Posted on 02/17/2012 7:39:24 PM PST by red flanker
A retired female fighter pilot running for former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' open seat in Congress said Friday that Rick Santorum's recent remarks on women in combat make her want to "go kick him in the jimmy."
Martha McSally, a retired US Air Force colonel and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, is running in Arizona's congressional special election as a Republican. According to her Facebook page, she was the first American woman to fly in combat since the 1991 lifting of a ban on women in that role.
Appearing Friday morning on FOX News Channel's "FOX & Friends," she called the Republican presidential candidate "completely out of touch" for saying that the "emotions" felt by men seeing a female soldier in harm's way may jeopardize their mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at video.foxnews.com ...
Flying fighters is tough, especially when flying the A-10. . .that said, however, regarding McSally:
She was a person that did not go through the chain of command to take her objections forward.
It was all about her. The US does/did not have a SOFA with Kuwait and therefore we had no protections in place so women had to play by the local rules. But she thought she was special. That is wrong on many levels, as a leader is supposed to put service before self-she did not.
She was a marginal pilot and parlayed her sex into a shield to protect her career, always ready to file EEO complaints (she had several already filed in her past).
Basically, not that good a pilot, selfish and arrogant among even other fighter pilots. She was intolerable.
Flying fighters is tough, especially when flying the A-10. . .that said, however, regarding McSally:
She was a person that did not go through the chain of command to take her objections forward.
It was all about her. The US does/did not have a SOFA with Kuwait and therefore we had no protections in place so women had to play by the local rules. But she thought she was special. That is wrong on many levels, as a leader is supposed to put service before self-she did not.
She was a marginal pilot and parlayed her sex into a shield to protect her career, always ready to file EEO complaints (she had several already filed in her past).
Basically, not that good a pilot, selfish and arrogant among even other fighter pilots. She was intolerable.
Not for Rick. Rick seems to be basing his argument on the emotional incapabilities of men.
Article:
(From the article linked in my previous post.)
I would NOT lie or even embellish the truth. She was quite a lady back then, Military Police, stationed for four years at Andrews Air Force Base during the Clinton years. She is now married to a gentleman that is blind, still carries a Glock, still quite fit, and very protective of her family. She is the son I always wanted.
Any American has the right to complain about the management, and about servants who are trying to subvert wise management. I won’t put any troop however decorated on a pedestal, “thanking” him or her deferentially and then saying no more, no matter what kind of politics he or she ballyhoos. That’s no better than any other sort of idolatry.
Combat pilots have historically experienced relatively high rates of imprisonment in anything less than completely asymmetrical warfare. The tragic burden of Col. McSally's poorly thought out policy will be born by future female P.O.W.s. They may end up getting something far worse that being "kicked in their Jimmy's" many times each day for years at a time.
Ya see the problem is, they give people like you the right to vote...To prove my point, just look at the state of affairs and your own words.
Ya got the same attitude the leftist do in big cities, when the send 5'4" females into the brutal senseless murder districts where extremely violent people rule.
Anyone thinking this is a good idea has brain rot.
With “technique and surprise”, yes, a small woman can take down a larger man. Surprise, or an unwillingness of the man to actually cause pain, can give that result.
But soldiers don’t tend to be caught by surprise, and they tend to have training. In combat, hand-to-hand means someone is about to die.
Before deploying to Afghanistan in 2007, the Army gave demos of how to control a prisoner. I lucked out and had the 5’2” female MP demonstrate on me. After, she asked if I had any questions.
I pointed out a crowbar within easy reach, and said if it had been for real, I’d have grabbed the crowbar. “But that isn’t the point!”, she said.
I said it was. A wrist lock works great, provided you get to put someone into it, and that person isn’t trying to kill you. But in a real fight, very few people will allow you to lock up their wrist, and some will accept a broken wrist in exchange for busting your head. A suicide bomber suspect may not worry about what happens after he crushes your skull.
My ex-Marine daughter could probably take me down - but then, I wouldn’t be willing to kill her.
Some years back, I was in a martial arts class where the blackbelt female instructor got upset when a 200+ lb guy (blue belt) said a technique wouldn’t work. She said she could clobber him, and he said only if it wasn’t full contact. She said she would demonstrate, full contact.
During the first 10 seconds, she landed several kicks. Then he hit her in the stomach, and she dropped on the ground making strange sounds. It took 5 minutes before she could stand upright.
I’m not insulting women. I’m a 5’7” guy. But if I get in a fight with a 6’2” guy who knows what he is doing, he’ll take me apart. There is a reason boxing and martial arts have weight classes. If training is equal, or even close, the guy who is 50 pounds bigger wins. Not 100%, but way too close to it for my comfort.
