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Women Should Be Allowed in Combat Units, Report Says

Renae

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WASHINGTON -- A military advisory commission is recommending that the Pentagon do away with a policy that bans women from serving in combat units, breathing new life into a long-simmering debate.
Though thousands of women have been involved in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have done so while serving in combat support roles -- as medics, logistics officers and so on -- because defense policy prohibits women from being assigned to any unit smaller than a brigade whose primary mission is direct combat on the ground. On Friday, a special panel was meeting to polish the final draft of a report that recommends the policy be eliminated "to create a level playing field for all qualified service members."
If it were approved by the Defense Department, it would be yet another sizeable social change in a force that in the last year has seen policy changes to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly for the first time in the military and to allow Navy women to serve on submarines for the first time.


Read more: Women Should Be Allowed in Combat Units, Report Says - FoxNews.com


Are you ****ing kidding me?

Reality check, women cannot, as a general rule, physically handle the rigors of combat. This is why female PRT and male PRT are DIFFERENT. How's the platoon going to handle one or more members unable to carry the normal full load out of equipment into the field? Start there, work your way through the rest of the reasons women aren't in combat roles.

This isn't just dumb, it's politically motivated politically correct stupidity that's gonna get people killed in the name of "fairness".
 
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Roger that. I would advise some pratical guidelines...

- Devise meaningful combat qualification screening for females
- Segregated combat units
- Mobilized female strike forces

Offhand, I can't think of too many other modifications due to gender differences.

How's the platoon going to handle one or more members unable to carry the normal full load out of equipment into the field?
See above.

I'll never forget the final ordeal in the Negev to earn my jump-wings and maroon beret.

Maybe someday I'll share that experience.
 
Roger that. I would advise some pratical guidelines...

- Devise meaningful combat qualification screening for females
- Segregated combat units
- Mobilized female strike forces

Offhand, I can't think of too many other modifications due to gender differences.


See above.

I'll never forget the final ordeal in the Negev to earn my jump-wings and maroon beret.

Maybe someday I'll share that experience.

Tashah,

I think on this one, we'll just agree to disagree. Fair enough?
 
Tashah,

I think on this one, we'll just agree to disagree. Fair enough?
Fair enough by me Vic.

This is at least the 10th thread here at DP that mud-wrestles with this subject.

At this belated juncture, one post should be all the indulgence anyone really needs.
 
Fair enough by me Vic.

This is at least the 10th thread here at DP that mud-wrestles with this subject.

At this belated juncture, one post should be all the indulgence anyone really needs.

It's only up cause the panel is recommending the changes. I understand where you are coming from, I do, and I respect that.
 
If women can pass the same requirements as men, and go through the same training as if they were men, I would see no problem with allowing them to enter combat units.
 
Roger that. I would advise some pratical guidelines...

- Devise meaningful combat qualification screening for females
- Segregated combat units
- Mobilized female strike forces

I don't disagree with any of these propositions in practicality, however, I also don't think that such a plan would ever be accepted by the political interest groups that have a stake in this. And I think that political impositions upon warfighting strategy rarely have anything to do with practicality or actual common sense.

If women can pass the same requirements as men, and go through the same training as if they were men, I would see no problem with allowing them to enter combat units.

At this point in time, women are not expected to pass the same requirements as men. Do you think that will change overnight? Or ever?

Not to mention the other problems I could imagine from having coed infantry unit placed in a FOB for months, alone in ****ty conditions...
 
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If women can pass the same requirements as men, and go through the same training as if they were men, I would see no problem with allowing them to enter combat units.

And if during a combat mission they have to share the same tent or foxhole with another guy.......thats not going to be a distraction when there focus should be totally on fighting the enemy???? What about when they get taken prisoner by a bunch of males from the enemy forces? What happens then? I think you know.....

No... this is a bad idea, while I'm all for women in the military... frontline combat units should stay all male. This is not the civilian world and the purpose of having an Army is not to be an equal opportunity employer, its to defend the country & defeat the enemy.
Anything that might be a distraction from achieving this is not a good idea as this will only serve to get more people killed.
 
At this point in time, women are not expected to pass the same requirements as men. Do you think that will change overnight? Or ever?

Not to mention the other problems I could imagine from having coed infantry unit placed in a FOB for months, alone in ****ty conditions...

I know that, and that is what I'm suggesting, if women are put up to the same test/training as men, and pass I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to enter combat units. Now I'm not sure how it would affect other aspects, but Tashah's suggestions reasonable. And obviously she probably has the most first hand experience with this kind of thing on the forum.
 
