I think its evident now that the benefits are completely obscured by the problems, judging by the number of lexis nexis hits you are going to get on the femail 1LT that found Hussein, and the number of hits you'll get for PFC England.
Fact is, they should have benefitted from the same inculcation to the military that blacks did - all female units.
Personally, if a female can be as effective in combat as men, they ought to have a chance to prove it. With all-female units, they get that opportunity. With coed units, there is always the lingering question of who actually did the work.
Ask most military spouses how they feel about women in the military. I'd say being an Army mother with kids, and your mate being deployed for 12 to 18 months would be - difficult. Add the fact that your hubby is running a jail with a bunch of women and I would imagine it would increase that load somewhat.
It has ALWAYS been a bad idea to have coed units. It's history has chronicled one failure after another. Ultimately, its a disservice to qualified females as well as the CO's of the coed units. Every time a female gets pregnant, you lose another trained body, the duty rotation gets a little thinner, the 'ax murder ratio' of the enlisted mess goes up a tick.
And last but not least, you compare the unit cohesion of an all male unit to that of a coed unit - no comparison. Unit cohesion is a massive factor in the effectiveness of a unit, its ability to improvise in a bad situation, or overcome spotty or questionable or outright bad intel.
Thanks for your articulate thoughts.
To make a brief reply, I'd just say that our military today is FAR more lethal and effective than it ever was in the past. Today the whole world can only stand in awe at our power.
So while we all have a few changes we'd like to see in the way our military operates, things have to be pretty much on a good track. I'd say that includes our personnel policies -- including the very high entrance standards that apply to men and women.