What's your opinion on female soldiers?

APACHERAT said:

In country 69-70 TAD 1/26 & 2/26 so I can say been there done that. Don't need anyone to remind me.

BTW: Welcome home.

Re: SEAL's. You might want to visit the Naval Amphibious Naval Base, Coronado Island in San Diego. I use to be an instructor at Coronado NAB and still have connections there.

The SEAL's are all about the water. A Marine recruit during boot camp is doing just as many push-ups, pull-ups, lifting logs and running just as many miles and experiencing sleep deprivation if not more than a sailor going through BUD's. The number one reason why those wash out of BUD's is because of the elements, the water, the cold, hypothermia. If you can't swim, if you can't handle the surf, can handle a raft in the surf and can't handle the cold Pacific ocean, you aren't going to make it.

There are nine SEAL Teams, SEAL Team Six was deactivated in the 1980's and is no longer under the control and command of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Each Seal Team has a specialty and most deal with the ocean. They either come from the sea and carry out their mission on land or conduct their missions on the water.

The fact are, some liberals tried to dumb down the Navy SEAL's in the name of diversity.

Your probably old enough to have never gone through Camp Snoopy. Your lucky, many soldiers aren't and they paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of political correctness.

There was an acquaintance of mine, maybe you heard of him our even served with him ? We both thought alike and had the same agenda. His name was Col. Hackworth. He passed away about eight years ago years ago. But he had a message. -> http://www.hackworth.com/article04032002c.html

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Wiseone said:

Personally if I was caught in a battle I'd rather have one of my female Soldiers out there than you.

I voted potato because I think the OP's intelligence is on par with one.

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Jerry said:

I'm in an engineer company. Honestly the gender doesn't make an impact. Women operate heavy equipment on par with men. In Afghanistan, men are more likely to be raped than women, because that's Pashtun sexuality. Our female soldiers can use weapons as well as any of the rest of us.

Where the presence of women starts making a conflict in the service is exactly the same as any other professional setting: Relationships. Even when sex is not performed, the tensions caused by the creation and brake up of even light romantic relationships works against unit cohesiveness.

This is by no means unique to the military, but exists everywhere on Earth men and women work together. To say women don't belong in the military is to say that women don't belong in the professional world at all, and I don't agree with that.

The only caveat I make, is that the military consistently dumbs down the standards for women. Combat is unforgiving. A woman absolutely must be able to meet the same minimum requirements as a man for a given position. Unfortunately that is not how the military handles it. THe service makes a double standard for women, and that allone costs lives.

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roguenuke said:

Wow, what a truly sexist OP.

This is the 21st Century. Our frontlines are nothing like those from either WW or even Korea/Vietnam. We do plenty of things that are considered "front line" that require finesse and intelligence, not strength and confrontation. And women are more than capable of keeping their emotions in check, some even more so than men. Anger is still an emotion. Bloodlust is an emotion.

And in today's battlefield most situations do not require a person, any person to be able to carry their buddy away from battle, not that all men could physically do that either. But women are more than capable of being trained and conditioned to be able to do what is physically required of them.

Women have been soldiers throughout history. Many may not have been known to be women when they were soldiers and there weren't a lot of them, but there have been women soldiers in the past.

That being said, I do think we need to be cautious about letting women into certain areas of battle mainly because the men would find it hard to handle and until we do make equipment more easily carried/operated (which should be something we strive for even without allowing women in major combat roles) so that more than just a handful of women are qualified to do the job throughout the military. The biggest problem I see is the men being able to view the women as viable soldiers instead of weaklings. This is a problem with the men and this stupid mindset that women don't make good soldiers.

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Peter Grimm said:

Reported. Hah.

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ecofarm said:

The president of the US is scared of the military politically and diplomatically and is thus attempting to destroy it? And, I suppose, previous Dem presidents also attempted to destroy the US military because they feared it politically and diplomatically?

Are you saving a part where Obama is trying to kill off vets?

The thing is, there are not enough lunatics in this country to vote that monster you see into office, let alone to stand aside and watch it happen. Your accusations to motive are about as viable as Bush working with AlQ to cause 911.

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roguenuke said:

This I agree with. Most women can't be in combat MOS's. It isn't right to make quotas or reach certain goals to fill with women. But women can handle other roles in the military just fine at the same level of competence and ability as their male counterparts, if not more depending on the woman and the men she is serving with. And there are definitely places on the front lines for women, especially in the conflicts/wars we are currently fighting, even if they aren't technically combat roles. One that has been showing success is sending women in to relate to the women of the countries we are in, teaching them skills to make them more independent and showing them that women can be more than just property of men.

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X Factor said:

I think it's fine. There's a lot more to the military now than combat. Now, there are legit concerns about women in combat but if you're "grossed out" (how old are you?) by women in the military that's your weird hang-up.

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roguenuke said:

PT tests are supposed to be about measuring a person's individual physical fitness level at a certain age, not showing a person can do a specific task a given number of times. This is why there are differences in requirements between men and women, and for different ages. The sexes are different on average and people are different at different ages.

Run measures endurance and stamina, pushups measure upper body strength, and situps are supposed to measure core strength/stamina. It is all a very basic measurement of how much an individual is working out and putting effort into their workouts.

