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Should females be allowed to specialize as infantry in the military?

Should women be allowed to specialize as infantry


  • Total voters
    95
Women being able to kill is self evident based on evidence that has nothing to do with abortion. Your use of abortion in this issue was pretty obviously an attempt to get a reaction, and not to add to the discussion.

Edited to add: Oops, sorry Talloulou, you posted while I was.

I honestly can not think of a better example
but i would love to hear of an alternative example of women's callous ability to kill on a large scale if you have one to offer up, since mine is now unspeakable in this thread
 
False, because Lerxst was factually incorrect and thus his posting was "e-libel". Further, an admonition to stay on topic, is inherently on topic, while a falsehood laden smear campaign is not.

Propaganda. The very fact that I used the term is proof that my comment was directed at his argument and not his person. Q.E.D.

I was absolutely spot on about you. Leave it alone, you're losing at this point.
 
Don't women enjoy the same benefits of living in this society? Aren't they equally called upon to defend it?

Where does equality stop? While we sit on our hands and watch the menfolks go off to die?


Do male paratroopers sit by and watch while ANYONE goes into the meat grinder?



Oh, so we should let barbaric, dark ages societies set our policies.


I doubt that most women would have difficulty following male officers.



Do you fail to understand that most women have internalized the concept of rape in a way that you NEVER will. And, if women choose to risk that circumstance, who are you to say that they are not entitled to do so?


Do we have an unlimited amount of male recruits? I'd prefer to use female volunteers OVER male draftees.


One, that doesn't tell me how dying defends liberty.

Two, we can fill our infantry units will all volunteers and still man them as men only.

Three, having walked into torture/rape rooms in combat I am well aware of their effects on the battlefield. Had the victims been one of our soldiers, I doubt very seriously I would have been able to control the troops.

Four, that does not prevent young men and women from covorting and sexual tensions that can rip a unit apart in combat. I have seen two many male soldiers do 'favors' for female soldiers, and seen competition fo rthe attention of attractive female soldiers create tensions and divisions in co-ed units that, were they to exist in close proximity to an enemy, would result in needless death and quite possibly defeat (and more deaths to retake the lost positions).

Are you really willing to lead soldiers into battle, take uneccessary risks with their lives, turn your back on the differing standards for men and women (somehow believeing that these standards will magically be enforced equally), and return to someone's parents and tell them you did everything you could to save their son's or daughter's life in the face the enemy? I know of very few infantry officers who are willing to do that.

Again, perhaps when the sexes are truly equal, this may be possible. Let's start with equality is ways that do not risk life and limb. When my sons can enter the all women colleges, maybe then we can start risking lives with women in the infantry.

Battle is not a place of gender equality, it is a place were weakness is exploited with brutal results.

I know what I would do if I lined up against an all female BN, and I have a very hard time believing that our enemies would behave anything but even more brutal in response to the same thing.

There principals worth dying for, but dying needlessly for a principal whose existence your own death may invalidate is not a good idea.
 
Sure it is. Men retain a biological predilection for violence. Thousands of years of hunting and warfare have made sure of this.

Anyway, I feel you are being slightly obtuse. You know what I mean. I'm speaking to the emotional divergence between men and women. A platoon of Marine grunts has a distinct emotional makeup that in no way resembles the typical thought process of women. I know you know what I'm saying.

Snippet of a marching song I learned from a Marine:

"See that girl dressed in pink?
She's the one that makes my finger stink!
Left right left!"

I wonder if they still belt that one out on the modern integrated Corps?
 
Women are autonomous beings who are entitled to make the call of where they are needed the most FOR THEMSELVES.

No. We're discussing the military. Their commanders figure out where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do.
 
No. We're discussing the military. Their commanders figure out where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do.

Partly true. Recruits do have some input into what job they are assigned, either during the recruitment process, or after.
 
One, that doesn't tell me how dying defends liberty.

