Raising Boys Who Grow Up to Be Men Who Go to Combat With Women
As our boys grew, we worked to strike the delicate balance between tempering their natural instincts to plunder and destroy with the constraints of living in civilized society (and also of living in the house with a mother who appreciates the toilet seat in the down position). One of the main benefits of having both a mother and a father in the home is that both perspectives exist in a delicate balance within the marriage to moderate the natural extremes of the sexes. I instinctively wanted to protect the boys and, left to my own devices, would have been overprotective. My husband naturally gravitated toward allowing them to explore, fall down, take their knocks and learn life’s lessons the hard way. The goal was always to turn out men. Not some feminized, politically correct, egalitarian version of manhood, but in keeping with their genetically driven impulses and God-given natures, we determined to encourage them to defy current societal pressures and become real, masculine men.
So my husband tossed them around and wrestled with them in ways that terrified me. As they hurtled toward adolescence and surges of testosterone entered the mix, their roughhousing seemed brutal to me. Elaborate wrestling matches were staged on the backyard trampoline. At times I was afraid to peer out the window at the pyrotechnic displays in my backyard (you can burn THAT?). We agreed (for my sanity) on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about some of the dangers encountered on the father-son camping trips. My husband, who grew up with a houseful of boys, assured me this was “normal” male behavior and they survived.
Of course, we didn’t just teach them about the physical side of being men. We taught them responsibility, integrity, hard work, honor, respect for others, and chivalry. Faith was an integral component in their upbringing. Without these important lessons, all boys are at risk of turning into men who give in to their aggressive natures to the point that they engage in antisocial or even dangerous behaviors.
Through all of this, we clearly taught our boys that they were never, ever to play roughly with girls. We knew a time would come that they would be bigger and stronger than the girls and they needed to know that they were to never lay a hand on a girl. In this day and age of political correctness and federally mandated gender equity, this may sound “unfair” or antiquated, but the inconvenient truth is that the process of civilizing young men involves taming their aggressive instincts. If we want them to learn to treat a woman with respect, they must be taught that overpowering her with their physical strength is never acceptable. At the same time, they must learn that their physical size and strength are gifts that can and should be used to protect their families and property in the event of danger. Controlled strength is a sign of maturity and integrity.
As we find ourselves on the cusp of women on the front lines of combat, we must ask some important questions about how we will raise boys in the future in light of this decision.
Excellent points.
Beyond me why women would want men to become indifferent to their suffering. And it isn’t just in combat. Infantry School (I was a Marine) is suffering. At least every other day we did long marches in heavy gear – the exact exercise that is nearly impossible for women.
If you add women to Infantry schools, it will force our Marines (and I assume our Infantry Soldiers) will be forced to watch women physically and physiologically broken. I marched past male Marines in convulsions from heat exhaustion – I’m glad I didn’t have to see woman go through that.
Adding women to Infantry, Armor, and Artillery units won’t just force the men to treat them equally – it will destroy morale and make the women despised. Infantry Marines despise anyone who can’t keep up, pull his own weight, etc… No offense, but that will be all the women.
What this Marine says is true. I was also a Marine grunt and the training we went through was totally brutal. I was glad I had it, because when I got to Vietnam it made me able to cope with what we did there. On operations, especially in the mountains, we walked with flak jackets, helmets, packs, rifles, grenades, machine guns, rocket launchers, sometimes mortars, carried extra rounds for the mortars and the machine guns, and were virtual pack mules. When we ran into the enemy we could not drop the gear and leave it, because we had to attack and we did not know where the attack would end. We would run forward carrying all this gear and still fight our asses off. This might be after walking from daylight until late in the afternoon. At night we dug our fighting holes and stood watch. One man on for an hour and a half and one man asleep for an hour and a half. Just before day light we went on full alert. That meant we usually got four to five hours sleep a night. This went on day after day after day. Our clothes rotted off of us, grime was so deeply ingrained into our skin that we could pull it off with our finger nails, and we ate two meals a day and drank whatever water we could find. Sometimes we had lots of water. Other times we had four quart sized canteens and they had to last us for two or three days. We lost weight, we became walking zombies who functioned on instinct, but we functioned. Maybe one in one hundred women could do this, but she would not fit in and the men would try to protect her. It is completely stupid and asinine to put women in a situation like this.
I am a very strong and fit woman…and I 100% wholeheartedly agree with you. What woman in her right mind would want to be in combat? This is insanity…blur the sexes…force homosexuality down our throats. Men and women are NOT equal…by design. I was thinking about carrying all that equipment for miles..and then have to shoot people too…F-ck that! I hate carrying my Macys bags at the mall let alone 75lbs of equipment across the Kypher Pass or Khandahar…double F-ck that! Go ahead ladies…go get your heads blown off …gang rape sounds great doesn’t it! Women are stupid to join the armed forces. How about Congress send their Ivy league daughters to the front lines. Hey what about Sasha and Mahlia? Obama girls will look hot in those fatigues!!
It’s all a big lie anyhow. So will women be drafted? Will women who join have limited choices where they go. If they go into the infantry and can’t hack it will they be discharged?
If a woman insults a man and he punches her in the face will he be punished differently?
We all know the answers to these questions. It will be an absurd politically correct exercise. But it will degrade our military. Woman by default add NOTHING to combat operations and can only take away. And we haven’t even discussed how sex, pregnancy, rape, privacy and other issues will destroy unit cohesiveness.
They haven’t thought this through. Feminists are notorious for not thinking through the consequences of their actions and taking them to the logical conclusion. Pope Paul VI warned that contraception would destroy the family unit and lead to mass promiscuity, abortion and STD epidemics. Feminists and their supporters/enablers scoffed, but 45 years later, we can see he was completely right.
My wife is a retired OR nurse who used to manage an out-patient pain surgery center. Many of her patients were young soldiers who’d returned from a long deployment with chronic back pain. The physical strain of carrying so much equipment was breaking their bodies down.
I was a member of the airborne infantry a long time ago. Today’s soldiers are carrying all sorts of equipment that we didn’t even dream of having, such as night vision goggles, extensive body armor, radio and computer communications, etc. They’re still carrying their individual weapon and ammo loads plus food, water and other equipment for the team (e.g. belts of ammo for the SAW gunner and extra batteries). If men are having a hard time with those loads, how well will women be able to do? Will they lighten the load for female soldiers which would either mean the men would have to make up the difference or that the squad as a whole would have less equipment? Will they make the women carry the same load as the men despite the fact that they will slow the entire unit? People will likely die either way.
Close battle with bayonets is thankfully rare today but killing the enemy up close and personal isn’t. Neither is seeing your buddies injured or killed by IEDs or gunfire.
Feminism began when young women saw young men burning their draft cards and said I can do that just as well.
I think it just ended.
Be the first one on your block to have your daughter come home in a box, eh parents? C’mon, it’s for “social justice”!
Our nation used to sacrifice its sons on the altar of liberty to protect home, hearth, family, freedom, innocents.
Now our leaders are preparing to sacrifice our nation’s daughters on the altar of political correctness to protect degenerate lifestyle choices, the subversion of individualism, and leftist dogma.
well, really, all women? the men in the military I knew divided women into “females” they worked with, and “women” they dated. It was in every sentence. I have no idea what level of contempt or respect they held for each type.
And, second, women in combat? So, there’s a new genre “dark erotica.” It was never mainstream, until 50 shades, which most readers comment is ‘vanilla.’ Okay- why are the writers and readers of this, former military women? What on earth is going on with their sexuality, that this is the preferred romance subject?
And, again, that ‘all women’ business. My dad was active, then reserve. My mom served in the military. My great-aunts, grandmothers, and so on. They were proud of what they did. They didn’t serve in the Marines, though.
Really, maybe it’s Obama. Michelle looks more manly than O. Maybe he thinks that is normal.
Have you watched American Idol this season? They is hardly a man among the “men”, at least half of them are effeminate and/or homosexual.
I just read a story about a young boy (k-3)that got suspended for pretending to throw a hand grenade! Hmmm, I guess the Liberal circle is complete. In Biblical terms, the Spirit of Jezebel (remember she spiritually and mentally dominated Ahab) rules the day.
As a parent of two teenagers, I constantly heard parents of girls express that girls are just as good of athletes as boys. Which of course is idiotic (not that girls sports aren’t enjoyable for kids and parents) on the face of it. Or watching NCIS LA where the female agent spars with the former SEAL (and large) agent and holds her own. Or how often is the mother portrayed as ditzy versus the father in commercials or TV? How often are the top computer scientist, engineers, detectives, shown as women (totally contrary to reality).
