Dr. David Cifu, national director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the VHA, said most women will have a hard time keeping up with infantry soldiers, who must often carry more than 80 pounds of gear for extended periods of time. Military.com reports:

Women already have shown they can overcome bias and sexism, as well as engage the enemy — they’ve been doing it in Iraq and Afghanistan. But on average, they have less body weight and are weaker than men.

A signature injury of America’s latest wars has been musculoskeletal, cases of which exceed the number of wounds from firefights and improvised explosive devices.

One study found that between 2004 and 2007, about a third of medical evacuations from the Iraq and Afghan theaters were due to musculoskeletal, connective tissue and spinal injuries.

There is no first-hand data, since women are not yet serving as infantrymen, but Cifu said that if women carry the same loads as their male counterparts, they are at more risk of these kinds of injuries “given the ratio of their size and strength to the packs.”

The Army commission said it had no intentions of lowering standards.

The Army is working to lighten the load of soldiers. Improvements in light-weight armor may help, but other items, such as ammo and water cannot be made lighter.

The nearly $500 billion in looming defense cuts, otherwise known as sequestration, has led the Army to project widespread shortfalls that will impact troop readiness and defer post-combat equipment repairs for up to four years, according to detailed estimates issued by the Army and obtained by the Free Beacon.

Sequestration is set to kick in on March 1 if Congress fails to enact a preventative deal, which sources on Capitol Hill suggest is increasingly likely.

The Army expects to reduce funding significantly for several soldier and family programs in addition to a major scale down in combat preparation exercises.

Funding shortfalls would impact the Soldier Family Assistant Center, the Army Substance Abuse Program, the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, and a soldier reintegration program meant to ease the reentry into civilian life.

Additionally, the Army, which has already begun discharging and reassigning 60,000 soldiers, projects the economic impact of such cuts could “exceed $2 billion.”

Lawmakers and military experts are sounding the alarm about these cuts, maintaining the country has an obligation to continue caring for its fighting forces.

“How do you go to somebody in the military who’s been deployed four or five times . . . and say, ‘For your good work over the last decade, we’re going to ruin the military; we’re going to make it harder for you to have the equipment you need to fight, and we’re going to reduce benefits to your family?’ ” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.), a vocal opponent of the sequester, told the Washington Post in January.

An Army spokesperson told the Free Beacon the looming cuts are certain to have “a major impact and some of it may affect benefits.”

“In the coming weeks you’ll see a lot of this fleshed out,” the spokesperson said, explaining military leaders will meet with Congress next week to provide details on how the force will be impacted.

“A lot of this is still widely under review,” the spokesperson said.

The defense cuts would also have a trickle down effect, potentially eliminating scores of jobs around military installations in multiple states, experts warned.

The Army has warned that if it is not given the authority to reallocate funds, “multiple commands [are] at risk of not supporting payroll even after [a] 22-day furlough,” according to documents recently issued by the Army to Congress.

“Military family members always have loads of jobs around installations,” said one military expert who requested anonymity to openly discuss the sensitive issue. “Many of those will disappear when the cuts go into effect.”

The sequestration is expected to have a destructive immediate and long-term economic impact, according to the Army’s preliminary estimates.

A “hiring freeze” is likely to be imposed almost immediately and temporary employees would be released from their jobs.

The Army has provided “termination notice to an estimated 1,300 Temporary/Term employees and directed an Army-wide hiring freeze,” according to Army talking points obtained by the Free Beacon.

Various training courses and maintenance programs could also be eliminated, according to the estimates.

“The greatest impact for the Army is in Active Component Operation and Maintenance (OMA),” which funds training and support operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to the talking points.

The OMA is facing an $18 billion shortfall.

Should the sequester take place, “these cumulative reductions will distress and shock Army installations and their surrounding communities with terminations of temporary and term employees, wide-scale reduction of support contracts with more than 3,000 industry partners, and furlough all 251K Army civilians for up to 22 days,” the talking points state.

The Army is warning that cuts of this size will take years to recover from.

“These lost capabilities require years to reinstate and some cannot be reversed,” the Army maintains. “The strategic impact is a rapid atrophy of unit combat skills with a failure to meet demands of National Military Strategy by the end of this year.”

New maintenance orders will also be canceled, leading to “an immediate release of [around] 5,000 temporary, term, and contract employees, mostly in Alabama, Texas, and Georgia,” according to the Army’s analysis.

Reductions in maintenance will have a direct impact on the military’s equipment.

“Post-combat equipment repair and maintenance [would be] stopped for 1,300 Tactical Wheeled vehicles, 14,000 communication devises, and 17,000 weapons,” the Army maintains.

Military experts warn that that the country’s national security is in real jeopardy.

“The sequester will badly harm military readiness,” Steven Bucci, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, told the Free Beacon via email. “It will lead to a hollow military—people [without] the ability to train to maintain proficiency.”

“The red herring of ‘letting the Pentagon choose the cuts’ being okay is baloney,” added Bucci, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“It will not ever be done [without] politics, so it would end up eliminating all the programs the administration hates,” such as “missile defense, nuke modernization, and new ships,” Bucci explained.