Two, we can fill our infantry units will all volunteers and still man them as men only.

Three, having walked into torture/rape rooms in combat I am well aware of their effects on the battlefield. Had the victims been one of our soldiers, I doubt very seriously I would have been able to control the troops.

Four, that does not prevent young men and women from covorting and sexual tensions that can rip a unit apart in combat. I have seen two many male soldiers do 'favors' for female soldiers, and seen competition fo rthe attention of attractive female soldiers create tensions and divisions in co-ed units that, were they to exist in close proximity to an enemy, would result in needless death and quite possibly defeat (and more deaths to retake the lost positions).

Are you really willing to lead soldiers into battle, take uneccessary risks with their lives, turn your back on the differing standards for men and women (somehow believeing that these standards will magically be enforced equally), and return to someone's parents and tell them you did everything you could to save their son's or daughter's life in the face the enemy? I know of very few infantry officers who are willing to do that.

Again, perhaps when the sexes are truly equal, this may be possible. Let's start with equality is ways that do not risk life and limb. When my sons can enter the all women colleges, maybe then we can start risking lives with women in the infantry.

Battle is not a place of gender equality, it is a place were weakness is exploited with brutal results.

I know what I would do if I lined up against an all female BN, and I have a very hard time believing that our enemies would behave anything but even more brutal in response to the same thing.

There principals worth dying for, but dying needlessly for a principal whose existence your own death may invalidate is not a good idea.


What I expect from an army with co-ed infantry units along a front with the enemy is the following letter:

Dear Mr. Johnson,

I regret to inform you that your son was killed in action because the two soldiers assigned to guard duty were derelict in their duties and engaged in sexual activity.

Our deepest sympathies,

Lt. Kinski.

Yeah, the letter wouldn't be phrased like that, but that's one possibility.
 
I was absolutely spot on about you. Leave it alone, you're losing at this point.

No, I'm not losing. I already won. A false assertion was made and no quote was provided to back it. You, sir, are upset for getting caught lying when you should be upset with yourself for lying.
 
Are we allowed to throw ourselves on a grenade to protect our children?

Yes. But what I say about a sane society keeping its women away from battlefields goes double for its children. If people are throwing grenades at your children, we're fighting on our home turf and I believe I've already stated unequivocally that women should have infantry training. The reason I support this is for just such an occasion.

How about an idea (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness)? What about our parents? Our country?

My point is, regardless of how willing you are to die for your country-- and again, I applaud you for this-- your country would be better served by keeping you alive. The loss of a generation of fine young men in war wounds a nation, but it will recover. The loss of a generation of fine young women in war cripples a nation, assuming that it does not wound the nation fatally.

I would counter that these things are too valuable NOT to allow women the option of dying to defend them.

I would reiterate that the survival of women is too essential to the survival of a nation and its ideas to allow them to do so. If these things are so vital that they must be protected at all costs, they must also be perpetuated at all costs.

Don't women enjoy the same benefits of living in this society? Aren't they equally called upon to defend it?

Where does equality stop? While we sit on our hands and watch the menfolks go off to die?

Someone has to make sure there's a home for the men to return to. And if the war's bad enough that most of the men are gone then, like in World War 2, somebody has to make sure that the machines are still running and that the industry of the nation continues to support the military.
 
My point is, regardless of how willing you are to die for your country-- and again, I applaud you for this-- your country would be better served by keeping you alive. The loss of a generation of fine young men in war wounds a nation, but it will recover. The loss of a generation of fine young women in war cripples a nation, assuming that it does not wound the nation fatally.

If we get to a war where we lose a whole generation of either sex, or even a significant portion of one to the point where it would matter, we are going to have bigger problems than whether women are fighting on the front lines.
 
This is an issue of equality, and to deny women who wish to and prove capable of serving as infantry the right to do so you must rely on an appeal to tradition, and that is grossly inadequate to deny women the right to serve their country in the manner they choose. There is a long history, as old as war, that proves that women are capable of serving as warriors. If your sensibilities cannot accept this, then they do not coincide with reality and accordingly should be disposed of.
 
