[CaptainKip]

“But if a woman WANTS to do grunt work (up to and including combat), she certainly can. But only if she wants to.”

I’m afraid “wants” should have nothing to do with it. Any person should only do work in the military that they are capable of doing. Otherwise, they are a danger to their teammates.

Letting people do jobs that they are incapable of doing because they wanted to and no one had the balls to tell them no, is one of the reasons we are where we are.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Exactly, and that's the inconsistency of it. Combat arms are open to women if they so choose to pursue that, but no girl is ever going to find herself kicking down doors if she doesn't want to.

When the Corps did a study showing how terribly gender-integrated units perform, and Mabus tossed it in the trash with some inane remark about diversity, says quite a.lot.