Ban on women in combat to be lifted

[Goatnapper'96]

How long til I can peep at naked ladies in shared locker rooms and restrooms?

STILLMAN!

[Moliere]

So no one answered my question. Is it social injustice that there are no women in the NFL? My point is that there are physical differences between men and women that actually matter when it comes to fielding your most effective fighters.

I wonder how often sheer brute strength is necessary on the front lines. I really don't know, but I'd wager that the ability to shoot a gun, run and maneuver as well as stay mentally stable during all of this is much more necessary. In those regards, I'd wager that many women are capable.

Of course, maybe I'm giving too much credit to women. Maybe I should fall in line and continue to think they are still in dire need of a male protector.

[Colly Wolly]

STILLMAN!

I wish I was a loofa.

[Bo Diddley]

I wonder how often sheer brute strength is necessary on the front lines. I really don't know, but I'd wager that the ability to shoot a gun, run and maneuver as well as stay mentally stable during all of this is much more necessary. In those regards, I'd wager that many women are capable.

Of course, maybe I'm giving too much credit to women. Maybe I should fall in line and continue to think they are still in dire need of a male protector.

You underestimate the physical demands involved in combat arms. And even if sheer brute strength were only necessary 1% of the time, the point still holds.

[DrumNFeather]

One of the women callers this morning said she thought women should be able to serve in combat units so long as they qualify and they're not mothers. I thought that was interesting. She hung up before offering her reasoning.

My favorite part of that was EB being late to the show and being like "am I in the right studio, what are we talking about???"

[Goatnapper'96]

Personally I side with the Notorious GNP. I think he has articulated the argument for me well enough. I also think the Devil himself has as well, in his own way. I think he perfectly reflects the attitude of many of our guys patrolling outside the wire. Putting women with them just seems like a disaster. This isn't necessarily an indictment on a woman's ability as much as the pervasive culture and attitude towards women that I think will be extremely difficult to break. The lessening of any standards or requirements for females will only cause resentment among these.

I think Surfah hits a very lucent point. Many of you university professors might not like DD because in so many ways he is the antithesis of what you think you are trying to make young people become. DD is an NCO. He reflects the attitudes of those that fight and win our nation's wars. You might not like it and you likely want to change it so that it bends into your perspective on what an enlightened military professional should think. I warn you to not give way to that desire. These folks are the backbone of our Country's fighting forces. That means he has my deepest respect, love and admiration. This country is not what it is because of the spectacular graduates of West Point and Annapolis. Our fighting force is the greatest in the world because of career enlisted soldiers and the NCO Corps that leads them. They are not the types that often join in in the marketplace of ideas. They find that type of wording arrogant and just not their style. They are not stupid, they just don't value "ideas." However, while many of you (we?) are fleshing out your (our) ideas and arguing about FoxNews, HuffPost and how much President Obama wants to do something about the debt NCO's are making shit happen worldwide. It really is that simple. They don't need to flush out the ideas they just look you in the eye and say "putting women into the infantry is a bad fucking idea." Then when we start evaluating the impact it will have on sexual abuse in the service and how good it will make us feel about social change, they leave, probably thinking we are a group of pussies (they are probably often right) and go to train young people how to kill the enemy while staying alive. They are the best in the world at what they do and if there is genuinely one thing I miss from the service it is the NCO Corps. This is one of the reasons why I love DevilDog so much is because I see so much in him of the senior NCO's that worked for me when I was a junior Officer and the respect I had for them for how professional and competent they were at their trade. I loved their profanity, tatooes and the fact that most of them had a mixture of coffee and tobacco coursing through their veins instead of blood. But what I remember most was the deep respect and trust the youngest Private had for their NCOs. They were hard on their soldiers and treated them in ways that would make many of y'all fall into a fetal position and wax eloquent about abuse and the damages they are doing to young people's psyches. But those junior soldiers knew if the shit hit the fan they would be trained to do their jobs in extreme environments and their small groups would be led by the most dedicated professionals who breathed a level of brotherhood most of us will never fathom.They don't like marketplaces of ideas, but they possess more common sense in their last shit than most of us will use in a lifetime.

So I do implore you to not dismiss DD so quickly because he purposely seeks to come across in a way many of you won't like. He represents something that while grotesque to many is vital to our fighting forces.