I agree, women should serve as infantrymen but only if they meet the same requirements as there male counterparts as at this point in time they do not, as the military is very PC about allowing women to serve on the front lines by having different physical standards.
 
I agree, women should serve as infantrymen but only if they meet the same requirements as there male counterparts as at this point in time they do not, as the military is very PC about allowing women to serve on the front lines by having different physical standards.

I will ask you both the same question you have avoided: Are you, personally, willing to lead the young women who respond to YOUR call to arms into battle?

What I see in your claims of principals is principal, but I do not see anything that acknowledges, much less adresses, the reality of combat.

You see part of the problem right here on this board, where members swoon over a poster with nice feminine legs, though in reality of the internet, she could be both hugely fat and a man. Even the idea of sexualize feminity has effects on something as non-personalized as a internet forum.

How are you going to deal with that when the soldiers live with each other every second of the day? How are you going to keep women and men from acting like women and men?

We aren't talking about principal here, we are talking about war and battle. The infantry, and indeed the armor and artillery, exist for one reason and one reason only: to swiftly and effeciently destroy the enemies of this nation. Our objective, our purpose, and even our existence is driven solely buy that duty.

Our design is based entirely on the effectiveness of generating that victory, and it bends only with the circumstances of battle required to garner that victory. This is not about principal, this is about effectivness and efficiency in battle.

I agree with you in principal, but I know of know pragmatic method to maintain the unit co-hesion, team work, a commdarerie necessary to have a truly effective infantry unit in the face of battle under co-ed circumstances. I cannot stop young men and women from being hormonal. In battle, pragmatism trumps political PC principal. No one should have to die for political correctness, and I will certainly not look a mother in the eye and tell her that her daughhter died because Tommy was jealous she was sleeping Johnny and left her out to hang in front of the enemy as a result.

Neither do I want to try and hold a unit together when the facts of such an incident become known. I have seen what happens to a company when a male soldier commits murder, and that is difficult enough and requires junior leaders to excert themselves to the point of physical and mental exhaustion to maintain good order and discipline thereafter.

The bottom line, if you are not willing to discuss the realities of battle and the likely problems your principaled advocacy will create, you have no business advocating for someone else to bear the consequences of your decision.

There is a reason why unfantry uits around the world do not co-mingle with women, and there are benefits to unit cohesion and performance that are derived from single sex unit formation.

Whether that should be that way, and whether it is in fact that way are two entirely different things. I know which one the enemy will exploit in the reality if battle.
 
I will ask you both the same question you have avoided: Are you, personally, willing to lead the young women who respond to YOUR call to arms into battle?

Women are fighting and dying right now. People are somehow leading them into battle.

What I see in your claims of principals is principal, but I do not see anything that acknowledges, much less adresses, the reality of combat.

414 posts in this thread, and many of them address this very thing. Interestingly, the woman who has come closest to seeing actual combat that I know of on this forum seems to think that women can handle the realities of combat.

You see part of the problem right here on this board, where members swoon over a poster with nice feminine legs, though in reality of the internet, she could be both hugely fat and a man. Even the idea of sexualize feminity has effects on something as non-personalized as a internet forum.

How are you going to deal with that when the soldiers live with each other every second of the day? How are you going to keep women and men from acting like women and men?

Same way it is done in the military now? Remember, men and women have been serving side by side at times in every war since at least Korea, if not at the front lines.

We aren't talking about principal here, we are talking about war and battle. The infantry, and indeed the armor and artillery, exist for one reason and one reason only: to swiftly and effeciently destroy the enemies of this nation. Our objective, our purpose, and even our existence is driven solely buy that duty.

Our design is based entirely on the effectiveness of generating that victory, and it bends only with the circumstances of battle required to garner that victory. This is not about principal, this is about effectivness and efficiency in battle.