The emasculation of society is in full force and this is a big piece of the puzzle.
“Too often among today’s young males, the extremes seem to predominate….” (Terrence O. Moore)
I have definitely noticed this in the last few years. A lot of younger males outside of the poorer areas are now chatty “metros,” or macho “wiggers,” or porn-and-violence-obsessed macho boys. None of them are remotely similar to King Arthur, Launcelot or Galahad. Yeah, there are still fairly normal and fairly virtuous males of all ages, but virtue hasn’t been buttressed by our culture the last couple of decades.
Regarding women in combat, another issue would be female POW’s. How would progressive parents like to see their daughters subjected to certain “treatments” by the enemy after being captured, which would inevitably happen frequently? The Jessica Lynch saga is barely the start of what could happen.
“Indeed, what will be the end result of a society in which the men have been trained to ignore the screams of women and disregard their suffering?”
A better question to ask is, after fifty-odd years of feminazi crap, why should men give a damn? High time, I say. Let them reap what they sow.
I am against women in combat, however, your statement begins on a false premise… it assumes that men ignore the screams of men who are mortally wounded… NOT… Hell, even the lefties know about the Band of Brothers.
USN Ret.
ta
I thought that subtitle was a little odd –
“What will be the impact of a generation of men willing to stand by and watch women being shot, stabbed, tortured, raped and battered?”
Don’t have a military background, or military family, but the folks I know who are current or ex-military certainly wouldn’t “stand by and watch” male cohorts get shot, stabbed, etc.
Just a point of clarification on that. My husband (ex-Army and ARNG) and I were discussing what might happen to POWs. How would a man react if a woman was being tortured, beaten, or, God forbid, raped in front of him? Would he be more likely to give up the intel in that scenario than if it was happening to his buddy? My husband said it would be much more difficult. POW situations are very much about the mental manipulation, which is a game-changer when there are women involved. That’s what I had in mind with that statement — not at all meaning that a soldier wouldn’t put his life on the line for his men in combat.
So, will women now have to submit themselves to the draft? Will they be denied citizenship right if they refuse to sign up for the selective service? OF COURSE NOT! The feminist scum will do as upper class scum have always done – let the sons of the poor do the actual fighting and dying.
I for one am sick of it. The article asks what effect will seeing women in combat have on our sons. But it won’t do anything more than what fifty years of radfem indoctrination has already accomplished – completely alienating both sexes. To my mind the only appropriate response any man should make when he see’s a femalebleeding on the street is look away and keep walking. After all, she’s a strong, independent woman, she can take care of herself! And besides, if he did stop a moment to help, he might very well be charged with sexual assault or harassment, since those are crimes that can pretty much mean ANYTHING nowadays!
I agree NO women in combat. But as a woman, should I just walk by when I see a bleeding MALE in the street and do nothing? Men are strong and can fend for themselves right? Men reap what the sow right? You hate women..I get it. Like I said….I agree absolutely and unequivocally NO women in combat..but you just dislike women altogether…and women dislike you just as much…obviously
You seem totally unaware of how much 0ne-sidedness there has been these past several decades. For instance, (one of many), men are the dummies in tv ads while women are the smart ones, sometimes even hitting men. You won’t see the converse of this. Feminists have been attacking men on every level demanding “equality” when it suits them yet wanting special protections including special ‘womens defenses’ in court rooms. the list is almost endless.
I guess now we will have 1 Olympics… ? No more men’s & women’s – now it’s men against women. No? Then what the hell is going on here? It’s like living in a kafka story
I was never a fan of Dobson or his parenting books. His quote here confirms my feelings. Biddulph had a much better approach to raising boys, all in all.
I think this is much ado about nothing, frankly. The women who would be in front line combat position would be the toughest of the tough, and would be teammates to the men, not ‘weaker vessels’. They’d be tougher than most women and a large percentage of men.
For the most part, this is loaded with patronizing generalizations. Combat conditions don’t spill over into everyday life and there’s little if any risk of men becoming immune to the cries of women.
Go Daddy spent $4 million for a 30-second ad spot during the Super Bowl in hopes that they could impact your behavior in that brief moment in time. It obviously works or companies wouldn’t continue to pour money into the ads. Of course there will be “spill over into everyday life” if men are trained to pretend women are not women when in combat. We only need to look at PTSD to see the extent to which battlefield experiences “spill over into everyday life.”
Go Daddy ads? There are so many worse influences daily that boys are bombarded with. Parents are still the main caretakers of boys psyches.
As to ‘spilling over’, I meant spilling over into the non-military population, not civilian life after the military.
–As to ‘spilling over’, I meant spilling over into the non-military population, not civilian life after the military.–
In reality, this is a distinction without difference. Do you honestly think that the learned behaviors over a lifetime of exposure to the new paradigm and intensive “re-education” of a soldier’s moral compulsions during basic training will simply have a temporal limit subject to an artifice of ‘in-military’ versus ‘out-of-military’. If you think its a switch that will be easy to turn on and off, i would suggest you do a little statistical reading on the comparison of crime, domestic abuse, depression, and suicide rates for the general population at large, military population at large, and military population who have been involved in front-line warfare.
What are you smoking?
Do you not see the breakdown of the way girls are treated and referred to by boys? Does this not concern you?
Growing up I’d never dream of calling or referring to a girl I was dating or even interested in dating a “ho”, “b*tch”, or “trick”. Its so ironic that women wanted to be treated as equals yet more and more they are turned into sexual objects, and viewed with about as much value as a used condom. Abuse is a rising problem among teen relationships, why do you think this is?
Parenting. Still the ultimate influence over the behavior of young men and women.
Well jmarie, since they will be the toughest of the , they are much like athlete, being best of the best. So? This is a non issue you say? Then have men and women together in the Olympics. After no women , and all have gone … Then we we’ll know sure
I’m so tired of throwing away my tax so women can they are men. You are a rip off… 6’2″ Joe Smith and 5’1″ Jane Smith cost the same to me, John q. .. .
Well jmarie, since they will be the toughest of the tough , they are much like Olympic athletes, being best of the best. So? This is a non issue you say? Then have men and women together in the Olympics. After no women win , and all have gone … Then we we’ll know sure
I’m so tired of throwing away my tax so women can pretend they are men. You are a rip off… 6’2″ Joe Smith and 5’1″ Jane Smith cost the sane to me, John q taxpayer.
Eh, that’s a lame argument, considering all the other ways you tax dollars are wasted.
No, jmarie, you are the lame one. You have no clue what is involved in infantry combat. All yo have is rhetoric, and that won’t cut it in the reality of infantry combat. A number of female vets have come foreward to say no, women should not be in infantry combat. A lot of males should not be either.
“The women who would be in front line combat position would be the toughest of the tough, and would be teammates to the men, not ‘weaker vessels’. They’d be tougher than most women and a large percentage of men.”
Proof they exist? Hate to pop your Xena-warrior-princess fallacy, but those women who could meet infantry standards are so few that it would be pointless to pretend otherwise and restrucutre the military to accomodate them. Are women exempt from the draft or will they be sent to combat arms like any other male draftee? Will standards be lowered? Will women get previledges denied to men (eg. non-deployment status)? Why the double standards then?
This bit of social engineering to placate some female egos, and who will never suffer the consequences I might add, will get people needlessly killed in the future.
Of course they are few and far between but those who qualify should be allowed. As to women in the draft, I am all for it.
No double standards necessary.
“Of course they are few and far between but those who qualify should be allowed.”
Do they even exist? Of course, even if these “few” did it is unlikely they will be held to the same standard. Plus the cost-benefit analysis would say this is a waste of time and money to accomodate those few who could. This has been tried in the past by other countries and what did they achieve? How did it impact unit cohesion and morale? The results are out there, but they are ignored.
“As to women in the draft, I am all for it.”
Sure you are. There are no personal consequence for you. Take the volunteer portion out of the equation for those Xena-super-troopers, thrown in female draftees into combat arms, and the lowered standards so the acheive “parity” with the men, and the results will be abysmal in the field. Again, others will suffer in the future for these policies in order to stroke some egos today for the simply purpose of “empowerment” and getting votes.
Who said anything about female draftees in combat? Not me. I said few would be able, but those few should be allowed. If the draft were reinstated, women should be included and should serve however they are able.
@Jmarie
“Who said anything about female draftees in combat? Not me”
Volunteers get to choose in most cases after passing aptitude tests which field the get into. Draftees usually do not. If you support drafting women, you must realize that they do NOT get to choose and as the are “equal” they will have to pull their load. Thats where it leads.