More at the links, can’t post everything, I’m sure more searching would find even more evidence:
http://www.your-krav-maga-expert.com/women-in-idf.html
Women serve in support and combat support roles in the IDF, recently they have been allowed additional options but they still do not serve in active combat.
Around the world there has been some discussion about whether or not women should serve in active combat. In Israel it is clear that despite the vast contribution of women in the military, active combat is not an option. This decision is based on the physical and biological differences between men and women but also for moral reasons. As Michal, a combat instructor in the IDF, says, “No one wants to even think of the possibility of an Israeli girl falling into the hands of the enemy.” Our history is already filled with too many such stories of atrocities.
The Israeli military has always combined the practically of combat with the morality of our Jewish way of life.
For political reasons women’s groups have tried to break down barriers but the simple fact is that physically women are not capable of doing the job men do. There was an attempt to integrate women in the Search and Rescue units but it was discovered that a great deal of physical damage was caused to them as a result of the increased effort. Even the girls who were integrated into the anti-aircraft unit suffered great physical damage during the long hikes. They suffered more than 30% more stress factors than the boys.
Women serve in many capacities in the IDF such as intelligence, the Border Police, maintenance, supplies, secretarial duties, as well as serving in a variety of technical and administrative support roles. Over the course of the years, the number of military occupational specialties open to women in the IDF has expanded and today most jobs are open to women. Women are limited by nothing but their own ability.
Women have long served in technological positions, intelligence, operations and training. Likewise, women can be found servicing IDF computerized systems, working as computer programmers, smart weapons systems operators and electronics technicians. There is also a women’ soldiers-teachers unit, which teaches new immigrants and children in developing regions.
The bottom line is that in the Israeli Defense Forces, each soldier, male or female, will be assigned to the task where their contribution will be the greatest. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the nation is more important then the preferences of any individual soldier. I have found that most soldiers are happy knowing that they are contributing their maximum. There is always an attempt to satisfy the ambitions of each soldier but ultimately the needs of the army come first.
http://www.wnd.com/2001/08/10269/
(Note - this wnd article is several years old, and feminists and other leftists are trying yet again to push women in combat as a good thing.)
It’s time to debunk the myth, once and for all, that Israel’s experience with allowing women in combat was successful and, therefore, should be duplicated by the Pentagon. It wasn’t successful. It was a disaster by Israel’s own admission.
“History shows that the presence of women has had a devastating impact on the effectiveness of men in battle,” wrote John Luddy in July 27, 1994, for the Heritage Foundation backgrounder.
“For example, it is a common misperception that Israel allows women in combat units. In fact, women have been barred from combat in Israel since 1950, when a review of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War showed how harmful their presence could be. The study revealed that men tried to protect and assist women rather than continue their attack. As a result, they not only put their own lives in greater danger, but also jeopardized the survival of the entire unit. The study further revealed that unit morale was damaged when men saw women killed and maimed on the battlefield,” Luddy said.
Writes Edward Norton, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces: “Women have always played an important role in the Israeli military, but they rarely see combat; if they do, it is usually by accident. No one in Israel, including feminists, has any objection to this situation. The fact that the Persian Gulf War has produced calls to allow women on the front lines proves only how atypical that war was and how little Americans really understand combat.”
“Few serious armies use women in combat roles. Israel, which drafts most of its young women and uses them in all kinds of military work, has learned from experience to take them out of combat zones. Tests show that few women have the upper-body strength required for combat tasks. Keeping combat forces all male would not be discriminatory, as were earlier racial segregation schemes in the military, because men and women are different both physically and psychologically,” said the Feb. 5, 1990, National Review.
(Note: The below is interesting, as Elaine Donnelly is an expert and knows what she’s talking about. Yet the article is in favor (apparently) of women in combat anyway. It’s a sort of “don’t confuse me with the facts” leftist mindset.)
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/is-the-idf-ready-for-women-in-combat-1.219239
Elaine Donnelly is certainly no radical feminist. Quite the contrary. Opponents of the integration of female combat troops in the IDF frequently cite Donnelly, an American researcher who heads a conservative Washington organization called The Center for Military Preparedness. In the early 1990s, Donnelly was a member of the Presidential Commission appointed by President George Bush, Sr. to examine the issue of women in combat. Her research took her to some extraordinary places, from flying in a fighter jet to observing a training session regarding captivity of female pilots, which included a scenario simulating rape in captivity.
