Another Year: Objection to Women Being Required to Register for Selective Service.

“...TV has nothing to do with me. I trained troops in the military for over 25 years for fitness and combat capacity. I know the needs and the difference...But that is one of the major concerns for the entry of women ...There is no substitute for the physical ability to run a mile for escape with a full pack and weapons. Not all men can do it...what the public is up in arms about with the drafting of people that can’t handle the job they are put into...has been drafted so no one has been placed in a career field they can’t handle...yet...” [whitney69, post 39]

There’s no substitute for physical strength and hardihood, only if you believe masses of foot troops are the answer to everything. They are not. Without all the other specialties and branches to support them, they are nearly helpless.

I do share your concerns about the military establishment’s ability to determine an individual’s potential and then train accordingly, so that they may contribute optimally to the overall mission. But failure to do all that is a problem all across all armed services. Drafting only men and limiting recruitment of women won’t remedy that.

Not sure where television enters into it but I cannot say that it influenced my outlook much either.

I spent just over 24-1/2 years on active duty in USAF, more than half of it in operational testing and force assessment, part of it in Joint billets. The organizations to which I was assigned crossed all service dept lines and touched on nearly every occupational specialty; among other tasks, we assisted training specialists in standards development and had a hand in rewriting doctrine. Creating more effective forces, developing better systems for them, and figuring out ways to employ all of it better is process that never ends.

“We urge those who value the core values which our Armed Forces defend to contact their U.S. senators NOW and urge them to have removed any provision requiring females to register.”

You and I, playing the game for a big part of our lives, understand the thinking going into this and understand that a lot of people, male and female, are going to get cut and they will be either palace balance, allowed to, or forced to, cross over into another career field that might be open, or processed. I remember when they were really interested in closing bases and when they closed Mather, they had two lines after the initial walk in: One to agree with the choice they made for you to PCS, or the line that processed you out and you’d be on the street by close of business if single airmen or just as soon as you get packed if with dependents.

If they toss combat career fields into the works, and government loves to play the diversity game, the same thing will happen. Palace balance, an open (or deal made) career field, or the street. They won’t make it through basic and they will be right where they started and uncle sugar says well we tried. Feds are bailed, incoming numbers are padded, and then the process starts to do the same thing when the physical aptitude fails. It’s the same thing, just a little more expensive at the git go and the slots will remain empty. I don’t trust them any more than I can throw them.

wy69

"Does your wife and daughters have the right to vote? Then they have the obligation to grab a gun and get in the trenches with the rest of us."

Incorrect conclusion disregarding the importance of women and mothers in the home as the core of our society, without which the Armed Forces have nothing to defend.

This very particular necessity of protecting women (and womanhood) and mothers (and motherhood) has been recognized by generation after generation of Americans and our Congresses which have rejected the mandatory registration of women.

Our daughters (i.e., John Leland 1789' family) are trained in firearms. Were an enemy to invade our country and enemy units march down our streets, our daughters would be prepared to fire at them from our "kitchen window."

Patriotism and worthiness to vote is proven in many ways, not only in submission to any potential draft, or even active duty in the Armed Services.

Patriotism is also the raising of the next generation of Godfearing citizens in military and non-military fields for the core strength of our country.

“You and I, playing the game for a big part of our lives, understand the thinking going into this...If they toss combat career fields into the works, and government loves to play the diversity game, the same thing will happen...”

I can’t say I understand the thinking, if it is indeed any more detailed or complete than panicked reactions to the latest crisis, or diktats from political leadership.

While I do deem fitness important, I have for long suspected that the emphasis on fitness has more to do with the service depts desiring to minimize costs associated with poor fitness and chronic disease resulting from it. Applies to long-term costs associated with aging and eventual retired populations.

I’ve read the unclassified literature for years and confess to steadily mounting concerns over the burdens laced on foot troops, chiefly over the increasing weight of gear and weapons they’re expected to carry. Certainly, average females are not capable of packing the loads carried by average males, but males aren’t doing so well either, PEO Soldier is best by problems involving stress and repetitive motion injuries.

Not amount of moral parenting, “good upbringing,” “right living,” or training/conditioning is going to solve these problems. Indeed, no solution will be possible until some changes occur. Combat and preparation for it are exceeding the upper limits of the human body.

“...I have for long suspected that the emphasis on fitness has more to do with the service depts desiring to minimize costs associated with poor fitness and chronic disease resulting from it.”

That’s in the outside world. The military spits out disablement faster than any business in the world for its size. You can expect 30% or you hid in a bunker for your career. Many branches of the our military complex not only expect you as a member but demand you carry a gun, and be expected to be sent downrange to use it.

But the most compelling fact is when a 115 pound woman is expected to pick up and carry a 200+ pound man or woman retreating under fire for a couple of hundred yards. Even with proper lifting techniques, that’s at best a stretch.

But there are other issues to look at. There is also one very interesting point that is not normally brought up and that one was that a good many women were returned back to the lower 48 pregnant. In a study by the Oxford Academy through Military Medicine when there was a comparison for gynecology appointments at Camp Doha, Kuwait, from August 2003 through April 2004, of the 1,737 visits, 77 demonstrated a positive pregnancy test (4.4%). And that’s at only one location. That may not seem like a large number but it has a direct effect on force readiness. If that is a consistent number there were 41,000 women assigned to desert storm and that would encompass over a thousand, closer to two thousand, just pregnancies alone that would bring a troop home. So financially and slot filling capacity is compromised possibly in very special and required career fields. And that would compromise redeployment at a later date causing the member to opt out of the military for family reasons. So the capacity of available troops to deploy gets smaller based solely on women’s health issues and pregnancies causing deployment of their men counterparts to increase the deployment need.

At Doha, Ninety-two percent had an ultrasound. Fifty-four percent of visits were active duty, followed by Reserve, National Guard, and civilian government employees. Seventy-seven percent of the soldiers became pregnant in country. Tack that on to the pressure of being downrange with less than directed health support and cleanliness issues there are health issues solely a woman’s situation besides menstruation and menstrual irregularities. There’s issues like urinary tract health, including urinary incontinence and pelvic floor disorders; and such disorders as bacterial vaginosis, vaginitis, uterine fibroids, and vulvodynia. Other disorders and conditions that affect only women include Turner syndrome, Rett syndrome, and ovarian and cervical cancers. And they are not near prepared to handle these situations in the field.

So besides the public appearance outlook of trying to satisfy the women’s wishes, many probably wrong, of joining and expecting deployment into a bad scenario, it has every appearance of failing and getting other people killed. All for the vote because congress doesn’t deploy anything as much as they do voters.

wy69

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