Free Republic

It’s not all about qualification. I’m speaking as a female Marine Iraq war vet who did serve in the combat zone doing entry checkpoint duty in Fallujah, and we worked with the grunts daily for that time. All the branches still have different standards for females and males. Why? Because most women wouldn’t even qualify to be in the military if they didn’t. Men and women are different, but those pushing women into combat don’t want to admit that truth. They huff and puff about how women can do whatever men can do, but it just ain’t so. We’re built...

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, announced last week that the Pentagon was lifting the policy that had barred women from specific combat roles. But Marines who have served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan – myself included – worry that the decision did not take the opinions of infantrymen into account. Being an infantryman isn’t just about uncomfortable living situations. It’s kill or be killed, blood, entrails and fear. We are a brotherhood; a collection of ragtag men who hunt and kill the enemy and travel to...

(CBS News) What does war look like from a soldier's point of view? Tens of millions of YouTube viewers now know, thanks to a video taken in Afghanistan that's gone viral. CBS News spoke with the man who shot the helmet cam video -- and got shot himself in the process. The video has become one of the most viewed three minutes of war video ever, with 23 million hits on YouTube. It's video of a battle with Taliban forces in Afghanistan, as seen through the helmet camera of Pfc. Ted Daniels. It started when he purposely moved into the...

Leftist, liberal, and progressive men are ushering in the greatest pansi-fication and weakening of our nation in the modern era. Awkwardly refusing leadership in times of real crisis, the men of the left, are allowing women and children to literally be the mouthpiece and driving force behind the cause. They do so dishonestly, disingenuously, and they do so without discernment. In recent days the president hid behind the letters of four children that he claimed, "were really smart" to help shape his approach to reforms he claimed constitutional authority over, to implement in response to recent shootings. (Not ever having...

The Wall Street Journal OPINION January 23, 2013, 7:01 p.m. ET Ryan Smith: The Reality That Awaits Women in Combat A Pentagon push to mix the sexes ignores how awful cheek-by-jowl life is on the battlefield. By RYAN SMITH America has been creeping closer and closer to allowing women in combat, so Wednesday's news that the decision has now been made is not a surprise. It appears that female soldiers will be allowed on the battlefield but not in the infantry. Yet it is a distinction without much difference: Infantry units serve side-by-side in combat with artillery, engineers, drivers, medics...

Last Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other U.S. military leaders lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions. I, for one, think this is a great idea and have a few modest proposals, if the brass inside the beltway is open to suggestions, on how they should deploy the dames (and whom they should deploy). First off, if you truly want to eviscerate the enemy—namely Muslims—then I propose sending the most nerve grating and foul women Hollywood has to offer straight into hot zones as our forward armies. I’m a thinkin’ starting off with Roseanne Barr, Joy...

Now that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has decreed that women may not be excluded from front line combat positions, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey ordered a review of the standards applied to personnel in these positions. Dempsey's order specifically requires all commanders to justify any minimum standards that would tend to disproportionately impact women. “As it stands now, many of the physical requirements imposed on combat troops are beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of female soldiers,” Dempsey said. “This makes the standards inherently discriminatory and denies these female soldiers equal rights. The...

If you want to stop these pro women in combat lunes dead in their tracks ask them this hypothetical question: You are a General of an Infantry division and your Commander lets you choose one of two enemy divisions to fight. The first enemy division that you could choose to oppose in the upcoming battle is all male. Or you could instead choose to fight the second enemy division that was mixed faggot, women and men. So which enemy division would you choose to fight?

Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal Women can conduct and lead combat operations; that is not the issue. Author: Capt Katie Petronio The Marine Corps Times recently published a handful of articles in regard to opening Infantry Officer Course (IOC) to females and the possibility of integrating women into the infantry community. In mid-April the Commandant directed the “integration” of the first wave of female officers into IOC this summer following completion of The Basic School (TBS). This action may or may not pave the way for female Marines to serve in the infantry as the results...

