Before Female Infantry Officers Serve In The Marines, They Have To Survive This Killer Course

The Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course is a grueling unapologetic machine, producing only a few hundred elite, light infantry officers per year.

On a quarterly basis, about 100 candidates attempt to survive 86 days of pain, brutal conditioning, and "live-fire" game theory designed to weed out all non-hackers.

Only 80 percent pass the course, sometimes fewer. The rest, IOC mercilessly spits out to become truck drivers and public relations reps — anything but infantry.

Most long distance endurance tests are accompanied by intelligence tests — on paper, in an air conditioned room — or a field intelligence test — tactics, on your feet, possibly to the sound of rounds passing through the air. Call for fire, long distance land navigation, forced marches, 20 miles to the fight, planning, executing, calling a casualty evacuation, grouping your Marines and issuing orders, killing the enemy, bringing everyone home alive, in one piece, while more exhausted than you ever thought possible.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, assured America his decision to allow women into combat roles is not a preamble to watering down physical requirements. So while the U.S. military has opened the infantry to women, female soldiers still have to make the cut.

Thus far, the course has been attempted by only two women — in September 2012 — and both of them failed. The Marine Corps has plans to send another 90 through the course this fiscal year, simply to see if women can meet the minimum general requirement.