The Army is emphasizing the economic impact sequestration will have on many states still struggling to recover from high unemployment rates.

“These mandated sequester reductions affect more than 1,000 companies in more than 40 states as they reduce their workforces,” the Army states in its talking points.

The budgetary crunch also “infringes on [the] ability to meet growing cyber defense needs,” the Army maintains.

The State Department would additionally “have to absorb a $168 million cut to embassy security” in the wake of a deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, according to the New York Times.

The Marines are on course to cut around 4,000 positions a year through 2017, decreasing the total number of Marines to 182,100 from its peak last year of 202,100, according to a major scale-down order that was quietly issued last year.

The reduction in forces could leave the elite fighting force underprepared to battle multiple regional threats, particularly those in the Middle East, according to military experts.

The impending cuts are independent of the $1.2 trillion in mandatory cuts, otherwise known as sequestration, which will take place next month if Congress fails to reach a preventative deal.

“The effect will be that there will not be sufficient Marines available to both be ‘America’s 9-1-1 force’ and to be ready for sustained ground combat,” said Steven Bucci, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who warned that the decreased number of Marines will leave the force overstretched.

“Right now, the Marines are trying to go back to the role of floating about on the three ship Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) missions forward deployed around the world,” Bucci said, referring to a joint Navy and Marine unit that performs sea-to-shore missions. “There was no ARG available to respond to Benghazi [terror attacks] because the Marines have had so many combat units fighting elsewhere.”

“Cuts will prohibit [the Marines] from returning to this key role,” said Bucci, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

A spokesperson in the Marines’ Manpower and Reserve Affairs office said that the corps typically “transitions” 30,000-35,000 Marines per year, “so we are only talking about 5,000 more per year on top of that.”

There are currently 195,000 active duty members, according to the official.

“In order to keep faith with our Marines, we are looking to maximize voluntary measures,” the spokesperson said. “As such, several force-shaping authorities are available to us and we are offering them to Marines—in a targeted fashion.”

As the Army carries out a similarly massive drawdown in forces, the Marines are being forced to enter combat roles for which they are not primarily suited, said Thomas Donnelly, a former policy group director for the House Armed Services Committee.

The Army began discharging and reassigning 60,000 soldiers, according to the Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C.

Army leaders were informed the Army is “fundamentally” altering its structure and that “some fully qualified soldiers will be denied re-enlistment,” according to an Army Times report.

“The problem will come if there’s a need to reverse the current retreat in the Middle East, the wars most likely to demand long-term, larger-scale land forces,” explained Donnelly, who is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“In a few years, the Army will be worse off than it was prior to 9/11 and less able—though the most natural and most able long-war force—to sustain that sort of operation,” he said. “Under those circumstances the Marines will get sucked back into the sort of mission they’ve had in Anbar and Helmand [provinces in Iraq and Afghanistan] of late.”

The Marines have already announced the formation of several voluntary and coercive commissions aimed at paring down the force.

Selective early retirement boards, for example, will force at least 200 lieutenant colonels out of the service, according to unclassified announcements.

“Officers selected for early retirement have been personally notified of their selection by the first marine three-star general officer in their chain of command,” states one announcement that was issued last week.

Another forced retirement notice from last year acknowledges that the Marines are under-resourced.

“As we move into an environment of reduced resources and reduced end strength, we face tough decisions that will affect the marines who have been dedicated to service throughout the recent decades of peace and war,” the announcement states. “For a second time, our corps must face the tough decision of how to manage the kind of surplus in senior field grade officers we have today.”

Other officers are being forced to compete for scant positions, according to another announcement issued in November.

An “officer retention board” will determine which officers can remain on active duty, according to the notice.

“Career designation is a force shaping tool that allows for the management of the officer population by retaining the best qualified officers from each year group,” the notice states. “Those selected for career designation are offered the opportunity to remain on active duty.”

“Officers will be considered for career designation in five competitive categories in the military occupational specialties (MOS) listed,” including proficiency in combat arms and other areas.

Several voluntary programs additionally offer enlisted members an early retirement. The programs are meant to quickly pare down the force and save costs in a tight budgetary environment.

The Marines could be forced to cut an additional number of enlisted members should the sequestration take effect later this year, leaving the force even weaker, experts said.

“Sequestration would badly hurt USMC readiness,” said Heritage’s Bucci. “Now that the president seems to have put the blame on the Republicans, the other [Joint Chiefs of Staff] have finally started to fess up to the truth: These cuts will make the military hollow.”

“They will not have enough people, trainings, or equipment to provide for the common defense,” Bucci said.

Con Edison reported in a statement on Monday that “the largest customer restoration effort in Con Edison’s history is wrapping up.”

Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent nor’easter knocked out power for more than one million customers, according to the utility company. The last customers in Westchester were having electricity restored as of Monday morning. Those with damaged equipment are the only customers still without power.

Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) reported on Veteran’s Day that 99 percent of its customers affected by Sandy and the nor’easter last week had seen their power restored.

