Two wounded U.S. special ops forces rescued in Iraq

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - Two critically wounded U.S. special operations soldiers were rescued from the outskirts of Baghdad and evacuated to a hospital in Kuwait where they are expected to recover, military officials said on Wednesday.

A statement from the Combined Forces Air Component Command, which is overseeing the air war in Iraq from Saudi Arabia, described a dramatic effort in which rescue helicopters battled poor visibility and blowing sand and dust to complete the mission.

The combat search and rescue team -- a joint effort of the Air Force, the Army and special operations forces -- evacuated the two Army special operations soldiers on Monday from a location about five miles south of Baghdad.

The evacuation involved two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs launched from an airbase in southern Iraq, an HC-130P King refuler launched from an unnamed base in the Gulf region and two other A-10s already airborne on another mission.

Also involved was a Special Operations MC-130E Combat Talon I, which can land or airdrop on small, unmarked zones with pinpoint accuracy day or night.

Special operations forces have had an unusually large role in this war, although details of most of these missions have not been revealed.

The statement announcing the rescue operation did not explain how the two soldiers were wounded and a Pentagon spokesman could not provide any clarification.

"With half-mile visibility at best, a ceiling of 3,500 feet (1,065 metres) and fighting blowing sand and dust, the helicopters recovered the wounded and transferred them to the MC-130E at An Najaf," a city holy to Shi'ite Muslims 100 miles (160 km) south of Baghdad, the statement said.

The two soldiers were "then flown to a hospital in Kuwait where they were given a 95 percent chance of survival," it added.

Names of the wounded soldiers were not released pending notification of the the next of kin.

In the last day or so a couple of our A-10's got shot up pretty bad over Baghdad. One ditched, and later he, the pilot, was rescued. The other A-10 pilot managed to get the plane back to base.

HER ground crew, seeing the severe damage to HER plane, was surprised that SHE was able to get the plane back safely.

There may be reasons, good ones, why women should not be in combat positions. Lots of arguments either way on that issue. However, as you have aptly observed, that while you joined the Navy to go to sea, some MEN would cry about going out for 6 months. Let them stay home. Maybe they should be "Stay at home dads" and we can let their wives go to war.

I personally think that most women should not be in combat. I personally think that women are in great danger if we let them on board one of our Navy ships with a bunch of . . . to use your description of yourself . . . A-holes. I also personally object to women being given special treatment, special consideration that allows them to become firemen, cops, combat pilots or other positions and responsibilities where they might otherwise not qualify. That said, if I were there depending on an A-10 for support, SHE, the pilot flying the A-10 mentioned earlier, can fly cover for me anytime.

I'd hold off on assessing supposed HER heroic piloting skills. Unless her peers say she saved the jet, a crew chief's statements are nice but hardly validate her skills as a pilot.

And, BTW, the other pilot, the one shot down, why did you mention him? What possible reason did you bring up the fact he was shot down? Perhaps to infer SHE had some sort of skills HE did not?

The A-10 is a tremendous aircraft and one that is as ugly as it is dependable. If the guy ejected that would mean the jet was unflyable, not because he lacked any skills.

Therefore, you were in error to try and tie the two situations together.

As I've said before, in my 20-yrs plus experience in the USAF (T-37 FAIP, A-10, F-15E), the best female pilot I ever saw was "good." Not excellent, not outstanding, just good. And there is a reason for that. The reason is most all of the female pilots I saw affected a forced and fake bravado, you know, the Captain Janeway-type of persona. It was not natural for them, and they tried to make up for it by acting how they thought a warrior acted, not actually being a warrior.

Hollywood (among others) mock testosterone-driven macho warrior behavior of males, yet this behavior is natural aggression necessary to be a warrior. Those without natural aggression that comes with being a male have to ACT the part, not BE the part. BIG difference, and not all males have that high level of natural focused and disciplined aggression it takes to be a warrior.

This means those females that want to be fighter pilots can act the part, but they are frauds. They may be mean, they may be nasty, but they are not natural, aggressive warriors.

Aggressive piloting is necessary to be a good pilot, especially a fighter pilot. Just acting the part isn't enough.

There are many reasons why women should not be warriors, and they range from social to genetics to the physical.

Society shapes our relationships and narrow artificial engineering of social roles absent a seismic shift in society in general, this means failure.

Genetics play a role. If you believe in evolution then you must believe men and women evolved over millions of years to perform two very different functions, and history is an excellent guide to help you discover what those roles are. If you believe in creationism, then you must believe God made man and women differently so that they may perform two very different roles.

We also think, react and emote differently, and those patterns of thought, action and emotion are real and proven.

And we are to deny God and evolution? We are to deny reality just because some females in the military want combat action just so they can be promoted? Look, that is what caused this whole debate in the first place--promotion. The argument went that females were being discriminated in promotions because they could not have combat arms experience and therefore would never have the opportunities of the men. Great. Placing you own career goals over the mission and your men. This is NOT how leaders think and behave. Careerists do this, not true leaders.

Basically, as a male, if you hear a bump in the night, are you going to send the wife downstairs to investigate while you stay upstairs and protect the baby? I thought not.

Physical is also a discriminator. We have lowered our standards to make it possible for women to enter various military career fields (Weak Link, great book, Brian Mitchell, I think).

Physical standards are in effect to ensure we have people that are capable of doing the job, and these standards evolved over time based upon past experience. Face it; if you are unconscious in a burning building, you want a 250lbs strong fireman to rescue you from a building, not some diversity hire 120lbs firewoman.

As a former police officer in a time long ago, I recall females being introduced into the paramedic field. I can't tell you how many times I saw the female paramedics unable to lift a body onto a stretcher and also unable to lift the stretcher out of a ditch with a body in it. The men did it, and a lot of times it was by-standers.

Now, flying fighters does not take the same physical stamina and strength it takes to be a SEAL. That is for darned sure. However, it takes a heck of a lot of upper-body strength to move around while under G-forces up to 9-G's. We have HOTAS (Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick), but you still need to be able to look around, move your head, lift your arm, twist your body, and women lack upper body strength. We know this but we are lying to ourselves when we say females can do this just as well as males.

We have fundamental differences in physiology that cannot be ignored.

I'm tired of the agendas that ignore reality and I'm tired of the I-am-woman-here-me-roar power-dressing business-bim's pushing a fantasy. War is not a Nike commercial where kickboxing females are empowered and men tremble. War is hell and we don't need to send women there (generally).

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