Women in Combat

Townhall.com ^ | February 6, 2013 | Walter E. Williams

[Boonie]

When DoD suggests that allowing women in combat roles is “leveling the playing field” they are comparing combat to a game...

A GAME???????????????

What is WRONG with these imbeciles???????

[bolobaby]

I was born with a blue cord on my shoulder, and retired with one, but...

I spent a short time in a Medium Girder Bridge unit with the engineers. In the 1990s, the unit picked up women in the mess, maintenance, and administrative sections of the company. One day, they came out to a bridge build in order to “try it out.” They grabbed the carrying handles and went over to a top panel - one of the lightest pieces on the site.

“Le ho, heave!”

Up went the top panel to knee level... for about half a second. Down went the top panel with a thud. They got it off the ground but immediately set it back down. Too heavy.

Everyone laughed.

On a REAL bridge build, the men often have to lift those top panels over their heads and hold them there until the chute bolts are put into place. Women can not do that. After I left that unit, it’s my understanding that the bridging sections finally got women. Their job on EVERY bridge site: PIN MAN. The *easy* job that everyone wants because it doesn’t involve lifting any bridge sections.

So much for a level playing field.

[PLMerite]

"Females I served with that were MP’s did what was expected of them - but to go after the 11B MOS - none of them wanted it nor would they have sought it out..."

Just because you don't seek out 11B doesn't mean it won't find you...

[Aevery_Freeman]

Not at all.

Energy production - love my electricity and gasoline: power without poop
Public education - progressives,not Christians: not guilty
Obama Care - see above
Farming - our biggest health problem is obesity not starvation
Defense Industry - the envy of the world!
Banking - double entry accounting allowed for the exploration (exploitation) of the entire world.
etc. Medicine, computers, TV's - Love 'em.

White Guys (used to) Rule

[Chainmail]

I suspect that there is an additional factor with this: fewer and fewer qualified males are signing up to serve their country. The services have had to make extraordinary changes to fill billets with women and older male candidates. It used to be that it was considered a rite of passage and a citizen's responsibility to serve a few years in uniform, particularly if a war was in progress. During Vietnam, we began to see this reverse with a majority of American males looking for deferments, dodging and hiding (Rush had butt cysts). I remember some darn woman yelling at me after I got back from Vietnam that she'd "never let her son join the Marines". I said "Ma'am, when I joined the Marines I didn't ask my Mom. When your son's a man, he won't ask you either".

Now those same dodgers and hiders are in positions of power and their children aren't serving either. The pool of parents supporting their children's enlistment is growing smaller all the time and the services are struggling to find the best available - since, contrary to mythology, only smart, fit, well-educated men perform well in the combat arms.

The bottom of the barrel will be visible soon as fewer and fewer top-quality volunteers will be available. We'd better hope that combat robots become available soon.

[Mr Rogers]

I have a hard time imagining a mixed sex battalion pulling off something like the Inchon landing, or invading a North Korea backed by the Chinese. I asked one person if they could imagine a battalion of 100% women making a landing at D-Day. I was told combat had changed.

That is a big part of the problem - the idiots think combat is a video game!

[USAF80]

We'd better hope that combat robots become available soon.

They have already spent millions to make this a possibility. Our combat troops are basically pack mules. The know that women can't hump the load. They have robotic mules and other stuff that they are testing. The issue they are having is portable power. A real mule just need some grass and water. A robotic one requires a power source that we have not invented yet. All fantasy on their part.

I never had to wear full combat gear but I had to wear all the protective gear, flak vest, helmet, LBE and chem gear, and that sh!t is heavy. I weighed 50lbs extra without the chem gear.

[jpsb]

I am also certain opening up the military to openly homosexual men did wonders for retention and recruitment. /s

[USAF80]

The economy is bad so no issues with retention or recruitment. Time will tell on those. Whatever negatives effects happen will be covered up or not reported for years. They are hoping that all us homophobes die off by then.

