Posted on 02/18/2012 7:20:22 AM PST by BarnacleCenturion
The Pentagon made big news last week when it announced it was opening up more combat positions to women in the U.S. military. These 14,000 positions include tank mechanics and front line intelligence officers. However, about one-fifth of active-duty military positions, including the infantry, combat tank units and special operations commando units, will remain off-limits.
...
Last weeks rule change in the United States was largely a reflection of the fact that women are, to a large extent, already participating in combat. Despite the restrictions in place, 144 American women have been killed and 865 wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, according to the Defense Department.
The number of countries that have opened front line combat positions is also larger than you might think (or than media reports sometimes suggest). A 2010 survey by the British Ministry of Defense listed Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania and Sweden as countries that allow women in close combat roles, defined as engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile forces personnel. Australia joined that list in September 2011 when it opened its front-line units including one of the largest contingents in Afghanistan to women.
A handful of other countries could probably also be added. South Korea has begun opening up more front line positions to women, including in artillery and armored divisions. Women have fought in Eritreas military since its war of independence from Ethiopia in 1991 at one point they made up 30 percent of the countrys combat forces and are required, along with men, to serve a year and a half of military service. Women have flown combat missions as fighter pilots for Britain, Pakistan, Serbia, South Africa, the United States and others.
In Israel, which is well known as one of the few countries where women are drafted, the policy is evolving. Santorum cited Israel as a country that doesnt allow women on the front lines because of the psychological effect it has on men. But in fact, the Israeli military does allow women in the vast majority of combat positions.
25 years. Ever serve with any women?
And sometimes, you can't just call in A-10s and Specter C130 gunships and scream "Broken Arrow" into the radio and everything goes awesome just like on tee-vee. Things often go south of bad.
God made men one way, and women a different way....and women are the "weaker vessel."
I know what it is like to hold the hand of one of my Marines as his life slowly bleeds out of him while the doc frantically searches for the entry wound. I couldn't imagine what that would be like if that Marine would have been a woman.
I know what it is like to go Winchester, surrounded 360 degrees by the enemy, cutoff, pinned down, and next to nill chance of re-supply anytime soon.....danger-close artillery is the only thing keeping us alive. I thank God, we didn't have women with us if not just for their sake, but ours.
I know what it was like when we learned Jessica Lynch had been taken POW and that emotions were higher b/c she was a woman. Losing a brother in arms is hard enough....men are supposed to be protectors of women; even seeing pictures of fallen women I don't know in the Military Times articles is difficult.
I also know that the women are still not held to the same fitness standards as men, which also makes it easier for women to get promoted (they do less, or do it slower for a higher score).....meaning men often have more experience before attaining the same rank.
Further, there's no place for open homsexuals, or any other leftist social engineering degradation of the military.
I think that sums up modern warfare pretty well.
Great propaganda, isn’t it?
“25 years. Ever serve with any women?”
In ground combat roles? No. Flying? Two...one was a good pilot, the other was not. Doing paperwork? Many, and they were every bit the equal of men in those roles.
Excellent post!
Yes, well, when enemy armies have conquered 1/3 of our territory, killed 20 millions of our people, and are machine-gunning children and women into death pits every day, we can consider putting women into combat, as Russia did.
many nations over the centuries have tried this and it NEVER worked—What makes us think that in the USA it will? What makes our women any better than the women of other lands? No this is just PC politics. Its because we Just fight weak nations in the 3rd world (of late) and in a real war things for women in the front lines would not be so good. What would have happened if there were women at D-Day? or at The Bulge? What would the SS have done with woman POWs? I guess we will just have to learn this lesson the hard way.
And your basis for this comment is what?
