Your Experience with Females in the Military

A question for all the vets out there. What has your experience been with females in the uniformed services? Personally, my own has been mixed.

My recruiter was actually female, and I thought she was fine. She was nice, non-threatening, and did her best to help me through the process. Some of the male recruiters seemed like dicks, tbh.

At Basic Training, however, the females kind of just drove me nuts. By and large, their physicality and basic soldiering skills were simply lacking (we probably had a quarter of them drop out due to injuries - stress fractures in the hips mostly, though we had a few cases of heat exhaustion, and one female private dislocate her shoulder during a ruck march), and they tended to have a lot more trouble adapting to the environment on a psychological level as well. I can't even begin to tell you, for example, how many times we got messed up by our drill sergeants because the females in the platoon bay insisted on running their mouths as loudly as possible instead of shutting the Hell up like they were told to do. They also tended not to get along very well with one another. We basically had a handful of "mean girl" types take over as the "queen bitches" of the female barracks, form a clique, and proceed to bully the Hell out of everyone else. While there was some occasional interpersonal friction among the males, we actually tended to get along pretty good. If worse came to worse, we'd just fight it out and be done with things. I actually became pretty decent friends with one guy after beating him at combatives.

They also introduced an element of sexual tension to the environment which wasn't exactly conducive to training either. We got smoked by the drill sergeants a couple of times because female and male soldiers got caught flirting. One of the other platoons wound up getting smoked for like an hour a day, every day, for two straight weeks because a male and female private decided to get engaged, and no one reported it.

I was hardly the only one to notice all of these things either, though some were a bit resistant to actually acknowledge it.

I brought attention to these issues early on, for example, and had my squad mates basically dismiss me as being "sexist." Well, as you can imagine, it was much to my amusement when, about a month and a half later, one my squad mates came into the bay fuming, and declared, "Man, I hate to say it, but Thomas is right. The females SUCK!!!" and everyone else in the bay pretty much instantly agreed with him. :lol:

Now, before everyone gets up my ass here, it worth noting that, after Basic, my opinion actually cooled quite a bit. If you're in a non-combat MOS, as roughly 80% of the Armed forces are, the military is basically just a regular office job where everyone wears fatigues, your boss can make you do push-ups if they're pissed at you, and the entire office occasionally goes running together before work.

In that capacity, I think women do just fine. They can even "soften" the environment a bit in a way which might actually be beneficial. I have heard some outright horror stories about the "frat boy" bull**** that tends to go on in all male combat arms units (hazing, rampant homoeroticism, and etca). Frankly, I'm kind of glad that I never had to deal with it. lol

However, on the other hand, it's undeniable that they also introduce certain disciplinary issues. Fraternization between higher ranking males and lower ranking females tends to be a big problem which often gets people either busted down in rank or kicked out of the military entirely. I've also seen several females conveniently get pregnant right before an overseas deployment just in order to get out of going.

Their soldiering skills still also tend to be undeniably subpar, on average. My assigned NCO for several years was actually a former Active Duty MP. We always used to get assigned to range details as such. I'm sorry, but watching for hours on end as one female after another either completely misses their targets - or even empties entire magazines into the dirt ten feet in front of them in some cases - was simply torture. We pretty commonly had to resort to punching holes in peoples' targets with pens just to make sure they passed, and get the commander the "100% Go" he was looking for.

Bottom line?

I think females can and often do excel in the military. As front-line combatants, however? I think the whole thing is a bad joke.

At most, I've met a couple of women in my time in service who might be able to pull something like that off. Frankly, I don't think that's enough to justify changing the entire way we do things, when the present model works just fine.

Gathomas88 said:

A question for all the vets out there. What has your experience been with females in the uniformed services? Personally, my own has been mixed......

At most, I've met a couple of women in my time in service who might be able to pull something like that off. Frankly, I don't think that's enough to justify changing the entire way we do things, when the present model works just fine.

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Similar to yours, except I started off in the grunts, and then shifted over to intel, so I've gotten to serve in both the all-male combat units, and the mixed-gender non-combat units.

Switching over the female issue was a problem. Half my time was spent trying to keep my junior Marines from sleeping with each other or members of their chain of command. My first mixed gender unit was absolutely torn apart by jealousy, investigations, recriminations, and the like. I also got to work on my bearing: never before had I imagined a scenario where an NCO tried to explain to me that the reason he was showering with a junior female Marine was because "they were just really good friends". We had two females out of about 7 "suddenly" get pregnant 3-4 months before deployment. Gosh darn the luck. :roll: Then (thank God I got shipped to a different unit) one of the females I had tried (and failed) to counsel turned into the center of a giant prostitution ring while deployed.

