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For starters, most of the time only about 1/10th of our military is involved in (or potentially involved in) front line combat. OKay? We had 58,000 KIA in Vietnam over a ten-year period. We lose more than that every year to highway accidents--and many of them are women (yet we still let women ride in cars and drive them.) We had 1.6-2.1 million people under arms during the Vietnam era and afterwards. Figure the percentage and see how many casualties we had, as a percentage. A fair number--not a huge number, but a fair number--were women. Death comes one to a customer, and everybody dies. Can't win, can't break even, can't get out of the game.

Anybody who can pass the physical can fight. Not necessarily "will" fight, but can. After they've been in service for a few years, and depending on branch of service, they can try out for Rangers, Seals, Green Berets, Delta Force, even astronauts. This is TRUE, this is FACT, not my opinion.

About 70% of the people who try out for special forces flunk out. Even the folks who don't go out for special forces MAY have to fight. Even in the Air Force. My folks all had to go through Airbase Ground Defense Training. We were supposed to be protected by the Army, but...if they make it through that perimeter, we're all that's left. The women pulled their weight in the training and in real world. They dug foxholes, they sat there in the foxholes with guns, and they shot at the bad guys. Fortunately, we never did THAT real-world, just MILES (we called it "laser tag.") One of the guys I went through MOB school with in Germany was a former Army combat engineer. We learned lots of neat stuff about foxholes from him. The young ladies were paying close attention too. I would not care to put them on the front line unless they can pass the same physical testing a grunt goes through. Although I spent 24 years in the service, I wouldn't pass that physical.

The Air Force manages just fine with female pilots, crew chiefs, satellite communications technicians, wiredogs--you name it, we got'em, and they do their jobs. They do them in combat if they have to, and it doesn't diminish readiness at all. My unit ran the air war during the Persian Gulf War. Female NCO's directed the establishment of the "Bubble" where the controllers sat and told the pilots where to go and whom to shoot when they got there. There were women in the Bubble. Women scope-dopes, women controllers, even pilots. The Chief of Maintenance for a time there was female. Everybody did their freakin' JOBS. The "girls" did all the same things the guys did and there wasn't any friction about it (except with the hard-nosed Saudis sometimes, and to hell with them--they couldn't understand why any man would jump up and do what a woman told them to do. It's called discipline, BTW.)

When I was an aircraft mechanic, before I destroyed my knees, we had this huge bronze fuel nozzle with four-inch hose--a hundred feet of it--to refuel the airplanes. Girls could only get into the career field IF they could pick up the nozzle and lift it up 6' off the ground. In other words, they had to be physically qualified to do the job. Men who couldn't lift it STILL couldn't get out of the field. In other words, they could be physically unfit and were left in place. The female crew chiefs I worked with tended to have HIGHER OR rates than most of the male crew chiefs. They also lifted 200 pound toolboxes and they climbed up on top of airplanes and fixed them just like the guys. Takes a special kind of tough, and plenty of ladies have it.

It's unpatriotic to dis them. Take them one at a time. If they can do the job, let 'em do it. If they can't, there's other ways for them to serve. There's GUYS OUT THERE WHO CANNOT DO IT EITHER. I don't want to have to go into a combat situation as a guy with bum knees. It doesn't matter how well I can shoot--and I can put your eyes out at 50 yards with a .45 auto. I'm still not qualified for that kind of work. But when you're sending out airplanes to find a target, you want me or one of the women trained to do what I can do with my satellite dish keeping you in touch with the chain of command 24/7.

Any guy who is so stupid that he goes out and gets himself shot up because the "comrade in arms" went and got herself shot, would have done the same thing for one of his guy buddies. By the way, we train them to do that. It's called "self aid and buddy care." We try to teach them not to get shot but sometimes it doesn't work. It has always been military policy that we pick up our people, wounded, dead, even if they've been lying there for 50 years...male, or female.

...and that is supposed to mean what exactly?

Does that diatribe somehow change the reality that women do not posses the physical emotional or mental attributes required for armed physical combat?

I'll jump ahead and help you out.....no.

After you aquire something comparable to a

Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal,
Marine Good Conduct Medal,
Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal,
A NDSM,
SW Asia Service Medal,
Combat Action Ribbon,
Saudi Arabian Medal for the Liberation of Kuwait,
Kuwaiti Liberation of Kuwait Medal,
Third award expert rifle and third award expert pistol on your mantle....please dont preach....or "cut & paste" to be exact.

:o)

Women are NEVER going into Navy Seal training. If they eventually do, then it will not be "Seal training" anymore. Buds will be a totally pc environment. I laughed my a$$ off when I saw Ridley Scott's "G.I. Jane". If ANY Seal, female or not, had back-talked her superior officer the way Demi Moore did in that film, she would have quickly found herself booted out and spending the next several years scrubbing the backroom stalls. Besides, NO one at BUDS, including commanders, are going to be able to stomach seeing a woman tortured, which is *mandatory* for training. Emotions such as that displayed by females are non-existent. You get one hour of sleep per night. And you're not allowed to talk, even during lunch. To say a woman can hack the kind of Hell that exists in Hell Week is laughable. Same goes with all the other elite groups...Ranger, Green Beret, etc etc. I KNOW.