You have yet to show in any way that women serving in front line positions would degrade those front line units with women in them.

I agree with you in principal, but I know of know pragmatic method to maintain the unit co-hesion, team work, a commdarerie necessary to have a truly effective infantry unit in the face of battle under co-ed circumstances.

Same arguments used against integrating blacks into white units.

I cannot stop young men and women from being hormonal. In battle, pragmatism trumps political PC principal. No one should have to die for political correctness, and I will certainly not look a mother in the eye and tell her that her daughhter died because Tommy was jealous she was sleeping Johnny and left her out to hang in front of the enemy as a result.

Holy cow! You don't think much of our military people do you?

Neither do I want to try and hold a unit together when the facts of such an incident become known. I have seen what happens to a company when a male soldier commits murder, and that is difficult enough and requires junior leaders to excert themselves to the point of physical and mental exhaustion to maintain good order and discipline thereafter.

Women in the military has not lead to more murders, sorry.

The bottom line, if you are not willing to discuss the realities of battle and the likely problems your principaled advocacy will create, you have no business advocating for someone else to bear the consequences of your decision.

There is a reason why unfantry uits around the world do not co-mingle with women, and there are benefits to unit cohesion and performance that are derived from single sex unit formation.

Whether that should be that way, and whether it is in fact that way are two entirely different things. I know which one the enemy will exploit in the reality if battle.

You are making an assumption based on too little knowledge. Israel has one of the more open policies in regards to women in the military, and are among the most effective military forces in the world, possibly the best soldier for soldier. The US has had any number of women involved in combat in the last few years, and we have the strongest overall military in the world. As women have taken on more and new roles in the military, it has yet to make the military weaker. In fact, quite the opposite.
 
You see part of the problem right here on this board, where members swoon over a poster with nice feminine legs, though in reality of the internet, she could be both hugely fat and a man. Even the idea of sexualize feminity has effects on something as non-personalized as a internet forum.

Give me a farking break. My legs haven't stopped people here from expecting me to present a coherent argument, the same as anyone else.

Message boards are truly the great equalizer because we stand or fall on the merits of our MINDS.

In your case, this is a truly spectacular fail.
 
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One, that doesn't tell me how dying defends liberty.

Actually, it did, but you aren't interested in hearing anyone's words but your own.

Two, we can fill our infantry units will all volunteers and still man them as men only.

And ruin their family lives and keep them at the breaking point through repeated tours of duty into the combat zone. Not even men are designed to live in a combat zone permanently, I'm afraid.

Three, having walked into torture/rape rooms in combat I am well aware of their effects on the battlefield. Had the victims been one of our soldiers, I doubt very seriously I would have been able to control the troops.
There is nothing stopping men from raping other men. Rape is a physical assault, nothing more and nothing less. It's a hideous crime, but so are many others. Rape is no worse than any other severe assault. It's just mythologized differently in our society because of our culture of protecting women.

Are you really willing to lead soldiers into battle, take uneccessary risks with their lives, turn your back on the differing standards for men and women (somehow believeing that these standards will magically be enforced equally), and return to someone's parents and tell them you did everything you could to save their son's or daughter's life in the face the enemy? I know of very few infantry officers who are willing to do that.

I'm willing to let women decide, for themselves, what risks they are willing to face. Your posts are inherently sexist. You seem to believe that somehow, women are less capable of making these decisions for themselves than a man would be. Men decide all the time to enlist in combat, and risk dying or being seriously dismembered.

You seem to believe our courage is not equal to your own.

Thanks but that's not a pedestal that most women want or need. We don't need your patronizing protection.
 
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And to clarify, I should not have chosen the answer I did in the poll because it doesn't actually reflect my sentiment on the matter. As my first post stated, I think integration is a bad idea. An all female infantry unit is feasible.





