Women in combat

[RB TexLa]

Since another post got nothing about this, maybe a poll.

[dylan33]

1. They should restrict

I believe this because I am an old fashioned guy that thinks they should be protected. Do I think that they could do the job and assignment? Yes I do every bit as good as men.

[USMA Dem]

2. Women do serve in combat

There are so many MOSs open to females. Some such as Aviation are considered combat arms of which women are just as good or better than their male counterparts.


When it comes to MOS's such as Infantry, Armor and Ground Intel/HUMINT then no, I don't think females should.

[beam me up scottie]

13. And why shouldn't we? n/t

[One_Life_To_Give]

28. Have heard issues concerning trenching

Have heard issues concerning trenching and building other fortifications.

For units where digging in their own fortifications and where hand to hand combat is likely. There should be only one requirement for physical fittness and it should be set very high.

[beam me up scottie]

33. Oh bullshit.

"Issues" is right.

Anyone who thinks women don't even deserve the CHANCE to prove they're qualified definitely has issues.

[One_Life_To_Give]

41. Who said anything about not giving a chance?

What I said was some specialties require a higher standard of physical strength.

If you can't handle quickly building fortifications using sandbags, trenching and the like. Then you don't belong in units where it is probable that will be required. Likewise for units with a high probability of hand to hand combat.

[alarimer]

23. We don't need or want your protection

that is a very sexist attitude. Not old-fashioned, sexist.

[Kerrytravelers]

39. I don't need to be protested, thank you.

I'm quite a little firecracker on my own. However, if you ever need protection, just let me know. I can be pretty scary.

[haele]

3. If you deploy with women, there are no "non-combat" areas -

Especially with the rise of guerrilla or "terrorist" tactics. There is no such thing as a "Mabelline Line" where the chance of getting being attacked is nil. And the old practice of cutting combat pay for all troops within a certain range of wherever women were deployed really hurt morale and caused more harassment problems than the current practice of just accepting that women could end up in combat at any possible time.

Anyone with any ability to research can find military women in combat situations throughout the history of women wearing uniforms. Women who were P.O.W's, women who were killed or injured in combat, women who ran the same risks men did in various non-combatant "support" positions, who would find that "the line" they were supposed to be far behind suddenly over-ran them with a vengeance.

If the women can't be trained for the possibility of combat, how can you expect them to be anything other than expendable victims that degrade unit cohesiveness because they can't "fight" with their unit? Why would you even let them in the military to begin with if you won't recognize that they were part of an organization that engages in combat?

Every time this question comes up, I wonder about all the uniformed men who were forced to go into combat who were not mentally - or the less common instance, not physically - capable of being under fire. The ones who break and screw up the mission or commit war crimes, the ones who screw up and get themselves and their buddies killed or captured.

Brains, awareness and courage are just as important a quality in combat as physical prowess. Leadership does not come from muscles, it comes from brains.

It should be more important that a person, man or woman, be physically and mentally capable of doing the job. If they aren't capable, don't select them do the job.

Haele

[BlooInBloo]

5. And that's a change from *what* exactly?

[haele]

16. Currently, it's a change from very little.

There are very few billets that women can't apply for in the military. Submarine Duty and Special Forces are about the only billets I can think of off hand.

I enlisted in the Navy in 1977 and retired in 1998. There was a whole "sea change" as it were in attitudes towards women in the military during that time. When I signed up, I was severely restricted in the training, the billets - heck - the career path I was able to apply for.
In 1977, Military Women were only supposed to apply for:
Stateside or Staff (Nato, Pac or Lant Fleet, etc)Communications
Administration
Stateside or Staff Medical
Stateside or Staff Supply/Logistics.
Stateside or Staff Technical Support (including motor pool and other mechanic positions)
Stateside Training or Survey Teams

Women were not allowed on any sort of unit deployments that could possibly include "Combat Status" - which in the Navy, meant that women could not be on any ship other than Oceanic Survey, Fleet Tugs or Barges.

In 1979, it changed slightly. Women were allowed in "Non-Combatant" deployable units, including Quartermaster units that were close to the front or Tender Ships that could pull up alongside a damaged Combat Ship that couldn't make it to a safe port. (In fact, my first unit was a ship that was an R & D formerly not available to women.)
Women were still not allowed to serve in combat status, which meant that if a unit with women assigned to it went into a combat zone, everyone within that zone suddenly lost combat status. We called it "the Maybelline Line"; and it sucked big time during the Iran/Iraq issue and the first Gulf "War" (as well as Grenada and other little Reganite activities like Panama). Men and women who became injured or killed were not considered injured or killed in combat, even if the damage was done by what would normally be considered combat action. Men and women could not draw "combat pay" even if they came under fire and had to return fire to protect their base or unit position.
Because of this; by 1993, women were being allowed to serve in a form of "modified" combat status - basically, they were allowed to serve in any unit that are considered to serve sort of a half-and half/either-or mix of peace-time and combat purposes - Infantry and Cavalry units, "Combatant" ships, air wings, MIUW/UDT, Sea-Bees etc.
Submarines are out - and that is due to fear of sexual harassment because of the extremely close restricted quarters and long deployment missions with little shore leave to serve as a release and Special Forces (Rangers, SEALS, "Delta Force" et all) are currently out because those units are considered completely combatant.