I doubt there will any women volunteering for combat arms in any case, but the political heat will ensure the standards bend to suit the ends. The polticially correct jihad will not end until the results are felt at the national poltical level and the policies reversed.
Yeah, yeah I get it. I understand the far reaching implications but guess what? Standards were already lowered to suit the fat kids. Welcome to the 21st century.
“Yeah, yeah I get it.”
From your emotive responses, its clear that you don’t. Your ego won’t allow that. You’re not alone though. Its pointless to discuss this issue with anyone who doesn’t grasp exactly what combat arms roles require, but those floating their opinions know they will never serve.
Here is a little something for you jmarie. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0
That was fun! I love those old musicals.
Oh go AWAY! Men and women are different and there is no point in pretending otherwise. I don’t CARE if one in 500 women somehow got overexposed to testosterone in the womb and “feels” like a man. She’s not, nor ever WILL be.
Men and women also react to combat stress different. Men can think with crystal clarity while women go fuzzy. It’s just they way we are hard wired.
You know, women had much more power 60 years ago before the feminazi’s decided they wanted to be whores without consequences.
Come back and enlighten me with your views after you’ve been in a combat zone in uniform under fire and sent some friends home in a body bag. You have no idea how a female in a high-stress, front-line unit can screw up the team dynamic. You would have us upend our ability to destroy the enemy and lose the lives of lots of good Soldiers just so that you can force your uninformed opinion on the people who keep you safe from our enemies, who would sell you into marriage at age 12 and rape and beat you daily for the rest of your life.
Glad to know that your political philosophy, which was sold to you by leftist zealots, trumps the lives of the men that protect you every day that you breathe air freely.
There will be diversity “targets” (can’t call them “quotas”) for female frontline participation– guarantee not all of ‘em will be qualified or want to be there. You can guess the rest.
I highly recommend you read this article by a female Marine combat veteran. She has real experience while you’re offering theories. She was a college hockey player and superbly conditioned but now finds her body breaking under the strain. In her professional opinion – one I respect highly – putting women in the infantry will shorten their careers and decrease combat effectiveness.
Women have served honorably and capably in the US military for a long time. There are few jobs they’re unsuited to perform, but those jobs do exist. Infantry, armor, artillery and special ops are examples of those jobs.
And what if they’re drafted? Toughest of the tough? You’re living in a dream world of Xena, Warrior Princess and Buffy knocking men unconscious with a single kick.
Anyone who’s ever been in a fight knows the amount of punishment men can take and come back for more is incredible. You’re not even safe shooting a man unless you’re a distance away. Hand-to-hand? I once worked in a warehouse where we lifted tons per day. Out of a crew of 600, maybe 4 were women. What cultural imperative created that? None. It’s nature and reality. Deal with it.
I’m not tough, or trained and I could break the average women in half in about 3 seconds. There’s a simple reason for that: I’m a man. And by the way, water is wet, despite what you may have seen on Kim Possible.
And Xena is physcially larger and stronger than most women, too… even in Fantasyland.
Right on the money Fail Burton. My husband travels for a living, and so I am armed to the teeth, especially when he is not around. One of the first lessons that he gave me in my gun training was this:
“Stay back as far as you can and shoot honey, cause if they get too close, all this sh** isn’t gonna mean a thing. He’s gonna whoop your a** gun and all!”
Point taken. My husband is a strong guy and wishes me well. What happens when strong guys don’t wish me well? I’m going down plain and simple. Time you women out there understand this. And all of the warrior princess fantasies are just that… fantasies. Very few ladies I’ve ever known (if any) could ever survive a fraction of what I hear these guys go through… our bodies simply are not made for it. Testosterone is one of the things that heal muscles up faster, (someone correct me if I am wrong), and last time I checked I don’t have that in abundance, nor do I wish to. But I almost have to agree with FED UP, sometimes you just have to live with the consequences of what you’ve put in motion. Let you wannabe Boudicca’s know just what it’s like, because one never knows how good one has it until you don’t! And let the record state that no male shall be held responsible for the failure this WILL be, because MEN tried to tell YOU!
…oh, and by the way, don’t any of you ladies dare bring up that child birth thing. Child birth lasts for only so long, and those of us who’ve went through the long ones know, if it would have been much longer we’d be dead! Yes, that’s right ladies… I am so comparing what these men go through and telling you it’s worse, because that level of physical intensity goes on for literally months at a time for these men. And under extremely hostile circumstances. I distinctly remember not having to dodge bullets, grenades, and hostiles, while running up and down nasty terrain carrying almost 100+ pounds of equipment in my controlled, clean, hospital environment while experiencing child birth…twice.
Men are physically stronger than women. Women are emotionally stronger than men. That is why in traditional cultures, men protect their families and women nurture them. That is one reason the Bible lays different roles in the family for men and women.
I was all for feminism when it was about equal opportunities and equal legal status. I think both men and women are equally valuable in the eyes of God and should be treated with equal respect by society. They are both necessary, just like both fathers and mothers are necessary and important to raise children. But it’s delusional to think the sexes are the SAME.
Just because you’d like to turn a tiger into a cuddly plush toy doesn’t make it so; similarly men are not going to be molded into an asexual package without disastrous consequences.
This is about equal opportunity and nothing more. Pretending that it is about how men respond is a red herring.
Tough. They can get their opportunities elsewhere. Not everybody can do everything and I’m tired of a culture that pushed the false dichotomy that they can.
@jmarie
Stop this. It’s not about equal opportunity. It’s about the exaltation of the feminine OVER the masculine, to the detriment of both sexes. There’s nothing equal about it. Men and women need each other. Regardless of what all these “brilliant intellectuals” think.
My husbands business partner put it this way:
“What kind of civilized society puts women in harms way?, I’ll tell you this Rosie, the world is screwed up. Men getting crapped on because we want to protect women? This world is screwed up.” And the labels that we throw on men, because what was their sin again? Oh, right…pointing out the obvious and wanting to keep women safe from harm! Like the old bible verse, “Have I made you my enemy because I have told you the truth?”
You must think that it’s so easy for men. Newsflash…it ain’t. And I must confess that it wasn’t until we had a grandson that I realized just how messed up things are. These men have legitimate claims and all things being EQUAL, we should listen (this means you ladies).
I’d give you one good hell of a fight…if I had a fricken knife! You are right….men are stronger and it is what it is. This does not mean I am weak….it just means men are stronger. A wise and superior woman allows her man to be a man and she behaves like a woman. Men can think so much more rationally under pressure…doesn’t mean I am irrational because I am a woman, it just means I am less capable of making rational decisions while my best friend’s brains are splatter across my chest. Case in point…while everyone was ducking down when JFK was shot…his wife Jackie O climbed on top of the trunk of the car …where the hell was Jackie O going? The secret service had to pull her ass down off of the trunk…see what I mean?
Boy are you missing the point.
1 What makes you such an expert? How much time have you spent in combat?
2. The point is that in order for the military to continue to work men will HAVE to learn to ignore the cries of women. Otherwise women in combat is going to lead to disaster. For that to work the training will have to start while they are still boys. We will have to have a society where men consider women no different from themselves. That was the point of the article.
That’s not what I got out of it. I got that boys and girls are different and in order to squelch that you have to start brainwashing children to go against their natural impulses right from the beginning.
I also believe that is a false premise. I believe humans are hardwired for a reason and going against “nature” as it where, is the surest way extinct our species.
Right on Lolly… that’s what I got from it too.
Why don’t we for patronizing generalization’s sake let jmarie form her own combat unit consisting of nothing but she woman females and stand a post in the heat of combat? I say put them right up on the very front line in the nastiest of the nasty.
Baby, you’ve come a long way. Time for you to face Achmed and his IED goons straight up and roll the dice. Time to prove your mettle.
Men, not required.
Who gives a sh..t about if they are tougher than the majority of wiomen and a large percentage of the men? They will still be the weakest element in the unit. the one who can,not carry a wounded comrade thus causing his death, the one who cannot carry her load of ammo and equipement meaning the first to run out of ammo, the one who despite a lighter load still slows the unit, meaning that in any tactical situation where the unit has to move on foot _fast_ she will get the whole unit killed, the one who is unable to keep the pace when pumping 155mm rounds (43.2 fricking kilograms) into the cannon thus causing deaths into the unit the cannion was supporting. Because there is one thing you forget: your “tough” woman would not be measuring against some overweight soda-drinking, pizza-eating programmer but with _tough_, strong men, and their lives depend on everyone in the unit being as strong and fit as training can make a man, one who was string and fit even before enlisting, be.
