The Push for Women in Combat

Let me specify, however, that they should be segregated units (due to the slower, weaker nature of women). All-women units can attack the Taliban from the side, while the all-male units from the other side.

One feminist activist in Australia – supposedly a man of some sort –

Can’t we send “HIM” to the front lines in Afghanistan??

Seine,

Suppose there are two divisions of the US Marines : One male, and one female.

Suppose they are to conduct an assault on a Taliban unit, with the male unit attacking from one side, and the female from the other. The Taliban, of course, do not follow any rules of engagement.

You tell us, what will the outcome be?

To any feminist reading this, tell you what :

We let women participate fully in combat, and in return, we change the divorce laws so that joint custody between mother and father is always assumed, and that no money has to change hands between either spouse, irrespective of what they each earn. An entirely gender-neutral policy of custody and child support.

That seems like equality all around, both on the battlefield and in parenting.

Deal?

if anything women in combat should increase islamic fervor to drive the US out of their lands.

Bingo. We need to hasten this necessary clash.

Why are we fighting both radical Islam and feminism, when we really just have to force them to interact closely with each other? It will focus both of their efforts in a manner that lets the rest of us live normal lives.

The reason feminism has lasted so long is that it has had the luxury of not having to face radical Islam so far. We need to accelerate this interaction, so that they nullify each other.

That would probably end it.

Nope. They would say the criteria chosen were sexist. They already say exactly that for female police officer training requirements.

I’m all for women fighting in the front lines, personally. It’s time for males to stop being discriminated against, by being the only ones drafted.

They should just stage a judo/shooting range/sprinting competition between 100 marines with 50 females and 50 males and see where the women end up. That would probably end it.

Anyone who took martial arts growing up or is into it know knows at 50-100lb over your opponent is a huge advantage.

There is also the issue of a chivalrous marine sacrificing his life to save a weaker, slower female combat soldier. I’d prefer to know she can carry my wounded 225lbs out of hell fire as I would be capable of doing if one of my brothers went down. Of course she would start crying as I bleed to death on the battle field.

Years of movies and other forms of entertainment depicting women as sexy fighting machines who can kung-fu kick their way through gangs of burly men have begun to have the inevitable effect on impressionable young women,

The actual cause of the push for women in combat is years of careerist female officers pushing for it. It is very difficult to become a general or an admiral unless you have combat experience (which is as it should be), and female officers, naturally wanting to be generals and admirals, have thus sought the “right” to serve in combat roles in order to gain the promotion opportunity. Few, if any, female enlistees wish to serve in combat, in contrast with male enlistees, many of whom actively seek this out.

One feminist activist in Australia – supposedly a man of some sort – feels that the entire “masculine identity” is an illusion upheld only by the idea that combat is a man’s job.

This “man” needs to serve in the front lines for a year or two to determine whether or not this is actually an illusion. But I expect he’d rather form his opinions about combat from the comfort of an air-conditioned office.

As soon as the first female soldier comes home with a horribly disfigured face from a battlefield wound or burn and shows up on a reality plastic surgery show or Oprah, any potential for widespread female support for women in combat will quietly expire, and just as it’s always been, women will do their best to avoid the front lines.

To be fair, women are already returning from Iraq and Afghanistan disfigured and mutilated. The reason this is not undermining support for women in combat is that (a) military service is optional, (b) these wars are not held to “matter”, and (c) liberals want us to lose these wars, and having women in combat contributes to that goal.

Though it may be fun to postulate about the justice of having women in combat roles, consider this – bottom line, it will without question cause men, our men, to needlessly die.
The performance of our troups in combat is far too important a matter to fuck around with social engineering.

I believe combat roll ratios of woman to men should be 50/50
Perfectly equal.
If the male side is filled qouta and the femal side is not then the requisite number of females needs to be drafted to fill the gap in their 50 percent of combat troops.

It is nice in the military to have woman there with you. I mean there is a lot of off time and boredom in military operations. It would help to be able to have pussy while waiting for war in an outpost.

Guard duty is one of the most boredom insanity inducing things in the world and this is what a lot of being infantry entails. Other than going out and patrolling which is probably the more fun aspect.

Sure at first woman will cry and all it is what they do. With time though the men will stop comforting them in that particular time and learn to just leave and continue mission or shoot them in place for deriliction of duty. The woman will learn that crying doesn’t keep them from being shot. So the ones that don’t get blown away will learn to stifle the tears. Then men will end up with more benefit overall in the foxholes by having 1 woman per man 50/50 so that they all get some action. Of course females can pull a trigger why not.
But we will have to force equality so yea draft will be in effect only way to do it to 50/50 fill those companies.

I remember back in high school my female history teacher scoffed at the rule against women in combat because “we don’t fight with broadswords any more”.

I said, “Let’s play a game called wounded in combat. The girls in this classroom must pick up the boys and carry them to the nurse’s office…”

Her response was immediate gobbling indignation – “well, they’d call for a helicopter or something!”

Welmer –

I watched those movies for years before I had ever fired a weapon. In the past few years, I’ve had friends take me out to the range with a variety of guns, in addition to my own. I remember one snub nosed revolver that kicked like hell.

It’s just funny watching these girls in movies fire off shots from big, heavy guns with powerful kick as if they were shooting a 9mm, or a plastic arcade gun. I’ve known women who could handle guns, but they were generally not 100 lb nymphs.

The problem is that the demands on performance of woman are too low. They are not being given enough credit.

Woman cn be expected to be your teammate in life and blossom under the guidance of a man.

In response to those who claim that women–even though they are restricted to support roles–already see a great deal of combat, I’d like to note that the injury and death statistics do not support this claim. About 100 of the first 4000 American deaths in Iraq were women (a little less) despite women composing between 1/10 and 1/15 of the force. In Afghanistan the difference in risk of death is similar–so far 19 American women have died compared to 844 American men. If the ratio of casualties is 40:1 (men to women) but the underlying population is about 10:1, there is a statistically lower risk of death associated with the current military role of women than the risk of death associated with the current military role of men (indeed, if the risk of death were the same, the actual observed data would be a 5-sigma event).

I have no particular proscriptive comment with regards to whether or not women should be allowed to serve in combat roles. However the statistics strongly indicate that the current risk of death is different, so any claim that this is a change only in name–and not in type–of service, is inaccurate at best, and malicious at worst.

Just remember females in the military are a lot less likely to protect and defend the Constitution when the day comes to defend against a coup or Putsch. I have never met a women who any loyalties beyond to loyalty to herself.

