Posted on 10/25/2009 7:24:06 AM PDT by Saije
The image of young women in a hot , dusty combat zone toting automatic weapons is still startling to some.
But right now there are 10,000 women serving in Iraq, more than 4,000 in Aghanistan. They have been fighting and dying next to their male comrades since the wars began.
"I can't help but think most Americans think women aren't in combat," says Specialist Ashley Pullen who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in 2005 for her heroic action in Iraq where she served with a military police unit. "We're here and we're right up with the guys."
Technically they're restricted from certain combat roles. The Department of Defense prohibits women from serving in assignments "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground."
Nevertheless, women serving in support positions on and off the frontlines, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, are often at equal risk. There have been 103 women who have been killed in Iraq and 15 others in Afghanistan.
What women can or cannot do in combat is not always clear in today's wars, and many say that the Department of Defense and Congress should reevaluate women's roles in modern warfare.
As female aviators, military police officers, and civil affairs officers, about 80 percent of the positions in the Department of Defense and 70 percent in the Army are available to women, according to a RAND study. Women make up about 11 percent of the forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Covering their own hair, women Marines in Afghanistan are part of female engagement teams that reach out to Muslim women, and as intelligence officers investigating those who may be infiltrating the communities.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The Israelis require women to serve, and they seem to have no problem with it...
Israel is at the constant state of alert and they need every person who can carry a rifle they can find. America dont have that problem since we have a large pool of manpower.
That being said, There is a place for women in combat, as MPs, truck driver and chopper pilots.But front line duty should be left to men.
Sorry to all the women I offended.
....instead of glorifying this, ABC ought to reflect on what it says about the shameful state of American manhood....give it 10 years and see how ABC feels about the sight of a homeless woman amputee begging on the street corner.
“But front line duty should be left to men.”
I think that’s partly the point in the article. In both Iraq and Afghanistan it’s sometimes hard to tell where the front line is actually located.
I agree with you 100%- I served in the Army for four years, and often times offend women by espousing that very same belief. I served with many hard working women, but the majority want the “glory” without the work, and they play that gender card nicely when it suites them.
Not in frontline combat units. The Israelis learned long ago from their experiment that that was a mistake they wouldn't repeat.
There is a place for women in combat as MP’s, truck drivers, etc., until we see another Bulge, Pusan or Tet. At that point the inability to fight in sustained combat over weeks at a time (without returning to base every night) will send us back into the healthy you man mode. By the way, there are many men forty to sixty serving and far more have been died and earned awards for valor. Should we concentrate on recruiting men over forty?
Actually, the A-10 pilots I’ve met said she was a pee-poor pilot.
“I can’t help but think most Americans think women aren’t in combat,” says Specialist Ashley Pullen who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in 2005 for her heroic action in Iraq where she served with a military police unit. “We’re here and we’re right up with the guys.”
Good point.In the Bulge, the US Army had to put clerks and cooks on the line, many of those havent fired a weapon since basic. These women who are doing the driving and policing have been using their weapons and have proven themselves almost as capable as men.
In the War on Terror, there is no front lines. Therefore anyone serving in those zones are riflemen{or riflepersons}and told to expect anything.
There is no easy answers,but I would rather have women who can shoot than men that cant.
I’m not offended, I’m just wondering where the “large pool of manpower” is? Those women wouldn’t be in those areas if there were enough men to do those jobs.
ps
My flight instructor when I got my twin rating was a very attractive female. When she was instructing, you did not even realize her attractiveness or the fact she was female. She was very professional. Southwest Airlines think so to, she is now one of their senior pilots.
They don't allow into front line combat roles either. While women do learn to crew tanks and other fighting vehicles, they do so only in training units, training the men. I don't think they go as far in that direction as we do. Especially in the IAF as compared to the USAF for example. Women fly everything we've got with wings or rotors. They serve on most of our warships.
The US military have met all recruitment goals this year. Thanks in part to Obamas “No Jobs Left Behind” economy plan.
And to be honest, I dont know. Hows that for an answer?
No word on how many have been shipped home due to pregnancy. In an Army of equality, any new fathers been shipped home?
