Yes, contracting mothers of small children to fight in wars is as evil as contract based slavery. It is you who has problem with reasoning. Your reason is asleep.
El sueno de la razon produce monstruos - The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
Posted on 11/29/2006 8:36:31 AM PST by XR7
HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — When they called her name, she could not move. Sgt. Leana Nishimura intended to walk up proudly, shake the dignitaries' hands and accept their honors for her service in Iraq — a special coin, a lapel pin, a glass-encased U.S. flag.
But her son clung to her leg. He cried and held tight...T.J. was 9, her oldest child, and although eight months had passed since she had returned from the war zone, he was still upset by anything that reminded him of her deployment...
The faraway move to live with his grandmother. The months that went by without his mother's kisses or hugs, without her scrutiny of homework, her teasing humor, her familiar bedtime songs.
Nishimura was a single mother — with no spouse to take over, to preserve her children's routines, to keep up the family apartment.
Of her three children, T.J. seemed to worry most... "He went from having one parent to having no parents, basically," Nishimura said, reflecting. "People have said, 'Thank you so much for your sacrifice.' But it's the children who have had more of a sacrifice."
When war started in Iraq, a generation of U.S. women became involved as never before — in a wider-than-ever array of jobs, for long deployments, in a conflict with daily bloodshed. More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among their ranks are more than 16,000 single mothers, according to the Pentagon, a number that military experts say is unprecedented.
How these women have coped and how their children are managing have gone little noticed as the war stretches across a fourth year...
"I tell [the children] that if God needs Mommy to go ... then Mommy's going to have to go again and they're going to have to let me."
(Excerpt) Read more at archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
I agree with your general premise. To be fair, wouldn't they have also risked their lives for a male comrade?
************
Good article.
You hit the nail on the head. It should have ended 1995 one of the first acts of the newly elected GOP majority house and senate. It is a critical defense issue.
A liberal DEM POTUS started much of this mess by allowing women on ships and in deployed units near combat. If a woman is in supply support unit near combat {in country} for example she is a target in combat. All supply members are potential targets. However if she is a Nurse she is in usually less danger. The enemy is generally not interested in taking out a M.A.S.H.
Get the women out and bring them back to the states or to foreign missions away from nations we are engaged in war with. Get them off of combat ships no exception. Tugs OK they are pretty well safe there and tugs generally are not sea going with few exceptions. Women on carriers etc? No and end it A.S.A.P. I can think of 100 good reasons for them not to be there and no reason that would justify having them there over the response delays it would have to cause.
These are not places to play P.C. equality games they are not equal. They are not equal in strength, in biological make up, nor in primitive survival instincts. It does not make them better or worse than men it makes women and men as GOD created them for their natural purposes.
If a ship is on fire crew member usually do not waste time getting fully dressed to respond. If it is man overboard I have been to many a skivvy uniform of the day muster mandatory visual on station confirmation on the other end of the ship. Your shipmate may be in the water and critical information is needed fast. Who, where, clothing, location, etc all are needed critical immediate need to know. Yes if we were in the shower we wrapped and walked ASAP to our work center so the WCS could see us.
Waiting for men and women to be decent to run down passageways, from the showers to berthing areas etc in emergency effects readiness from Fire Quarters to Man overboard, to General Quarters and ZEBRA being set on main passageways then throughout the ship. It just common sense this has to be significantly effecting response times.
Time is everything. Waste it and it is your enemy. Save time and it is your friend. This kinder and gentler military nonsense has to stop. I would not want my daughter or grand daughter deployed on a ship.
I'm a back to the basics Traditional Navy supporter and not ashamed of being so.
The institution of slavery in ancient (and not only ancient) times was in large part was based on voluntary contracts. People in exchange for a loan or some help agreed to provide their freedom as a collateral for the case they will not be able to pay.
Do you support slavery in such form? Do you think that it is right when a mother of small children is given some type of assistance, help with paying for college or other benefits in exchange for being sent to war when government decides to do so.
I do not see anything "dishonourable" in that.
It is VERY dishonorable and if YOU do not see it (what is quite likely) then it simply could mean that you are not an honorable person. Nothing more, nothing less.
The nations that deprive small children of their mothers for the sake of convenience and not because of ultimate threat to the national survival, undermine their own foundations and ability to exist.
