[Gunrunner2]

I'd hold off on assessing supposed HER heroic piloting skills. Unless her peers say she saved the jet, a crew chief's statements are nice but hardly validate her skills as a pilot.

And, BTW, the other pilot, the one shot down, why did you mention him? What possible reason did you bring up the fact he was shot down? Perhaps to infer SHE had some sort of skills HE did not?

The A-10 is a tremendous aircraft and one that is as ugly as it is dependable. If the guy ejected that would mean the jet was unflyable, not because he lacked any skills.

Therefore, you were in error to try and tie the two situations together.

As I've said before, in my 20-yrs plus experience in the USAF (T-37 FAIP, A-10, F-15E), the best female pilot I ever saw was "good." Not excellent, not outstanding, just good. And there is a reason for that. The reason is most all of the female pilots I saw affected a forced and fake bravado, you know, the Captain Janeway-type of persona. It was not natural for them, and they tried to make up for it by acting how they thought a warrior acted, not actually being a warrior.

Hollywood (among others) mock testosterone-driven macho warrior behavior of males, yet this behavior is natural aggression necessary to be a warrior. Those without natural aggression that comes with being a male have to ACT the part, not BE the part. BIG difference, and not all males have that high level of natural focused and disciplined aggression it takes to be a warrior.

This means those females that want to be fighter pilots can act the part, but they are frauds. They may be mean, they may be nasty, but they are not natural, aggressive warriors.

Aggressive piloting is necessary to be a good pilot, especially a fighter pilot. Just acting the part isn't enough.

There are many reasons why women should not be warriors, and they range from social to genetics to the physical.

Society shapes our relationships and narrow artificial engineering of social roles absent a seismic shift in society in general, this means failure.

Genetics play a role. If you believe in evolution then you must believe men and women evolved over millions of years to perform two very different functions, and history is an excellent guide to help you discover what those roles are. If you believe in creationism, then you must believe God made man and women differently so that they may perform two very different roles.

We also think, react and emote differently, and those patterns of thought, action and emotion are real and proven.

And we are to deny God and evolution? We are to deny reality just because some females in the military want combat action just so they can be promoted? Look, that is what caused this whole debate in the first place--promotion. The argument went that females were being discriminated in promotions because they could not have combat arms experience and therefore would never have the opportunities of the men. Great. Placing you own career goals over the mission and your men. This is NOT how leaders think and behave. Careerists do this, not true leaders.

Basically, as a male, if you hear a bump in the night, are you going to send the wife downstairs to investigate while you stay upstairs and protect the baby? I thought not.

Physical is also a discriminator. We have lowered our standards to make it possible for women to enter various military career fields (Weak Link, great book, Brian Mitchell, I think).

Physical standards are in effect to ensure we have people that are capable of doing the job, and these standards evolved over time based upon past experience. Face it; if you are unconscious in a burning building, you want a 250lbs strong fireman to rescue you from a building, not some diversity hire 120lbs firewoman.

As a former police officer in a time long ago, I recall females being introduced into the paramedic field. I can't tell you how many times I saw the female paramedics unable to lift a body onto a stretcher and also unable to lift the stretcher out of a ditch with a body in it. The men did it, and a lot of times it was by-standers.

Now, flying fighters does not take the same physical stamina and strength it takes to be a SEAL. That is for darned sure. However, it takes a heck of a lot of upper-body strength to move around while under G-forces up to 9-G's. We have HOTAS (Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick), but you still need to be able to look around, move your head, lift your arm, twist your body, and women lack upper body strength. We know this but we are lying to ourselves when we say females can do this just as well as males.

We have fundamental differences in physiology that cannot be ignored.

I'm tired of the agendas that ignore reality and I'm tired of the I-am-woman-here-me-roar power-dressing business-bim's pushing a fantasy. War is not a Nike commercial where kickboxing females are empowered and men tremble. War is hell and we don't need to send women there (generally).

[Crowcreek]

I agree. At best, women in critical military roles are a dog-and-pony show for public relations. There are plenty of men for those roles.

At worst, they could hamstring our fighting forces.

[Black Agnes]

While your arguments certainly have merit, MY dispute with women in combat is one of biology as well. Women of reproductive age in combat is a damned good means of population control. Men on the other hand, are fairly biologically expendable. Look at the birth rate in Russia post WWII.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Perhaps you should go back and read the related comments from the beginning in this exchange with "Nitro". It all started because he was bad mouthing Jessica from the 507th and comparing, or contrasting her to the two Special Op guys in this thread. No connection.

And yes, the fact that the male pilot had to eject was not a negative comment re his skills. It was mentioned because the two A-10 incidents were reported in the same account, apparently occurring in the same action over Baghdad. You all seem to get your nickers in a knot over this, and I for one am not sympathetic to pain it may be causing to your male parts. And if you read my comments as I wrote them, not as you want to read them, you will see that I am not in favor of women in combat situations, whatever their role. Of course war is hell. And I agree with your "'generally' we do not need to send women there".

My son was an active duty US Marine for 8 years and he had nothing good to say about the female variety. There is no such thing! Except in name. I agree with him.

None of this has much to do with this basic thread about the two Special Ops guys who were rescued. Only "Nitro's" axe to grind on subject brought it into this thread. Jessica's plight had no relation to their situation. Again, if we all come right down to it, none of this conversation we have been having about women in the military has anything to do with the subject of this thread.