I've seen it happen in deployed environments, too. Females came and joined our infantry battalion as a FET. They couldn't keep up physically, we had to make a bunch of changes that took time, effort, and resources away from other efforts to accommodate them, and then half the dudes spent all their free time focusing on getting laid.

You get awesome females and I've worked with those two. Fought for them to get meritorious promotions, put into special billets, even get into SOF. But in general? It would be a cluster putting them in the infantry.

It was a mixed bag.

We didn't do any training with females as my career field was closed to them back then. When I switched over to Law Enforcement was the first I worked directly with females and there were very few problems but, as you mentioned, there was an underlying level of sexual tension and the overall feeling of having to "walk on eggshells" in conversations and other interactions.

We had a few females go lesbo to get out, a few who had a serious axe to grind and a few who just wanted to get married but, frankly, there were guys who did the same.

Lutherf said:

It was a mixed bag.

We didn't do any training with females as my career field was closed to them back then. When I switched over to Law Enforcement was the first I worked directly with females and there were very few problems but, as you mentioned, there was an underlying level of sexual tension and the overall feeling of having to "walk on eggshells" in conversations and other interactions.

We had a few females go lesbo to get out, a few who had a serious axe to grind and a few who just wanted to get married but, frankly, there were guys who did the same.

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Yeah. Lesbians in the armed forces are pretty common in my experience. I actually tend to mind them less than the straight women, a lot of the time.

They've got a more inherently "masculine" mindset. lol

Gathomas88 said:

Yeah. Lesbians in the armed forces are pretty common in my experience. I actually tend to mind them less than the straight women, a lot of the time.

They've got a more inherently "masculine" mindset. lol

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Probably the worst issue we had was on a deployment in Honduras. For some reason or other someone decided to send two females down with a Red Horse team. The second day they were there they decided to put on bikinis and catch some rays. We were in total field conditions with about 400 Rangers, AFSOG and Green Berets who were running new missions every couple of days. They were there two days and literally got marched to the door of the next flight out.

The only good that came of that experiment is that the rest of their team managed to get a couple of generators up and running so we could finally make ice. Before that we had ready access to a literal mountain of canned beer but no way to cool it down!:lol:

What I'm trying to figure out is why it's entirely the females fault or doing for getting pregnant or "fraternizing" with the male servicemen?

I don't even consider myself much of a feminist sympathizer at all but all I really saw in the OP was Gath making a decision about what the majority of females are "like" then looking for a way to justify bashing them. What? One of them had heat exhaustion? Clearly her fault, because no male soldier has ever had that happen.

X Factor said:

What I'm trying to figure out is why it's entirely the females fault or doing for getting pregnant or "fraternizing" with the male servicemen?

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Do you think all male units have to worry about such a thing happening?

At the end of the day, it doesn't frankly matter who's "at fault" (though, make no mistake, a lot of those females are deliberately getting pregnant, because - while they like getting an Army paycheck - they don't like the idea of potentially putting themselves in danger for it). What matters is how certain policies can be observed to affect the efficiency of the military as a whole.

I didn't say that women shouldn't be in the military, keep in mind. However, the fact that their presence introduces certain problems that wouldn't be there otherwise isn't really deniable.

I don't even consider myself much of a feminist sympathizer at all but all I really saw in the OP was Gath making a decision about what the majority of females are "like" then looking for a way to justify bashing them. What? One of them had heat exhaustion? Clearly her fault, because no male soldier has ever had that happen.

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I elaborated upon my personal experiences in the military with female soldiers. I'm sorry if it doesn't mesh with the "champagne and caviar" image the P.C. world outside of the military likes to project, but that's reality. :shrug:

In my experience, while (occasional disciplinary issues aside) women do just fine in administrative and support roles, they tend to struggle with actual soldiering. I've noticed that since Basic Training onwards.

The issue isn't whether or not male soldiers ever struggle as well. It's whether or not female soldiers struggle more. The simple fact of the matter is that they absolutely do. If that's painfully obvious even in non-combat units where these kinds of tasks are only a secondary consideration, you'd better believe that it's going to be exponentially worse in a frontline unit where those sorts of tasks are their entire job.

X Factor said:

What I'm trying to figure out is why it's entirely the females fault or doing for getting pregnant or "fraternizing" with the male servicemen?

