[brazzaville]

Good evening.

I'm of the opinion that a soldier is a soldier no matter the plumbing. There are roles in the military that women's bodies are just not designed to fill but, other than that I don't care if the gunship pilot who gets the bad guys off my back is female and I wouldn't try any harder to rescue her if she went down than I would if she were a he.

I believe most troopers will come to view it that way if they don't already. There is something special about the military today, something brought into being by the WOT, and nothing is going to be the same.

Michael Frazier

[CO Gal]

Hello back,

I do agree with you that the WOT changed ALL Americans, uniting us against a common enemy, but I still believe that the male/female dynamics could severelly compromise our troops. From what I understand about the military conflict in the Middle East is that there is A LOT of down time. If I'm a young, single person with nothing to do, then I'm going to smile, wink, flirt, fraternize with the opposite sex. Even if I have no intention on following through with my flirtation (& c'mon there are a lot of women who get pregnant in the military) I am in a sense playing mind games with my male counterparts. To me, it's an unnecessary game to play.

[Meldrim]

"There is something special about the military today, something brought into being by the WOT, and nothing is going to be the same."

Yes, that "something" is the complacency of fighting against a half assed enemy while fooling ourselves into thinking they are just as tough as the Germans, Koreans or Vietnamese...