[dark_lord]

Do any of them have to do with the ability to march long distances, and sometimes run, while carrying a 60 lb. pack, and then engage the enemy in a fight to the death? And then carry a wounded buddy on your back for a couple of miles?

And when did most of the US military have to be able to meet those standards? Back circa 1918. Today, maybe 25% of the military are infantry grunts of some type or otherwise need those strength and endurance skills (like navy bomb loaders). The rest are techs, tweeks, and clerks. Which women can handle.

[mrustow]

I hope you're really young. Because women have worked for generations as clerks and such, through female military branches which never sought to perpetrate the fiction that the military could be gender-integrated. but youth is no excuse for having strong opinions on a subject, without doing any of your homework. Facts are helpful things.

[CheneyChick]

Thank you.

[timm22]

Back circa 1918. Today, maybe 25% of the military are infantry grunts of some type or otherwise need those strength and endurance skills (like navy bomb loaders). The rest are techs, tweeks, and clerks. Which women can handle.

Even clerks and technicians face the possibility of seeing combat, particularly in a world where low-intensity conflicts and terrorism are more common. This means that even a pencil pusher has to meet certain physical abilities.

I don't think those abilities necessarily have to match those of an infantry soldier, but everyone in the military has to at least be able to run long distances without getting winded, be able to carry a heavy object for a long period of time, etc. Their life (or the lives of their comrades) could depend on it one day.

[DMZFrank]

Your arguement assumes that this military will always be able to defeat an enemy with the forces already in place. It ignores the possibility of a tough, resolute, and capable enemy cabable of bogging us down and inflicting significant numbers of casualties. This might necessitate press ganging infantry and other combat arms replacements from other specialties, as was the case with the Army's ASTP soldiers in WWII. With the female 15% officially non-deployable in most critical combat arms MOS's, this does not bode well for such an eventuality.

I certainly hope that our military supremacy will continue to make such a reality moot. But I think it unwise to expect that it will always be thus and not recognize the threat to combat readiness that a large number of women, who are trained to a differential standard of physical fitness represent.

[SauronOfMordor]

Today, maybe 25% of the military are infantry grunts of some type or otherwise need those strength and endurance skills (like navy bomb loaders). The rest are techs, tweeks, and clerks. Which women can handle.

Right up to the point where the rear area suddenly becomes the front line. Or when the bad guys detonate a truck bomb right in front of the HQ. Then all the "techs, tweeks, and clerks" have to either grab rifles or help drag the wounded to safety after lifting large chunks of concrete off them.

I'm a "tech". I'm a "tweek". I'm grey-haired, pot-bellied, and way out of shape compared to the average male Army grunt. But I'm also 6'4, 220lbs, which means that I could function as a grunt if I really need to, far better than a 100 lbs girl can.