I don't even consider myself much of a feminist sympathizer at all but all I really saw in the OP was Gath making a decision about what the majority of females are "like" then looking for a way to justify bashing them. What? One of them had heat exhaustion? Clearly her fault, because no male soldier has ever had that happen.

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It's not but when some idiot decides to play social experimentation games you get the entirely predictable results we see.

Combat units need to be able to predict, adapt to and overcome an ever changing set of obstacles. That's hard enough to do when everyone is focused on just that one task but when you throw a female into the mix the focus is going to change to some extent. You can "academic" the plan 100 ways from Sunday but when you actually implement it there is a change in the dynamic and it's not toward a more focused and unified plan of combat actions.

Bottom line?

I think females can and often do excel in the military. As front-line combatants, however? I think the whole thing is a bad joke.

At most, I've met a couple of women in my time in service who might be able to pull something like that off. Frankly, I don't think that's enough to justify changing the entire way we do things, when the present model works just fine.

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My experience has been limited as I was an outsider. Contractor to be exact. As for day to day soldiering I couldn't tell you as I didn't really work that close with the military in day to day soldiering. My contact was squad level leadership and above and they were my escorts for my convoys. I can count how many military females I have dealt with in professional capacity on one hand. 2. They were both in the leadership position for the escort teams I had. One was a very good looking imbecile who damn near shot up another fuel convoy along with mine playing with her new toy while under enemy contact. (A .50 cal CROW system, good thing she was an imbecile). The moron stopped a my 30 truck convoy loaded with jp4 to engage in a firefight with an ongoing ambush of an opposite traveling convoy. My standing orders where to push through at speed. I had order my driver to push her Humvee with my vehicle to get the convoy going again. The other lady was a competent SGT who knew her **** and did the job well. There was no enemy contact when she was running with us, so don't know if she was as competent under those conditions but generally speaking those types tend to have their **** together regardless the situation. So I cant make many generalizations but I can say that when they are idiots they are really idiots at least when they are hot looking, which I think was the problem with the imbecile I dealt with. She was a butter bar and her soldiers were too busy staring at her tits to be paying attention to her. She was national guard, the Sgt, was active duty. I have noticed a huge quality difference between the regular army and the national guard, though I have had exceptions on occasion. That might explain the discrepancy. It might not. In any case hotness was bonified moron and when the powers that be attempted to send her as an escort with us again, I flatly refused and said I would rather have NO escort than her escort. Of course that was also near the time I was lobbying to get active duty only as my escorts, I was and still am biased against National Guard which probably colors my opinion more than a bit.

Gathomas88 said:

Do you think all male units have to worry about such a thing happening?

At the end of the day, it doesn't frankly matter who's "at fault" (though, make no mistake, a lot of those females are deliberately getting pregnant, because - while they like getting an Army paycheck - they don't like the idea of potentially putting themselves in danger for it). What matters is how certain policies can be observed to affect the efficiency of the military as a whole.

I didn't say that women shouldn't be in the military, keep in mind. However, the fact that their presence introduces certain problems that wouldn't be there otherwise isn't really deniable.



I elaborated upon my personal experiences in the military with female soldiers. I'm sorry if it doesn't mesh with the "champagne and caviar" image the P.C. world outside of the military likes to project, but that's reality. :shrug:

In my experience, while (occasional disciplinary issues aside) women do just fine in administrative and support roles, they tend to struggle with actual soldiering. I've noticed that since Basic Training onwards.

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Well, I actually have sympathy for female service members that get to deal daily with you (and your friends, no doubt) slapping yourself on your back for your obvious superiority over them in every way. I don't know. Maybe it's because it's not, at all, unusual for me to work with women, I don't judge a person by their gender first and neither do I attribute things I don't like to a persons gender either. In my considered experience, people are people and, further, women are people. Go figure.

X Factor said:

Well, I actually have sympathy for female service members that get to deal daily with you (and your friends, no doubt) slapping yourself on your back for your obvious superiority over them in every way. I don't know. Maybe it's because it's not, at all, unusual for me to work with women, I don't judge a person by their gender first and neither do I attribute things I don't like to a persons gender either. In my considered experience, people are people and, further, women are people. Go figure.

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Oh, geez. Cry me a river dude. :roll:

Do you think I was simply imagining all of those problems I mentioned? Do you think every other veteran who says the same damn thing (most of them in my experience) is imagining things as well?