One of my brother-in-law’s squadmates just watched his daughter’s birth via videophone. He will have some R&R next month, so he will at least be able to hold her before she is eight months old (they return home in June).
“As long as it does not take great upper body strength or the ability to pack 100 lbs of gear across the desert on your back, let them serve anyplace they are needed.”
Intersting related coincidence: Yesterday I accompanied daughter and son-in-law to a neighborhood ‘harvest festival’ and the local cops showed up to engage in some community PR.
Now, with that image in your mind, let me tell you the real deal: Both ‘cops’ were drop-dead gorgeous, average-size blonds who could qualify for the good-looking female cop roles in a TV show. However, both were outfitted with all the gun/communications gear that all police-people wear and there was no doubt in my mind that they were fully qualified to use said gear and handle anything that might ‘go down’.
The times, they have changed...
Watch any cop show or video of male and female cops taking down a male suspect that results in some sort of fight or wrestling. The male cops jump right on the bad guy, the females hold back almost always being smaller than the bad guy, flitter around the edges grabbing feet, etc. Males are wired to fight, women are not and no amount of politics is going to change that fact. However, I will agree some look very good in uniform.
Congratulations to the new dad, I wish him and his family all the best.
He’s a real Army success story. When he joined a few years ago, he was a drug addict, but his drill sergeant helped get him straightened out and he has been drug-free for the past three years. He and his wife have talked it over and he plans on making a career of the Army so that he can help other young men who are in the same boat that he was once in.
GOOD!!
About two years ago, the local police officers stopped by my small business to introduce themselves (different community than the one I alluded to before). One of the police officers was a woman and in conversation she said she was five months pregnant (couldn’t really tell by looking at her).
The community in which my business was located is one of the highest crime per capita towns in the U.S. Believe me, the ‘lady’ police officer to which I am referring was very accustomed to handling some very rough stuff. There is no doubt in my mind that she would do just fine in any situation and leave any crooks wishing they hadn’t tangled with her. No shrinking violet by any stretch of the imagination.
And when they get tired of it they get pregnant.
Probably at lower rates than they would have had they not joined the Navy. Girls will be girls, but they do need the boys to "help" with that little chore. Of course as big a "Horn Dog" reputation that sailors have always had, it's not hard finding a "cooperative" one.
All kidding aside, we need them. Just this month all the services made their recruiting goals. It only took a monster recession to do it. The cold hard facts are that we don't get enough male recruits, even when we drop the standards, to fully man the already undersized military. We need the women.
Of course my cute blond friend who wears two stars on her shoulders would kick their ashes, and those of their male accomplices, if she was Navy. But her blue suit is a somewhat different shade than Navy Blue.
My sister is a cop, and is on light duty from an injury sustained on the job - seems her partner (a man) couldn’t hold up his end of the fight the the “suspect”.
Some women are small, some are 5-9+ and can kick your a$$.
Some men are small and worthless in a fight.
Less about gender, more about size and training.
Sort of like the AC-130 weapons officer who the Taliban called "The Angel of Death", now (as of 2008) Capt. Allison Black AKA "The Angel of Death". The Northern Alliance guys relayed her chatter onto the Taliban's Frequencies, and translating as she told them what was about to be their fate “He said, ‘America is so determined, they bring their women to kill the Taliban. You’re so pathetic,’” “‘It’s the angel of death raining fire upon you.’”
The following is from "The Hunt For Bin Laden - Task Force Dagger, by Robin Moore, pg. 99..
Dabbling in psychological operations, the (Special Forces) team asked TASK FORCE DAGGER to give them an AC-130 gunship for a few nights. Once again, the weapons release officer was the efficient and attractive Air Force captain named Allison. When the bird came overhead, TIGER 01 would announce to the Taliban in Dari and Arabic that the "Angel of Death" had arrived and she had something to give them. Ally would then follow on the Taliban's command frequency, speaking with her soft, sensuous voice in English, calmly explaining to the enemy that she knew how they treated women, so it was only fair that she get an opportunity to repay their kindness. More than a few SF operators got a woody listening to her sultry description of the havoc that was about to be unleashed. Then, Ally voice would abruptly disappear as the Spectre's 105mm cannons and mini-guns would let loose, wreaking death and destruction of biblical proportions on the Taliban's trench lines.
