West Point grads leaving U.S. Army

My wife got out because they treated her like a woman and not support her in her career. She was MI and couldn’t get a company command. The MI majors in her battalion and division HQs ranked her 3rd out of the 29 MI majors in the division and this is how they determined who would be the next company commanders in the MI battalion. She had one year at division G2 for a warfighter, a year at the MI battalion and they expected her to do another year at Div G2 before she could get the HQ company in her battalion. She was pissed when they told her she wouldn’t get a line company. The Division G2 was letting junior MI Captains leave the division to get company commands over in the Echelon above reality MI unit but wouldn’t let my wife who had seniority go. She dropped her paperwork a couple of months later. If she had stayed, my wife would have easily made 06 and I believe GO. We were the same year group and I have no doubt I would have had to officially call her Ma’am as she would have been promoted below the zone while I would have been promoted with my peers.

Sex is only a gating issue where physical performance is an issue. I will admit that I wouldn’t want a women to be on the ground fighting in a combat situation along side of me, but there are many studies and performance measurements where based on averages, women have an edge over men in combat roles.

If physical capabilities were the only difference between the sexes, then I might be more inclined to agree with you. However, there are huge mental and emotional differences as well. In my non-expert opinion, women are not suited for combat. I recognize that there are exceptions, but what I find incredibly unfortunate is that, because a very small percentage of women exist who could perform excellently in combat, we foolishly open the entire military to females indiscriminately. I would prefer that we limit females in the military to those few who prove they can hack it, but we don't, because in today's utopian, PC world, we are not supposed to recognize reality if reality does not match our vision.

Also, I would be very interested in seeing those studies you mentioned, if you can give me a reference or two.

I was in error; it was Maj. Wilbert D. “Doug” Pearson who piloted the F15. Totally erroneous reference. I apologize. Still and all, it makes for an interesting read.

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/ASAT/F15ASAT.html

I however wish to define the terms of “Combat” and how we use it in this friendly give and take. Is Combat different when you are up close and personal or at 20,000 feet and bombing little targets on the ground? I only know the version of Combat at the eye contact level. My experience was very up close and personal. That type of combat is totally wrong for a woman. Maybe an Amazon would do well, but a woman in the realistic sense – NO.

Now is combat sitting in an air-conditioned CIC on an aircraft carrier and seeing a spot on a radar/sonar screen and being given the order of fire the defensive weapon; could a woman function as well as a man? I think the answer is yes. Would it be appropriate for a woman to fly an A10 Wart hog in support of ground troops? Again yes. Would it be acceptable for a woman to served in a non line combatant role in any of the services in a theatre of war, I think that the answer is more yes than no. Women can fix a Plane, a radar, a truck.

I just think that barring the up close and personal role of a ground combat, women are very nearly capable of doing a number of jobs traditionally performed by a man. We have a tendency of depersonalizing the effect of pushing a button that sinks a ship. We teach the personnel that if it is you against them, it is better that you win and they don’t. We don’t dwell on the human aspect of the impact of their actions.

I’ve spoken with fighter and bomber pilots and they tell me that they usually don’t see the effect of their work unless it is BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) then it is always the “things” that are assessed; the bridge, building, tunnel complex that was destroyed. Even collateral damage is minimized.

So given the above, barring ground combat, I think that for women who want to serve their country, there are many places where they can serve honorably and effectively.

Be well and thank you for the polite debate.

I take no oath except to God to support my husband. My husband took an oath to defend the Constitution. His oath said nothing about being a police officer in a foreign country.

At any rate, his oath is not relevant to whether he chooses to stay in the Army or not. When your alloted time is up, you are given freedom of choice as to whether to stay in or get out. Until that is no longer the case, I think it is wrong of anyone to speak against those who choose to separate when their time comes. I am especially disturbed that most who choose to speak against a separating service member do so without ever having served any time themselves.

I however wish to define the terms of “Combat” and how we use it in this friendly give and take. Is Combat different when you are up close and personal or at 20,000 feet and bombing little targets on the ground?

We agree on the up close and personal stuff. I can understand how someone might be tempted to view combat operations involving aircraft and ships as fitting for women, as it would seem that those operations do not require the same level of intensity. However, I think that opinion has come into vogue only because we've become spoiled by our technological superiority. We think of, to use your earlier example, flying an A-10 in support of troops as a relatively "safe" job, but I think that is only because it has been a while since we have faced an enemy who was capable of shooting them down. The same goes for support or remote operations on a ship, such as a carrier.

If we use WWII as an example, duty on a carrier was extremely dangerous, as you might find yourself defending against bombers, torpedoes, and heavy gun fire, all amid the increasingly fiery wreckage of your own ship. In such a case, the duty on that ship would suddenly become every bit as demanding as infantry operations on the ground, and thus would be in the realm of being unsuitable for females. The same goes for aircraft. Certainly there are women who can fly well, but if they were required to fly into heavy AAA or against other enemy aircraft, they would then deal with the stress of performing their jobs while possibly sustaining damage and injury, and with the added risk of being shot down in enemy territory, at which point one becomes a glorified grunt, a position, again, unsuitable for a female.

We haven't had to deal with an enemy with those capabilities within the last 30 years, so I think we've fallen into the assumption that being a combat pilot merely requires the ability to fly and the willingness to pull the trigger, and it is entirely possible that we will remain so technologically dominant that complete air superiority can be expected in all future operations. The military, however, does not succeed by making such assumptions. In order to remain at maximum effectiveness, it must train and prepare its pilots and seaman for the worst, and that includes those scenarios I just outlined, which, by their nature, preclude females.

I agree that in what I use as an example of assignments that women are capable of performing as part of their assigned duties. When things go terribly wrong (a cruise missile takes out an Aircraft Carrier, or a plane shot down) the roles can immediately change in the intensity and danger. That is always a possibility and not part of their assigned duties. That is part of their survivor duties. When such bad things happen, their planned roles are not really a part of their “assigned” duties. Then they unfortunately become combat participants on a very different plane.

Still, there are duties that women are capable of performing in the military that are combat/support in nature where their risk is minimal and their contribution can be huge. Combat can be conducted from anywhere on the planet to any other spot on the planet. The possibilities and opportunities are wide open.

I agree that we have a massive technical edge over the rest of the world. Still, the personal nature is always minimized to military personnel except to those types who are told to go out and “break things and hurt people. Those are actual rules of engagement that are given to troops entering battle. The pilots of bombers are generally told to blow things up. It is at the level of combat where you are told to hurt people that women are not appropriate participants.

Basic philosophy in war is to kill more of your opponent than they kill of you. We need to blow up buildings, tanks, things because of the people we will take out of combat. The most efficient weapon of war is the Neutron bomb. The Neutron bomb is designed to kill people without destroying things. It kills all living things with a stream of high speed Neutrons and leaves the things pretty much in place. A funny side effect is that bodies tend to decompose much more slowly because all of the Bacteria are killed as well as the people.

The human race is at its most efficient when we are killing our brothers and sisters who live under a different flag. A bit of sad ironic commentary.

I guess you can tell it is late for me. I tend to ramble at the end of my 18 hour day. I beg your indulgence and bid you good evening. I pray that God will bless you as much as He has blessed me.

Peace!

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