“We’re down to the most time-consuming part of the effort—restoring individual homes to service,” said Don Lynch, president of JCP&L, in a statement. “We thank our customers for their continued patience and understanding. I also extend a special thanks to the other utilities, contractors, police, fire and emergency management officials for their dedicated efforts in keeping public safety a priority and helping us meet the unprecedented challenges of this disastrous storm.”

Long gas lines in New York prompted Mayor Michael Bloomberg to follow New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s lead and ration gas to customers based on license plate numbers. Rationing in New Jersey has now ended.

Thousands have been displaced as a result of the storm and require interim housing. Plans to open the closed Fort Monmouth military base in New Jersey have been announced. Up to 600 families will be able to live on the base, according to reports.

Residents hit hard in areas such as the shore town of Sea Bright, N.J., have been allowed into their homes to begin the clean-out process. Couches, appliances, tables, mattresses, and other personal effects line the curb of Ocean Avenue for the sanitation department to dispose.

Sea Bright took a devastating blow from Sandy. With the ocean on one side and the Shrewsbury River on the other, most residents’ homes on both the oceanfront and riverside were flooded. Most of the beach clubs, which used to dot the landscape of this town, have been reduced to piles of debris.

Power in Sea Bright cannot yet be restored because of damaged equipment. The story is the same for many of the coastal communities.

“About 30,000 of the company’s customers on the barrier islands and in shoreline communities cannot be restored to service at this time due to massive infrastructure damage in that area,” said JCP&L in a statement. “The company is working with local, state and federal officials to develop a full recovery plan for that area.”

The emotional toll taken by Sandy is evident on people’s faces.

“We’re coping, the best we can,” said April Nikorak, a Sea Bright resident. She then started to cry.

“We lost everything on the first floor,” she said on Tuesday. “We’re more fortunate than others, but worse off than some,” she said, explaining that some people lost loved ones and others have to live in shelters. Nikorak is currently living with her boyfriend’s mother.

The majority of the borough’s stores are boarded up empty shells. Access to the borough is currently restricted to residents and a curfew is in effect. These restrictions will be lifted on Wednesday, according to the borough.

The National Guard has been in Sea Bright to enforce the access restrictions and protect people’s possessions and homes. The Guard could be seen walking up and down the debris-filled streets during a visit to the town over the weekend and again on Tuesday.

Joe Connors, a resident who lives on Beach Street in Sea Bright and was gutting his home with the help of his brother, showed the Washington Free Beacon where the water line in his home reached: Five feet of water flooded into his first floor.

He found sand from the beach, which is located roughly four blocks away, in his living room.

“I started crying,” Connors said of when he was first allowed access to his home. “What struck me was coming into town, it was eerie and quiet … such a vibrant little town and seeing out and out destruction” was heartbreaking. He still feels shell-shocked.

Connors’ belongings sit outside as waste to be picked up by the sanitation company while he works inside, ripping out sheetrock that already shows signs of mold. He said he has applied for FEMA aid but has yet to hear what he will receive. He was awarded $2,000 in housing assistance.

“It was worse than anyone expected,” he said.

Connors said he heard reports from some who did not heed the mandatory evacuation before the storm hit that 30-foot waves crashed into town.

Connors is hopeful for the future. “It will get better, it’s got to,” he said.

The military has played an active role in helping those affected by Sandy. U.S. Marines and Army engineers have pumped 90,000 gallons of water from apartment buildings in Far Rockaway, N.Y., and 750,000 gallons of water were pumped from homes and parks in Breezy Point, N.Y., according to the Department of Defense (DOD).

Nearly 2,000 New Jersey National Guard personnel are supporting relief operations through the state, according to the DOD. There are at least 3,200 National Guard personnel in New York assisting with Sandy’s aftermath.

The DOD reported that 2.5 million pounds of debris were removed from affected areas in a 48-hour period.

The National Guard has been a welcome sight for those in Sea Bright.

“I’m so grateful for the National Guard and FEMA,” said Nikorak. “We have Mississippi State Police and Michigan State Police here too. “It’s a huge comfort to have them here.”

Both Connors and Nikorak said they plan to rebuild, a common sentiment here despite the devastation. One business owner, Brian George of Northshore Menswear, had a sign outside his ruined store that read: “We believe in Sea Bright! We’ll be back.”

Northshore Menswear owner, Brian George’s sign

The Washington Times reports:

The Army’s share of the total defense budget grew significantly over the past decade. The nation’s largest military branch spent billions of dollars on the health care and salaries of its soldiers, and the active roster ballooned from 480,000 to more than 570,000.

More billions were spent on the never-ending quest to protect soldiers by providing superarmored vehicles, special body armor, and bomb-detection and sophisticated surveillance gear.

Today, as the fog of war is clearing, the Army sees that something is missing. Though upgraded with new technology, its front-line combat systems are stuck in the post-Vietnam, Cold War era of the 1980s. Its budget is set to stay around $134 billion next year, with procurement falling by $1.3 billion from $19.5 billion this year.