Posted on 05/19/2012 11:01:09 AM PDT by QT3.14
The topic of women in combat has always been a touchy one. Many feel that while women should be allowed in the military, they do not belong in jobs that place them on the front line. Others believe that women are just as capable as men and should be given the opportunity to take on any role within the military.
(Excerpt) Read more at spousebuzz.com ...
Females control the unit, with some females whining about “bad words” and “crude” gestures and then as a result you now have ZERO tolerance for that sort of male-bonding warrior behavior.
All because some EEOC complaint and a few ruined careers.
Oh, and every day we are conditioned to be sensitive to the women in the unit, to behave “properly” just so we don't step on their PC toes. . .we are sensitive to who they are, after all. . . .then we get sent into combat and all that conditioning to be sensitive to females because they are females is just supposed to be turned off. . ignored?
One minute you are worried about cussing in front of her and the next you are both POWs and they are threatening to torture/beat/murder her. . .and you are supposed to turn off all that hyper-sensitivity? How? Male-to-male, it is just “well, comes with the job and see 'ya later and I'll buy you a beer in the club” but with a women it is something primal and deeply wounding to see females, "your" females, victimized.
Oh, and after a major war and years of POW captivity in some hell-hole, and females come home with babes in arms because of rape. . .not big deal. No impact there, no sir.
(I knew I should not have clicked on this thread. . .I knew it. . .)
“Perhaps you’ve never heard about Joan of Arc.”
Of course we all have. . .because she was a RARITY.
They dropped them from combat MOS’. . .because of problems due to fraternization, inability to uniformly carry combat loads and the fact muslimes would fight that much harder rather than surrender to a woman.
None of that has anything to do with the military, and what it does.
If war meant being driven to the front and hiding behind a rock with a rifle and an extra magazine, shooting the bad guys then going home and having dinner and a bed, then old men could do it, little old ladies could do it.
Unfortunately that rock is 11,000 feet up there miles away, and you have to carry your 130 pounds of food, water, ammo, weapons, communications, and supplies up there yourself, because you have to carry everything you need to live, yourself, and you can't get by with just a sleeveless muscle shirt and a bandanna.
Hands down the best post on the subject.
Good job.
Debate closed and the winner is. . . .ansell!!
Very apropos. 155mm artillery projectiles weigh about 95 pounds and every one of them needs to be handled several times before firing. Certain exceptional females might be able to this a few times, but not for several days straight. Also, if one reads a couple books about combat and conditions at the Chosin Reservoir (or pick any major battle), it is clear that women would have been unable to add anything to the combat power of rifle companies after a few hours. It’s all about sustained combat effectiveness.
Read what you just said and think. Your first sentence especially. Women have fought and died alongside their spouses since the beginning of time.
What two words are important here? "their spouses". Huge, huge, difference in circumstance as well as physical and mental requirements. A six month deployment with 5500 with only men is stress in itself. I guarantee you during that time frame 75% of those 5500 are going to reach a point somewhere in that cruise they are not very easy to be around for a few days. There is major stress. Stress not needed either on the crew or the crew spouses back homes is a coed ship. It's not The Love Boat. It's Ground Hog Day.
The second thing is the intense labor involved. One Freeper mentioned carrying paint 50 feet? Try carrying a 200 pound barrel of refrigerant up and down a few decks. I had to carry a 50 pound C02 fire extinguisher the length of the ship running as hard as I could run and climb ladders sometimes 8 or more decks. Then I had to be ready to fight the fire. Try putting a woman weighing 100 pounds on a fire hose with 200 PSI. I weighed 195 on the ship. It took three men my size to safely man one fire hose.
Let me ask you something. Which would you rather have try and get your son lets say weighing 180 pounds out of a burning space up 4 decks to safety? A 100 pound woman or a 180 pound man? Would you want your wife or daughter working in conditions where one wrong move near a 1200 PSI super heated steam main could decapitate her. A leak the size of a pencil lead that you can not see or hear.
Then there is the sleeping arrangements. On the aft end of a carrier the berthing compartment second deck for the cooks and a few others is wide open. The berthing are {sleeping quarters} sleeps several hundred and the main passage too other spaces further aft run right through it. To even go to take a shower requires you to transit several other spaces.
Yes women have fought beside men and kin in their own communities defending their own families and homes. There was no other choice. In the military there is a choice. Women do not belong in combat units nor on combat ships.
And when I was with the 101st in Gulf War I, we had several females in the HHC.
My experience is otherwise. . .