So your question really is? What?

Should women be allowed to apply for any billet available and compete fully with men; qualified person gets the billet?
Or should women lose what serves as "combat" status and we should return to the fiction of the 1980's where men were punished if women showed up to do their jobs and women were in serious jeopardy if their position was over-run?
Or that women should just not be allowed to join the military in the future and any still in should be removed from any deployed unit and kept stateside until their time is up?


These three positions are basically the purest breakdown of various policies concerning women in the military. I can understand that a lot of guys "get distracted" when there are women around; heck, a lot of women get distracted when there are a lot of men around.

Another opinion many people have is that actual billets are physically "downgraded" so that women can compete with men.
In my experience, if a woman can't perform to the actual requirements of any particular billet, she doesn't get in or she gets transferred as quickly as possible. Same with any man who can't make the requirements. No commander would risk his or her unit with a man or a woman who can't do the job and pull their weight, and most commanders do not have holding positions that they can drop slackers in until they shape up.
Now, there are billets within units that don't require as much of a particular mental or physical strength that a generic structure-wide requirement may have. Again, historically, in combat or pre-combat situations - physical and mental strengths complement themselves; a smaller, weaker, smarter person is just as important in combat as a larger, stronger person. You have your "tanks" and your "runners". There are very few "uber-people" around and most of them tend to be put in leadership positions.
However, the US military structure allows for a unit to continue on even if their leader is down, so all soldiers/sailors are required to be flexible and to rely on their particular individual strengths and leadership potential to take over in any emergency situation.
One of the few halfway true, even if it was sarcastic, things said by our former SECDEF was "you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you want". You work with the strengths you have on hand, not with what you fantasize you can have. (What, add a few steroids, a few brain meds, some cybernetics, and you too can develop a couple divisions of "sooper troopers"?)
There aren't enough "men" to go around. You want to be combat ready, you have to include women.


When the bullets start flying and the mortars start coming in, gender doesn't matter one bit. You aren't thinking of sex of any type - even "survival" sex, despite what the movies and TV suggest. You're thinking of "your ass" and then "your buddy". Most men with combat experience I know would no more wait for the woman than the man showing panic or dithering in a foxhole while under fire, no matter how "gentlemanly" or "chivalrous" they are.

In combat or emergency situations, it's all about the training and the ability to stay calm and smart. Not about the gender.

Haele

[Marnieworld]

dupe

sorry. :hi:

[Marnieworld]

26. My hubby is a Patriot Guard rider

One of the funerals he attended was for a 21 year old woman. She died when an IED hit her barracks in Iraq. In our modern wars every area a soldier is deployed is a combat area IMO. So I concur with your point.

[TahitiNut]

37. Yep. In a year in Nam, I never saw or heard of a job a woman couldn't do.

One of the reasons women aren't conscripted is because the draft was created before women even had the vote. I guess some people want to go back to those days - when those with money could even buy a replacement.

EVERYONE is eligible equally. Make, female, gay, straight, black, brown, white, whatever. Everyone.

The stupid notion that there are "combat" and "non-combat" roles is hogwash - there are no "front lines" and anyone can get killed ... or do the killing. For the combat arms specialties - qualified is qualified and gender has nothing to do with it.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Any who can perform necessary duties should be permitted, any who can't, not.

I've never totally understood the rationale(s) for any other opinion on (typical situations involving) this issue.

[beam me up scottie]

6. I understand it all too well.

They use it to keep us separate and unequal.

It's high time they got rid of ALL of the intolerance in the military.

Homosexuals should be allowed to honorably serve their country without being forced to live a lie and women should be able to compete for the same billets as their male counterparts.

[BlooInBloo]

9. lol! I don't consider bigotry to be a 'rationale' - it's rather the opposite to me....

So while I agree with you, it doesn't help my lack-of-understanding that I mentioned.

[beam me up scottie]

11. To me as well.

I don't understand it myself, but that is what's behind it.

I was told many times that women didn't belong in the Corps.