With little discussion or fanfare, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the ban on women in combat that has been in effect for as long as there has been a U.S. military. Feminists and some women serving in the military are applauding the move as a victory for equal rights. They claim that justice requires nothing short of opening all positions to females, regardless of the consequences to combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, or military readiness, factors whose importance they minimize in any event. What is perhaps most striking about Secretary Panetta's action is that it reverses the combat exclusion policy that...

President Obama, in dogged pursuit of his liberal Nirvana, is free to lift the ban on women serving in combat positions. He is, alas, unable to repeal the laws of nature, physics or gravity. Ask a combat veteran you know how he would have felt knowing that, after being wounded in combat, the only person around to pick him up and carry him to safety was a 5-foot-3, 120-pound woman. Ask any active duty serviceman how he’d feel knowing that, as he lay on the ground bleeding, the only thing between him and a cave-hardened Tali-ban killer was a 20-year-old...

The first line of attack in political battles is language. Getting people to phrase things your way is the first step to getting them to think your way. In the foggy mess of the debate over women in combat, you will see media references to a “ban” being “lifted.” Bans are bad. Lifting bans is good. Therein lies the bias strangling this issue in the dominant media culture. Am I “banned” from the women’s restrooms at work? No, I’m just not supposed to be in there, so that word doesn’t come up. The left has commandeered combat as a rhetorical...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that whether they are male or female "everyone is entitled to a chance" to become a combat soldier in a military that will now adopt "gender netural" standards. “If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job--and let me be clear, we’re not talking about reducing the qualifications for a job--if they can meet the qualifications for the job then they should have the right to serve,” Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference. The Defense Department announced today that it would rescind its 1994 policy restricting women

Press Release - Washington, DC – Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) today released the following statement on the news that the Department of Defense will lift the ban on women serving in ground combat roles: “As a twice-deployed combat veteran, I have a firsthand appreciation and understanding of the contributions women in uniform make every single day, all around the world. I have had the honor of serving with incredibly talented female soldiers who, if given the opportunity, would serve as great assets in our ground combat units. It is crucial that we shed light on the great value and opportunities...

We have apparently arrived at the Golden Age, free from strife and the threat of foreign enemies. Little else can explain so gratuitous a decision as to place women in combat units. The downsides to such a policy are legion and obvious; the only reason to pursue it is to placate feminism’s insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes. Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. The number of women who are the equal to reasonably well-developed men in upper-body strength and who have...

Panetta removes military ban on women in combat, opening thousands of front line positions.

A MiG-21 combat aircraft flown by a Syrian pilot who defected to Jordan in June was found to have been upgraded back in Syria to carry chemical weapons and to fly without a pilot, the Yisrael Hayom daily reported on Tuesday. According to the report, U.S. experts who examined the plane believe Russian engineers helped convert the plane and that Syria has more of them in its air force. On June 21, Syrian pilot Hassan Hamada, who holds a rank equivalent to colonel, took off in his MiG-21 from al-Dumair military airport northeast of Damascus and flew to King Hussein...

— The human hand is a finely tuned piece of equipment that is capable of remarkable dexterity: creating art, performing music and manipulating tools. Yet David Carrier from the University of Utah suggests that the human hand may have also evolved its distinctive proportions for a less enlightened reason: for use as a weapon. In a new study, Carrier and colleague Michael Morgan publish their theory that human hands evolved their square palms and long thumb to stabilise the fist and produce a compact club for use in combat.

Recently The Post reported that four women serving in the Army, two with Purple Hearts, had filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the military’s combat exclusion policy. “Combat exclusion” is code for being kept from serving in the close-combat arms of the Army, Marines and special forces. These units are made up of soldiers whose purpose is to kill the enemy directly. They also do virtually all of the military’s dying: Since the end of World War II, four out of five combat deaths suffered by men and women serving in the U.S. military have been in the infantry,...

Except as otherwise provided in this title (sections 451 to 471a of this Appendix) it shall be the duty of every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States, who, on the day or days fixed for the first or any subsequent registration, is between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, to present himself for and submit to registration at such time or times and place or places, and in such manner, as shall be determined by proclamation of the President and by rules and regulations prescribed hereunder. That is section 453...