I reluctantly agree. The male chauvenist in me still says no....


I fully admit this.
 
Women are fighting and dying right now. People are somehow leading them into battle.



414 posts in this thread, and many of them address this very thing. Interestingly, the woman who has come closest to seeing actual combat that I know of on this forum seems to think that women can handle the realities of combat.



Same way it is done in the military now? Remember, men and women have been serving side by side at times in every war since at least Korea, if not at the front lines.



You have yet to show in any way that women serving in front line positions would degrade those front line units with women in them.



Same arguments used against integrating blacks into white units.



Holy cow! You don't think much of our military people do you?



Women in the military has not lead to more murders, sorry.



You are making an assumption based on too little knowledge. Israel has one of the more open policies in regards to women in the military, and are among the most effective military forces in the world, possibly the best soldier for soldier. The US has had any number of women involved in combat in the last few years, and we have the strongest overall military in the world. As women have taken on more and new roles in the military, it has yet to make the military weaker. In fact, quite the opposite.

I don;t see you addressing any of the points that I am making.

Men and women serve openly in the military, do you really think there are not any problems with this? Do you think the standards for the MP's, or logistics, or communications are the same as those of the infantry? Do you think that petty jealousy, sexual tensions, fraternization, are not problems in co-ed units that are largely away from the battle?

Do you honestly think that this is a good idea to have these problems right in front of our enemies?

How do you think this nation will respond if when a hundred women are killed in an ambush?

Do you really think that an all femal infantry battalion would not attract attacks from every whack job, be the influence Syrian, Iranian, or even Saudi were they to be posted in Iraq? That is not infantry tactics, that is bait.

So, instead of talking about a woman, who has been as close to combat as you think, please take it from an infantry officer who has lead men in battle, that has chewed out more young men and women for 'favors' in duty than you can shake a stick at this is a bad idea.

I would not be comfortabel leading a mixed unit of men and women into the teeth of a prepared enemy defense. The vast majority of my peers would be similarly uncomfortable. Please bear in mind as you site racial segreagation, black men and white men were going to wind up sleeping with each other, engaging in petty jealousies, nor compete with each other for the new black guys attention.

And as you scoff about someone noticing the posting of nice legs on an internet forum, please bear in mind that, although this does not perclude the possiblity of noticing and appreciating a brain, it does not chang ethe fact that a horny young 19 year old probably doesn't give a whip about your brain as he heads into battle.

Like I said, when the sexes are truly equal, when behavior and standards are enforceable equally this may be possible. Some things are just not equal, nor indeed are they a terribly good idea in the face of the enemy. After all, I meet the academic standards for those all women colleges, but I am not allowed in. Such blatant discrimination!

I am just all a twitter with anger at such blatant discrimination. Who care sthat there are some benefits to same sex education (at least according to the colleges), this should be immediately struck down as an injustice.

And yet, no one is dying.

This is not a popularity contest. This is not a PC love fest. This is about preparing our country to defeat our enemies in the most efficient manner possible.

What compelling reason do we have to let women in? Because you want to, and, and teh current military leadership are a**holes for not letting you? Fine, be alive to hate me, and I'll continue to bring my boys home alive where they can do whatever the hell they want.

As you site Israel, please bear in mind there was a time when Israel allowed women in the infantry. They no longer do. There must be a reason for this?

And finally, I am just a big, dumb a** grunt. I have seen quite a few people die, and usually that death is quite meaningless. So please spell it out for this big, stupid, chauvanist grunt, how does a guy walking down the road and hitting and IED that blows him to pieces define or defend principal?

We were able to track down patterns that allowed us to attack the IED cell that made it, and that made Iraq a little safer. His death? Had we found the IED before it exploded? What principal is that?

Let me be very clear, the collective raised hackles of the women on this thread mean far, far less to me than does the responsibility of bringing my boys home alive. It short, my duty and responsibility to those I lead matters far more to me than your sense of injustice.

