We're in somewhat agreement. As far as the non-combat slots, the military women filling them get expensive training, yet are not really deployable into combat.
In WW2, the men holding administrative posts were deployable to combat, being replaced behind the desk by women. This made a lot of sense. But a woman army clerk would NOT be similarly deployable to combat if needed. This reduces reserve combat capability.
In WW2, the men holding administrative posts were deployable to combat, being replaced behind the desk by women. This made a lot of sense. But a woman army clerk would NOT be similarly deployable to combat if needed. This reduces reserve combat capability.
True but even during WWII, men who were not necessarily deployable in combat zones were still drafted and served in support roles. In an all volunteer military, those same men are not as likely to voluntarily enlist if they have other opportunities available to them.
But for some women, the military offers an opportunity to train and advance in nontraditional and non combat careers such as in civil engineering.
I had the privilege of being friends with a woman who served in the US Air Force as a Civil Engineer who after 30 years in the military and obtaining the rank of Colonel, “retired” and then went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers as a civilian employee. And she was absolutely brilliant and very well known and respected in that field of work.
She told me that if it wasn’t for the military, she’d probably never have had the opportunity to develop her skills or get that type of real world and cutting edge technology in the civilian world that she did during her military service. While her male and female peers from college were rubber stamping building permits and road lane expansions, she was designing complex air strips, dams, bridges, some of them in war zones and in very tight time frames and budgets that would make her civilian counterparts heads spin.
She was very conservative, wickedly funny, very proud of her country and as a brilliant engineer, she served her country well and with great distinction. Her talent in engineering in many ways helped our soldiers in the battle field even if she never took up arms in combat.
Sadly a few years after going to work for the Army Corps of Engineers, overseeing damn building and safety, she succumbed to breast cancer. I was very privileged to know her in the short time I did.