And there is something else to say: when their lack of strenght and speed will get themselves and their comarades killed or maimed you will commfortably sit on your fat a… writing BS aqnd feeling morally superior. How about enlisting so you it is you who get killed because of thzqz women you want to force through the throat of the military?
And
So where are these magical women? Women should not get a choice any more than men. You sign up, you go through basic (unchanged, for men or women)you don’t make it you are discharged just like a man.
Women have to sign up for Selective Service. Pregnancy is a medical discharge. I can go on . . . same packs, same kits, same requirements. And we’re supposed to do this for the 1-2% of women that are physically to superior to a small percentage of men?
Glad to see that kind of willing spirit in you. So you can be glad to get your choice.
You shall have your desire and your advice given to you. The front lines of combat is open to women with such a hankering for battle as yours.
Keep in mind though, you will also have to fight the wild animals. Sometimes more than one attacks you at the same time. But you are the ‘toughest of the tough’ so that won’t bother you too much.
The Lord would not deny you the wishes of your mouth and heart.
As others have mentioned: we’re already there.
Years ago a sociology professor who actually had good sense said that sexual mores were an indicator of society. If he was right, then we are already in trouble. Back in the day porn was pretty vanilla. Today a lot of it seems to be based on humiliating women at the mild end to what would be called violent rape in the real world. The violent stuff is also becoming more mainstream.
You can also look to rap and some other entertainment kinds as well for more evidence.
I do wonder how much impact the “girls rule boys drool” meme so common in schools and enforced by teachers has on all this?
There is no ‘girls rule, boys drool’ meme at school. As a mom of two teens I can tell you that different kids rule different areas in schools. The smart kids rule the serious classes and the idiots rule the events where they can show up high and think they’re funny. Gender has little to do with it.
As to sexual mores indicating the state of society, you need to look no further than the ads on this page. There’s tits and ass everywhere!
The ads that appear on your page are likely there because of data mining. For example, I was looking up ultrasound technician training for my daughter, and now I have tons of ads on my internet pages (for days) about schools that offer ultrasound training.
It is likely that someone who uses your computer is viewing that kind of site.
About the topic at hand, there is a reason women don’t usually fix plumbing, move pianos, or work on oil rigs. There is really no comparison between male and female upper body strength. Also, testosterone repairs muscle; women have precious little of it, and will not be able to go the distance in the rigors of combat. Can women serve in other ways? Certainly, but not in combat. They are not able! Is there any common sense left in the world?
You commented about sexual mores affecting society. What kind of society would send their women, those of child bearing ago, into battle? This is a very sad commentary, indeed.
Ah, yes that makes sense about the ads. As
to the other issue, I see it as an issue of choice. Wouldn’t you want your son or daughter to be able to choose?
Allowing women to “chose” being in the infantry is to allow them to “chose” suicide and to “chose” satisfying their fantasies at the cost of the safety of their combat team mates.
Its kind of like referring to an abortion as a “choice”. Everyone involved gets a “choice” except for the one with the most involved in the outcome, the baby.
By choose, I meant choose to apply for all positions. Admission should be merit based.
Choosing to waste millions of dollars on a social engineering experiment.
I’m training my daughters in martial arts and firearms. But arming women is a last resort, not the ideal state. Most men with zero training could absolutely crush a woman with lots of martial arts training. A woman who could hold her own against even an average man is as rare as hen’s teeth.
Being an adult means being willing to tell people, “No, it’s not right, and I don’t care what you think.” Being a parent means being willing to say it to your kids.
So, long story short, no, I DON’T want my daughter to be able to choose to join a line infantry unit. It means almost certainly getting her killed, and most likely other people’s sons dying because of her being there as well. The goal of the military is not to have everyone treated equally. We don’t allow crippled people in the infantry either. That’s called LEGAL discrimination; not allowing someone to do a job who is simply not qualified.
Giving women the “choice” to go into the infantry means other people die in order for those women to have that choice to begin with. You’re asking Soldiers to risk their lives MORE just so you can feel good about how a table looks on paper. How “fair” is that?
NO! The military is not about choices! If woman are clamoring to be in the infantry then they get no choice, Uncle Sam decides not them . . . just like with men.
Ah, there’s the big rub!!!
Women in combat is not about the choice of women. Women in combat is about collective choices that must benefit ALL of society in the most efficient and effective way. If it were only about woman making choices for themselves, then of course they should have free choice. But being a soldier is NOT NOT NOT about only one’s self, dummy. If women do not add to the effectiveness, (destructiveness!!!) of the military unit, then women are detrimental. And woman cannot be allowed to decide for themselves whether they are contributing or not. The people in charge of the military need to be able to deal with REALITY and not fantasy.
Points to ponder! Many women who chose to serve in our nations military don’t share in your opinion. Many women outside the military doing jobs that was once deemed only a mans work, don’t agree with your opinion.
In a constitutionally protected free society that has the benefit of a ‘equal rights’ clause, do you favor government enactments that bar some, of those rights?
Slowly but surely our government gets around to securing for all the people, their constitutional freedoms and equal rights — now if only some of the people were so inclined — even ‘some’ on PJM!
Tell me how many women work are moving pianos? Just whaty I thought. In the military you re
Tell me how many women work are moving pianos? Just what I thought. In combat arms you have to be able to:
-Walk eighty miles a day all while carrying eighty to one hundred pounds of weapons, ammo, equipment, food and drinking. If you can’t carry them (eg you have to do with less water or ammo) or walk long enough and fast enough you die.
-Jump across ditches, climb walls, run fast enough so you reach cover before the enemy sniper has time to fire and do it while carrying the eighty pounds I mentionned. If you can’t do it you die.
-Carry wounded comrades. If you can’t he dies
-Load heavy shells into the canon. If you can’t or if you slow becuase you are tired the people you are supporting wil die.
-Push a vehicle out of the road. If you don’t your trapped column will be wiped out.
And I just touched the surface of what lack of strength can do when you are in the combat arms. Now how about enlisting so you are the first one who gets killed because the woman in the unit was not strong and fast enough? It is too easy to be a “feminist” when you are thousands of miles away from combat and not the one who pays the price.
If you see T&A it’s because of YOU. I see Masterpiece Theatre because of MY recent purchase.
Not sure what your problem is with me but I’m glad you’re enjoying your feelings of superiority.
Jmarie, you are fooling yourself if you don’t recognize the existence of ‘grrrrrrl power’ being the call of the day. My daughter is in 2nd grade, and the entire school is female-centric.
God help the little boy who acts like one. Unless Mr. Mike is there, then I tell the teachers where to get off.
Regarding females in Combat, how about you and I make a bet? Let them serve, but the FIRST time anyone of them asks for a potty break on a cross in-country trip while the MEN are sitting there in their own filth we toss EVERY SINGLE WOMAN out of the military.
And, as far as I am concerned-in a perfect world?- take away their right to vote.
Oh big tough Mike tells the teachers where to get off? Really? Wow what awesome manhood. Your daughter is in second grade. They still use crayons in 2nd grade, I’m sure it’s rough.
Go ahead with that bet. It’s a shame you think women are so weak. I feel badly for your daughter’s prospects in your family.
Jmarie, nice pissy response. Ho where did I say women were weak. Nice comprehension skills.
As for School, no I do not feel like a ‘big tough guy’(I leave that to YOU) but nor will I allow these teachers to yell at little kids for being little kids. I will interject and take the attention away from the kids.Again, way to understand the comment.
As for my daughter’s prospects, I have taught her that woman are not equal to men, they are SUPERIOR. We men are not able to teach our kids-as well as a woman-compassion, caring, tenderness etc…..but that they are also DIFFERENT.
As to a woman’s personal hygiene and your references to tampons etc……sure, show me the first time that, on that same in country convoy she stands up, yanks the string and tosses to used one out the flap and inserts a new one.
Or just takes a sh!t in her pants as she sits there for 9 hours.
Cuz see operational security and YOUR FELLOW SOLDIERS LIVES are more important than you using F@CKING TOILET PAPER. Baby, It ain’t on that transport!!!
You say you have kids. Imagine this scenario: your sons joins the Army. Before they leave for boot, you put a small white ‘x’ on one’s forehead and know that that is the son you will SACRIFICE for your sisterhood.
Which one will you bury? Hmmm?
“Go ahead with that bet. It’s a shame you think women are so weak. I feel badly for your daughter’s prospects in your family.”
In the conditions combat arms is subjected too, women are weak. In fact, they are a burden to their unit even in support roles. Sorry, but I’ve had this conversion more than once with females in my family, who didn’t serve, and when I mentioned some of the conditions required to simply move across terrain over long distances humping 85 pounds of gear + weapons, their answer was, “well the men should help them.”