Are you saying that physical strenght and endurance are not needed for patrolling the streets of Fallujah?
As a practical matter, 99 percent of women are unsuited for combat, and that includes flying combat aircraft and serving on combatant ships. That women do these things doesn’t mean they should; it just means the military has been feminized and civilianized, as any military man will admit after a few shots of Jack Daniels at the Officers’ Club, and of course, after his commanding officer leaves.
In the early 1990s, I was a staff member on the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. The evidence the commission gathered was clear on one thing: Women don’t belong in combat.
The evidence showed women lack the necessary physical prowess. The strongest woman recruit, generally, is only as strong as the weakest man. Given that the services try to weed out the weakest men, it’s counterproductive to recruit even the strongest women. And our volunteer military, remember, doesn’t get the strongest women; it gets average women.
As well, women suffer higher rates of bone fractures, and other factors such as menstruation, pregnancy and aging militate against recruiting women as combat soldiers. The 20-something woman, for instance, has about the same lungpower as the 50-something man.
Well, that might be true for ground combat, the feminists insist, but surely they can fly jets and bombers. It’s all just a Nintendo game up there. Again, untrue. Flying high-performance jets requires incredible conditioning and strength, particularly in the neck. Top Gun fighter pilots told the commission (and news reports later confirmed) that unqualified lady pilots routinely passed Naval flight training. At that time at least, officers were rated on the number of women they promoted. The result in one case? Kara Hultgreen, the first woman to “qualify” flying an F-14, was killed when her jet crashed because she couldn’t land it on the carrier Abraham Lincoln.
But let’s suppose women fly jets as well as men. What happens when one is shot down? The safety of the high-tech cockpit is gone, and she is alone on the ground, trying to survive. She is another Jessica Lynch.
-- R. Cort Kirkwood
And fathers should not be viewed as more expendable than mothers.
Neither is expendable. End the war, bring all parents home to their children!
Then why have them in the Navy at all? Seriously, if you put women in all the shore billets and all the stateside billets then you leave nothing but continuous sea duty for the men. How long do you think you'll retain your people if they have nothing to look forward to but deployment after deployment? Either integrate them fully or keep them out entirely.
Could that be.... a judgmental statement?
Oh, butt out and stop trying to stir up trouble.
Or at least leave me out of it. Find someone else to join in your Misery-fest. I'm not applying.
We managed no women on ships for 200 years. My sea duty to shore duty ratio was 4 and 2. Women were there around the ships they were on the tugs usually one per tug, in state side NOB supply depots, at NTC's, Admin, etc. My Company Commander in basic was a snipe a Chief actually. That was his shore duty ratation. After we got through basic he took a Master at Arms position for the rest of his time there. There are plenty of shore duty jobs to rotate out to for all ratings in the Navy. One supposedly Radioman who is on another board swears he did over three years plus shore duty first enlistment in NORVA.
OK I'll answer it in another way as well. It don't know how it goes now but 1970's era the only crews to rotate completely off a ship were squadrons {who saw ample shore time } and sub crews who did IIRC two crew rotations off and on. One crew deployed the other stayed back.
My rating was Machinist Mate. To be honest to keep up a professional posture the rotation was about right. 4 years assigned to a ship does not mean 4 years at sea. I did two six month MED SEA Deployments One 30-45 day South America Deployment, a short St Thomas, VI deployment, and various works ups. Our longest time at sea except for the deployment was for operations off GITMO. That was for various readiness evaluations and it was extensive.
My final year I went to sea only 3 days. I spent the rest assigned to the ship in a year long drydock overhaul which is just as sweet as shore duty and counts as time onboard ship rather than shore duty. I went to my rented apartment at night except duty nights. This was done even in the mid - late 70's under Jimmy {Clueless} Peanuts. If you stop a minute and reason it out women on ship must be rotated off as well same as men. Meaning no real gain. IOW it's a non issue as near as I can see. The ones who stay on a carrier full time are ships company. The smaller ships pretty much follow the carriers routines.
There's room for both in the Navy just not on the ships. I understand your point but the jobs they would take on shore are plentyfull anyway. No roation issues from it.
Ok,
How 'bout I respond...
You don't know jack about Allegra...Where she is, and what she's been doing for 3 years...