Scenerio:

You hear a creak and there is a shadow in the doorway. You leap like a panther on the fucking thing disturbing the instruders gameplan killing you and raping your wife with the undexpected. While your wife turns on the light and grabs the gun off the dresser. You have the indtruder in a grapple mantaining control of the gun while your wife put some ventillation in the dude.

This will be great. With so many female-Rambos running about, we men can then argue that there should be a VAMA (Violence Against Men Act). Or at the least we can demand that VAWA be opened to both genders. I am sure many men will appreciate being able to send their angy wives packing with one phonecall, the way it has been going on the other way for a decade now.

By the way, Caster Semanya was the South African runner/sprinter that was tested for her gender. She is so good apparently people think she’s a he. In case anyone didn’t get the name reference!

Fuck selective qoutas for certain areas. Fuck mens moc indignation at females in combat. It is better to die after fucking than not.

Across the board.

I imagine the stupid feminists will get whatever they want in this case. No draft? Done. A few token fighting spots so we can cry about women “pulling their weigh too”? Done. Who could deny some “affirmative action” female general who pouts for allowing women into combat roles?

Of course, all of this debate and confusion does not make a strong and efficient fighting force, but that hardly matters to the gender warriors. They, and any other group that slavishly adheres to identity politics, hardly care about the results for the rest of us. To them, the rest of us (evil straight white men especially) only have a purpose that is auxiliary to theirs. Any concerns unique to a group outside the identity politics group are absolutely irrelevant. So, throwing in a few token women into combat roles, even if the net effect is to increase male dead and injured, will be just fine for them. And like I said, it allows them to point out “progress” and how women can “pull their weight, too”. They’ll never want a full-on draft, of course, because again – that’s a concern of a group outside their niche, and that just does not concern them.

(By the way, guys, you should cover this recent “Shriver Report”. It seems like a quite significant salvo in the feminist propaganda campaign. It’s an absolutely shameless attempt to use the economic plight of men to push for their female-only concerns. Glenn Sacks recently covered it here: http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4330. I’d like to see you guys do a take on it as well. Seems like something for Novaseeker, maybe.)

Any woman can certainly have my place on the battlefield. I don’t see it as any part of male privilege to be killed. Also I certainly don’t want to fight to defend any woman in any location. This would be totally contary to the way I feel.

I would go to the battlefield with other men to fight women. Who do we think are enemies are? I have no argument with the Taliban or whoever. They have done me no harm. On the other hand women and feminists have done me immense harm.

If any of you want to defend freedom then ask yourself who has taken your freedom away?

For God’s sake let’s not get all protective about those who are our natural enemy.

JohnnyBravo

You know what? Let them join the men on the frontlines.
If anything will expose the “blank slate” sham and drive home the uncaring and brutal nature of reality, it’ll be real-life combat.
So far those who cannot perform at a satisfactory level but only worm their way into a position because of gender politics are largely left alone because people can suffer inefficiency. No big deal if a female manager brings in 10% less money than a male manager, the difference is still less than what a company might lose through lawsuits. And to the average individual shareholder, the difference is negligible anyway.
But in combat, you can’t screw around. Mistakes and inefficiency do not result in discomfort or reduced income, they result in body bags.

You are being massively naive. It would take one hell of a LOT of body bags, that were clearly one hell of a lot worse because of women’s not cutting the mustard, for any real world truth to come out enough for the extremely adverse to seeing for the ‘shot through and through with feminists’ media to feel forced to fairly and comprehensively cover it.

What would happen would be massive coverup, up and down the line. The covering up would start at the combat platoon level. Weaker women paired with stronger men. The message to the men being don’t make the women look bad. Sometimes that will be explicit; it was always be implicit. How so? Well how to you think complaining about it will be handled? The infantry company Captain that has women looking bad in his unit is going to get talked to by his regiment’s Colonel so it doesn’t get to his brigade’s Brigadier General cause that one star is trying to move up to two stars and knows that making women in combat look good or at least not bad is just as important if not more so in the political process of moving up the general ranks as anything else. Sort of how the performance lowering effects of women in support units IN THE FIELD where it’s down and dirty now for the most part is covered up.

So men would carry the water in combat for women. They’d have to. It wouldn’t happen here and there as stronger soldiers or less panicked ones are always having to carry the water for mentally weaker ones, it would happen pervasively where women were thick on the ground in combat units seeing action. It would become expected, but utterly taboo to complain about. And sure there’d be a FEW exceptions. Anytime a female combat soldier did anything at all she’d get a bronze or silver medal for it guaranteed. And the system would get more and more rotten.

The most basic thing they teach you in the military, the most basic thing that basic training is about, is to rely upon your brother soldiers. The whole unit in basic training is held back until the fuckup either makes it or quits. With the quitting being bad for the whole unit. Well guess what. They don’t train females alongside males in basic. Why not? Females CAN’T and DON’T take it to nearly the extent males can and do.

But you all, or most of you, seem blaze about sending females next to males into combat. The biggest problem is the girls do panic far earlier and more easily than men do and THEY FEEL FAR LESS OR NO SHAME IN DOING SO. You really think girl soldiers are gonna be willing to seriously risk their lives to save their fellow platoon male soldier’s life who’s gotten himself into a tough spot? Or will another male feel he has to volunteer to prevent her from having to? What if it’s only her that can – which happens a lot in combat? Or the whole group of three has to be all there to save the one guy that’s wounded. That entitled American girl, who didn’t have to go through the same standards of basic training much less right alongside guys showing her up, is gonna step up and risk dieing? For men she’s not married to, isn’t planning to be, and isn’t sexually attracted to? You seriously think so? Then you don’t understand women, especially American ones today in our culture.

Well the whole unit cohesion of American combat forces depends upon this sort of soldier brotherhood. Sure it sometimes breaks down but most esp. in less than the very most extreme and longshot situations it doesn’t. It would if it relied on girls backing up guys just as much.

We haven’t even gotten to the problem of guys leaning over backwards to protect a girl in combat who only slightly might need it, while neglecting their bros in a more exposed position who need it huge.

It would be a disaster.

As it is women are far less effective in nitty gritty support roles as it is and there’s lots of covering for them. At desk jobs and combat hospitals and at base and similar they can be good.

In a nutshell, women cannot be relied upon to “have the backs” of their combat unit’s male soldiers (whom they aren’t attracted to) to nearly the extent that male soldier can.

As well, male soldiers will tend to too much have the backs of their unit’s female soldiers – or perhaps in some cases to dramatically not do so. Because of sexual / gender politics.

Instead of the male bonding that basic training and combat military training and field practice and leadership is centrally about developing and maintaining.

Hestia–

but he’s also served with some rotten women who could have potentially endangered everybody, just as there have been a few men who were lousy soldiers as well.