[Goatnapper'96]

I wonder how often sheer brute strength is necessary on the front lines. I really don't know, but I'd wager that the ability to shoot a gun, run and maneuver as well as stay mentally stable during all of this is much more necessary. In those regards, I'd wager that many women are capable.

Of course, maybe I'm giving too much credit to women. Maybe I should fall in line and continue to think they are still in dire need of a male protector.

In front line combat warfare can always break down into a fist fight. Did you know that on average women are better marksmen, er uh markswomen, er uh "shots" than men?

However, to become a sniper requires a great deal of physical strength to carry the equipment over long distances to get into position. If I stopped paying attention to the Olympic Games I might to believe that women, on average, are every bit as physically strong as men.

I don't think you need to fall into line, your original comment about not knowing might be a reasonable guiding star.

I have no issues with women getting the LDS priesthood. I have no issues with a woman being President. I doubt I really care if a female Blackhawk pilot is allowed to fly Blackhawks carrying Air Assault troopers in the Screaming Eagles 101st Airborne. However, I don't think allowing women to be those Air Assault Troopers is a good idea. But perhaps I am just a knuckle dragging neanderthal trying to protect the one place Al Bundy and I can mysogenistically rule the world!

[Jacob]

Absolutely....but I'm not a fan of war so I hope there is never another draft. The fact that men have to register and women don't is incredibly unfair to both sexes.

Incredibly unfair to both sexes? Come on! Very few people want to register for the draft. The fact that we have to register and that only men may be drafted is quite a bit more unfair to men, no doubt.


As for women serving on in combat, I wonder if out of shape men are overly impressed by in-shape women and think them much stronger than they are. I know some incredibly fit women, and I also watch them on TV all the time. And while they are much fitter than I, they are still much weaker. It takes an exceptionally fit woman And I'm not very tough.Why gloss over this simple fact with statements like "only if they are up to the same physical standards?"

OTOH, I have met some men in the armed forces who aren't very strong either. But it takes an exceptionally fit and strong woman to meet the standards of a man who only exercises modestly. And even then, the man is still likely much stronger.

[LA Ute]

This is an interesting perspective I had not seen elsewhere:

Marine Officer Katie Petronio wrote abut the struggle of physical reslience during her deployment to Afghanistan commanding a Combat Engineering platoon in Afghanistan.

"By the fifth month into the deployment, I had muscle atrophy in my thighs that was causing me to constantly trip and my legs to buckle with the slightest grade change. My agility during firefights and mobility on and off vehicles and perimeter walls was seriously hindering my response time and overall capability. It was evident that stress and muscular deterioration was affecting everyone regardless of gender; however, the rate of my deterioration was noticeably faster than that of male Marines..."

Her rate of deterioration was faster because she only produced a fraction of the muscle repairing testosterone of the male Marines. Petronio, who was a varsity athlete in college and "benching 145 pounds when I graduated [college] in 2007" was falling apart at the fifth month of her deployment. Army units deployed for 12 months until recently.

Many elite female athletes can outperform male soldiers when the women have adequate rest, recovery time and nutrition--but rest, recovery and proper nutrition are in short supply at Combat Outpost Zerok. Combat is not like sports season where you only have one or two games a week for three months, or training for one or two big events a year. It is every day for 365 days, then a period of recovery before resuming pre-deployment training and then another 365 days. (330 days with leave and R&R).

Many who support opening up combat arms to women so that they have equal career opportunities do not understand that to reach the top of the infantry ranks rquires incredible physical reslience. On the enlisted side, Company First Sergeants are in their late thirties and still going after years of deployments. On the officer side battalion and Brigade Commanders must maintain their prime physical conditioning into their forties--after years of deployments.

The number of women who at the age of 40 are capable of keeping up with young men in a combat environment is very small.

The Marine Corps, in a study about the factors that contribute to boot camp attrition found that, "As training has become more similar for male and female recruits, female attrition rose and--in many years--female bootcamp attrition was about double that of males." Females still have less strenuous physical requirements than males in the Marine Corps. In 2009 female attrition was 15%. Male attrition was 7%. When I went through Marine Corps boot camp the attrition rate was much higher for males and females.

[Katy Lied]

I don't understand why this is out of line:



But this is not out of line:

Boo. You are a sexist pig.

