[TheFilter]

I am a female veteran.

Women don't serve in combat roles; most of the positions are in support. You don't have to join the infantry! I would encourage you to go for it, and specify the job you would like to do. Every position, from finance, to working in safety, keeps the military running smoothly.

Many women are fliers, for example, but usually in refuelers and the like.

There is no squadron for women only, but then life isn't like that either, unless you're a nun. ;)

[TheFilter]

Ummm, oh. I just realized that you're NOT a woman, right?

Oh, c'mon.

[TADSLOS]

Women don't serve in combat roles

Not true. There are female fighter pilots, weapons officers and attack helicopter pilots currently flying combat missions over Iraq delivering death and destruction on Iraqi forces as we pontificate on this topic.

[JackelopeBreeder]

I could name dozens of women who have gone into harms way with me on the DMZ in Korea. Dedicated MI professionals, Korean linguists, and soldiers all. Just misplaced their Y chromosomes somewhere -- or replaced it with whatever gens give a cobra that poison. They were the only females who routinely went into the DMZ.

Back in garrison they might toss the "tender gender" card on occasion (and insist that us dumb males pay for their drinks), but never up on the fence. I trusted them to cover my six implicitly. A large number of them sported expert marksmanship badges -- though I would have been forced to grope for nipples to find out whether or not they were wearing them correctly. Some day, maybe a couple of centuries from now, the Army will come up with a female Class A uniform that makes some sort of sense.

Mean bunch -- I caught one of the prettiest of them throwing rocks at a North Korean patrol once because she was bored. Come to think of it, she was the only member of the platoon who stood a chance of matching me drink for drink. She made First Sergeant not too long ago...

Another was the biggest black wench I have ever known. I'm 5'7" tall and had to stand on a chair to look directly at her cute little belly button. I still remember one night going through a ROK checkpoint just south of the DMZ. One of the guards made the wrong comment in Korean. The Jolly Black Giant unfolded herself out of that Humvee and rose to her full majestic height like Godzilla coming out of the ocean and gave that poor ROK corporal a dressing down in his own language that would have shocked a Marine drill sergeant and brought complaints of profanity at a very low-class cat house. (Don't ever ask Uncle JakelopeBreeder for a language lesson -- it will get you in very big trouble.)