The HHC commander was a typical useless whiny female. She made one set of field showers totally enclosed so the men couldn’t see them showering, but the male field showers were open on the sides except for a few planks here and there. . .you know, so you can see what is happening around you for defensive purposes while you shower. . .not so for the females.
She complained about the 50-gal $hitter$ we had. . .you know, when you sit down the walls only came up to your shoulders. So, she had several build up to enclose the toilet and made them female only. The male facilities remained open. . you know, so you can see.
A female Second Lieutenant would not go out at night and drive from one side of the base (Dharan, King Fahad) to the other side because, well, it was dark outside and it wasn’t safe for women to be out at dark alone (dad raised her that way, she told me).
We had a female private that never did her job because Sammy Solider would jump in and do it for her because he hoped for a little “special” time with her. And conflicts arose when she would change “boyfriends.”
Those were the women that were in the HHC.
A few days before we jumped into Iraq, S-4 was briefing beans, bullet and water, he was interrupted when the commander asked about “female items” in case we were in Iraq for an extended time. . .so. . .had to kick off a few boxes of beans, bullets and water to accommodate.
Maj Rhonda Cornum abandoned her post in a combat environment, left her regiment without a surgeon, invalidated the concept of combat medics by jumping on a SAR mission and got herself shot down. . .all because she was “bored.” And yet, she is a hero. . .why? Because she was female. If a male doctor did the same thing there would be no way he would be a “hero.”
Oh, and the good doctor DENIED being sexually assaulted. . .why? Because she knew such an assault on a female would have hurt the push for women in combat roles because people would be forced to confront real-world examples of the dangers females face. She was never going to admit she was sexually assaulted until she was publishing her book and the other survivor of the shoot-down threatened to go public and call her denial a lie. He related that event to me, personally.
Like I said. . .my experience is different than yours.
“I’ve done my time.
Your position is moronic.”
How so?
These people volunteered. No one forced them into the service.
If any guy on this site, either past servicemen or non-serving feels so strongly about it, then they can take whatever combat role they are currently serving in and do it themselves. Not bitch about it from a keyboard.
I’m not going to disparage any service by these women because of what their gender is. If they are able to do their roles honorably then what can I say to that? Oh that’s wrong because you dont have a penis?
When people try to to claim that there is no loss when men are replaced by females, I sometimes ask them, if they had to choose, whether the entire Marine Corp was 100% female or 100% male, which would they choose?
If there is no difference, then a 100% female Marine Corp is just dandy, if not, then they need to admit that we are weakening our military when we replace men with females always, that is why females used to be frozen at no more than 2% of the military.
My God that is idiotic. I will give you all of my earthly possessions if you can get me back in to do that, I will even borrow money to sweeten the pot.
Ethically, it’s just flat wrong to send the women to fight unless the only remaining males either need a cane to walk or don’t need to shave.
Practically, the average female is just not as physically capable of combat as the average male. Why knowingly include the less-capable in a force that your very survival may depend on?
I think you forgot that this is a political site.
Before you totally roll over for the left’s position on this all important issue, at least pretend to tolerate conservatives discussing the problems with it, and trying to stir up some political resistance to the left’s effort.
You could even make an effort to keep an open mind to the military knowledge and conservative point of view, expressed here on this radical, anti-military political idea, coming from the left.
Not even all males are capable of meeting military physical standards for enlistment or induction. Those minimal standards are put there for a very good reason. In the Army and Marines feet issues for example can exclude you from service.
And that’s just the beginning.
“Perhaps you’ve never heard about Joan of Arc.”
Nuns with guns are rare on the front lines.
And, to make GWG’s point, I’m sure a lot of men died trying to protect her _instead_ of the mission.
Too many don’t appreciate that men are hard-wired to protect women _at_all_costs_. They’re also hard-wired (DADT type issues aside) to copulate therewith, at similar self- and team-destructive risk. Yeah it’s all more complex than that in reality, but that’s introducing such complexity where it wasn’t.
Heinlein opined (exact wording escaping me) that any society that abandons “women and children FIRST” is doomed.
“after 40 years of it being nothing more than a little formality, you can call SS registration meaningless, there is no draft.”
Except that in 40 years we haven’t had a serious war. Little Iraq and Afghanistan strained our limits of a voluntary force. Imagine a billion-citizen high-tech nation wanting to take us on with a war of attrition.
“If we ever get a draft again, it will be used by the left”
...who have been agitating to do so, one way or another.
This is the age of data mining. Amazing how much can be gleaned from so little.
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