Not to mock you, but I am all for women in the military, but the training standards should be set the same for both men and women so that arguements like yours are irrelevant.
Yeah, I'm all for equality for equals and being equal in everything equally too. Unfortunately, every nation that implements this kind of equality has discarded it. Seems that those damn irrelevancies are hard to overcome. Oh well, I'm sure NOW will provide me with some better arguments to persevere with some equity in this debate.
I wouldn't mind some career paths being designated from the get-go as non-combat. Even with the current gender separate training standards, a male recruit may have a great brain but lack the physical ability to complete the regular training expected of males but could pass the training expected of females. If he can qualify under a lesser physical standard, he'll still be able to perform a vital role in a logistics or support group somewhere.
So, why not give him a change to qualify under the female standards?
EVERYONE seems to miss the boat on this issue. It boils down to this. The fundamental function of an Army is to fight and defeat the enemy. To the extent that women can enable this mission they should be utilized.
I believe that the present policy is, or has the potential to be; couterproductive to the army's fundamental mission. Every soldier needs to be fundamentally interchangeable in the combat mission, should it be necessary to "plug" them into it in an emergency. During the fighting in northwest Europe in WWII, The United States Army was forced to comb out personnel who had been assigned to the Army Specialized Training program has technical personnel (aircrew, radar operators, etc) and convert them to infantry to replace the staggering losses in the post Normandy breakout and the Huertgen Forest debacle. 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. Additionally, these women are only expected to meet a gender normed standard of physical readiness, and cannot be expected to perform generally as well as a simarly situated male soldier would.
Despite all radical femist attempts to decry the disheartning (to them) tendency to place a higher value (or at least to shield from harm) on women's lives for most of Western civillization's history, this predeliction will cause a greater demoralizing effect on the nation than an equivalent number of dead or wounded men. The potential effect on national policy must be considered as to it's political fallout and negative repercussions.
I believe having such large numbers of women in the military should be reserved for cases of full mobilization, where they are essential; but I realize that the present situation is largely impelled by PC and gender politics, and the defense establishment is yielding to that reality.
Under the current PC regime, physical standards will NEVER be equal because 40-60% of women now gender-normed into the service would be subsequently washed out. A political decision has been made to have a politically acceptable number of women, and dual physical standards was the means to allow it.