I know that, and that is what I'm suggesting, if women are put up to the same test/training as men, and pass I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to enter combat units. Now I'm not sure how it would affect other aspects, but Tashah's suggestions reasonable. And obviously she probably has the most first hand experience with this kind of thing on the forum.

Well, note that she specifically pointed to segregated units. IMO, she's right there. Attachment to specific "strike forces" may be viable, but living coed for months under typical infantry conditions is not. And I don't say this because of the physical testing requirements--which some women could pass (even though I doubt they'd ever be made the same in our country)--but for reasons of hygiene, health, unit cohesion/morale, and general combat effectiveness.

And I'm not a woman, but I have lived for years as part of an infantry unit--I can tell you that when we were back in US we had enough problems involving civilian (and some military) women within every platoon in our company that to imagine such problems might extend to deployment would be a nightmare.
 
Women are perfectly capable of combat as the next guy and new restrictions like gender segregation have the effect of denying them the opportunities they have earned and deserve. There haven't been any well defined front lines since Korea (if then) and anybody in a combat zone had better be prepared for combat. Period.
 
With appropriate standards, it should be doable. Of course that is not the real question, the question is should we do it. That one is going to be purely opinion, but I have no problem with women serving in combat units.
 
Leftist women can be used to clear mine fields. Conservative women can be used as commanders.
 
If women can pass the same requirements as men, and go through the same training as if they were men, I would see no problem with allowing them to enter combat units.

I see a huge problem.

It is bred into humans to be "protective" of women. Men will naturally try to protect a woman soldier more than a man, and in doing so, might make a fatal or stupid decision. His natural desire to be seen as "saving a woman's life" may get in the way of a smart military or combat decision. They also sometimes have to bathe and such in very tight and non-private quarters, which I think, is inappropriate.

I think women are great in other roles, but front line combat needs to remain all men.
 
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If women can pass the same requirements as men, and go through the same training as if they were men, I would see no problem with allowing them to enter combat units.

It's not about ability. It's about unit cohesion, good order and discipline.
 
Roger that. I would advise some pratical guidelines...

- Devise meaningful combat qualification screening for females
- Segregated combat units
- Mobilized female strike forces

Offhand, I can't think of too many other modifications due to gender differences.


See above.

I'll never forget the final ordeal in the Negev to earn my jump-wings and maroon beret.

Maybe someday I'll share that experience.

Females aren't barred from airborne training in the U.S. military.
 
Females aren't barred from airborne training in the U.S. military.

Really? That is kinda odd to me for some reason.

Unit cohesion could be a potential problem, and there would need to be a plan in place before I could say whether I actually supported the full change or not. In theory, it is workable and as such I think we should at least look seriously into doing it.
 
Really? That is kinda odd to me for some reason.

Yep, really.

Unit cohesion could be a potential problem, and there would need to be a plan in place before I could say whether I actually supported the full change or not. In theory, it is workable and as such I think we should at least look seriously into doing it.

The only way for the unit cohesion issue to be fixed, would be fore males and females to live together and that ain't never gonna happen.

It's workable in theory and just like gobal warming, it's just a theory, not reality.

Tashah's spot on with the segregated units, but that ain't gonna hapen, either, because of discrimination laws forbidding segregated units in the United States military.
 
800,000 women joined the red army in WW2 with many serving in combat roles. They proved more than capable during the most brutal combat in human history. Military roles should be available to anyone who can meet the requirements needed for that position.
 
800,000 women joined the red army in WW2 with many serving in combat roles. They proved more than capable during the most brutal combat in human history. Military roles should be available to anyone who can meet the requirements needed for that position.

They served in segregated units, too.

For the second time in this thread, it's not about a woman's ability to be an infantry soldier.
 
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I see a huge problem.

It is bred into humans to be "protective" of women. Men will naturally try to protect a woman soldier more than a man, and in doing so, might make a fatal or stupid decision. His natural desire to be seen as "saving a woman's life" may get in the way of a smart military or combat decision. They also sometimes have to bathe and such in very tight and non-private quarters, which I think, is inappropriate.

I think women are great in other roles, but front line combat needs to remain all men.

It's not breed in men to protect women, that is all social conditioning.
 
For the second time in this thread, it's not about a woman's ability to be a in infantry soldier.

Apdst is 100 % correct in this. I don't agree with him in any post often, so figured I should point it out when I do.
 
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