Could he deal equally in getting rid of both, e.g. getting them transferred out of positions of endangering others? Or in demoting both when the did in fact mess up?

Excellent points, Doug1.

That seems like a fairly realistic assessment of the way things would actually come down.

Specifically, the military is in dire need of people willing to go into dangerous combative roles. If women in auxiliary roles are being blown up by mortar shells anyways, they might as well fill the recruitment deficit of the military. However, these women should have to pass the requirements as men – no sliding scales!

…..

In that case the few women at the top of the female curve who can make the grade will have a higher chance of earning the respect of their male peers, instead of being affirmative action candidates who are just there for show. Otherwise, I think it’s fine for them to remain in the support roles that they fill now.

That’s just it. I have no problem with a woman who can pass rigorous testing and meet the standards as they stand now being put into a combat position. And frankly, I don’t see many women meeting those standards.

Although I still see it as possibly causing problems. Men will be forced to see the women who serve with them as “brothers”, not women–and that’s a hard mental shift to make–if those women are not going to be a liability to them. Ingrained chivalry will have to die a quick, brutal death, or it’s going to endanger every soldier in a given unit.

A nation/society/culture that puts large numbers of its young, fertile women at risk is literally placing its biological survival in jeopardy. Men are expendable, women aren’t. Good grief, why doesn’t anyone understand that?
This might be true but is largely irrelevant in a society that has chosen suicide and is on it’s way out to decline if something isn’t done very soon. Our fertile young women don’t seem to care about our culture’s biological survival, as showcased so well by abortion on demand, birth rates throughout the western that are just above replacement or lurking below, and childbearing being put off until it is too late. Not to mention many mothers who are far too narcissistic and unqualified to have any business raising the next generation. It only seems natural that once they have given up this role en masse that their value as mothers by society at large would be gone as well.

At desk jobs and combat hospitals and at base and similar they can be good.

This can’t be stressed enough. Female conscription was the great boogeyman* that antifeminists (mostly women) used to shoot down any attempts at true equality, conveniently ignoring the fact that sending women into combat would be absolutely suicidal. In a sane world, female draftees would be put into administrative and medical roles, but that idea wasn’t scary enough.

*co-ed bathrooms was the other one

The real reason that females are not allowed in combat roles is because that if it was 50/50 and they went off to war. You know dam well that the wives back home would know dam well that the guys where getting pussy.
Many already are. The deployed spouses and those left at home cheat in roughly the same amount, which many people think is around 50% of both groups. Women in the military aren’t even needed for the cheating as there are prostitutes in many of the countries where ships stop in port and service members deploy to. If somebody is going to cheat, they are going to cheat regardless of the gender makeup of their unit.

Yea but hestia in iraq there really is no means to cheat unless it is with a chick on base and there are a very limited number of woman to be able to fuck.

Yea but hestia in iraq there really is no means to cheat unless it is with a chick on base and there are a very limited number of woman to be able to fuck.
That’s not what my husband and many of his buddies have said. None of them were partaking in such behavior but they knew where some of their troops were going to do so. Kuwait was apparently even worse, with both girls and alcohol available. In fact, this last deployment was such “fun” that in the little group my husband deployed with, we’re the only couple who is not in the midst of a divorce and didn’t have infidelity occur on either side.

Just a question. Is the WordPress character limit too small? Because you can use paragraphs instead of beating the crap of the Submit button. It looks like a spammer.

Naaa woman need to be forced to have equal representation so as to have an impact that will be felt by all. Otherwise it is just another piece of the bullshit puzzle that is forced equality of anything. It is always only equal in certain areas and not others. Especially when those others entail things that are not beneficial to the group that is demanding equality or having equality demanded for them.

sestamibi–

A nation/society/culture that puts large numbers of its young, fertile women at risk is literally placing its biological survival in jeopardy. Men are expendable, women aren’t. Good grief, why doesn’t anyone understand that?

Those “consideration” were highly relevant during the periods of our hunter gather transformation from genus homo to species sapiens. They’re not very relevant in the US military today fighting the sorts of wars or battles we have since WWII. During the 20th century, which is often called the bloodiest due to military conflict in human history (which is probably the case in absolute numbers), a smaller percentage of the participating societies died in wars during the century than was typically the case among hunter gather tribes tens of thousands of years ago, recent physical anthropological evidence is revealing.

In WWII the US, with 420k deaths due to combat (using a broad definition), lost only 0.32% of its population. If half of those had been women it would hardly have had any effect on the baby boom generation much less since. Except we would probably have lost the war. Or the Soviets would be in control of all of Europe. Still.

In Vietnam if half the 60k Americans killed had been women, it wouldn’t have been a ripple, demographically.

Some numeracy is always nice guys.

Hestia–

Many already are. The deployed spouses and those left at home cheat in roughly the same amount, which many people think is around 50% of both groups. Women in the military aren’t even needed for the cheating as there are prostitutes in many of the countries where ships stop in port and service members deploy to.

I think the degree of cheating of deployed American military men’s wives today is an absolute scandal. It’s repulsive. It’s amazing to me that we can get volunteers with those kinds of numbers. 50%.

As well the deployed soldiers’ “cheating” is not in any way comparable. He’s entitled to. He’s in or subject to combat. I’m entirely serious. Further as what you said in your brief remarks tends to illustrate, soldiers cheating while overseas is only very rarely theatening to the marriage from the cheating soldiers point of view. That is he’s in the great majority of cases having paid sex with women that he’s unlikely to want to leave his wife for, nor her to fall in love with him. So too most other sex when deployed, with female soldiers or more rarely locals without pay, is usually just sex, and at any event married men are unlikely to either leave their wife or stop having feelings for her upon return.

That’s not the case when deployed men’s wives cheat back home. It often does severe their bonds of love for their husbands and lead them to seek a divorce. Or their husbands to when the wife isn’t feeling it for him or maybe doing it with him, when he returns.

Not comparable at all despite bullshiite feminist arguments here going back to first wave feminists in the US in the late 19th century (the divorce and suffragette movements) to the contrary.

E.g. I think a law should be passed giving them no financial rights whatsoever if their husband divorces them

No critical shortage of men for combat roles. They have all reached there goals for recruitment. Men are volunteering because it is a manly thing to do.

Hestia–

In light of this, I find the argument against female troops solely because of the risk of infidelity to be a poor one,

American women should just get over it. I’m sick to this. I’m sorry, I’m usually a lot more diplomatic but what precious self entitled bs.

He’s at war for crissakes. Why shouldn’t he get some hooker sex once in a blue moon. How treatening is that to how he feels about his wife or marriage how often exactly? Like approaching never perhaps? Yeah I know not never. I know some married soldiers do fall i love with local girls and leave their wives or never feel it for he again, but how often is that exactly? Like I said, approaching never. Not never. but damn rare.