I would bet you've never visited the wounded at Bethesda or Walter Reed.
or the steady dribble of nonsense that flies in the face of reality meant to make folks feel better
the cult of sameness
I mean men and and women are so alike and women so equal in war...i mean why not...i’ve seen the movies, played the video games, heard my pacifist women's studies professor tell me, seen the TV commercials, watched my dad run around by my alpha mom with 10 post grad degrees...so it must be true
in fact it's worse...women are actually more capable of war...I mean really...they can multi task you know...fire multiple weapons systems, plan the advance and tend to the wounded at the same time they do their nails
and on stamina and nerve...I mean come on...women are not more hysterical or nervous than men...hell...they are steelier...they will never collapse in a sobbing heap while under steady fire...forget the Israeli experience...what do they know?
let's face it...the only reason that since Hominids first warred back at the dawn of human history that women have almost never been utilized in fighting bands or units and so forth is that men oppressed them from their natural state as superior warring parties...it's all 100,000 years of lies
oppression to keep women who are superior than men by nature from killing more people than men can
I mean don't you get it...it's all been a scam and now these brave pathfinder women and their little boys and girls on Free Republic and in American culture have discovered the truth...if we had used women in WWII instead of mostly white men...we could have won in half the time while the men were home making boats and planes and tending to babies...where they belong
how on earth could so many folks have been so wrong for so many 1000s of years...the effort involved in the ruse to defy women their natural superior role in war is beyond a magnitude we can understand
I don't know about you but the more women and queers fighting our wars for us the safer I feel
so get with it..you hear
So what you're saying is that you don't have any first hand experience of how a woman fighting next to you would perform. Thank you for being honest.
oh yes...Japanese comfort women too remember?
all those yellow hair round eyes to pick from...the Jap officer corps would have sure loved R&R
or better yet...just ask the average attractive Polish girl from WWII how the Germans treated her?
I know because I know one...she is mid 80s and still gets paid by the German govt ...she was ostensibly sent back to the German border for “agricultural work” but instead a forced brothel for German officers. She even got her family home back after being possessed by a German family in occupation....I think she was 15 or 16 when taken
or any German or Polish woman how they fared at the hands of the Red Army
answer...very bad...made the Germans look chivalrous
this notion is because we are weak culturally and our foes are not the omnipresent threat they once were..for now
You can’t say today’s “wars” are more brutal than WWI or WWII. It’s ridiculous. Please.
You're living the past.
You are mistaking scale for ferocity. WW I and WW II were massive and horrible. Iraq and Afghanistan are close-in smaller and sometimes even more horrible. How many survivors of IEDs have you known?
No, sorry: war hasn't morphed into something different than before. It still requires tearing the life out of other people as brutally as possible.
This isn't a "career opportunity", it's cold, efficient killing and we don't need distractions.
There are some places in the military where the lower upper body strength of women makes them a combat deficiency. Even in maintenance and transport jobs, the weight of the stuff they have to hold or move makes them turn to a man or to a machine to get the job done.
One troop mentioned holding an alternator up and bolting it in place. The female has to get the lift to do that, and it needlessly occupies that piece of equipment so it can’t be used on more urgent repairs that actually require it.
We haven’t even broached what happens in a unit when a leader and a subordinate “fall in love”. What gets set aside, brushed over, favored, protected, etc., in such a situation when you have to send someone to their possible death?
I spent 24+ years in the military, and I know I’m right.
The old argument holds for me. When they’re NFL defensive-line first-round draft picks, I might rethink the idea.
There are likely several million women that support Planned Parenthood that I’d like to see at the front of battle.
I have 27 years active duty and 18 months in combat. The last thing on earth we needed was the distraction of women to compete for/carry their loads.
I have served with many, many women during my time on active duty and there wasn't one of them who I would have trusted my life to.
I have had several "fall apart" on me on many occasions. I have seen many, many cases of franternization that ruined unit cohesion and ruined careers.
The armed forces are not a social engineering laboratory: it is irresponsible for our government to put some of our young people - the few with the patriotism to join - into situations where they will be even further at risk. Loading combat units with women and homosexuals puts our combat forces in jeopardy.
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.