I find that hard to believe. Young men like women.
-but I think I can show how your "theory" is mistaken on its own merit.First, I could point out that females are much more likely to miss time due to injury or illness: this link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=97302075 is the abstract of a study of injury rates of men and women in a military training environment. It states Women had 2.5 times the rate of injuries as men and 3.9 times the rate of injuries resulting in hospitalization. Women had significantly more stress fractures and stress reactions than men. The median number of days excused from physical activities for women's injuries was significantly higher than that from men's injuries. This link http://journal.ajsm.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/98 noted that In military training, women had a relative injury risk of 9.74 compared with men. And finally, http://occmed.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/2/85 points out that There is anecdotal and some scientific evidence that females in military service experience an excess of work-related injuries, compared with males...We found that for all disease and injury categories of medical discharge there is a statistically significant excess in females; this disparity is particularly marked for discharges on account of injury [relative risk (RR) = 1.65, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 1.30–2.10] and musculoskeletal disease (RR = 3.34, 95% CI = 2.75–4.06). Royal Navy females are eight times more likely (RR = 7.92, 95% CI = 3.03–20.66) and Army females seven times more likely (RR = 6.53, 95% CI = 2.60–16.42) than Royal Air Force females to be medically discharged on account of injury. Thus we are losing money due to females missing more time to injury than males.
Those percentages are in the single digits and therefore aren't that significant.
I could then point out that females are 100% more likely to miss time due to pregnancy. This article, http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1993/vo09no03/vo09no03_women_combat.htm notes that • According to the Roper Poll of the Military, "56 percent of those who were deployed in Desert Shield/Desert Storm with mixed gender units reported that women in their unit became pregnant just prior to or while deployed in the Gulf." Forty-six percent of that group reported that pregnancies had a negative impact on unit readiness, and 59 percent reported a negative impact on morale...Nondeployability briefings before the Commission showed that women were three times more nondeployable than men, primarily due to pregnancy, during Operations Desert Shield and Storm ... That same article points out that 43% of women who joined the Army in 1995 did not complete their enlistment contracts (the overall rate is 30%, meaning that it is somewhere around 24-25% for males, thus females are about 180% more likely not to complete a tour of duty). The article further notes Every recruit who leaves early must be replaced early, in effect doubling the $35,000 it costs to recruit and train each of our soldiers.
A small number doubled is still a small number.
Of course none of this takes into account the extra money needed to refit ships to accomodate females, the fact that one study found that 45% of military females could not throw a hand grenade outside of its blast radius...
I don't advocate females in the infantry.
...(in effect they couldn't throw it far enough not to be hit by its own explosion) or the fact that it is marginally more expensive to outfit and equip a female than it is a male (think clothing and feminine hygeine products).
Key word: "marginally".
I'm sure that you'll try to dream up some vague conjecture to try and counter what I've said here, but facts remain stubborn things-and much better basis for decision making than "theories".
And the fact is that your percentages are small. If 1 man out of a hundred gets hurt and 2 women out of a hundred gets hurt, even though that's a 100% increase, it's still only 1 more out of a hundred than men.
I've pointed out that 43% of women who entered service in 1995 did not complete their first tour of duty. That's not one out of a hundred or two out of a hundred but nearly half and that for each one the cost of replacing that soldier is almost double. Your theory seems to be that women in the military saves us on recruiting costs (how-you don't say-we're just supposed to accept your theory on its face). Now it seems to me that since women are almost twice as likely as men to not complete their tour then you have to accept either one of two alternatives:
1) Women are such a small percentage of the force that the fact that almost half leave results in insignificant expense. In which case almost no money is saved in recruiting since the overwhelming majority of those recruited are male and that expense would continue at about the same if slightly more males were recruited to replace the females, or
2) Females are a large enough percentage of the force that money is saved by not recruiting more males into the service to replace them. In which case the fact that they are about 180% more likely to leave the service than are males means that the extra expense of replacing them negates the savings incurred in not having to recruit more males.
Up to this point your responses on this thread have amounted to the reasoning of an eight-year old: "I believe what I believe, because I believe it". Please do at least try to support some of your theories either factually or logically.