Not so with cheating wives back home. Not so at all, at all.

No it isn’t the same. It isn’t close to the same. And no amount of blind ideology can make it the same.

Now tell me why I’m wrong Hestia.

(I realize you’re generally on men’s side on this issue of women in the military etc., and probably a lot of other things. So this isn’t an attack on you. You just brought it up.)

I am confused about where your comments are even coming from. I brought up the issue of infidelity because I disagreed with gunslinger’s comments that seemed to express the sentiment that women should not be allowed in combat because of infidelity. I thought this was illogical and a poor argument because infidelity has always happened even without female troops being in the military. What hasn’t happened, and what is directly related to fraternization, is the issue of pregnancy, which is very problematic and needs to be addressed by the military. My comments had absolutely nothing to do with the issues of the rightness of troop infidelity, so I am a bit confused how I have brought up the issues you are questioning me about.

Despite my confusion, here are the answers to your question. My husband and I both believe neither of us should cheat on the other because we made vows to God, our families, and each other to “forsake all others” and believe marriage to be a covenant that is not to be broken. I believe it is a great tragedy when marriage vows are broken, whether this be for divorce, an emotional affair, or physical infidelity as other people than the adults involved stand to be harmed and it speaks loudly to everybody as to the lack of character about an individual who would be as cavalier and selfish to break what amounts to, or should anyway, a legally binding contract.

Many affairs on the soldiers end DO wind up in relationships that become emotionally entangled, especially when they are with female troops. I’ve received many tearful phone calls from wives who have found love messages written by their husbands on the myspace walls of women they slept with during deployment, once they returned home. There have been three cases since I married my husband and thus entered the Army world that I have known couples who got divorced as the cheating soldier was leaving his wife for the soldier he got pregnant overseas. I have also known women who have received the army wife equivalent of a dear john letter over email when their husbands have asked for divorces so they could stay with their deployment lay.

My husband wanted me to add a few words with his take on the subject, since we’re commenting from the same IP and don’t want to look as is we’re sockpuppeting. He says he disagrees with your permissive attitude towards infidelity on the part of a soldier as to defile the marriage bed brings about a threat of divorce even if no emotional infidelity were involved and a divorce or great tension can harm the children who are already living in a reality that requires much maturity and resilience out of them at ages much younger than many of their peers. Bringing home STDs or HIV would harm his wife, possibly his future children as well, or take away the opportunity for a couple to have more children if this had been their desire. Also, a soldier cheating in this day and age could easily result in harm to the unit, as tempers flare, rumors are passed, and nasty fights erupt on the phone that take a soldier’s attention away from where they need to be.

He also believes it would be selfish, unloving, and disrespectful for a man who has a dedicated and loving wife who is remaining loyal to him, giving her all to his children, sending care packages full of homemade weekly & letters often, available for phone calls day and night, keeping daddy front and center in the children’s minds, and being sure no distractions come about to take her husband’s attention away to be treated in such a contemptuous way. He questions the character and integrity of any man who does such a thing, unless it was an unfortunate one time mistake, and wanted me to point out that such behavior is technically “conduct unbecoming” per UCMJ, thus meaning a married man not only breaks his vows to his wife but his oath to the military as well.

This is a very interesting post from the USNI blog.

The author is a female officer who notes that there is a strong push from the senior leadership for “special treatment” for women in the Navy, and to her credit, she opposes this.

It was during my first tour on active duty, while I was still a very junior junior officer, and hadn’t quite realized that when an O-8 asks for your honest opinion, what they really mean is “I might want your opinion, I might not, but if you are honest with me, as pleased as I may appear with your candidness, you’ve just pissed on the shoes of someone junior to me, but senior to you, who will indeed make you pay for your honesty.” I learned this lesson the hard way.

A number of female officers were rounded up for a series of focus groups with our Admiral. The focus of the focus group was to address, what else, diversity issues in the community as they relate to gender. How can we make our community more “female friendly.”

Of course the first topic on the agenda was telecommuting. Because what we need to retain qualified and competent women is not a ground level addressing of the lingering bastions of institutionalized sexism, not an acknowledgment that some of our officers are indeed still Neanderthals when it comes to their views of women, as the fleet reflects society, and society is still pretty darn sexist, no this daily hostility to the fact that you exist couldn’t possibly be one of the factors why many of our talented females seek higher pay elsewhere after growing tired of abusive work environments. No. Really, the only reason we lose women is because they’d rather stay home with their children than go to the office. You see how the suggested solution really proves the true root of the problem. This may come as a surprise, but not all women want to be stay home mothers. Kudos to those who do, and who feel that is the best choice for their family. But it’s not the choice for everyone. Certainly not the choice for me.

So as it came my turn as the token “young single JO” at the table (it was quite clear what demographic I was chosen to represent) I raised the following points: (1) This is the military. And we are officers. We don’t give our enlisted women, with lower pay, and frequently less stable extended families, the luxury of working from home, so we should lead by example. (2) Someone has to man the fort, so while some telecommute, who will be working the harder, longer hours to pick up the slack? Oh, right…me. The one who has already been doing all the travel, all the inconvenient TAD, all the holiday duty, and generally all the unpleasant heavy lifting because I’m the one “without a family”. And this is with fellow officers who work a full day in the office. Allowing them to just stay home? I can see where this will go. No. I don’t like telecommunitng.

At this point I should have noticed I was going against the “life work balance” agenda and shut up. But on we moved to the next topic: The career sabbatical.

This is a brilliant idea in which officers will be able to just “take a break” from the Navy for up to three years and then have their lineal number retroactively adjusted so they won’t have to compete against people with three years more work performance. Of course, you will have to apply for this option, and spots are extremely limited (so you can already see the potential for those with special snowflake syndrome managing to garner even more preferential treatment while everyone else has to suck it up and make do…no, that won’t be a morale issue down the road at all), and there is no set reason for the sabbatical. However, we all know the unspoken reason…again, it’s so that women can have babies without penalty. I somehow doubt if I submitted a sabbatical package to backpack through Europe I would be approved. So again, I raised my concerns. First, the potential for this to become overly political, and second, the flat out unfairness of a system that allows some people to just “take a break” and then compete on equal footing with those who have continued to roll the stone uphill without interruption. Not to mention the fact that this program will likely just do more to entrench the negative and undeniably present views that the women in the fleet get coddled. I for one, would not take this option, even if it were offered to me on a silver platter, because I wouldn’t want to spoon feed people who want to dismiss me based on gender alone a superb argument that I am in fact a weaker officer. It will serve only to advance the careers of a select few, while systemically furthering the perception that women are not as strong as men to the detriment of many. So no, I don’t like the sabbatical either.

