation with a student and said that the cadre ‘rioted’ when they found out the PT test was changing back to lesser standards.”
Venable also insisted that Lt. Gen. Slife had “muddied the issue by stating there was a difference between norms and standards before insisting that nothing had changed for a female candidate currently in the training who, on completion, will be the first to complete the special tactics program.”