“In the collision between the needs of the army and equality for women, the army has to get priority,” she told Haaretz. Donnelly read interviews with the various Yohalan officers and concluded that the IDF tends toward more of an extreme than the British and American armies. “Their priorities are confused. The frequent use of feminist expressions gives rise to demoralization among the male fighters. This kind of attitude can have an adverse effect on volunteering for combat units. It’s important not to break the unit’s cohesion and the soldiers’ trust in the command hierarchy. Without them, there’s no discipline. It’s just a bunch of people with weapons.”
Lowering standards to integrate female fighters detracts from a unit’s preparedness for the reality of battle, she says. “The result is that lives will be lost and missions will be harmed. If the tendency promoted by the Yohalan is accepted, military culture will change. They’re trying to make the army gentler and more sensitive, but this is the only army you’ve got. There is no substitute for it.”
Her solution: A return to the Miller High Court petition, i.e., preventing discrimination in admitting women to courses, but not their mass integration into front-line units. “A man can lug 45 kilos and march 30 kilometers. Load that on a female body and what you get are broken bones.”
I cannot help but recall the stories of women Navy pilots who were unqualified, but coddled and promoted until they finally killed themselves and/or did $millions$ worth of damage. ...And then sued when their records of incompetence were made public.
Losing 300,000 child bearing age American women in the Civil War would have been the destruction of America’s future.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? You asked how the previous poster could justify his statement that nations were established to protect women and children. I did so for him. Nowhere in this discussion was comparative morality, abortion, or any other modern political trend even a factor. The actual number of births to women is irrelevant to the original question.
Much like we let barren couples marry, because the principle of encouraging marriage is more important than occasional minor anomalies, human civilizations are founded for the protection of the family (specifically the weaker members of the society: the old, infirm, women, and children) against those that would prey on them. Whether our modern society is screwing up that principle through other means is irrelevant...
I can’t say from personal experience (I wan’t a pilot or in the Air Force) but I don’t thinks the lady’s comments are appropos of ground combat.
Besides, WTF is a Jimmy?
I am not for females in battle but if some insist on their freedom and “right” to be in battle maybe they should have their own brigades and see how well they do. That way men would not be hindered by trying to keep them safe and there wouldn’t be any “hanky panky” that results in pregnancies. Equal but separate might learn them so called liberated females a lesson.
You don’t spend 100s of millions to create Army brigades to be destroyed in battle, thousands killed, and lose the war, as though it is like experimenting with a girls softball team.
We just need to end this Orwellian lying that we all live under now.
People know the truth of this matter, way down deep.
Great question. It's one of a handful of criteria a government must meet to justify exercising authority over a populace. These criteria make a government a better deal than the anarchy of random thugs, predators, and warlords that would otherwise occupy the "public force" niche among us. Keeping order makes prosperity possible and protects the good. The downside is if the order-keepers start to screw up the good we've hired them to protect.
A government we can allow to survive over us is one that 1) helps us protect our families and our liberties by chasing away random thugs and aliens; 2) protects property rights by maintaining laws and punishing thieves; 3) builds roads and such, to promote commerce and travel.
If a state promotes putting females in the armed and protective services, it's falling down in that Number 1) criterion: It isn't taking seriously the responsibility to maintain order, or the reason we value order. In a serious fight against fires, wild animals, or human males, females are virtually useless except as victims. Everyone knows this as a matter of common sense, even if people deny it in the abstract out of politeness or delicacy.
Just as bad as its effect on the competence of the services protecting civil society, the "firefem/G.I. Jane" fantasy undercuts women's justified claim on men to protect and support them. Your average male lout says to himself, "Hey, if women can do anything a man can do, why should I be polite to them, marry them before impregnating them, support their kids, or risk my neck for them?" Feminists make the same argument against normal marriage, usually out of simple hatred for attractive women able to find husbands. In either case, the problem is that women can't do everything a man can do.
Nor can men do the core of what women can do. Only women not pursuing the feminist lie can maintain the concept of home, create hospitality, tend the young, the sick, and the vulnerable, and create a contemplative "space" in society, without which we are all feral. As part of this, they nurture children—who are all the future we have, this side of Heaven.
There are many good, diligent, and even holy women in police or military jobs. But they cannot be warriors in the sense that men can. A government that disdains and demotes our real warriors and replaces them with affirmative-action imitations of warriors—while undermining the domestic society our warriors are supposed to be protecting—is asking to be replaced at best. For whatever reason—whether it's naiveté or evil—such a government is not on our side.
Really? I don’t think he could pee a hole in snow.
Your error is that you are measuring Santorum by your own inadequacies and substandard performance.
With all due respect for her service, what would be her response if a male service member made a comment about how he'd like to beat up a woman over comments she made about men that he didn't like?
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