[Orion78]

"No offense, but it's not a very comforting notion, for those of us above fighting age, to think of our daughters defending us in hand to hand combat with the Taliban...

None taken, but is also not very comforting to think of our sons defending us in hand to hand combat with the Taliban. Any loss of life is a tragic one. If your daughter (assuming you had one) sincerely wanted to fight to protect America, would you deny her the right to do so?

[ChemistCat]

One of my friends has a married daughter in the Air Force. She has two "big kids" (9 and 7, I think) and triplet toddlers. Yes, five kids. She's basically using the Air Force as a social welfare program. Most of her last hitch was spent on bedrest, on maternity leave, and on extended maternity leave as she had lingering complications from the triplet pregnancy. Now she gets substantially reduced childcare costs, free housing, free medical care, and frequent time off for all the myriad errands of doctor's appointments, sick kids, etc. THAT kind of servicewoman is a huge mistake and a huge drain on readiness. She should have been "out" when she decided not to put the first baby up for adoption. That's where I draw the line--mothers have a prior obligation to their babies, period!!! And the military ought not to be a social welfare program that lets these mothers pretend to serve in exchange for benefits men don't get. (In fairness, my husband got a lot of time off when our kids were born, and sick, etc, but generally it was time off from his leave balance, not free time off.)

But the kind of disrespect toward women, mothers or not, that I see on this thread really does belong to the Taliban. If they don't like living in a free world, they can always defect...some Freepers would look just fine in a towel.