My daughter made it into the SFPD academy. The physical standards to do so were VERY high. The academy is 8 months and VERY tough. She is VERY smart and DAMN tough. She left during the last 3 weeks because of an injury (and was asked multiple times to come back again).
What does she say about combat? No. Bad idea. Women aren’t physically designed for it.
Yeah, she can take down a man outweighing her by 100 pounds. But she can’t carry him any distance while wearing a full complement of combat gear.
PS: I love the irony of San Francisco having just about the toughest police training in the country. Schizo town.
Good Grief.
I feel bad for your daughter having been injured. I hope she gets better. She should be proud of herself for getting that far. A lot of guys don’t even make it that far.
My wife has been a firefighter for more than 10 years, but as I wrote earlier she is a very rare bird. Before that she was a 300 PFTer and WSSI (Water Safety Swimming Instructor) while in the Marines. She can probably bench about 200 pounds! I am stronger than her, but not by much.
As strong as she is, she would only be an average Marine on the physical scale as compared to male Marines. So, there are a few women who could do this, but so few as to make it undoable on any large scale.
Then, there are the social factors of unit cohesion that would be severely damaged by having women in front line positions. I am telling you that if a woman were hurt in combat, she would cause other male members in the unit to focus on her and not completing the mission. That is not a good thing. Marines never leave a man or woman behind, but the inclusion of women combat units would weaken the cohesion of our fighting forces. The same thing would happen with openly gay members, but for different reasons. However, the social experimenters in the DOD, the same people who have ensured that we have never really won a war since WWII, are damn fools if they think these changes are good for fighting effectiveness.