Not sure my father would approve of women in combat. The Master Gunnery Sergeant served toward the end of the Korean War 3’rd Battalion 9’TH Marines. He was the undesignated photographer for the Battalion. I have been going through some of his old film slides and scanning them. He had pictures of training on Iwo Jima and Okinawa before going into Korea. There were still bones on the battlefields. In live fire training exercises on Okinawa he had an ear drum ruptured from a claymore detonate he was to close to, and obviously on the correct side on the munition. His Battalion was also one of the first to train for airborne assault in helo’s in HRS-1 Sikorsky. He had a good friend who was a full bird OF-5 Army Colonel that ran MASH units in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. My dad would jokingly upset him saying a Marine Sergeant had more authority on the battlefield than an Army Colonel.
I helped train Navy/Marine F/A-18 pilots for 8 years. Women can actually tolerate G forces fairly well and many are dam good pilots. But I would never want my daughter in combat. Killing is a brutal ugly business that most civilized humans instinctively reject and bury deep within them to be able to function as soldiers. One of my uncles was with the 1’ST Marines on Guadalcanal 1942. Survived the battle including Henderson Field, but would never talk about it. The only person he ever did was with my father, when he convinced my dad not to volunteer for Vietnam, and stay home with his five kids to grow old. No women in combat, ever.
Re : Post #28
~ Great post! Thank you! I especially liked, “ My dad would jokingly upset him saying a Marine Sergeant had more authority on the battlefield than an Army Colonel.”
Brilliant...