When the Pharaoh wants your opinion, he'll give it to you.
Posted on 01/29/2013 6:57:35 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, announced last week that the Pentagon was lifting the policy that had barred women from specific combat roles. But Marines who have served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan – myself included – worry that the decision did not take the opinions of infantrymen into account.
Being an infantryman isn’t just about uncomfortable living situations. It’s kill or be killed, blood, entrails and fear. We are a brotherhood; a collection of ragtag men who hunt and kill the enemy and travel to undesirable places to do even more undesirable things. Maybe women can join the infantry and succeed, but many of us are not sure. There’s more at stake here than equal opportunity and political correctness.
“It’s the worst decision that the military could make,” Marine Staff Sgt. Alex Reyes, who has deployed twice to both Afghanistan and Iraq, told me. “I haven’t met an infantry Marine, from senior leadership to lower levels, that has been in agreement with the change and that’s going to cause major problems when it is implemented. Even females I talk to think it’s a crazy idea – completely off the wall.”
“They’re fighting and they’re dying together,” he said during a Jan. 24 news conference. “The time has come for our policies to recognize that reality.”
Though the issue had been studied by the services, many Marines feel the policy change was rash and, despite promises of equal standards from officials, worry that those standards will be lowered to make it possible for women to get into front-line units.
(Excerpt) Read more at atwar.blogs.nytimes.com ...
When the king wants your opinion, he'll give it to you.
I don’t mind the question being looked at, if there is zero political interference on the question. Thanks to technological advances, it is a reasonable question to ask if there are military positions that can now be filled by women that could not before.
But it has to be the military that does the assessment and politicians need to keep their mouths shut.
How would you like an all women squad on your left flank as you were attacking the enemy?
There is no currently used technology that makes females remotely as capable as men when it comes to humping 200+ pounds of gear, body armor and weaponry in nasty countries full of nasty thuggith people and shooting/blowing apart said thugs. Thugs that would like nothing better than to get their feral hands on some small 110 pound American woman thought she could handle combat.
If you stepped on an IED and got your legs blown off, would you want to rely on a woman half your size and weight and 30% of your body strength to drag you, under fire, to safety? This whole thing is bullsh!t, politically correct insanity.
In a truly culturally sensitive and non-sexist American military the women’s role would be to torture captives like the Indian women did.
To death, slowly and horribly.
I said it was a reasonable question to ask, in light of technological changes that have happened in the military. It was not a supportive position, if it was not feasible.
I also said that this was for the military to determine, and only the military. Politicians need to stay out of it, that is my position.
Having females in combat with men is nothing less than deliberately introducing ambiguity to your strength. It’s a sin of the highest order in the Art of War.
Any military officer who does not vehemently object is incompetent and should be immediately removed from our fighting forces.
Having women in combat with men? There’s actually nothing reasonable about the question. Nothing.
With or without PMS?
However, being able to fill some positions and not others is in itself a deficiency. If males are able to fill all positions and females only some, by introducing females to the equation, you are degrading your group by reducing your options.
I’ll say it again. I’ll laugh at the liberal obama worshippers when they start crying because their daughters are drafted and assigned to an infantry unit.
the day women can compete in men’s sports, ie: the NFL, and perform equally is the day I’ll reconsider whether or not it makes sense
hell, allow men into women’s baseball or women’s football and we’ll see how they fare
The Soviets in WW2 had women snipers ,which is a very specialized,and limited role.
>>>The Soviets in WW2 had women snipers ,which is a very specialized,and limited role.<<<
It was about sitting for weeks in a bog or climbing sewers and air systems in bombed out cities preying for careless Nazis, stupid enough to hang in the open. A few men could handle a job, thus it is not that demanding in terms of physical strength. Women are better than men in terms of wish for survival and making things done to accomplish it. They are more patient, accurate and careful. It has something with maternal instinct. Their bodies are more durable in terms of hypothermia.
And don’t get fooled with womens’ whining. It is a tool of manipulation to make males work for them. As soon as there are no males around to help them out they won’t whine.
Hasn’t one ever divorced here? How was it going? Who was a predator at the time? I guess you got what I mean.
All of the above doesn’t make women good soldiers for 95% of combat situations.
Are they raging like my daughters, one week a month. Put a rifle in their hands and have at ‘me.
Are they raging like my daughters, one week a month. Put a rifle in their hands and have at ‘em.
I disagree ... I believe that statement is wrong. Quite the contrary, in fact.
The demonicRats know full well that the Grunts (Army or Marine, Private to General) are against it. They know full well that their decision is detrimental to the effectiveness of the American military.
THAT is why Barackula the Destroyer is so much in favor of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.