As Qualified Men Dwindle, Military Looks For A Few Good Women

kdlg.org ^ | March 25, 2013 | Tom Bowman

[binreadin]

“Name another country that is putting women in front line combat positions. And Isreal doesn’t count. We are not surrounded by insane muslims determined to eliminate us.”

I have it on good authority from someone close to me who spent some time there that Israel does have female snipers, but they no longer put women in combat positions because the female body breaks down over the stress of the physical exertion required.

[BruceS]

Here is the key comment from the article: And then there's the question of whether women who apply can meet the tough physical standards for ground combat. Dempsey and other military leaders will soon review the training program. He said some existing standards — which include everything from pull-ups to carrying heavy loads — need to be revised.

As I said earlier on another thread:

I spent 3-1/2 years as an Armor officer in a tank unit back in the late 70s, then spent another 17 years in the Army Reserve. Being an Armor crewman is a physically demanding job. Just riding around in a tank is not the entire job. As an example, to load ammunition into an M-60 tank, you had to have one crewman on the ground lifting each round as a dead weight from the ground over his head to hand it to another crewman who was squatting on the side of the tank. That crewman then had to stand and lift the round over his head and hand it to a third crewman in the turret, who had to stoop down and put it in the rack. Not a job for weaklings.

Then there was changing a track - a job for four strong men.

Are there women who could do this? Probably. But there aren’t many.

This doesn’t even begin to address the pysical demands of being in the field (not to mention combat) for weeks at a time. Men begin to break down, even when physically conditioned.

Again, are there women who can stand up to this? Probably, but not enough to make a difference.

The only way this will work is if they lower the standards - and that is what they are going to do. Some poor tank crew is going to be saddled with a woman, who will stand “guard” while they do the heavy lifting. Then when they get shipped into combat, she will either physically break down, get pregnant, mentally break down, or some other variant. It happens to men (except the pregnant part, of course), but will happen to women quicker.

This isn’t to say that women don’t belong in the military. I served with many women who were terrific soldiers - but not in Infantry, not Armor and definitely not Special Forces.

Our military is getting weaker by the day.

Thanks to all of you who felt they had to not vote or vote third party - you are part of the problem.