Posted on 05/17/2005 5:46:15 AM PDT by OESY
Forces entrenched at the Pentagon keep trying to push women onto the front lines of combat, despite the fact that U.S. law forbids it.
The latest bid: A push to start assigning female soldiers to act as "forward support" personnel (such as mechanics), living alongside combat troops who are often in battle. Last week, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) moved to block that with an amendment to the 2006 Defense appropriations bill. The Pentagon and Democrats howled in protest.
But why? Who wants more women to be shot?
This is a small scene in the larger drama over the feminization of war. Another scene was Gen. Janis Karpinski's appointment in 2003 to head the 800th Military Police Brigade — where she was in charge of the prison at Abu Ghraib.
That appointment didn't turn out well, to put it mildly....
Since 1951, a powerful Pentagon committee has been pressing the services to recruit and promote more women into high positions. It has also lobbied Congress to assign women to fighting units.
Since the '60s, this group, the presidentially-appointed Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), has contained retired female officers, military family members — and feminist ideologues.
Using allies in Congress to pressure its Pentagon bosses, DACOWITS demanded that, rather than subjecting women to the military's tough regimens, the services must lower their standards. By the '90s, women who couldn't pass the competence exams required of men were cleared to fly jets. Other women were assigned to Army maintenance companies, though they lacked the strength to change a truck tire or carry their toolboxes.
Over the decades, Pentagon brass have been so cowed by congressional liberals that they've tried to make this fantasy work, while running an actual war-fighting military at the same time....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"women who couldn't pass the competence exams required of men were cleared to fly jets"
BS
Sorry, just BS.
We have zero incompetent fighter jocks. Yes, some are better than others, but NONE fail the competence tests and get to keep their wings.
Maybe he means the trash haulers flying the C-17s, but I don't infer that's what he means.
ANYPLACE in Irag can become a battlefield. Our brave women are over there at risk so that ANYPLACE in the US does not become a battleground.
The US dos NOT place women in combat infantry squads. Get over it dude.
Harrumph.
There, I feel better. </ rant off>
It would be nice to see documentation, e.g. :
Listings of various requirements (physical, visual, reaction times) for pilots from 30 years ago, 25, 20, 15, etc., to see if the standards have changed.
Or raw numbers on military air crashes, broken down by location, circumstances, and sex, for military jets;
Or peer-review consensus among jet pilots
Cheers!
Just another hysterical try by the Hate America liberal losers.
So the US military will have camp followers now? The idea of women in combat is ridiculous. It puts our fighting men in more danger, along with the women themselves.
Didn't that gal that flew an F-14 into a carrier a few years back have some failures on her record that would have grounded a male pilot? Seems to me I read something like that...
With me, you are preaching to the choir.
It was just my thoughts on who, ACTUALLY, is behind this push.
Most people would agree that women should not have a direct role in combat, i.e. the infantryman. With regard to the support MOS, restricting women from being in proximity to units engaged with the enemy, a two-tiered system develops. Fairness would require a concomitant two-tier pay/benefit system. Moreover, if there were not sufficient males to perform these duties, there could be a conscription of males as well as an exclusion of female volunteers.
The god-damned politicians need to keep their hands off before they create a nightmare.
The Politician have already created the nightmare, in more ways then one!!!!!!!!!
DEVOIDOFWITS has been in the bag for the feminists for decades.
You are correct. I should have said "exacerbate the nightmare."
Many women in college at the time, went on to graduate and are now professors and colleges all over the U.S., teaching that there is no difference between boys and girls and push girls into sports programs (i.e. wrestling teams with both sexes, soccer teams with girls coming in physical contact with guys who far outsize them). These same women teach college girls to try lesbian relationships before settling on hetrosexual sex.
I have so many of my friends whose daughters are declaring themselves to be lesbians after one semister at college.
I think women should be allowed in combat... Provided they meet all the requirements of the men.
And the standard must be set at the highest level (ie - the male standard).
It's just that you wouldn't see very many women in combat as they (mostly) would not be able to meet the standard.
The few that make it... Heck, they'd be just as strong and capable as the rest of the guys, so why not?
---
Above all, there should NEVER be a watered-down standard for the women.
Regardless of Hollywood and the Pentagon, that is not true for ground pounders. Women, as a class, cannot cut it against men and men will do things women won't due in the course of combat. Sorry ladies, but you tangle with men - you will, on average, get beat. And that is what war is sometimes all about, calculated risk and statistical advantage. America gets away with having women in uniform on the front lines because our opponents are not all that good. If we ever hit an opponent who is that good, we are in for a bloody nose.