The feminist mindset is misandrist, but in the end they hate women more.
Well, the females in your family are wrong. If a woman can’t pull her own weight she shouldn’t be allowed in those details, however, there are SOME who will be able to and SOME who will CHOOSE to do so, and they should be allowed.
This is by no means a large group. However, just like I have a niece who plays hockey with the boys because she’s exceptional, there should be room for exceptional women to serve in combat if they so choose.
You advocate a choice which isn’t feasible in the realm of reality. You are of the weaker sex. Accept it.
“I have a niece who plays hockey with the boys because she’s exceptional, there should be room for exceptional women to serve in combat if they so choose.”
Cute. How old is your niece? However the boys on her team will grow to be men and they wouldn’t want her on the team later. How many women play in the NHL? Let alone doing a combat patrol on foreign soil with full combat loads and their lives on the line.
Your ego will kill your niece later, but, again, it isn’t your life on the line…. just your ego.
Your points are valid, especially regarding my niece (14) and my ego has nothing to do with it. When I am wrong I’ll admit it but we simply have a difference of opinion. I’m not speaking in broad terms here. My only point is that if a woman based on MERIT can keep up, she should be able to. Many years ago I was denied a job I was fully qualified for because I was a female, so this hits home.
You seem like a reasonable guy; I hope we can agree to disagree.
“My only point is that if a woman based on MERIT can keep up, she should be able to.”
I would agree to that, but it will end not based on merit due to: (1) The stardards will lower or be subject to a second set for women to accomodate a poltical ojective and (2) few women (eg. the USMC already allowed 2 women to enter officer infantry basic and they dropped out) meet the basic criteria as to warrant a cost-benefit analysis why try to implement women into combat arms at all.
“Many years ago I was denied a job I was fully qualified for because I was a female, so this hits home.”
Join the club. I was denied a job with the feds because, I quote, “we already have to many white men. If you were a black female, it would be different.” Quotas, not ability, trump merit.
“I hope we can agree to disagree.”
I think we can. Have a great weekend. Hoep your niece has a great season.
You keep saying “choice”, so your saying women should be treated differently? Men don’t get a choice where they are deployed or how they are deployed.
You want equality (which will never exist because men and women are physically different), but only under certain terms, degrade quality, cohesion, efficiency and eliminate fairness (men HAVE to make the grade yet somehow women have a choice).
Not to get all practical or anything…But I spoke with a dad this week whose son has done a couple infantry tours in Afghanistan. He said there were times they’d be out in the field for 60 days at a time with no “facilities” to take care of their personal hygiene needs. By the end, they ran out of luxuries like TP and wet wipes. You have to wonder what a female is going to do in this situation. Will they have to be put on chemical hormones to stop their monthly cycles? Or will there be a special tampon attachment following the infantry troops? Or maybe they’ll send a cargo plane over to drop a load of sanitary pads?
Well, since there have been toilet paper and tampons since the dawn of time I guess women have never had to deal with their own mess. Oh, wait! These are modern conveniences, so yes, they have dealt with this! For centuries!
Seriously, if you are saying that men can handle these types of situations but women can’t, you are not giving women nearly enough credit.
Perhaps you didn’t read my comment in its entirety. The infantry Marines in Afghanistan were without everything when they were in the field for extended periods of time. They didn’t have toilet paper. They didn’t even have wet wipes to clean themselves when they had to go without showers for weeks on end.
I did read your comment in its entirety, and as I said, you are not giving women nearly enough credit.
Re jmarie………….¡Qué idiota!
Geez you are really all over this. Like you are being paid to espouse your nonsense.
It must be nice to write the things you do knowing that anonimity protects you and the fact that you WILL NEVER have to go into combat.
To me your comments are meaningless unless YOU as a women have been in combat.
I’ll never go to the moon either but I can have an opinion about the space program.
@jmarie
“I’ll never go to the moon either but I can have an opinion about the space program.”
And when you walk into a room full of NASA engineers and annouce your opiniong they will recognize it as worthless to the matters at hand.
Well, I’VE been to Afghanistan and served on a cushy fire base. Been out with the infantry plenty of times. I don’t think anyone here is shortchanging women at all. The fact is, women who can keep up with men physically in combat and handle the situation emotionally are such a statistical aberration that the risks involved in introducing women into a highly emotionally-charged unit full of Alpha males in a combat zone means that in the rare instance that a woman could be there, the men around her will be off their game, and a LOT of men AND the women will probably get killed. Missions go off unsuccessfully, a ripple effect kills a lot of Soldiers, morale force-wide drops, overall combat effectiveness goes down.
Congratulations, we’re no longer a useful force, and a lot of us soldiers die, but by thunder, YOU GOT WOMEN THE CHOICE TO GO INTO COMBAT! GREAT JOB!
you bring up an interesting tangent – our awful education system which seems to be more about brain-washing than teaching. one more reason to home-school or find a good private or parochial school.
plus I think boys and girls should be allowed male-only and female-only options in school. And I was one of the girls who loved science and math and was very competitive with the boys – but the reality is that it’s easier for little girls to sit still for long periods and boys are both more hyper and less socially mature than girls the same age. So poor boys end up getting diagnosed with ADHD and drugged up when they are just doing what comes naturally to little boys! If they separated the sexes and assigned boys male teachers plus give them more frequent or longer recess breaks that would help them. Similarly, girls do better in girls-only math classes.
I believe the sexes are equal and equally valued by God. That doesn’t make them the same! I was all for feminism when it was about women getting equal respect and equal opportunities but not when it denies basic reality – men and women ARE different.
VERY well said! I feel the same way myself!
This is a similiar topic of circumstance to my earlier years in the Corps. Blacks couldn’t live in the same quarters as whites. Blacks couldn’t qualify for any MOS that was anything more than menial work or expendable infantry occupations. Then there was the amazing experiment during WWII in which the women of the nation took over the jobs in which before were decreed only a man work. They ran the family farms doing all the work the men formerly did. They took over most of the factory jobs, dirty, physically demanding and long hours, etc. Women were introduced to the Army during WWII where the first female war casuality is recorded. Women struggle right up through the 70s to achieve ‘equal’ military status and benefits. Then in the 70s women were ‘allowed’ to qualify for law enforcement and firefighters admissions. I have never witnessed a siginficant failure in what women who choose to do that characteristiccally deemed mans work by some. Seems since Iraq in the 90s, on through to today, the female soliders have done amazing intergration into the battlfield theaters doing their jobs as well as their counterparts and suffering the same battle scars and mortality. If they prove they can do the job on a individual basis then more power to them.
As for male vs. female children — a male child being decreed as having “an inborn propensity for violent behavior.” is significantly questionalble! I would have thought given this kind of subject matter, the author would have provided much more legitimate research data than a single religious bent philosophical practitioner. We raised three boys and five girls and our experiences aren’t that of the author.
Those are false comparisons. You can’t compare cultural bias that prevented people from doing a thing to the bias of reality. War is not shucking corn or milking cows.
You put women in a draft situation and there’ll be hell to pay, the same hell that would happen if one NFL team had half women and another didn’t. Standards will be lowered, fighting efficiency impaired. Relying on best case scenarios is lunacy.
It IS the same! Some saying this and that class of human beings are lesser and therefore, can’t do this or that, while another group is saying ” no, they are not lessr and yes, they can and should be given the opportunities to proven themselves.”
I think over time, most women have proven themselves to be much more than toilet cleaners, bakers and baby factories!
Not true! Underneath the skin a black man and white man are fundamentally the same. Men and women are not.
Women are not complete equals that have been shunted into a class that varies according to cultural bias; they are different – physiologically different. 5,000 years of civilization has stamped this. All those civilizations just happened to have it in for women? And mark this: virtually every nation on earth has had its borders, if not its very existence decided by war. We’re playing a game simply because we can. What happens when we can’t? Are you assuring us there’ll be no Battles of the Bulge and trench warfare where the bayonets and hand-to-hand fighting are in play? There are limits to political correctness – the greatest is reality, PC’s greatest enemy.
You seem to lack any ‘personal” points of reference and rely on subjective opinions. Have you ever served in the military with women? Do you understand that ALL who serve in the military are trained to one degree or another as mission centric combatants? Do you understand that 150 women have lost their lives serving in Iraq and Afghanistan alone? Do you understand that even more have suffered serious bodily and psychological injuries right along with their male counterparts only in much lesser numbers? Do you understand that not many, if any, would want to trade places with you? They are Americas bravest, men AND women alike, who have all volunteered to be Americas defenders in WAR and in peace.
A discussion deeming one class of people as lesser than another class of people IS a discussion of deeming one class of people lesser than another class — no matter the color of skin or sexual gender!