Again, no one said that women can't excel in the military. It simply happens to be the case that the areas in which they excel typically don't tend to be the ones that involve hefting around 100 lb packs for months at a time, or kicking down doors and shooting people in the face.

I'm really not sure why civilians find simply stating the obvious in this regard to be so offensive. This is real life, not Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider."

Lutherf said:

It's not but when some idiot decides to play social experimentation games you get the entirely predictable results we see.

Combat units need to be able to predict, adapt to and overcome an ever changing set of obstacles. That's hard enough to do when everyone is focused on just that one task but when you throw a female into the mix the focus is going to change to some extent. You can "academic" the plan 100 ways from Sunday but when you actually implement it there is a change in the dynamic and it's not toward a more focused and unified plan of combat actions.

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Well, whatever. I will continue to be amused how you'll all fault a female for being thrown into the mix but completely shrug off inappropriate reactions to her as being nothing more than, "well what do you expect?".

X Factor said:

What I'm trying to figure out is why it's entirely the females fault or doing for getting pregnant or "fraternizing" with the male servicemen?

I don't even consider myself much of a feminist sympathizer at all but all I really saw in the OP was Gath making a decision about what the majority of females are "like" then looking for a way to justify bashing them. What? One of them had heat exhaustion? Clearly her fault, because no male soldier has ever had that happen.

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What does that even have to do with anything?

So lets say it's the males fault.... now what? The problems are not solved... these issues HAPPEN in this environment, it doesn't matter who's at fault or who's guilty of anything... just the fact that if the females weren't there... the majority of these issues would not be happening.

Unless you just want the front line combatants to be exclusively woman... which would be a mistake because they are biologically inferior on a physical level... we will have to be stuck with all male ones, because it is not worth the resources and trouble, the military is not a place for equality/war is not a place for equality... it's actually a place where you want the greatest inequality in your favor...

Gathomas88 said:

Oh, geez. Cry me a river dude. :roll:

Do you think I was simply imagining all of those problems I mentioned? Do you think every other veteran who says the same damn thing (most of them in my experience) is imagining things as well?

Again, no one said that women can't excel in the military. It simply happens to be the case that the areas in which they excel typically don't tend to be the ones that involve hefting around 100 lb packs for months at a time, or kicking down doors and shooting people in the face.

I'm really not sure why civilians find simply stating the obvious in this regard to be so offensive. This is real life, not Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider."

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You're the one getting pissy, Rambo. Lol.

X Factor said:

Well, whatever. I will continue to be amused how you'll all fault a female for being thrown into the mix but completely shrug off inappropriate reactions to her as being nothing more than, "well what do you expect?".

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Well, what do you expect? :shrug:

We're not freaking robots, dude. When you put the sexes together, **** happens. It doesn't really matter who's at fault.

Gathomas88 said:

Oh, geez. Cry me a river dude. :roll:

Do you think I was simply imagining all of those problems I mentioned? Do you think every other veteran who says the same damn thing (most of them in my experience) is imagining things as well?

Again, no one said that women can't excel in the military. It simply happens to be the case that the areas in which they excel typically don't tend to be the ones that involve hefting around 100 lb packs for months at a time, or kicking down doors and shooting people in the face.

I'm really not sure why civilians find simply stating the obvious in this regard to be so offensive. This is real life, not Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider."

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They don't know and that be their problem. Until they experience the stupidity first hand, they will have no clue.

X Factor said:

You're the one getting pissy, Rambo. Lol.

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You seem to be getting kind of emotional about this. You're not considering the issue rationally, or with an objective eye.

X Factor said:

Well, I actually have sympathy for female service members that get to deal daily with you (and your friends, no doubt) slapping yourself on your back for your obvious superiority over them in every way. I don't know. Maybe it's because it's not, at all, unusual for me to work with women, I don't judge a person by their gender first and neither do I attribute things I don't like to a persons gender either. In my considered experience, people are people and, further, women are people. Go figure.

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You seem to be looking at things from a different perspective.

I don't mean to sound overly callous but a combat team is a tool. The best ones are finely honed, precision instruments that give command the ability to do things they can't do with less precise instruments. Adding an unnecessary distraction to a combat unit is the equivalent of intentionally dulling one of your tools.

While some male soldiers are going to lack the skill, concentration, willpower, whatever to really enhance a combat team and some females will surpass that male in all of those categories the mere fact that she is female WILL BE an unnecessary distraction.

Gathomas88 said:

You seem to be getting kind of emotional about this. You're not considering the issue rationally, or with an objective eye.

