Free Republic

Heresy: An Introduction to Combat Riflecraft (The following article is the first in a series that will discuss the Combat Rifle POI as I teach it.) –J.M.) “Shattering illusions, and crushing misconceptions…It’s just what I do.” –Me, to my mother-in-law recently. The purpose of the combat rifle is to allow the combat rifleman to engage and kill, directly or indirectly, armed enemy combatants with precision aimed rifle fire. The rifleman’s ability with his weapon is one of the most fundamental measures of his effectiveness and survivability in combat. If the expects to function effectively in combat, he must be both willing to, and...

Did anyone else hear Gen Dempsey's interview on NPR yesterday afternoon? He said that they had to bring women into combat, as only one in four young males in our nation were eligible for enlistment due to the national dropout rate and the increased number of legal problems experienced in the young male demographic. Therefore, they had to allow women to enter previously restricted combat fields in order to meet the military requirements. He stated that the physical standards for these fields needed to be "dusted off" and re-examined, as it might be possible that intellectual and other personal attributes...

Women in Combat Could Blunt 'Tip of the Spear' By Lee Webb and Tracy Winborn CBN News Anchor and Producer Monday, February 25, 2013 As the Pentagon pushes forward with plans to fully integrate women in military combat units, many are considering the move a victory for equal rights. Still, others argue it will hurt our nation's ability to fight and win the next war. Women currently make up 14 percent of our military. They've served across the board except in infantry, armor, and special operations units, like the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and Green Berets. "Everyone, men and women...

Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong tree. Many liberals think the answer to mass shootings and street crime lies in stricter gun regulation: banning "assault weapons," limiting the capacity of magazines or, in their unrestrained moments, adopting ultra-stringent laws like those in Britain or Australia. But most of these ideas are irrelevant or impossible. Even if the Second...

The term “moronic” is defined as “notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.” It is frequently used as an insult. The Obama administration is moronic. This is not an insult. President Obama’s latest “notably stupid” stoke of America’s calculated slow burn is the decision to lift the ban on women in direct combat. Along with the move a few years back to turn the Officers’ Club into the Blue Oyster Bar, this most recent social experiment with national security represents one small step for the “progressive” agenda and one giant prance toward the pansification of the greatest military in world...

Accessible Pudding By: A. H. Pinley The day was September 11, 2012. Place was the United States Consulate Building, Benghazi, Libya. September 11, or 9/11 holds a lot of value for different reasons depending on what side of the coin you find yourself on. For me, the value of that day in our nations’ history as I’m sure I’m not alone in this realization that our country is at war with those that hate freedom and reminded me that our world is small place. Our American ideals are not favored by those that use fear to corral their people. In...

American women have been cleared for combat, but the generals at the Pentagon only think they are the very model of the modern major general. Women have been locked in combat since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Men and women have been fighting the unending war between the sexes since, giving no quarter, but happily taking each other prisoner. It's a war nobody can win, as Henry Kissinger observed, because there's too much fraternizing with the enemy. But when a helpful Amazonian warrior tries to shorten the odds for her side, someone invariably makes...

A senior Defense Department official said the ban on women in combat should be lifted because the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." I'd like to think the goal of the military should be to have the toughest, meanest fighting force possible. But let's look at "gender-neutral playing field." The Army's physical fitness test in basic training is a three-event physical performance test used to assess endurance. The minimum requirement for 17- to 21-year-old males is 35 pushups, 47 situps and a two-mile run in 16 minutes, 36 seconds or less. For females of the same...

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...