Then the was the "rumor int" that went around during Desert Shield. Seems the Air Force had sent some Security Police, including female airmen, to guard the birds bedded down in Saudia Arabia. Of course it's hot there and so the troops would just wear the pants from their utilities along with a T-shirt. Well, one of the Saudi religious police saw one of the female sky cops so dressed, with nothing over her head (flight line rules). He was incensed and went after her with a whip. He learned, the hard way, not a bring a whip to an assault rifle fight. One burst center of mass softened his attitude, permanently.
Don't know if that really happened, but I hope it did.
Hopefully there will also be a certain female CiC elected in 2012!
If we ever had real conservatives they would take reversing this seriously.
I don’t doubt she did. She still can’t carry a 100 lb pack across a mountain like a man who weighs 80 lbs more. God didn’t make us the same. For a reason.
His outrage at the result of anyone calling this pilot pee-pour was as I expected. No fighter pilot in the organization that she belongs to would ever say she is pee-pour. Her accomplishments are well known and document, even though others may incorrectly say she is pee-poor.
The pilot deserves our respect and gratitude. You have mail 70th.
My sister had a friend, a cute little 110 lb. slip of a woman, who became a cop. I was in a bar one time and ran into her. Later in the evening a belligerent drunk twice her size started a fight. She unhesitatingly jumped on him by herself with some kind of ju-jitsu hold and had him on the ground screaming in pain in the space of two or three seconds. The bouncers arrived in a moment or two but she was fully capable of handling it by herself.
The best part was when the uniformed cops swarmed in, and the fat drunk started whining about how he was just minding his own business when this crazy chick came up and started beating his ass. They laughed in his face as they explained to him that she was one of their sister officers and would be testifying at his trial.
I talked to 2 A-10 pilots who were in the squadron with her. They said, most emphatically, she was pee-poor. They actually used stronger words, but those don’t go on FR. The more experienced of the two refused to talk much, because he felt very strongly about the issue and didn’t want to go down that rabbit-hole.
I’ve never met her or flew around her. I’m passing on what I was told by 2 of 2 pilots I know who did.
I don’t have their names anymore. That was 5 years ago. I could dig out the more experienced pilot’s name if needed...but I don’t need.
Don’t give me some nonsense about “The USAF does not tolerate anyone making such defamatory comments.” I spent 25 years in the USAF, flying in F-4s / F-111s / EF-111s - I know better.
Blow it out your high horse butt!
As long as you can GUARANTEE upper body strength or endurance won’t be an issue, it won’t be an issue. I’d be interested to know how that guarantee works.
Congressman Dornan was stymied at every attempt he made to get these figures.
I’ll send you a FReep-mail.
I read about that on Jeff Cooper's web site a few years back. She was guarding a plane, some wierdo "religious police" advances on her screaming and waving a whip, she drills him, and the CO gets her out of the area on the next plane. Don't know if it really happened, but I'd be glad if it did.
Eh, we’ve needed them ever since the draft was ended. Another mistake by Dick Nixon, along with affirmative action, wage & price controls, the EPA, etc. Aside from Watergate, most conservatives don’t realize what a lousy president he was.
“I can assure you your comments have pissed off someone more in the know than you and they will be passed on. I would caution you...”
But don’t come across like a fascist or anything, eh?
I’m not exactly quivering with fear...anyone with fighter time would have heard and said far worse said about friends than I’ve posted here!
This article strikes close to home. I have a female frined who drives trucks for the Army. Two tours in Iraq, on her third tour in Afghanistan. She’s been in the sh!t. Blown up, shot at, shot back, the works. Sweet gal but tough as nails when necessary. Has all my love and respect.
I am happy for her and that department but that is the exception and not the rule. 4 people died here in Atlanta several years ago when a 50 something woman Deputy was left alone to hold a man twice her size. As a result, the judge, court reporter, a deputy and a federal agent are dead.
He was stymied for good reason, those figures dont look too good.
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