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What can I say, Commando, sometimes the sarcasm just takes on a life of it's own.

X Factor said:

Well, whatever. I will continue to be amused how you'll all fault a female for being thrown into the mix but completely shrug off inappropriate reactions to her as being nothing more than, "well what do you expect?".

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Nobody is "faulting" anyone. We're simply recognizing a fundamental human trait.

Gathomas88 said:

Well, what do you expect? :shrug:

We're not freaking robots, dude.

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I see. So you should not be expected to conform to any specific standards of conduct because you just, well, can't.

When you put the sexes together, **** happens. It doesn't really matter who's at fault.

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Except that you are faulting the female for being the distraction.

X Factor said:

Except that you are faulting the female for being the distraction.

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No. He's faulting whoever made the decision to create a mixed sex unit.

X Factor said:

What can I say, Commando, sometimes the sarcasm just takes on a life of it's own.

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Do you think this little hissy fit is in any way productive?

"Someone raised facts that I don't like and can't counter, so I'm going to huff and pout?" C'mon dude, you're better than this.

X Factor said:

I see. So you should not be expected to conform to any specific standards of conduct because you just, well, can't.

Except that you are faulting the female for being the distraction.

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See Luther's response.

Lutherf said:

No. He's faulting whoever made the decision to create a mixed sex unit.

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Even then, I didn't say that it was a serious enough problem to warrant keeping women out of the military, or even doing away with mixed gender units.

I just made note of the fact that it was a legitimate problem which exists in today's military.

Hello. MY name's Paul and I'm a sexist. In fact I'm an avowed sexist, a true-blue sexist. And I'm pretty damned proud of that. (Honestly I don't think women would have it any other way as long as I'm low-key and don't get too obnoxious.)

When I was in the military males and females were segregated for basic training. We did have a company of females across from us on the quadrangle, but it was a very large quadrangle, and I don't recall ever being allowed to observe them. Even so, even in an all male company, over thirty percent were culled for various reasons before we graduated. And at least another five percent were "recycled" as physically unfit, yet willing to continue. Also, since I chose a technical MOS, whereas most women seemed to favor a more administrative role, I didn't actually encounter any females until I got to my first duty station.

And so, after my flight, I traveled sixty miles in sub-freezing weather on the back a deuce-in-a-half to my first duty station. Arriving after midnight, I exited the truck, went through the doors, and up to the GQ desk. (Yes, i realize terminology has probably since changed.) As I approached the desk, I turned to look over my shoulder to observe a female at the top of the stairs shout down to a petite blond at the bottom, "Where you going? I thought you were going to stay and give me some face tonight?" I swear, those were her exact words. And that was my introduction to females in the military.

Why were females in the building you ask? Because it was a HQs barracks, a HQs battery, and the entire second floor was female. This was a five story building, WWII vintage. The swastika was still visible in the granite outside having only been hastily chipped away.

Fraternization? Sure. And at all levels from NCO to colonel. In fact I knew one female, rather well, who ultimately hooked up with a married major (my boss), who went on to war college. It occurred discreetly, and without penalty. And it occurred everywhere, from offices to the tops of field tables.

Prostitution? Sure. Because there were always females who got in too deep, who owed their supplier too much money, and so so he would pimp them out.

Lesbians? We had roving "gangs" of lesbians. (I'm exaggerating; there were more like social groups.)

But my experience overall was good. And I learned things. I learned, for example, that virtually all females, regardless of the perceived master-plan, are compelled to search out a significant other. And almost of all of them completed their mission during the course of my two year assignment. Some even got married, and are married to this day. I also learned that although males often whine and complain as a means of bonding, building little armies as it were, and as a means, women often bring to the mix a much brighter attitude. While this may not be entirely true, it is true to the extent of male female interaction. We converse in different yet every bit as valid, ways. I also learned that if one is to venture off in the woods for long periods of time, it's probably best to take your [?] with you.

I've often thought of that petite blond, to wonder what ever happened to her. Braided her hair extended below her waist. And she'd often smile as we chatted in line at the mess hall. But she was married to an E5 and, it was rumored, as an administrative aid, quite attached to our Top. Still I have wondered. Because of all the females I met during that time period, she was the only one I was actually attracted to.

if I related half the things I saw, I'd be banned from this forum. Because the military post-Vietnam was anything but PC.

I have to wonder, too: Israel has long utilized women in the military, do they have similar problems? Or it this a Christian [American?] central thing?