[jpsb]

Sans using weapons of mass destruction and just killing everyone, boots on the ground win wars always have, always will.

[G Larry]

You’re missing my point!

This is the infrastructure BO is KILLING!!

Not “keeping”!

[jpsb]

I find that surprising, I could see that being true in the USAF, yall have nice quarters. but USA and USMC not so much.

[Chainmail]

Robots will eventually take up all combat roles. Human reactions are too slow/can’t take Gs/have families. We are looking at only the beginning edges of this evolution with telecommanded devices (like drones). Autonomous devices will follow before long, as soon as the software catches up. We don’t have a lot of choices - we will not get enough volunteers, we have become too casualty-averse, and we have to get this developed before our adversaries do.

[USAF80]

True, the new AF standard is everyone will have their own room. The most you would have to share is a bathroom. No issue with a flamer or dyke sharing. The only time you would share is at a deployed location.

[USAF80]

I, Robot.

One software glitch or virus and war over. Computer chips can’t replace the 3lb shoulder mounter computer.

[BCW]

Last time I was a commander over a training CO (2005 Ft Knox) - I started seeing that...and actually - since you brought that up — I was conducting range op’s for the M16A2 - and it had rained - and the firing positions were full of water - and out of the soldiers coming through that week...I was asked by the COL who showed determination and stood out as a soldier — there was only one I could think of - a female that once in the water never moved - laid there - and finished her entire firing course until done - everyone else was either laying to the side or would get up between lanes....

Which goes back to my other comment - as an MP - females I served with in combat (Iraq 03-04) - did what everyone else was doing,...one that I served with in FT Leonard Wood lost her arm from a RPG...perhaps the 11B series is on the brink of collapse due to no one wanting it - or no those that sign up are far from ever achieving it...

[BCW]

Lately - we are not in the business of winning anything...

Iraq has fallen back into a roller coaster civil war...and Afghanistan will as well...those two campaigns would have been better had we gone in level their infrastructure and then set-up operations that monitored what they did — kinda like playing babysitter with a heavily armed FOB and a US Carrier sitting outside...but winning wasn’t part of the plan over there...why we wasted our time and money to reconstruct I have no idea...plus the lives lost, both civilian & military, was highly unacceptable...we have move away from wars like WW II - Korea...those days are gone...

[ansel12]

You write good posts on this topic, but of all the non serving conservatives, why choose one with a medical deferment instead of the fit ones who clearly wanted to avoid service, people like Santorum, or Romney, or Michael Medved, or Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Beck, etc?

[ansel12]

Why mention the loss of an arm as a defense to weaken the military by replacing men with females?

[Chainmail]

Ah Ansel12 my Buddy - I agree; we had way too many avoiders who claim to be conservatives now and some actually deign to try to make defense policy! My particular focus is my war, Vietnam. It was the watershed: we had some folks avoiding Korea but not the droves we had during Vietnam.

Glenn Beck was a bit too young - he was 1 year old when I went into boot camp. Michael Medved is the right age to have gone but Hugh Hewitt was a bit too old for even the earliest part of the war. Mitt Romney is another avoider - we didn't very many Mormons (or Seventh Day Adventists or Jehova's Witnesses) in the Marines that I knew. There are a lot of others too - good 'ol "I had better things o do" Dick Cheney and many, many others. I pick on Rush because he talks a good game but when the country really needed tough men, he got his doctor to help him get out of the draft with Pilonidal cysts, something that easily treatable. In my own case, I had a broken back (discovered during my boot camp physical) thanks to a motorcycle wreck but I still joined because that was the thing we did back then. I have trouble with some guy that wants to speak for me but found some lame excuse to get other people to fight in his place (which includes Mitt).

I didn't bring up any Democrats because it is usually big surprise when the join. I'm not at all bitter, but the guys who were in Vietnam or supporting the war by serving elsewhere during that period are the finest people in the world. The ones that stayed home are what they are.