I don't have any combat experience. And I never served in any brigade.
Even if we never face another major conventional ground war.....I will reiterate women have no place on today's battlefield unless it is rear echelon serving as nurses or clerks....at most, absolute MOST, they could be at a secure checkpoint to search female civilians - Free a man to fight.
And so we are clear, I am refering to military operations other than war (MOOTW), Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO), Counter-insurgency operations (COIN), as well as conventional warfare. If an SF unit, Battalion Landing Team, or Stryker Bgde, or any other combat arms unit, is being deployed....women should be anywhere out of the secure area.
I don't need to theorize about it, research it, consult a think tank for it, poll the audience, or phone a friend........I speak from multiple first hand experiences. I speak from my own first hand observations of women deployed to combat zones. I speak from four combat deployments with three different Marine infantry battalions. During the course of this, we were assigned to two different Army dvisions.
The best support I ever received from females outside of a secure area.....was when we met one of the female Marines from the Air Combat Element (ACE) during OIF I. The bases were still largely unsecured. We were at a major airport and assigned to secure the far side of the airport.
This female Marine, and two other guys saw us out setting up machinegun positions, so they came over to hang out for a bit. The guys in my platoon were out of cigarettes. She took off her blouse and pulled her t-shirt tighter and walked over to talk to the infantry guys in the 101st...........she came back 30-45 minutes later with two cartons of Marlboros for us. We were appreciative, but certainly didn't want her around if the shooting started.
MSF - to answer an earlier post, I was asking a rhetorical question. The last I had heard the Army unit stationed in Al-Anbar with us had 21 females get pregnant. That was when I was leaving.....in all probability, there were more after I left.
Further, I've also been to Korea and seen much of the defenses there. Yes, they fear a ground war. Another poster (might've been you MSF) mentioned ROK military women. We met two ROK Marines that were married to each other. We asked if this was allowed....one of the male ROK officers (in front of their females) shrugged and answered "what else are they good for." I've also been to places in Europe (will not divulge where) where we have defenses prepared for ground warfare.....so no, this is not delusional fantasy.
Lastly for this post, I've also done joint training with the Canadians; we were training them to do Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT). They have females in their infantry. They have difficulty carrying the gear and equipment and advancing it with any speed. Watching them carry M240G machineguns (which they call a G6) was pretty comical. Further, they (one Master Corporal in particular) couldn't handle criticism without getting emotional and crying.
Finally, one of the Marines asked her if their service had dress uniforms. When she responded "yes," the Marine told her "Good, because if you ever see combat you are going to get you and your soldiers f###ing killed and they'll need them to bury you in; and you can use that faggoty beret to dry your tears."