This article at Foreign Policy.com is written by three female Marine officers – two pilots and an admin officer. They support the Obama administration’s, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus’ directive to open all combat arms positions to women. These females officers assert that this will only work if leadership sets the right tone for “combat integration.”

Leadership on this issue is key, but the leadership that needs to be under scrutiny goes much higher than the Commandant of the Marine Corps. It is the leadership in Washington. Those who had the opportunity to make the right decision have failed, and that’s why this will fail too.

The Marine Corps is the only service that asked for a waiver on a few of its combat arms positions – those that are most physically demanding, like infantry. The Marine Corps provided data of a year-long study that showed integrated units did more poorly on combat related tasks than did all male units. It also found the rate of injury for women was much higher than that for men. This was not a surprising result.

Despite this concrete showing of poor performance and potentially more dangerous environment for women, the Washington leadership decided it would move ahead with the plan anyway. Marine leaders sent out messages to move ahead with the plan, but these female officers are not satisfied because they say the messages didn’t have the right “tone” (geez, could their attitude be more stereotypically female – but I digress). Below is the message from the Commandant that these authors had the most problem with. I honestly don’t see the issue with it, it sounds fine to me:

CMC @GenRobertNeller on integration "We will maintain our standards & maximize the talent and skills of all Marines"https://t.co/aJ61eXvLTk

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) December 4, 2015

Here is the problem in their words:

General Neller’s closing statement specifically suggests to those searching for direction and leadership on this issue that while the decision was made, he doesn’t agree with it, although as a professional he will follow orders. The failure to unequivocally state support for the decision to integrate suggests that the Commandant of the Marine Corps does not like letting women into the combat arms. Rather than focus on the most efficient ways to make an effective combat force and harness the benefits of the population now available, his statement is one of begrudgingly following orders.

In the end, the active duty leadership will do what it is told, but if they wanted true buy-in, and hence a successful implementation, Washington leadership should have listened to their subordinates. Active duty leadership will do their best to implement a plan they sincerely believe is wrong. What more can you ask for? Oh, they need to pretend to like it too.

But here’s my take on this: How can you honestly expect active duty leadership to buy-in to something that is based on lies? How can you expect anyone to support a plan that has been demonstrated to be detrimental to the Corps, and even more importantly, to the women who will be affected by this? The Washington leadership has ignored or downplayed all legitimate concerns. They dismiss them as unfounded when there has been plenty of concrete evidence to indicate this change is fraught with bad juju. What kind of leadership is that? Subordinates will do what they are told, but leaders lose respect when they fail to listen. That is not the fault of the subordinate.

This authors seem to think that this whole problem can be solved by setting higher expectations for our female service members. That we hurt their confidence by “thinking” they can’t do some combat jobs. There is just no reasoning with someone who thinks we can somehow will physical equality into the female population (and if that is not their position, then they need to come clean and tell us that they really want the standards changed to accommodate females). Having high expectations is admirable, but unreasonable expectations sets everyone up for a lot of disappointment. Failing is not a confidence builder. Women are being set up to fail.

I’ll say again, it pains me to no end to have to take this position regarding an issue that has been characterized as an equal rights fight. But I can’t ignore reality, facts, and what I have seen with my own eyes. Assuming the same physical demands that males must endure in combat arms is going to be detrimental to a lot of women – both mentally and physically. The authors talk about the damage that is being done by the “perceived” resistance to this order; they needed to think about the damage that will be done when this fails.

My response to these ladies is this: Thank you for service, but be careful what you wish for. You wanted it, you got it. You are at the end of your military careers, and this change will not affect you. But there will be repercussions, and you will have to answer for them.