Frontline females too young to drink

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au ^ | 01apr03

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Frontline females too young to drink

01apr03

AT 18 Miranda Nichols is not old enough to buy a beer in her home state of Georgia - but she is old enough to carry a gun and fight for her country.

Miranda is the new face of combat - very young, highly trained and female.

She was photographed yesterday with her female comrade, heavily armed and involved in a defensive alert at a forward base of the US's 3rd Infantry just south of Baghdad - in the thick of the action.

Since the US Government lifted the "risk rule" in 1994, in effect letting women take military positions where they might come under enemy fire or be captured, thousands of young women have been deployed to take up "forward" positions in the Iraqi conflict.

This means that about 90 per cent of all military jobs are now open to women, and that they must follow their male counterparts into hostile zones.

Unlike the UK and Australia - US women now fly combat missions and serve on naval vessels, although they are still barred from submarines, special forces and the US Army's infantry, armour and artillery divisions.

Just how close to the action they get was graphically illustrated by the TV images of a terrified Shoshana Johnson, the young Texan woman who was among five US soldiers captured by Iraqis. She is the mother of a two-year-old.

Women are eligible to serve in about 90 per cent of employment categories in the Australia Defence Forces and are only excluded from direct combat.

Of the 200 Australian women in the Gulf, 50 per cent are in the RAN, 40 per cent in the RAAF and 10 per cent army. Twenty per cent of HMAS Kanimbula's crew are women.

According to the Defence Department, these women undertake tasks ranging from "combat support tasks" and logistics in the army, aircrew, maintenance and logistics in the RAAF, and boarding parties, weapons system operations and logistic support in the RAN.

Female sailors and officers have been involved in boarding intercepted vessels and the ships including the Kanimbla are vulnerable to mines and suicide missions.

The RAAF allows women into all roles except guarding airfields. Women are amongst the support staff for the 14 RAAF F/A-18 fighter jets flying escort and bombing missions in Iraq.

But, a spokesman confirmed that no Australian woman was actually inside Iraq.

Women are not new to the military in non-western countries.

They serve in the Iraqi, Syrian and Israeli armies, and played an active role in both Christian and Muslim militias in the Lebanese civil war.

Of the 13 US servicewomen killed in the 1991 Gulf War, four of them were from enemy fire, including three servicewomen who were killed by an Iraqi Scud missile attack. Twenty-one women were wounded in action, and two were taken prisoners of war.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Miranda is the new face of combat - very young, highly trained and female.

So why just concentrate on females ? ..... I guess men dont drink ? .......lol

If your old enough to defend your freedom and your country ARE you old enough to drink?

[fourdeuce82d]

heavily armed

She has a rifle- unless she's got some frags, a handgun, couple claymores, AT4 etc...she's lightly armed.

[Robert A Cook PE]

They didn't point out that the two POW's were raped and sexually abused either.

All said though, I'd rather we could keep war out of the hands of the "ladies" - and in the hands of crazy male teenagers controlled (barely) by older males where it belongs.

..... Women are just too mean to fight in a civilized war.

[narses]

Ping.

[Drango]

My wife would make an excellent drill sergeant!

[myrabach]

I remember Viet Nam and at that time the men were old enough to fight but not old enough to vote for the ones who sent them there.

I was very pleased when the voting age was changed, but sorry to see how few appreciate it.

[Hank Rearden]

If your old enough to defend your freedom and your country ARE you old enough to drink?

I'm still trying to decide why government thinks it has the right to meddle in every aspect of our lives. Seems like the "privilege" to have a drink of alcohol wasn't an issue when this country was being built. It became an issue when Big Stupid Government started looking around for more things to do with itself.

[TSgt]

If your old enough to defend your freedom and your country ARE you old enough to drink?

You bet you bippy!

This has always been my contention. I remember a Marine Commander that stirred some major controversy over this a couple years ago. It was his feeling that if his young Marines could die for their country they were old enough to have a beer.

[TSgt]

you = your

OCD setting in...Need more Zoloft...

[grasshopper2]

people old enough to die for our country are old enough to drink. And, women should not be in combat at any age.

[Spruce]

[Robert A Cook PE]

You gotta know this is a young kid ...

If she were older, her head would be canted the other way as she squinted through the bottom of her bifocals at that screw.....

[callthemlikeyouseethem]

to the best of my knowledge, there is only indication of one female POW. There are, however, two females still MIA, with indication that they may have endured something worse than any of us could imagine.

"All said though, I'd rather we could keep war out of the hands of the "ladies" - and in the hands of crazy male teenagers controlled (barely) by older males where it belongs."

Yeah, how about we take all of those guys out of combat positions to do admin stuff? Maybe they would better serve in medical, dental, supply, commo, intel positions? Thank goodness we have some military men and women supporting our front line soldiers, or there would be none...JMVHO

[Billthedrill]

Heck, when I joined I wasn't old enough to drink LEGALLY either. Strangely, opportunity did seem to come my way in some very odd locations...

[RLJVet]

Though the point in this article that I comment on hardly belongs in this article, I am quite certain that once one is enlisted one can buy booze (maybe just beer& wine?) on base.

[arly]

I'm confused wouldn't an 18 yr old male also be too young to drink?.. what's the difference?

[Check6]

I don't see him comment about the little West Virginia girl who was raped and tortured to death after her capture.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"Two POW's" refers to GWI.

[Poohbah]

They didn't point out that the two POW's were raped and sexually abused either.

And NOBODY has pointed out that the same thing happened to the male POWs. It's an Ay-rab thang.