Since this is going to be my last post on this topic let me leave with these observations.
I have never seen so many denegrate a woman as most have on this topic! I have never seen so many, disprespectful of a constitution in which protects the right of ALL, men and women, for equal individual freedoms, to do whatever they choose too, in life that is lawful — that right to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In America, our constitution is all about equal opportunity for every individual citizen to strive to be whatever they wish for. Highly qualified female astronauts come to mind. According to most agruments presented on this topic, women should have never been qualified to fly into space with the men. Women firefighters comes to mind. According to most comments on here they are deemed incapable. Women as community LEOs, FBI, ICE, ATF, Sky marshalls, CIA, come to mind. According to most comments, women in such capacities are incapable and on down a long list of other hard and dangerous occupations. As for myself, I’m most proud of what women have accomplished so far and will no doubt, continue to do in the future as the exercise of individual freedom and opportunities allow them to do so!
all my sons wrestled and at first, they didn’t know how to react to a girl wrestler. i told them they are just opponents that are weaker, so just crush them as fast as you can. i think one of the fastest pins was 8 seconds. i have seen a lot of girl wrestlers and some of them were very skilled, but they don’t compete in the higher weight classes, because….. wait for it….. they ‘re weaker, pound for pound.
The women that want to feel the battle should be the cannon fodder
that is all
Let me 1st say that I am against women on the frontlines fighting alongside men.
That said, some of the best snipers (most kills) in the world during WW2 were Soviet women.
No one’s saying women don’t have fingers. War is not a niche profession unless you have the overwhelming superiority to play at these Oprah-like cultural conceits.
Real war, where the outcome is in doubt and every tiny sliver of advantage counts, is a different matter entirely. We’re contemplating this because we know we can get away with playing at war to a certain extent. That can backfire in a hell of a hurry. All is not so orderly in a frontline combat unit.
How would a female brigade have fared at Gettyburg, Guadalcanal or Saipan? Not very well I think. Bayonets you see.
Are you accounting for all the ‘different’ kinds of battlefields?
After operations starlite and piranha in Vietnam, the U.S. hasn’t fought or encountered ‘conventional’ battlefield wars or conflicts. Most of our ‘wars’ today, are involving nation building strategies and there are NO frontlines and ‘safe’ rear lines on the battlefield. What real estate we take in victory today, we willing give up tomorrow. The foreign nationals we train today become killers of ‘our own’ tomorrow and most likely inside the wire or other considered ‘secure’ facilities. Fortunately, these types in our wars today, seemingly, don’t have a perpensity to the kill female soldiers. On the other hand those who perpetuate IED tactics don’t care about secure facilities knowing that any organized military is quite mobile. Their instruments of maiming and death prey along the roadsides of what is otherwise a peace area or zone used for troop and supply logisitics. FOBs/SOPs sometimes have females specialists embedded and sometimes not. Field hospitals are established in the battlefields of today staffed with both male and female specialists. Base HQs and unit HQs are established on the battlefield staffed with both male and female.
In everyone of these instances life and death lurks equally for male and female! I’m proud of everyone of them equally when they come home alive, maimed or dead! They chose to join the military, serve in harms way voluntarily to defense or serve as ordered on behalf the nation and its people — something the majority do NOT do!
I’ll respect any female who has what it takes to perform any tasks in harms way no matter what MOS it may be, including infantry, SOPs, combat aviation or whatever. Serving with men and the idea of timely showers, menstruation, urination, deficating, no toilet paper, blood and guts is nothing new to one heck of lots of women in our military today or even earlier. Ask the ones whose been there and done that along with the men who have stood by their sides.
All that aside, what most of the women are asking for is ‘equal’ combat status and combat benefits for career advancement as those men they serve alongside.
No, I am not accounting for “different” types of battlefields. The military has to be ready for anything, not rely on situations that will mitigate a female presence.
That’s what I meant by “niche” warfare; there is no such thing and to think so is a luxury. It is a luxury brought about by overconfidence and the fact we’re plain better than most of the people we’ve fought recently who aren’t even soldiers. Battlefields can’t be managed to suit political correctness and cultural conceits – this isn’t like gay marriage where if you can’t have a kid you adopt one.
The idea of women against Nazi or Empire of Japan troops is ridiculous, as is the idea we’ll always have manageable battles that avoid women’s weaknesses and go to their strengths. That’s not war, that’s a game. If we have that kind of luxury, it’s an optional war in the first place and shouldn’t be fought.
The First Gulf War was fairly conventional – brigade on brigade slugfests out in the open desert. For those who think it’s all remote control and vehicles – the 7th Marine Regiment was tasked with doing a foot-mobile infiltration into Kuwait the week before the ground war started.
The Regiment’s 3 battalions marched into 30 to 60 miles into Kuwait over 3 nights, hiding during the day. They carried every thing they needed – food, ammo, etc… including .50 cal machine guns and mortars. The air team I was on had been working some of theirs when they got the word. Not Marine in the regiment carried less than 100 lbs on his back.
More or less correct but, the dynamic didn’t last long nor did the interdiction.
“No Marine in the regiment carried less than 100 lbs on his back.”
Back in my days, we all had the old ‘heavy weapons’ to lug around – M1s, BARs, Mortars, .50MGs, Bazookas, Flame Throwers, radios/comwire, tons of cased ammo, Steel Helmets, weapon and ammo slings that cut into your shoulders, M1 clips that chewed your thumbs down to the bone reloading, etc., etc. Just a good sweat would add 3-5lbs or more to the cottom fatigues.
Just a litle side story. I went to Korea at the end and was with a battalion that ws doing ‘recovery’ of weapons, ammo and other supplies bringing it to staging areas for logisitics. Terrain that I fortunately never had to witness again. Some of the correspondents had stayed for whatever reasons and out of boredom, I suppose, they one by one started going with us to lug all the stuff for upwards of 10-15 miles in many cases because vehicles were scares and couldn’t navigate the terrain well. Two british and one aussie female correspondents were the first to offer their help. Long story short, they were kickbutt little generals outworking most all involved until they left.
Theres some pretty amazing war stories and published bios of the women frontline, foxhole correspondents of WWII, Korea and Vietnam just as there were women serving in frontline insurgency operations, etc.
@Zeke
“Back in my days, we all had the old ‘heavy weapons’ to lug around – M1s, BARs, Mortars, .50MGs, Bazookas, Flame Throwers, radios/comwire, tons of cased ammo, Steel Helmets, weapon and ammo slings that cut into your shoulders, M1 clips that chewed your thumbs down to the bone reloading, etc., etc. Just a good sweat would add 3-5lbs or more to the cottom fatigues.
Just a litle side story. I went to Korea at the end and was with a battalion that ws doing ‘recovery’ of weapons, ammo and other supplies bringing it to staging areas for logisitics. Terrain that I fortunately never had to witness again. Some of the correspondents had stayed for whatever reasons and out of boredom, I suppose, they one by one started going with us to lug all the stuff for upwards of 10-15 miles in many cases because vehicles were scares and couldn’t navigate the terrain well. Two british and one aussie female correspondents were the first to offer their help. Long story short, they were kickbutt little generals outworking most all involved until they left.
Theres some pretty amazing war stories and published bios of the women frontline, foxhole correspondents of WWII, Korea and Vietnam just as there were women serving in frontline insurgency operations, etc.”
Are you intentionally sarcastic, well done by the way, or do really believe your posts?
Fail Burton, you are 100% right. There are niches in the Army, but any Drill Seargent or Tach Officer will tell you that your primary MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) is combat infanty/rifleman.
“That said, some of the best snipers (most kills) in the world during WW2 were Soviet women.”
I have heard that from Israel as well. Women make excellent snipers and scouts. Maybe they have more patience and attention to detail.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, yes that cute little older woman with the accent talking about sex on TV, was a sniper with the Haganah. She says she can still hit the bullseye.
jmarie, everywhere…. you clearly know all things about all things. How many years were you in the Corps?… or whatever. How many days of SERE school have you had? How many boys are you willing to get killed because a woman cant carry her load?
When I went to Desert Storm (as a CO of a unit) it was easy to see. Once in country the girls quickly found that 18 hour days, no showers and sand every where was not fun. I was able to drive 19 year old Marines hard, give a little water and MRE and about 4 hours sleep and do it again the next day. Then they packed 100 pounds of stuff into combat.
When women shipped out, the last thing they did was take a pregnancy test. No pregnant women left the US. Yet the pregnancy rate IN COUNTRY was three times the normal for the general population… it was an instant ticket home.