[Cleita]

7. I didn't see your other post but since where combat happens

women are often there. Perhaps they should be able to have some training to know what to do.

[TheBaldyMan]

8. Women are currently serving in combat posts.

Pilots, medics and MPs all have to be exposed to enemy fire. Women MPs are needed at checkpoints to perform body searches on other women. They are especially vulnerable because of manpower shortages in MP units. They are constantly out on duty.

Do you mean combat arms like cavalry, artilliery and infantry as well as the USMC?

[cboy4]

10. As long as the person (male or female) demonstrates they can handle

the duties, there should absolutely NOT be restrictions.

What is this, 1927?

[unsavedtrash]

12. hell no.

I will be so happy when these kinds of questions are no longer considered.
restrict. shit. :grr: :nuke:

[GreenTea]

14. !

[GreenTea]

15. If they want to install a draft, they better include women...Let's see then

how popular a draft will be, with daddy's little girl as eligible as well, they should be, if a draft is indeed the case they will try to enforce.

Don't forget about the boys!

[DURHAM D]

27. Better not include women in that draft -

the equal rights amendment was defeated (a decade after the draft had already ceased)on the grounds that if we ever have a draft again it would mean that women would be subject to call.


Pass the ERA and then you can draft women.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Get the draft going

[lukasahero]

17. Until we stop "voting" on what women should be "allowed" to do

we will never be equal.

[sweetheart]

18. equal treatment, and no combat

Why is anyone being enslaved to combat? What a waste of life.

[The2ndWheel]

20. Because we need a standing army

that will be used again and again, no matter how many anti-war people protest?

If the US military wasn't the world's #1 military, someone else would be, and they would have priority in how the global economy works?

There might be a few other reasons, I'll get back to you.

[sweetheart]

32. breaking people

Its not the army i'm on about, the reason i never joined it, rather, that a load of crude
wodgers in boot camp are tasked with breaking and remolding people in to a sort of slave
fighter. Its not samurai, its gross... not impressive, the sort of thing that regularly rapes
young girls in okinawa, nothing remotely impressive, not defending our shores either, just
enslaved to abuse.

[porphyrian]

19. If you're hard enough to shoot women, you're hard enough to fight with them. - n/t

[Bad Penny]

21. war is hell enough without listening to a woman screaming

in the next foxhole with her guts ripped out. I know I couldn't handle that. Most men are instictively programmed to protect females. We'd lose our minds watching them get shot to bits. Plus, women are adamant men do not hit them under any circumstances, how will they en masse appreciate being shot by them? It's a concept not battle tested and I guarantee you if there's ever a full scale co-ed Bastogne scenario, there would a breakdown for several reasons. Soviet women in WW2 were a special breed created by witnessing German atrocities on their civilian population and the desperate necessity to fight alongside their men to make up numbers. Unless America is ever invaded and brutalized in the same manner American women should not be in combat. There's got to be a line somewhere. I'm all for women doing anything else in life.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Having gotten shot at

you are really selling woman short

Men break down, women break down

WAR is hell.

Get over it

[Bad Penny]

29. I'm not even under it

[boolean]

30. LOL!

Yeah, all that caterwauling would really get on my nerves. :sarcasm:

:rofl:

[beam me up scottie]

34. I thought I heard oinking.

[Greyhound]

22. If we're going to send any of our kids off to die in someone else's battles

the women should be free to take part if they want to, although why they would is beyond me.

[noonwitch]

25. Women should serve in whatever way they are qualified to

but no women should be drafted, if the draft ever returns, unless ERA is passed.

[Nabia2004]

35. What about that "PMS" time of the month?

Seriously, do they screen for females that become psycho once a month? Or the ones that suffer from lack of focus making use of heavy equipment too dangerous?

Or are these gals that I have been working with faking it?

Don't attack me for asking, it just that I have met females on the job that, one way or the other, scare the hell out of me at their time of the month.

:hide:

How do I know if they were on their period? For some reason most have the compulsion to share that bit of personal news with their coworkers.

:shrug:

[TahitiNut]

38. When they're riding the cotton pony, they're in the cavalry.

:silly:

[tinfoil tiaras]

36. This is so selfish, but

I'm kinda glad they don't draft women, because, if the draft ever gets reinstated and I'm 18-22, I don't wanna be drafted. But thats the difference between me and the chickenhawks. They for the shit going on and I'm not. And if they're for it and they're of eligible age, they should get their ass over there and fight for their own damn war.

If women did get drafted somehow, I'm not hesitant to say that I would try to move to canada.

[Grebrook]

40. When we eventually get into a war with China, trust me, we'll need all the fresh bodies we can find