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
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.