Your obsessive compulsive keyboarding through this topic proves only one thing...
You are definitely creepy...
A persons gender and family disposition has grown up in this country, I do not think it matters how it is viewed, and has nothing to do with political dunderheaded hacks in the women's movement...They have their agenda, and the only ones it effects are those people trying to turn the clock back to a time when it was only expected that the "men" go off to war to defend this country...
Be very grateful that there are people (men and women) who take up the banner and march on after those of us who tread before them...I certainly am grateful, because even at my young age, I do not move as fast as I used to...
And I will respect and support, no matter what the "personal" situation is for these people, defend and honor their sacrifice to this country...
Jessic Lynch's unit was a Maintenance Unit, on what was supposed to be a move from one location to another. They made a wrong turn in route (even the military reports are not clear on how or why that was - a lot of CYA if you ask me. They were ambushed by an Iraqi force that outnumbered them, in the not-as-yet-pacified city of Nasiriyah. About half of the thirty-odd members of the convey made it out of the ambush (the convoy had become separated into two groups of vehicles). Eleven of the group were killed and five others, besides Jessica Lynch were captured; and later rescued. Four of those five were men. Did Jessic Lynch cause their capture? Not according to any account of the incident. Was their rescue, and the need for it, more honorable than Jessica's? No. So, in what way was her gender a unique condition that contributed to either her capture or the need for her rescue? In no way, according to all accounts of what happened.
If you think that women who volunteer to serve in the US military have entered a contract that you acquaint with slavery, then there is really nothing reasonable to discuss with you on the matter.
Yes, contracting mothers of small children to fight in wars is as evil as contract based slavery. It is you who has problem with reasoning. Your reason is asleep.
El sueno de la razon produce monstruos - The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
I am saying two things (1)the % of troops assigned to combat patrol on the streets of Falluja is less than the total % of completely non-combat, supply, maintenance, medical, HQ (command and control), civil affairs, communications, and intelligence troops in the Iraqi theatre and (2)women generally do not make the skill and apptitude qualifcations for direct combat roles, but they do qualify for and fill non-combat, supply, maintenance, medical, HQ (command and control), civil affairs (very big in an insurgency situtation), communications, training and intelligence roles, that would have to be filled by men that might actually be qualified for the combat roles; men that would have to do the much-needed non-combat jobs as well.
You could just look at (1)the recruitment stats, and (2)the fact that women now make up somewhere between 15% and 18% of todays military and recognize we would most likely not be fielding the numbers were are in Iraq today, if you dismissed all the women and did not have a draft.
While a large %, maybe even the largest %, of women are likely "not suitable" for DIRECT combat roles, I have no doubt your generalization of 99% would not be borne out by any objective facts.
I was in the military - 1968-1971. I can tell you, a number of women I served with, even back then, were stronger than some of the weaklings among the guys in some of my units. Again, you are making generalizations, not objective, fact based, research based observations.
Even your comment about "lung power" is such a gross over simplification of anecdotes that its laugable. Most of the 50-something men I served with, particularly the career NCOs were (1)overweight, (2)drank heavily, (3)smoked heavily and couldn't win a sack race against the gal that helped run the NCO club.
And lastly, I haven't once advanced a commitment towards a woman being in any particular role, whether it be flying a jet or patrolling Falluja. What I have said is that there are many roles in todays military (that is heavier on combat support than the military has ever been) in which women can perform and perform well - if they choose to and are qualified, by skill, aptitude and temperment. And guess what? They do.
That was in 1968-71 BTW.
Anyway, thank you for your service.
I think this thread drew out about every dysfunctional malcontent on FR. LOL
Like I said, there are tens of thousands of men over there who are fathers themselves. I suppose we should be glad that they don't have there priorities in proper order? Otherwise who would be there protecting us?
Delusional? No. I'm experienced. I served in the Navy almost all my adult life, active duty and reserve. I had the occasion to serve with women, command women, and be commanded by women. And I'd stack just about every one of them up against someone like you who hides behind his wife and kids and criticizes those who serve in his stead. It takes a special person to serve in the military, a sense of dedication and duty that I've never found among those who couldn't be bothered to serve. It's not an easy life for anyone, deployments are hard, you give up any semblance of a normal family life in most of your postings. But hundreds of thousands of men and women do it every day.
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.