Finally, the topic came up about IA/GSA assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And several raised concerns that the precept language was unfair. That not everyone could leave behind their children to deploy, and it wasn’t fair that they be penalized at promotion time. My question was “why not?” We ask our enlisted sailors to deploy, to go to sea, to live as geo bachelors all the time. Male and female, married, and single parent, we expect our junior sailors to tough it up and make do. We need to lead by example. And those who shoulder the burden of more arduous assignments, especially while our country is fighting two wars, should indeed be rewarded. My only question about the deployment issue was “when do I get to go?”

So that was the meeting. Not a focus on how to address the root cause of the problem, that America is not nearly as advanced in gender relations as it claims to be (for proof of this, look at the disgraceful way the media portrayed Sara Palin and Hillary Clinton during the presidential elections, and the way Ms. Clinton, whether I approve of her politics or not, has been marginalized in what should be one of our most important offices) but instead, we focus on artificially creating different tracks for underperforming women in order to justify promoting them based on number rather than competence. And this is an insult to the many, many competent and strong women we have in the Navy, many of whom I’ve had the honor of considering mentors. Ask any female E-9 if she’d like to telecommute, or “take some time off of her career” and let me know how she responds. The problem I saw in these programs is that the women we want to retain, would never, ever take advantage of them. They will bend over backwards to reach their own work life balance without complaint or intervention from big Navy because they want to be seen as capable. Those that need the time off, or the extra time to organize….I have to ask “why can she do it, but you can’t? Is it gender, or is it you?” And yes, it is hard, and yes, you have to make a choice. Be a career woman, or a homemaker, or somewhere in between, but whichever you chose comes at a price. You cannot have it all…but guess what? Neither can the men. How much time does a 4 star truly spend with his family? How many men have been passed over because they homesteaded to let their kids finish high school rather than taking the career-maker billet? It’s a choice we all have to make. And all I ask is that *I* make that choice for myself. Not because society has told me it’s the choice I ought to make. And all these programs, these life-work initiatives, are predicated on the idea that the woman should be choosing family and so we need to make it easier for the woman to choose family over career without penalty. It’s reinforcing the root problem. And that’s why I hate it. But I digress.

Now, I wasn’t the only person at these meeting voicing dissent. Actually several women spoke out. But I was the most junior. And somehow my opinions made it to my department head, who is very much a proponent of life-work initiatives. Who has never gone to sea. Who will never deploy. But who insists from her ivory tower of liberal feminism that she needs to be treated as an equal for less than equal career performance. She was not pleased with me, and I received a verbal counseling on my “attitude” and my “teamwork”. I was confused. I thought I remained respectful and polite in voicing my opinion, afterall, wasn’t that the point of the focus group? Didn’t the Admiral *want* to know what women thought? And teamwork? What team did I betray? And that’s when I realized my error. In the diversity industry, I am the wrong kind of woman. I want to deploy, I want to support the war, I want to serve in [REDACTED], and I want to pull my weight. I am the biggest threat to the agenda, because I am proof that even with the undeniable sexist attitudes that linger in this country, and the fleet, I can succeed without their help. I am the wrong kind of woman for their agenda.

So I took my counseling, [REDACTED] and, upon the advice of a truly great Naval Officer, I got over the sting and realized that the only person who could ever define my worth as an officer was me. So it was a learning experience, but not the end of the world.

Now I know better than to offer my opinion, as a woman, if it doesn’t align with the preconceived notions of what women need from the Navy. And if a woman can’t speak her mind about when programs to promote women have possibly gone too far without being blacklisted, I shudder to think how a man with my opinion would be treated.

Again, it’s not sexism to simply want our female officers to perform equally, as they have demonstrated time and time again they can. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Regarding the Down Under hissy-fit that started this thread: thank god this capon’s never met some REAL fighting castrati. Wouldn’t last two seconds against an Ottoman Jannisary trooper, that’s for sure!

Hestia: Think you’ll agree the really criminal situation is that she cheats on him (or they both do or, well, even if he does), they have a divorce (automatic and more likely on her side) in which he is drained of his money regardless of the circumstances and any children between them automatically go to her, without any real protection of visitation rights.

There has been evidence which supports that this also substantially worsens effects and incidence of PTSD due to social isolation, added stress, etc.

Females should be in combat now!

It is bigoted and immoral to not left females in combat.

Only a sexist jerk doesn’t ‘let’ females fight to the death over the right to win fidelity through status display.

Females in combat now!…

The irony is men go to war, to fight for country, liberty, freedom, protection, etc., only to come home to an unfaithful wife who, with the help of the government, destroys him financially and emotionally in family/divorce court. This is a horrible irony for men and it is amazing more men don’t go postal, especially those who “served” their country in life and death situations.

Another important factor: Camaraderie.

One of the most important things that keeps you from bolting when in the face of danger is the feeling that you must stand and fight, if necessary even fall, with your brothers-in-arms.

Despite having torn down most tenets of honor in the past decades, pop culture has been unsuccessful in eliminating the male gut feeling that abandoning your “brothers” is one of the worst things you could possibly do. Hell, as a man you might think that some other guy is a douchebag, but by simply performing similar tasks alongside each other a sense of camaraderie develops.

Anecdotal evidence relating to this upcoming: I have never seen this in groups of women to the degree that this is present in groups of men. Sure, feminists will endlessly talk about sisterhood and the like, but even they themselves can’t keep up the pretense.

Pretty much every group of women which I had something to do with soon festered with petty grudges, mean-spirited gossip, backstabbing, lust for revenge and secret revelry in one another’s misery. All this came about with seemingly no reason, just status-games among women I suppose. And I am not talking poor trash either, I am talking university-educated women who should know better (though nowadays it seems that university-educated women of the “empowered” sort know worse).

And I am sure that everybody here has had similar experiences.

Of course status-struggles exist among men, but they are traditionally carried out in the open with everyone knowing what’s going on, and when they are finished, they are finished until a new challenge is posed, and until that time everyone accepts his position. Which is why, in an environment not saturated with petty bullcrap, a sense of camaraderie can develop.

Anyway, one must ask themselves how a unit can stand the pressure of combat if its individual members have no willingness to sacrifice themselves for their mates, and might even secretly wish harm on them.

How can a squad of tank girls hold out against a constant, relentless onslaught of IEDs, sniper attacks, suicide bombers and insurgent ambushes if many of its members consider such situations viable options to once and for all sort out the status game?