That is not about the courage of women, it is about the raeality of battle and the fact that it is fought by young men (who are not exactly Harvard grads in most cases). So sip on your snifters of Cognac and call me an a**hole. I will still fight with every ounce of my being to accomplish the mission set forth by the National Command Authority and bring as many of our sons home as is possible.
 
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As my first post stated, I think integration is a bad idea. An all female infantry unit is feasible.
This is my default position also and it is feasible. Israel currently has a beta Infantry unit that is completely female. They're good to go.
 
I don;t see you addressing any of the points that I am making.
That's because you are apparently too distracted by my legs to respond to debate points.

However, I have it on good information that the average U.S. soldier is considerably more professional than that.
 
This is my default position also and it is feasible. Israel currently has a beta Infantry unit that is completely female. They're good to go.

This would do away with much of the sexual tension problems. My only concern would continue to be that in any combat situation I've read that (particularly in the arab/middle east world) combatants are far more likely to choose to fight to the death rather than ever surrender to a female or female unit. Do you think that's a real concern and if it is should folks let it stop them from using female infantry for certain missions? Wasn't that the major reason Israel stopped using women in infantry?
 
Will even this kind of segregation be practical, or will that unit always be shielded from the brunt ?

How will the all male unit stationed next to them in line of battle respond if they become pressed ?
 
This is my default position also and it is feasible. Israel currently has a beta Infantry unit that is completely female. They're good to go.

Israel currently has the misfortune of an ongoing-- and apparently intractable-- war on their home front. It makes perfect sense for them to allow female infantry.
 
My only concern would continue to be that in any combat situation I've read that (particularly in the arab/middle east world) combatants are far more likely to choose to fight to the death rather than ever surrender to a female or female unit.
The solution is very simple then. No quarter. Kill them.

Do you think that's a real concern and if it is should folks let it stop them from using female infantry for certain missions?
A corpse is a corpse. How it got that way is immaterial.

Wasn't that the major reason Israel stopped using women in infantry?
That was well before my time. Things have been incrementally changing over the years. As I've tried to explain, modern militaries fight jointly. The pace of modern warfare and the ever-increasing emphasis on technology (specialists) virtually ensure that females will participate in battle at some juncture. Be it as an F18 fighter pilot, an Apache helicopter pilot, firing missiles from a frigate, sniping, working with self-propelled ground guns, or lasing enemy targets right at the front line. Every soldier is an asset and the military must squeeze every iota of talent from its finite asset pool.

Modern militaries no longer fight hand-to-hand in trenches. Killing zones are typically at a distance of hundreds of meters. As you can see with urban examples such as Fallujah and Gaza, a modern military will destroy the point infrastructure and greatly soften up the penetration lanes previous to the introduction of ground forces. Still, urban warfare is hellish. Be that as it may though, I see no reason at all why female ground units cannot be an effective and positive asset.
 
The solution is very simple then. No quarter. Kill them.


A corpse is a corpse. How it got that way is immaterial.


That was well before my time. Things have been incrementally changing over the years. As I've tried to explain, modern militaries fight jointly. The pace of modern warfare and the ever-increasing emphasis on technology (specialists) virtually ensure that females will participate in battle at some juncture. Be it as an F18 fighter pilot, an Apache helicopter pilot, firing missiles from a frigate, sniping, working with self-propelled ground guns, or lasing enemy targets right at the front line. Every soldier is an asset and the military must squeeze every iota of talent from its finite asset pool.

Modern militaries no longer fight hand-to-hand in trenches. Killing zones are typically at a distance of hundreds of meters. As you can see with urban examples such as Fallujah and Gaza, a modern military will destroy the point infrastructure and greatly soften up the penetration lanes previous to the introduction of ground forces. Still, urban warfare is hellish. Be that as it may though, I see no reason at all why female ground units cannot be an effective and positive asset.

I love it when Tashah talks all mean.
 
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