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56 posted on Saturday, February 18, 2012 5:03:17 PM by Balding_Eagle: “You need to become better informed. For simple example, if it were a settled issue this controversial article would not have been published. The practice may have gone on for decades, but the issue is far from settled. Conservatives believe in a strong military, and as several Freepers have pointed out succinctly, females in the military very often interfere with that goal.”

I do realize that when colonels and generals talk, and even when senior enlisted personnel talk on the record, their words are chosen carefully knowing they can come back to haunt them. I don't expect someone with the rank of O-5 or above to risk career by being candid in public.

However, I can say that in the last decade of living and working outside both Army and Air Force installations, I have never heard a single colonel or general, or any senior enlisted person, ever even one time question the appropriateness of women serving in uniform.

Women serving in combat is a whole different ball game. That's not the issue here, and yes, I've heard a lot of very “politically incorrect” complaints off-the-record about the push by liberals to put women in combat positions, but not about women in uniform in non-combat roles.

As for why the article was published by Army Public Affairs, I can ask the Guidon editor and the Fort Leonard Wood chief of public affairs, but knowing the people involved, I am certain they did not view it as a controversial article but rather as a “good news” article. I have not heard even one tiny muted critic locally, and a lot of loud praise.

I suppose some will take that as proof that TRADOC has gone soft. Maybe. But it seems pretty clear that whether to have women in uniform isn't an issue for the modern military -- the question is where and how they should serve, not whether they should serve.