Do US women belong in the thick of the fighting?

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 5/29/05 | Brad Knickerbocker

[apackof2]

As a female I feel that 'feminism" has actually set women back.

Absolutely, we are still suffering the consquences

[Pistol]

Audie Murphy Biography

He wanted to join the Marines, but he was too short. The paratroopers wouldn't have him either. Reluctantly, he settled on the infantry, enlisting to become nothing less than one of the most-decorated heroes of World War II. He was Audie Murphy, the baby-faced Texas farmboy who became an American Legend.Murphy grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Hunt County, Texas. Left at a very young age to help raise 10 brothers and sisters when his father deserted their mother, Audie was only 16 when his mother died. He watched as his brothers and sisters were doled out to an orphanage or to relatives.
Seeking an escape from that life in 1942, he looked to the Marines.War had just been declared and, like so many other young men, Murphy lied about his age in his attempt to enlist. but it was not his age that kept him out of the Marines; it was his size. Not tall enough to meet the minimum requirements, he tried to enlist in the paratroopers, but again was denied entrance.  Despondent, he chose the infantry.
Following basic training Murphy was assigned to the 15th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa preparing to invade Sicily. It was there in 1943 that he first saw combat, proving himself to be a proficient marksman and highly skilled soldier, consistently his performance demonstrated how well he understood the techniques of small-unit action. He landed at Salerno to fight in the Voltuno river campaign and then at Anzio to be part of the Allied force that fought its way to Rome. Throughout these campaigns, Murphy's skills earned him advancements in rank, because many of his superior officers were being transferred, wounded or killed. After the capture of Rome, Murphy earned his first decoration for gallantry.
Shortly thereafter his unit was withdrawn from Italy to train for Operation Anvil-Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. During seven weeks of fighting in that successful campaign, Murphy's division suffered 4,500 casualties, and he became one of the most decorated men in his company. But his biggest test was yet to come.
On Jan. 26, 1945, near the village of Holtzwihr in eastern France, Lt. Murphy's forward positions came under fierce attack by the Germans. Against the onslaught of six Panzer tanks and 250 infantrymen, Murphy ordered his men to fall back to better their defenses. Alone, he mounted an abandoned burning tank destroyer and, with a single machine gun, contested the enemy's advance. Wounded in the leg during the heavy fire, Murphy remained there for nearly an hour, repelling the attack of German soldiers on three side and single-handedly killing 50 of them. His courageous performance stalled the German advance and allowed him to lead his men in the counterattack which ultimately drove the enemy from Holtzwihr. For this Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for gallantry in action.
By the war's end, Murphy had become the nation's most-decorated soldier, earning an unparalleled 28 medals, including three from France and one from Belgium. Murphy had been wounded three times during the war, yet, in May 1945, when victory was declared in Europe, he had still not reached his 21st birthday.

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You appear to be as bitter as I once was. I'm sorry for your bad experiences but the sooner you let go of them, the better your life will be. I know. (:>]

[Fog Nozzle]

My point is not that I don't want women in the clubhouse, my point is the clubhouse should be open to all with no double standards.

[rlmorel]

Thank you.

I have found that is is one of those subjects like abortion. People don't seem to be able to discuss it rationally, we all seem to get carried off with emotion.

If you take the contrarian view that women should not be in active combat, you get labeled as a misogynist, a sexist, a fossil, a dinosaur, an insecure guy, a woman hater and so on.

As I said earlier...I have nothing but the utmost respect for women whom I have worked for, as well as the women in my life, in particular, my wife, my mother and my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law, who is a major league liberal, would disagree with me on this point. She often baits me, but that said, I respect the job she did raising her children.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

MikeinIraq: "What the author is questioning is whether women should even be in Iraq and maybe even the military altogether."

skylark68: "I think you're right. The author seems to have an agenda that he doesn't really want to reveal."

Nothing riles me up faster than a hack writer playing coy with a hidden agenda.

[KateatRFM]

I don't think I would be as bitter as I am if I had any indication that men and even boys were coming around to the idea that 'girls' can't be kept out of the hurly-burly of daily life and relegated to secretarial work and staying home raising children or teaching or nursing. (Battlefield nursing is going to take them to the front lines, by the way, and they won't be armed either; any of you anti-woman boys want to comment on that?) Just get over the idea that men get a vote at all on whether or not the 'ladies' are capable of functioning as full fledged human beings; that question has been settled in the West, and it's time we all moved on.

I'm not in favour of women getting into all the mens' clubs, but I am definitely in favour of one standard for everyone and an end to the continuing whine that 'girls' don't belong here, there or anywhere due only to the fact that they are 'girls'. After 40 years and two generations I would have thought this stupid argument would have ended by now.

[Gunrunner2]

>>So what would you 2 want to replace said females in the military? The draft?<<

That would open a whole new can of worms, as the very day the first draft notice is received will be the first day of a lawsuit alleging discrimination against men.

And it is easy to envision judges mandating 50% of draft notices be sent to women, and it is easy to envision a lot of light-bulbs going on above the heads of "enlightened" people that support women in combat (I said combat, not "military").

[Gunrunner2]

Good point.

[MikefromOhio]

don't get me wrong, I do not support women in combat. I define combat as combat patrols, sweep and clear and manuvers of that sort.

that is the current Army policy I believe.

[rlmorel]

KateatRFM,

You wrote: "...relegated to secretarial work and staying home raising children or teaching or nursing..."

You have two of what SHOULD be regarded as the most critically important of professions in there, raising children and teaching, one of the most difficult, nursing, and one of the most indispensible and underrated, secretarial work.

In my opinion, the feminist movement has done a great, great disservice to women by belittling and marginalizing these occupations. Additionally, in the civilian world, if a woman is motivated, there is nothing she cannot do.

[Gunrunner2]

Gulf War I. . .spinning up to deploy. . .I was the Brigade ALO and waiting outside the S-3's office to talk about some issue. Inside the next office was a young, unmarried, very pregnant woman. She was crying. She was pleading with the first sgt to not be left behind. She cried, "Don't leave me, I will go to the hospital, I'll induce, I'll have a C-section. . ."

A "woman" wanting to have her baby delivered early, to have belly sliced open and her newborn left behind just so she could deploy for war. . .there is something fundamentally wrong about that. . .on many and all levels. . .ghastly.

[Gunrunner2]

"Weak Link" by Brian Mitchell. A great read for those that wish to become informed about the challenges of opening MOS' to women and compromises that were done to effect this change.

[Gunrunner2]

Yes. . .exactly.

[Gunrunner2]

>>Too bad. We're not going back into the kitchen and we've all got shoes these days, that we bought for ourselves.<<

I am woman hear me MEOW.





;-)

[Gunrunner2]

Want to talk about discrimination. . .be a young White male and see what that gets you.

[Gunrunner2]

Understood.

[iconoclast]

Our insane, anti-traditional, feminist culture (including Rumsfeld's Pentagon) has gone so far over the edge that I'm at the point where I don't give a sh!t anymore.

The only fight left is NOT to allow women to be drafted.

[Yasotay]

At least she wanted to go .... most of the women that got pregnant did it want not to deploy. Either way you are right, it is wrong on so many levels.

[DLfromthedesert]

Phyllis Schlafly has as article in today's Townhall.com suggesting that men might sign up in larger numbers if women were kept OUT of the combat zone.

[MikefromOhio]

I don't know if I really believe that or not....