When Don't Ask - Don't Tell was being debated, did you respond with fag jokes?

It seems awfully fitting that you would turn this into a dick-wagging contest.

SeattleUte (and others) can say the most hateful and horrific things about Mormons and we are expected to suck it up and take it, and he never gets the stinkeye. DD posts something minorly offensive about women feminists, and all of a sudden the management around here jumps all over him. All this does is make me think that around here women need to be cosseted and protected, and if someone says something that has the remote possibility of causing offense to women, then they need to be disciplined.

I'm in favor of women in combat. Real bullets. Real blood. Apparently, we are ready for bombs and bullets but not quite ready for irreverent quips and words containing douche.

[Bo Diddley]

I'm in favor of women in combat. Real bullets. Real blood. Apparently, we are ready for bombs and bullets but not quite ready for irreverent quips and words containing douche.

Just make sure to close the right eye when shooting!

[Sullyute]

I finally read what Panetta is proposing and it isn't what many are reporting it to be. What it changes is it allows women to serve in combat units in their MOS. As most are aware women do many jobs in the services in combat support and combat service support MOS's. The restrictions were that they could not serve in certain combat arms MOS's and they could not serve in combat units even if those units were assigned MOS's in which women can serve. This change allows them to now serve in combat units within the existing MOS's women may be. Each branch of service must now justify which MOS's women will be precluded and why.

My point in the comment is that very few people understand the military. That is why we often read statements deferring to the judgement of military brass. I thought some of your comments reflect a level of patent absurdity about military service, namely the one about women bringing a level of intelligence and strategy that might improve our military. I think you value social change a great deal, and I think that is really ok. However from my perspective it really influences how you view this situation. Folks that value social change often say these lovey-dovey all inclusive comments that go over real well in a University Poly Sci course. However, you will notice that there is almost ubiquitous opinion from those who have actually worn the uniform that putting women into combat MOS's might not be a real good idea. Perhaps we are just a bunch of old fashioned conservatives who need the pied piper to lead us to reason, or perhaps we might know a bit about that which we speak. Admittedly, I don't think many of us view the rampant sexual abuse in the services as the number 1 military threat to our country.

But your final comments in the above post indicate you just want women to be able to serve in the MOS's that they are currently already serving within combat units. While I think there are many good reasons to be wary of that idea, I am not as concerned about that as I am allowing women to actually serve in combat MOS's. There is a huge difference saying to a female Blackhawk pilot you can now serve in a Blackhawk company assigned to an Infantry Brigade versus saying we will now allow women to serve in the Infantry. Combat InfantryWOMEN Badges? If those become real, what can I then award the wankers on Cougarboard?

Thank you for sharing your well informed opinion. We may still disagree but I appreciate your insight and experience on the issue. Same goes with devil dog.

[wuapinmon]

Personally I side with the Notorious GNP. I think he has articulated the argument for me well enough. I also think the Devil himself has as well, in his own way. I think he perfectly reflects the attitude of many of our guys patrolling outside the wire. Putting women with them just seems like a disaster. This isn't necessarily an indictment on a woman's ability as much as the pervasive culture and attitude towards women that I think will be extremely difficult to break. \

When we consider that we have a volunteer service, and that the majority of the recruits come from rural and suburban locations, which tend to skew more conservative, politically and religiously. That, in turn, will impede cultural change because these attitudes towards women are often intertwined with class and socio-religious attitudes about the female sex. Also, the bulk of the officer corps is married, at their age, that usually makes them more conservative and more likely to be religious. I have to imagine that married men would be hesitant to send someone else's wife into harm's way.

[cowboy]

I don't understand why this is out of line:

But this is not out of line:

I'm in favor of women in combat. Real bullets. Real blood. Apparently, we are ready for bombs and bullets but not quite ready for irreverent quips and words containing douche.

Preach it. Also, am I the only one who finds it hilarious, not to mention incredibly ironic, that DD gets a beat down for being sexist at the same time Goatnapper is held up to him as an example of how to express an opinion?

[Goatnapper'96]

Preach it. Also, am I the only one who finds it hilarious, not to mention incredibly ironic, that DD gets a beat down for being sexist at the same time Goatnapper is held up to him as an example of how to express an opinion?

Dude, saying Pamela Anderson Lee Kid Rock Lee has bodacious ta-tas is not stating an opinion!