@J Donovan.

females do get it. And they demand that their own female only groups remain free from males for exactly that very reason.

The problem is you think reasoning it out is still possible.

Death to democracy, death to capitalism and jebus cult. ‘feminism’ does not just magically appear: it only grows from that garden.

Males need to solve the man vs man problem –that starts in childhood– that has plagued us time immemorial. Doing that will solve every other issue.

http://criticalmasculinities.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/dealing-with-a-crisis/#comment-45

That buffoon there is crazy. He is profoundly mentally ill if not deranged.

He is exclusively the product of capitalist jesus based democracy. Nothing more or less.

Until you all get that through your heads men are in a bad place.

One of my favorites from that site.

“be advised that the [spearhead] content is potentially triggering”.

“Triggering”

Lol

Do you see now why testing before voting is necessary?

Oh regarding that site…

http://criticalmasculinities.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/dealing-with-a-crisis/#comment-45

If you are an Australian site you better mirror this spearhead thing soon, because their gonna come at you.

He [barneby bartlemew--that guy --I don't know what his name was--fuck em)] thinks the milquetoast stuff at the spearhead is triggering?

He should access some sean maccloud from the usenet archives! LOL!!!

Maybe that “triggering” will convulse him out of his chair and right out the window.

I’d pay to see that mpeg of that on the interwebs.

A society that sends its women to fight wars is not a society worth fighting for.

I’ve been in Combat in Afghanistan, and I’m still active duty Army, with possibly one more rotation before I ETS. There are some women who do a kick ass job, but mostly they bring so much fucking drama it distracts. Yea, sure, blow jobs from a married girl behind the porto-john is nice – but you have so many guys fighting each other for a 4-5-6, who when deployed, become a 7,8,9/ (Desert Queen).

The Army Infantry and Marines are full of men 18-26. Young, strong, healthy and ready to fuck some shit up. Throw some girls into that and see what kinds of fucked up shit happens. Go ahead. Stick some openly gay fellers into there as well while we are at it.

I’m sure nothing bad would happen.

Excuses are like assholes everyone has one and they all stink

Now I will say it one more time woman on rag or you will be shot. Take off your gass mask so that we can test if it is safe for the rest of the platoon to do so.

In the handbook. No shit.

Also artillary af since yea shooting from in base and then you feel the impact all the way back when the round explodes. War is hell.

Also artillary af since yea shooting from in base and then you feel the impact all the way back when the round explodes. War is hell.

Yes gunslinger, you’re right. Talking about “cowardice” in acts of war, when directed toward soldiers/militants is plain silly, and nonsense. Unless our female friend who wrote that nonsense also think that Joystick-Pilots who control Predators’ drones from a safe base in Nevada, while killing people in Pakistan (70% of whom civilians), are they biggest cowards of all.

Black&Women–

Wouldn’t the simplest thing be to keep the standards the same for both sexes and those who make it, make it, and those who don’t don’t.

No the simplest thing by far to implement in actual practice as opposed to in one’s mind while punching away at a keyboard, is to exclude females from all combat roles or even likely to get into combat support roles, full stop. And to tell the feminists to shove it.

Yes. But they would mess up the dynamics of unit cohesion as I explained above. At a minimum men would fall all over themselves to protect them. And fight over them. That happens with support troops too, which makes them questionable as well, especially in forward bases as opposed to main ones.

There is that problem. A female friend of mine was in the Navy and they’d be stuck on these ships for months at a time, with the occasional shore-leave. According to her, there was a lot of shagging and in-fighting going on.

let just the ugly pussy go off to fight, keep the hot ass here.

they can oooh when they watch me shoot my .308 NATO and 45.-’70 Government T/C Contender all fookin day

JohnnyBravo October 25, 2009 at 7:07 pm
JB,
women do not even defend their children let alone other women. There is no ‘commeraderie’ among women. A young woman will steal her best friends man if she thinks it is better for herself. Women are amoral, self-centered, greedy and selfish. That would be ALL of them. Some put a better spin on it than others. The ones who wax lyrical about ‘their beloved children’ are really only interested in have people they can manipulate in later life into looking after them and paying for them. I see no evidence of anything else in women now.

Women are not capable of loyalty, they are not capable of love as men understand it, they are not capable of self-sacrifice from a position of honour and integrity. I do not see this happening anywhere in the world today. It is all about ‘self-interest’ when it comes to women. I am not calling that ‘wrong’ I am just saying that is my observation.

This is why introducing women into groups of men destroys the groups dynamics. All men inherently know that women are amoral and weak and children….and therefore need to be protected, even from themselves….they cannot be expected to live up to their word. Look at how women see marriage ‘vows’. Women will not keep vows. Women, and I do mean ALL WESTERN WOMEN, support perjury on court if it is to the womans advantage against a man. Evidence? Where are the women convicting and sentencing women who commit perjury? They don’t exist. I’ve called for women to do this. Did you se the ‘big response’ I got? LOL! As long as it’s women abusing men it’s AOK with the VAST MAJORITY of western women.

Now…when you are running into a hail of gunfire, do you want someone next to you that you know full well would stab you in the back and steal from you even though she has professed to love you for many years? Or do you want a guy you barely know but you can count on to keep his word even if it means his life? This is really just how pathetic women are today. You want to think about just how pathetic women are…..

They will commit perjury, kidnap children and stab a man in the back despite no wrong doing by the man…a woman will abuse ALL the people she claims to love for her own self-interest and ALL the women around her will support her in doing so…it’s really, really pathetic…..and they do this while men are fighting and dying to protect ‘their way of life’.

I think we should just let ‘islamic terrorists’ kill as many western feminised woman as they like…..what, exactly, would be the loss? To anyone? I have often made the statement feminised women do nothing useful in our society to any great extent. They are completely surplus to needs and we could easily do without them. The same is not true of men.

I’m skeptical of the long-term combat effectiveness of a woman. The psychological window for male combat effectiveness is 60 days. Awareness and capabilities peak at 30 and taper off from there.

During that time soldiers may be sleeping in the dirt for days or weeks. They may have little or no access to hot chow, let alone hot showers. You can only fit so many baby wipes in a rucksack, next to the food, socks and ordinance.

Certain hygiene issues might arise.

Consider what happens to a grunt’s feet (i.e. Jungle Rot). Under what adverse conditions, and for how long, can a woman keep her box operational while in “The ‘Box”?

HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS YO October 27, 2009 at 10:42 am
“I’m personally in favor of women in combat and registering for selective service… It’s the burden you have to bear for the “privileges” of being male, which are more than enjoyed by females, regardless of any sacrifices they exempt themselves from. If you want to be treated equally despite genetic differences, you are damn well going to experience some of the hardships that only men experience under traditional gender roles. If the feminists want hard-line egalitarianism, they better be giving women some of the responsibilities that come with being male, and this is one of the biggest ones. Feminists who support this are a big step above “lifeboat” feminists who want the best of both worlds. At least these types recognize that there are certain downsides that come with being born with a penis and would wish to share these for being treated exactly the same as men. I may not agree with this sort of egalitarianism, but I think it’s an infinitely superior ideology to the type of feminism that refuses to recognize any disadvantages of being male, complains about the male gaze, calls every man a potential rapist, and lobbies to force corporations to pay women more.”

Ditto. Well said.

@ Sean: Who is WE, exactly?

Those of us who are/were members of the US Armed Forces could not disagree more.

Sean, I cannot agree. What feminism has done to Western society over the past few decades is deplorable, but it will not be unseated by “losing” military conflicts (the US doesn’t really lose military conflicts any more, it just gives up when it decides the price is too high); for example, feminism rose to greater prominence due to Vietnam–as one might suspect, when there is an unpopular war, an ideology claiming that violence is never the answer (even if, in practice, it only really meant violence instigated by men) finds itself with many more allies and much more power.

Too long to put it all here.

JohnnyBravo

So no matter how much she calls them sexist chauvinist patriarchical virgins, GI Jane will not get her ass bailed out for the 50th time by her squadmates because she got pinned down by a group of insurgents who singled out the marine who was slowest to get in cover (huffing and puffing under dozens of pounds of equipment).

Well why would she call them “sexist chauvinist patriarchical virgins” in the first place unless they were acting sexist and chauvinistic. But then again you were probably going for dramatics here.

…..

And the enemy will also not be swayed into surrendering by shrill accusations of them being ignorant small-dicked nazis who never get laid, if anything women in combat should increase islamic fervor to drive the US out of their lands.

I think women will be too busy fighting/staying alive to sway the enemy with their accusations.

Gunslingergregi,

Sure at first woman will cry and all it is what they do. With time though the men will stop comforting them in that particular time and learn to just leave and continue mission or shoot them in place for deriliction of duty. The woman will learn that crying doesn’t keep them from being shot. So the ones that don’t get blown away will learn to stifle the tears…..

Oh come on, give female soldiers some credit here. I highly doubt that they would be as prone to tears as you think especially during fighting. Are you/were you a soldier who experienced fighting and patroling alongside women soldiers?

Doug1

You really think girl soldiers are gonna be willing to seriously risk their lives to save their fellow platoon male soldier’s life who’s gotten himself into a tough spot? Or will another male feel he has to volunteer to prevent her from having to? What if it’s only her that can – which happens a lot in combat? Or the whole group of three has to be all there to save the one guy that’s wounded. That entitled American girl, who didn’t have to go through the same standards of basic training much less right alongside guys showing her up, is gonna step up and risk dieing? For men she’s not married to, isn’t planning to be, and isn’t sexually attracted to? You seriously think so? Then you don’t understand women, especially American ones today in our culture.

Well count me as one of those who don’t understand American women, because I do believe that a female soldier would risk or is capable of risking her life to save her fellow male soldier.

….Usually she may want to go for the seargent or lieutenant but that’s a no no. Will happen though. Giving me something big to hold over his head if something does come of it. Plus she has all that leverage of actually seducing and of false claims.

“Will happen though”….? Do you think that this happens all the time with women soldiers? I don’t know, maybe I give them too much credit, but I highly doubt that most of them do this.

Still think it needs to be 50/50 woman in combat though to send the right message of true equality.

Sucking dick under the bunkbed shining boots woman offer a lot in combat.

There where no doors in basic on 4th floor and femles in the room next door lol
When they were all on there period and not showering was nasty though kind of gave a non apporeciation of the female of the species. Smelled like death. They didn’t like the open showers I guess.

DarkStarSF,
Great ariticle, thanks.
———————
You guys make some good points about the problems that may come up with female and male soldiers being in the same combat unit. I notice that part of the problem doesn’t seem to be the women themselves, but the men. I guess it would be too much to ask for male soldiers to just think of female soldiers as any other soldier.

And Doug, I’m sorry but being a soldier overseas doesn’t excuse a husband for having sex with other women anymore than a wife who cheats while her husband’s away at war. Now what you said may be true and a soldier isn’t likely to leave his wife, but sex isn’t just something you can have with other people when you’re married or in a serious relationship, ideally anyway.

”””””male soldiers to just think of female soldiers as any other soldier.””””””””””

Infamous story of the female soldier who after a year and half didn’t know what a three quarter inch socket was on a tool inventory.

Treating woman like men is what causes problems when they don’t get treated special. That can ruin mens careers very easily with a false accusation.

They already have different standards on pt test so they know they are special but when you point out that is why you are not equal even though you get equal pay they get pissed and run to a higher authority of course what is the higher authority gonna say that the pt test is equal and men and woman doing equal work. Of course not its too black and white defferent and to easily proved unequal and that woman are at this moment paid more for less work than men have to do. Provably that woman also get paid more for less responsibility.

What needs to be done is institute the same standards for men and woman and have a 50/50 split with mandatory filling of female half by draft lottery.

It will be the only cure for inequality. I do think woman can be trained and then when forced to fight they will just have to period. So yea no biggy people die it happens. Woman will learn to Harden the fuck up.

ps the grenade he through was a dud and that also really happened.

Make that threw.

I agree with the larger message of the article; women can be very useful when put into support roles, but putting them in front line positions creates too many problematic issues to be considered a viable military policy.

However, there are two things to remember in this regard: Firstly, while it is true that the majority of women lack the capacity for front line warfare, as with every rule, there is an exception. History has shown that a small subset of the female population is indeed capable for this purpose, as there have been occasional-but-notable occurrences of able-bodied woman warriors masking their gender in order to defend their country and their interests. Of course, these women are few in number. They tend to be the ones labeled as “butch” or “manly” by society, so it is no surprise that battlefield competence would come as a by-product of their abnormally masculine traits.

Secondly, we are getting to the point, technologically, where the traditional male advantages of size, strength, and stamina are no longer necessary for for success in combat. As warfare increasingly becomes a matter of simply using a joystick or inputting target coordinates into computers, men’s leverage in the matter is beginning to wane. There may come a day where combat systems will be devised that women are equally able in using, or even more able, due to certain strengths that are characteristic of women that men may lack – although I cannot fathom a circumstance like this developing in the near future and don’t know what it would involve if it did. As a side note, the Russians used female snipers during WWII to, I believe, successful effect.

No there once was a female who did this stories or that. Just hard numbers 50 percent of all mos jobs will be filled by females.