That meant the unit was a person short… plus, people are shipped out in units… it is very difficult to round up a single replacement, send them overseas and then connect them up with a specific unit. In WWII for instance, herds of men where shipped out as general replacements and then assigned to units in the field wholly by chance. In DS it was a mess. Pentagon hushed it up to appease the people with the cash, congress. In Afghanistan it is equally bad, today. Some Army units are reporting a 90+% STD rate, including senior female NCOs.. Disease dear lady, disease. Really cuts combat efficiency.
That system has not and cannot practically change.
So, ms jmarie, drop the PC stuff… and listen… i am sure your family will… never mind.
ta
M
ps… and when the SHTF, everyone is an infantry man…person.
I’m glad you think I know so much; I have never claimed to. I used to discuss all this at length with my dad (who has since passed). He was a marine in the South Pacific in WWII. When I explained that if more soldiers were pregnant it meant fewer natives and prostitutes were pregnant (with American babies that would be left behind) he agreed that maybe I had a point.
Thank you for your service.
Your Dad was just trying to shut you up, dear……;^)
Well said, lolly, well said. Her sons may enlist just to get some quiet…lol
No, my father enjoying talking to me very much on a rage of issues and unfortunately he’s not around to say so. Shame on you, Lolly.
You should have asked him how he thought a female Marine would be able to fare against a Jap infantry unit. Or how a female would have been fared during the Bataan Death March.
For that matter, ask a ‘Nam vet how they would have been treated in the Hanoi Hilton, or what prisoner morale would have been like as soon as one of Ho Chi Minh’s prison commanders had ordered the systematic torture of women in any POW camp.
To paraphrase Ted Nugent, feminists need to quit playing PC politics with the lives of Soldiers. Leave us the hell alone!
“I used to discuss all this at length with my dad (who has since passed). He was a marine in the South Pacific in WWII. When I explained that if more soldiers were pregnant it meant fewer natives and prostitutes were pregnant (with American babies that would be left behind) he agreed that maybe I had a point.”
What a bizarre post. Daddy issues perhaps?
Daddy issues? Really? Wow. What a disappointment. I was simply trying to point out that a WWII era vet was able to discuss these issues and be open to ideas that were different than his. Sheesh.
“I was able to drive 19 year old Marines hard…”
In the ‘old Corps’ we didn’t “drive” our Marines — we ‘led’ our Marines!
-Mustang-
’54
Semper Fi
I don’t think taht anyone can argue that women can’t be good trigger pullers and should it come to that effective fighters.
The larger question–as the article points out–what might it do to society?
I’m not sure that we are going to look back on this 25 years from now and realize we made a huge error.
There are multiple examples of men no longer feeling protective of women–wbich might well make some folks happy–but when able bodied young men quite litteraly trample old people, women and childern in their haste to escape a sinking boat–something is really wrong.
Not sure that anybody has thought about what livinging in such a world might be like–esp, the folks pushing the idea of women as front line fighters.
I will argue that ‘pulling the trigger’ is the last, and easiest, part of a long chain of events. Most of the pre-pull stuff is hard, hot, boring, strenuous, and just damn difficult. Sitting in an air conditioned drone control center and pushing the fire button is a lot different that eight days in a foxhole, that you have re-dug and dressed every for hours in the rain and snow and general muck while pissing against a tree when you can.
Combat is real. Our nation has been strong enough that we haven’t seen a lot of it since Viet Nam.
O, in his brilliance, has restored the likelihood that it will happen again.
ta
I think everyone is missing the point here. This is a political issue. The feminist objective of having women in the combat roles is so one can be promoted to Chief of Staff of their service. Chiefs of Staff come from the combat specialties like infantry and Armored in the Army, not the Corps of Engineers or Ordnance. The tragedy will be in the losses that result from the necessary lowering of standards that will be required to make this happen. Also, that woman won’t be eligible for that promotion until quite a few years in the future. Hopefully saner national leadership will emerge and stop this foolishness before we reach that point.
Read Sebastian Junger’s book “War” and see the film “Restrepo.” Ask yourself how a woman soldier would be received in that brutal world of hyper-sexualized and isolated young men.
Honestly review the sexual assault history of the women in uniform of the last few years. The whole mixed message/ugly power dynamic (yes, men can physically over power but women can make false assertions that destroy good men and effective small units).
These young troops aren’t saints and it is absolutely idiotic to put women in the mix to any large degree.
And, I and any other man who has worked with women in physically demanding and protracted circumstances damn well knows standards are lowered for them and often they are give equipment operator jobs etc. because they can’t manage a 5 peavy on a log ladder, or post hole digger, etc.
Heck Larry… I’ll go you one better. I couldn’t drag my husband across our back yard, 20 feet away from the basement door, if he injured himself while helping me plant the garden! Now how in the name of heaven am I supposed to drag a soldier weighted down with more than a spade shovel anywhere? And by the way, I am no cream puff! Simply put, I am going to endanger everyone, including myself. Why, oh why, is this so hard for people to get?
“Why, oh why, is this so hard for people to get?”
Because they have an agenda, there is no personal risk for them and they have no idea what they are asking.
This will sort itself out when the polticos become interested in winning wars again.
I’ll respond. I was a couple of miles away from the Korengal Outpost when Restrepo was being filmed. There are friends of mine that show up in that film.
We had some females at my FOB. They were medics and cooks, mostly. The medics were very efficient. Some were mechanics and welders. They did their job. A few were a pain in the ass and other people had to do their jobs for them. Once in a while they’d get into relationships with other Soldiers and really compound the stress of the situation.
But not one of them could handle the daily routines of the infantry Soldiers in the area. Just to get their job done, most of them were very emotionally cold to the Soldiers around them, with few exceptions, which can break down the team dynamic a lot. If they didn’t get emotionally distant, they usually either spent their days being bitchy to the other females or knocking boots with other Soldiers, which was five times worse than the distant ones.
Medics, mechanics, welders, THEM I’ll take in the Army. But putting women in an infantry unit is something even the government should be too smart to do. It screws up team dynamics and is going to get good Soldiers killed.
I’m wondering if people have gotten the idea that all future wars are going to be similar to those in the present and the last 2 or 3 decades,relatively low casualties compared to historical warfare, unless of course, you happen to be one of those casualties or a family member.
The last time we’ve had horrendous casualties in a single unit or a very short time was in the Vietnam war, where some units were virtually wiped out. In the Dak To campaign the 173rd Airborne took horrible casualties, about a year’s equivalent to present operations in a month or so, ditto for Hamburger Hill and several other campaigns.I guess what I’m getting at is, if the American people see something like the famous photo of the Marines’ Operation Buffalo of heaps of retrieved corpses piled on tanks with the blood streaming down, and they happen to be females, it will shock them to the core, even more than it would be if they were male troopers.And thus will end this misguided experiment. War ain’t like TV or Hollywood.
The old germanic tribes allowed women to bear arms in combat, if they were able. Most weren’t but a few were and proved themselves formidable against other tribesman and against the Romans.
No one accused those hairy bastards of being easy to kill.
I’d be more open to the idea of women in combat if I didn’t think our PC society wouldn’t push for “quotas”. If only 1 out of a 1000 women qualify for combat, the hard core feminists will insist it’s due to discrimination, top brass in the military will know heads will roll if they don’t show more “progress” in incorporating women, etc.
Reality is that men have more testosterone and upper body strength than women and their muscles are better equipped to take the brutal punishment of combat. Doesn’t change the fact that women can be just as tough, dedicated, etc. as men and in fact many times men admire and respect women’s endurance in the face of adversity, etc. When I went through cancer, my husband told me he admired my strength in the face of that dreadful disease and he knew he couldn’t have dealt with it with the good humor and positive attitude I had. Plus I handle our investment portfolio because I’m a whiz with numbers. Doesn’t change the fact, though, that he insists I sleep farther from the bedroom door – he wants to be the one to face any intruders that break in because he’s bigger, stronger and better equipped to deal with that kind of situation.
Instead of trying to turn men into women and vice versa, why not give each other equal respect and appreciation and play to our individual strengths?