Is that like the TOR science fiction book publisher?
Those of us who have seen the grim horror at the sharp end of infantry combat (as I did in a Mech Infantry outfit in Vietnam) are concerned at the rhetoric of many of those pushing the women in combat agenda. Daily we are regaled by the sight of 110 lb. women routinely beating the stuffing out of 250 lb male behemoths in choreographed entertainment fantasies like Buffy the vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, Tomb Raider and the Matrix Reloaded. We all listened breathlessly to the initial (later revealed as inaccurate) reports of brave little Jessica Lynch mowing down hordes of Iraqis.
It is only natural that with this continual barrage of opinion shaping that an attitude will begin to form that women are just as generally capable of participating in infantry combat as men are, with a comensurate erosion of the rationale for excluding them in the first place.
This is not to say that women can not serve in positions that enhance military capability, they are already serving in them, and serving well and honorably. It was Nazi Armament Minister Albert Speer who cited the German failure to mobilize their women in the manner that the Allies did in WWII as a significant factor in the Nazi defeat. In situations involving large scale mobilization, they are essential. (Don't forget that the Soviets only did it because of the hugely staggering quantity of casualties that they suffered, on a scale that we can scarcely concieve of) That is not the case now as most personnel requirements could be met with the available pool of qualified males. Today, the issue is clouded by feminists and their societal influence ranging from lefist cum Marxist to liberal gender equity advocates. All too often combat readinesss, morale and unit cohesion is secondary to remaking the military institution into one which advances a radical social agenda. The decision to incorporate such large numbers of women into today's military is a political decision, not one of military necessity has was the case with the Soviets during World War II.
One of the problems in assesing the impact of this issue vis-a-vis the Iraq war is the fact that we handily defeated them with the forces that were already in place in the invasion phase. Due to a combination of the skill of our superbly trained, equipped, motivated soldiers; and the ineptitude of our enemy (but they are getting better) our casualty rate has been thankfully far lower than we should have been reasonably able to expect given historical precedents. Notwithstanding this the question must be asked as to what would happen should we face an enemy that could inflict the sort of casualties on us has was the case during the fighting in northwest Europe in WWII? The United States Army was forced to comb out military personnel who had been assigned to the Army Specialized Training program as technical personnel (aircrew, radar operators, etc) and convert them to infantry to replace the staggering losses. Since 14% of the Army is not deployable to such duty (women) this does not bode well for such an eventuality. While we can continue to pray that we will never again face an enemy that will be able to attrite us as the German and Japanese Armies did, we MUST not plan as though it will never again happen. The Iraq war as it is presently playing out IS NO TEST OF THIS PROPOSITION.
Many commentators are relentless in their determination to ignore the considerable body of factual evidence indicating that the present policy of sexual intergration is inconsistent with certain vital forms of combat readiness. Study after study (reinforced by my 20 yrs of anecdotal observation in the active duty military and NG) highlight the physical unsuitability of most women for the tasks of the combat soldier, and often even the support soldier. My personal observations include the inability to change the tires on military vehicles, clear routine stoppages on M60 medium MG's and .50 cal HMG's, carry heavy loads any appreciable distances at necessary speeds, lift and evacuate casualties, and an inordinate disposition to injury. The reason that the military adopted "dual physical training standards" was to ensure politically acceptable numbers of women, since 40-60% of them would be washed out if they were required to meet male physical training requirements. My son, a reservist in a NG chopper unit, is contemptuous of what he describes as continual coddling of female soldiers. He is planning to transfer to an infantry unit.
In situations of full mobilization, women are essential. I believe that women are a militarily valuable asset, provided that asset is used in a manner that makes the military ready to fight, and subordinates feminist social engineering to that end.
Hundreds of thousands of women have served and are serving their country honorably and well. I honor them for their service and accept them as comrades and fellow veterans. We can only hope that their service will be continued in such a manner as to enhance the ability of the military to fight. The potential consequences for the individual soldier and the military's mission are too serious to subordinate to social engineering.
You're absolutely right that most women cannot physical handle the stresses of combat.
I just believe that in the instead of an outright 'ban' on women in combat, we should set one single set of standards for combat. If a man cannot meet the standards, he won't be in the military... AND if a woman cannot meet the standard, neither will she.
You know just as well as I do that almost all the women who try won't make it.
But for the 1 out of a 1,000 that does, why not? She'd have proved herself capable.
Currently, the biggest problem is that the Army has a weaker standard for women. Which leads to combat incapable women being in combat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.