If you expect nothing from woman or men for that matter that is what you will get a lot of times. When you expect woman to perform a military function that is what you will get. Not cutting slack for them because they are woman but demanding the same from everyone.

“As warfare increasingly becomes a matter of simply using a joystick or inputting target coordinates into computers, men’s leverage in the matter is beginning to wane.”

Absolutely not. Mens spatial abilities exceed womens. Proven scientifically. In fact, that faster an object is moving, the greater men excell over women in tracking and predicting its movement. Men have been throwing spears and rocks at running animals for a long time now. Yes, nurture can compensate some, just a females can be weight lifters, but just like weight lifters, the best girl at spatial and velocity awareness will pale in comparison to the best guys.
As far as punching in coordinates, well, I don’t think war will ever be quite that simple. The targets of value that are stationary will be taken out in the first week of war, after that, everything of strategic value will be moving, and moving in ways to avoid detection and strikes.

One more thing. There are as many women in teh Army today as a result of going to an all volunteer force. In the early 70′s the force structure was larger than could be maintained strictly by male volunteers. More positions were opened to women just to fill the ranks. Even then, the force was called “hollow” because there simply weren’t enough new recruits each year joining up.

Since then, the Army has reduced to half its former size and the US population has grown. The other services too had greatly diminished. So now there are enough willing male volunteers to go around. This is especially true when something important happens like 9-11. The 10-15% female rate may be as big as it gets because that is all the female population willing to do it. That does nothing to diminish the enthusiasm those women may have for their careers or their self-belief that the Army can’t get along without them.

>“10-15% female rate”

That number is way too low.

We need 50 50 in the marines and the airforce at once!

America is sexist lie.

Power to the people!

Power to women!

“You guys make some good points about the problems that may come up with female and male soldiers being in the same combat unit. I notice that part of the problem doesn’t seem to be the women themselves, but the men. I guess it would be too much to ask for male soldiers to just think of female soldiers as any other soldier.”

Except they’re not “any other soldier”, they’re about half as strong and they bleed from their vaginas every month,causing them to go insane from hormones.

Yes, the problem is the women. You would probably prefer not to see it that way, but when they can’t even carry the same packs that the men do and march at the same speed or throw a grenade far enough to avoid blowing themselves, and likely, their squad up, the problem is the women.

That said, I say create separate corps for females and draft ‘em all. Send them directly out in front of the men and use them as human shields for the more capable soldiers,male or female.

There will be a lot less entitlement-minded women ,or the insane feminists who insist that there are no biological differences between the sexes will finally have to shut up for good, either way, it’s a win for us AND good for America.

Piece in Slate on women in combat, based on the Fort Hood story: http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2234862

Steezer,
Thanks for the link It’ll be interesting to see what other posters here think about the article.
———————

Mark,
Except they’re not “any other soldier”, they’re about half as strong and they bleed from their vaginas every month,causing them to go insane from hormones.

“Insane from hormones”…? I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I really think that sometimes you all over-exaggerate the whole hormone thing. Anyway, when you say that female soldiers aren’t any other soldier, it seems to me that you have this limited idea as to what you consider a soldier. Like a template if that makes sense. Because women have periods, they aren’t like “any other soldier”. Periods aren’t difficult to handle really, I should know. So if a guy has some type of minor medical issue that doesn’t interfere with his ability to serve his country, he is still like any other soldier? How do you define “any other soldier” anyway? If it’s based on strength and physical capabilities, then I see what you mean. However, if women still get the job done just fine, then I don’t see the big deal. They’re just like any other soldier to me.

Yes, the problem is the women. You would probably prefer not to see it that way, but when they can’t even carry the same packs that the men do and march at the same speed or throw a grenade far enough to avoid blowing themselves, and likely, their squad up, the problem is the women.

In this case, you have a point. I also think that separate corps is a good idea but not the draft since I’m already against the draft for men. One thing though, what would say about males soldiers who are perhaps weaker, or the weak links?
————————

About female soldiers and physical requirements compared to male soldiers. I don’t really see their requirements as a “downgrade” or less than. Maybe it’s because I know that men and women are biologically different, therefore it would be ridiculous to compare the two or expect women to fulfill the same physical requirements as men. What matters is if they get the job done. But that’s probably why some of you don’t think women should be in the front lines in the first place, so we come full circle.

”””””’Yes, I am well of aware of this, but though spatial skills are an indispensable asset on today’s battlefield, we cannot, now, fully anticipate what skill sets may be most beneficial to operating the technologies and employing the strategies of tomorrow.”””””””

Of course it can be anticipated future war will be just like a video game. Who is better at those?

Well words twice you would be happy to know that females are pretty much not allowed in the forward operating bases or the small shitty little camps with no amenities. I think it should change to equal numbers female and male even if the females job was just to hang out in the base and have some pussy readily available for the guys returning from their missions.

Gunslingergregi: “… you would be happy to know that females are pretty much not allowed in the forward operating bases or the small shitty little camps with no amenities. “

I only encountered females at larger FOBs and one female Army soldier got on the wrong convey and ended up at our very primitive camp looking very lost and confused.

Gunslingergregi: “… if the females job was just to hang out in the base and have some pussy readily available for the guys returning from their missions.”

That is what brothels are for. They shouldn’t be wearing a uniform. Here is another opportunity for contractors!

Gunslingergregi: “Hell from what I saw minorities weren’t allowed either. All the convoys I saw ready to go out or basically whole camps where all white males.”

This is slightly off topic but I will say that I agree with you to an extent. I recall some race hustlers claiming that war casualties disproportionately effected minorities (i.e African-Americans) but the truth is that the majority of combat arms casualties are white. African-Americans made up a very small minority of personnel in the Marine infantry units I served in. The Marine infantry, in my experience, is disproportionately white and Hispanic.

The marines and the air/navy fighters need to be integrated now!

It is sexist and cruel to not do so!

By the way, here is a news story that is apropos:

Senators Demand General Rescind Order on Pregnant Soldiers

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/general-backs-off-threat-court-martial-pregnant-soldiers/story?id=9399604

The problem seems to be that vets don’t generally look at writing as a man’s job. Too bad — it used to be just that.

- Welmer

That might be because there were a lot of veterans in older generations of men generally, not just writers. Because of conscription, there was a time when it was unusual to meet someone who hadn’t served in the military in some capacity. Nowadays, veterans are almost looked at as curiosities in many places.

I used to enjoy Asa Baber’s writing at Playboy. He wrote a lot of things that would be completely at home here at this site.

There seems to be no shortage of men writing about their combat experiences and, actually, I have mixed feelings about that.

Of course more men would have the opportunity to serve also.