If women do have skills that can be used (for example, as snipers or pilots, etc.), certainly we should use those skills, but we should not water down requirements to accomodate the PC brigade. Plus, honestly, it would be disastrous for our society to break down the natural instincts of men to protect and cherish women and the natural instincts of women to nurture. One reason men have fought so hard is to protect those islands of tranquility their wives, sisters, mothers, etc., create for them. If women lose this ability in the quest to become men, then society also loses something.
it won’t happen — or work — long term because we’re hard-wired as human beings to act or not act in certain ways. although training, rules, individual circumstances & protocols can work so that our overall human propensities are not totally reliable as indicators of what will happen in this or that given situation, in the main, over the long haul, men will act to protect and help women. they’ll also show off for women, try to have sex with them, woo them, try to outcompete their fellow men for the women’s attention, etc. etc.
the pentagon and federal government have already proven themselves to be slaves to their own p.c. dogmas. send out young men & women on a ship for several months and act like rules & regs will prevent pregnancies? that’s'a religious act: it shows the power of faith in ‘rules’ over reason.
if the brass hats and their ideological masters in congress & agencies really expect to have a gender-neutral military which can fight & win wars (remember that ‘winning’ notion from a few wars back??) then we’ll see what happens in the future when hostilities break out. do you really think society would stand for a boy-girl draft, for example?
i’m sure other militaries are quaking in their boots at the prospect of being sued for sexual harassment by american lawyers if and when they mistreat their female p.o.w’s.
on the other hand, the military gets silly in between major conflicts, so this is just a historical habit dressed up in modern guise.
Sorry, we now live in an equal rights society and I don’t think you can put this particular genie back in the bottle.
The consequences of equality are equal responsibility and that should apply to Military service.
Plus the “seeing women bleed and die” bridge has been crossed these past 12 years over and over again and our Military hasn’t fallen apart. I consider them my comrades; we got shot at and bombed together and they did their duty well.
Currently, men have the option when they join to be or not be infantry. This should be extended to women, all things being equal as far as physical qualification go.
When you serve with women, you consider them a part of your team, not pretty little adjuncts to be protected and cherished, at least not any more than a male soldier would be. If you are doing so as a leader, you might want to check your attitude.
The only thing that hurts womens participation in the team is a double standard in physical strength, as currently, they are weaker than the weaken man allowed. Thats the only argument that makes sense as far as restricting women in the Military, if we are to have an equal society.
So, if the women can keep up physically, then more power to them, but if they can’t they belong in other Military jobs.
The ultimate truth of the matter is that the vast majority of women serving have no desire to be Infantry or other combat arms. So, don’t expect a big rush of women into those fields.
No disrespect, but what was your MOS? It’s one thing to take incoming fire at a firebase and see the females do their jobs. It’s a whole separate ball of wax to expect a female to carry her gear and do her job on a foot patrol that’s initiating movement-to-contact up in the Hindu Kush mountains, function without any toiletries, not have emotional issues, and not screw up the team dynamic. It’s two different worlds.
Absolutely two different worlds. Its really a matter of physical ability and mindset. Some women will be able to hack it, but most will not.
I am retired 31B Combat Military Police. Some of our missions required days long dismounted operations. We had females that could keep up during long exercises. There were some that didn’t. Let them compete but keep the standards the same.
“Some women will be able to hack it, but most will not.”
I emphasize the word “most” in your reply. You served a combat support role and even you made that observation. Bravo.
“Some of our missions required days long dismounted operations. We had females that could keep up during long exercises.”
Because there were enough men to pick up their slack. Not slagging you, I was a 95B (87-92′), Gulf War vet and the women were not up to par. There were acceptions, but not the rule. When things got dirty… it showed up real fast where the weaknesses were, but it never went beyond battalion. If it did, it was so watered down that Division or Bridage HQ squashed it.
Funny thing about MP companies deployed down range, they were, and always are, understrengthed. Wonder why.
MP units are big, usually aound 160-180 people. Most of them are in the reserves. Since most mobilizations are capped by personnel, they tend to “short” MP units to be able to mob other units. It always hurts the shorted MP units mission capability, but they don’t really care about that.
The Abu Ghraib scandal was partly caused by undermanning the MP units assigned to run the prison.
I may not be exact, but I’m close. 80 women killed, 40 by the enemy. None were in infantry type situations, IED’s, mortar attacks, etc.
A very wise Rabbi said, a few thousand years ago “It is women who civilize us”. How wise he was, and by that statement he made the case for protecting our women and keeping them from combat…even those who claim to want to go.
The barbarians of old, the Vikings, Goths and Huns did not send women into combat, nor did the Nazi’s. Stalin did, but Marxists lack basic humanity anyway.
Those who would send our mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters into combat have no humanity, either; nor a conscience nor a soul.
Picture taking a baby from his mother’s arms and send her die on a battlefield or an enemy POW camp.
The order for women to fight comes not from wanting to please strident feminists, but rather to dissolve the last vestiges of decency and usher in the end of civilization as we know it.
God help us!
Your post resonates the real issue.
“Those who would send our mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters into combat have no humanity, either; nor a conscience nor a soul.”
And a civilazation that accpets it will not be a society long for this earth nor do they deserve to be.
There was a US soldier named Jessica Lynch who in 2003 was enlisted as a supply clerk attached to the 507th Maintenace Company. Her convoy got lost, got ambused by the Iraqis and she was taken prison after her vehicle was knocked out.
You can wiki the rest, but what the media at the time didn’t tell you, is that she was repeatedly raped as a prisoner until the special ops team rescued her. I recall western media making claims it was all “staged.”
*Disclaimer: My source was a MI officer attached to 3ID at the time.
I think what Zeke is trying to say is, as most young people understand life from virtual reality movies and such, Wars can be fought how ever we please AND Angelina Jolie can kick a two hundred pound mans arse one day and be in a evening gown and high heels the next!Amazing huh?
I’ll never forget a conversation some women were having back in the 80′s that worked motorpool at Ft. Bragg. Two were carrying on about how they could do whatever the men do. (This was a time when Katie Wilder or whatever her name was tried to go through SF training) Finally after watching those two carry on for a while, a third female spoke up and and pointed out how they (the females) ALWAYS had to get a male counterpart to do the lifting for them when dealing with engines.
And the comment about equal opportunity……….How about equal opportunity in dealing with reality in order to save ones own life!
LOL!!!
“ALWAYS had to get a male counterpart to do the lifting for them when dealing with engines.”
And women aren’t the smarter?
Reminds me of our older daughter and third youngest son. They loved to go riding their horses together. Son and daughter saddling up. Son — sissy, sissy, help me! Sissy complies and off they’d go. Son and dad going riding. son — grunt groan, spit, kick some dirt and finally get saddled and look at me a say – see dad I can do it!
Works both way!
Well Zeke, I have no doubt the gals from motor pool also could have lifted a saddle with no problem. Your story kinda gives me a peek into the dynamics of your family. Hmmmmmm. Maybe your daughter AND your son couldn’t have lifted the engine or engine parts. Guys like that usually don’t cut the mustard in a combat unit.
Thanks for your comment! Daughter was eight and son was four. Daughter is a MD and that son a LtCol in the Marine Corps — We’re equally proud of all eight of our very successful children.
I wonder if anyone has suggested Amazon Brigades. Women may not be able to lift men, but they’re more likely to be able to lift fellow women.
Maybe if you don’t think women should be in war combat,maybe nobody should be. After all men are people too…..
Liz
Guilty as charged. And loved every second of it.
So tell me—why did the girls still hang around?
In the U.S. 1.05 boys are born for every girl.
Yeah, and the average American household has 2.6 children.
Dammit, do I hate it when people f*ck up a perfectly good statistic with lousy English.
For every 100 girls born, there are approximately 105 boys.
Is that not just slightly less creepy?
Ladies will do what they want to do. I’ve been married for 46 years to the same woman and she does what she wants to do – sometimes she’s right and sometimes she’s wrong. Maybe the easiest way to solve this issue is to let the ladies in the military vote on it. If they say yea, it’s OK. If they say no, then drop the issue. Personally, I think it’s a no brainer. I have two daughter’s and one grand daughter. My mother taught me to respect women and I do. I don’t want to see women in a direct combat role.
I’m a veteran of two different services. Frankly, seeing the current crop of coddled male children of supposed adult age, rather than many of those whiny, self-involved boy-bozos out there, I’d rather have a self-disciplined and highly-motivated female have my back in combat than many of these clown-hat males out there, masquerading as proper soldiers. And since when did the ability to drag a wounded fellow soldier around on the ground, become the gold-standard of combat effectiveness? In a firefight, I’d rather have my fellow troops focus on effectively pouring fire on the enemy and eliminating the damned hazard! I’ve taught a number of women to shoot and they extremely often prove better shots than men! Trade-offs, eh? And kindly note that, with more emphasis upon women’s athletics, many females today aren’t the weak ninny’s you might suppose! That all aside, if females indeed want equality in all other aspects of society, they should properly be required to shoulder equal responsibilities … and equal hazards. This means not only should females be required to register for the draft, but combat duty should be equally assigned, not simply volunteered for.