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AreteCourage said:

You are something else...

Women can be as ruthless as men. Women have the ability to be soldiers, and damn good ones. This whole undermining them and classifying them as unworthy is asinine.

Waste of tax dollars? Wars of aggression, Wars on intangible ideas (Drugs, Illiteracy, etc)....that is a waste. Women on the front lines are not a waste.

You think now is only time women were soldiers or in battle? Joan of Ark is something you should research.

Close minded thoughts like yours are really something...I tell ya

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SMTA said:

You are just angry because it is acceptable for women to wear fishnet stockings and garter belts, and you have to hide yours.

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cpwill said:

When I was in the infantry I occasionally took part of the zeitgeist. If every Marine was supposed to be a rifleman, and women were incapable of being riflemen, how could women be Marines? It was more of a commonly accepted joke than a fervently defended belief because we only very rarely interacted with female Marines.

Since leaving the Infantry, I've been fortunate enough to serve with females who have powerfully disabused me of that notion - while I still think putting them in the infantry would be very problematic, there are indeed Marines who happen to be female rather than Females who call themselves Marines. Sure you get alot of drama seekers. Take a girl who wasn't much in High School, and then put her in a scenario where she is one of 10 females out of 120 people, and all the males are usually young, fit, and more likely to be alpha-type personalities, it's hard to see how they wouldn't enjoy and take advantage of the attention. :shrug: That's one of the strongest temptations, when you're young.

But you get those who rise above. I had a female corporal under me who I fought like hell to get meritoriously promoted to Sgt, and whom I would have no problem seeing fill the role of the first female SgtMaj of the Marine Corps. She embodied disciplined, motivated, professionalism. If I was stuck out there and heard that she was leading the team to come get me, I'd take sincere comfort in that, knowing it was only a matter of time. Depending on how generous I was feeling, I might even apologize to my captors for what was about to happen to them. Half a world away, and I still contact her when I have a question, and visa-versa.


Men and women arent' the same in every respect. The hollywood crap where 120 pound women throw 210 pound bruisers around like dolls with their super skills? That's crap. But women can still make fantastic Marines, and I rather tend to assume that they would be outstanding soldiers, sailors, or airmen as well.

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Peter Grimm said:

Well that story is fine and all, but there are a few positions a woman just shouldn't be in.

First one is a soldier.

Second one is an airline pilot.

Third one is a priest.

None of the three sit right with me.

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Gathomas88 said:

Why airline pilot? View attachment 67145401

I'd think that anyone could sit behind a console and occasionally adjust a course. Most of the actual flying is done by the autopilot these days anyway.

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notquiteright said:

Hack was an army puke, thought you was a Jarhaid. where did you two hook-up?

I'd disagree on Marines vs SEALS and what washes a SEAL trainee out. I have several Jarhaid buddies, served with one as my Squad Leader in Germany, taught with the 'Nam vet who holds a sniper record, another is also a retired cop and a pistol Instructor. According to Chris Kyle in his book 'American Sniper' it isn't the water but the mental toughness. A Marine is only kidding himself if he thinks by going through Boot he did everything and more than a SEAL, and if only given the chance to play in the surf he coulda been one... :roll:

No idea what a Camp Snoopy is, my day Army grunts went through TigerLand in Ft. Puke, Lousy Anna.

I'd say most SEAL Teams are dry feet these days, those who went for Osama didn't come ashore with scuba gear. In Operation Anaconda SEAL Team mako 30 didn't swim ashore. Chris never swam into battle. Like I said, these days SEALs are elite ground forces that don't crawl out of the water ala 'Nam style.

Now back to your claim the liberals infiltrated the Puzzle Palace to start social engineering in the 90's... did you forget the Truman years?

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Peter Grimm said:

Because I've seen women drive! :lamo Seriously, I had a female airline pilot the other day, she couldn't have been 30 years old, I was biting my nails the whole flight. You remember the last plane that crashed in the US, I think it was near Buffalo? That was a woman pilot, she was texting when she should have been flying the damn plane.

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APACHERAT said:

You didn't go to the link and read "The Porcelain Soldier." Read it.

There was no Camp Snoopy when your dad went through "Tiger Land." That's what the article is about. It's about what political correctness has done to the U.S. Army.

BTW: Col. Hackworth until his death was the highest decorated American living at the time and no one has achieved what he has.

I first started corresponding with Col. Hackworth after reading his book "About Face" when I learned that he was stationed at a small army air defense base that was located a block from my home in Manhattan Beach, Ca. on Rosecranse Ave. a quarter of a mile from the beach back in the late 50's. With the Nike Zeus and Nike Hercules SAM's ended the era of the 90 MM AAA's. But I wanted to hear more stories about this small Army installation that I saw every day when I was seven or eight years old. And he had some good stories.

Once he found out that I did a tour in the Nam as a Marine we started talking about Marine Corps training and how the Army's training has been dumbed down over the years by political correctness. So we kept in touch for years.

Re: >" it isn't the water but the mental toughness. "< I concur, your 100 % correct. Those who washed out of BUD's was not because of the physical training but they chose to drop out because their mind told them they couldn't continue, they quiot because their mind told them to quit. Many would be surprised what the human body can indure physicaly.

Don't fall for the myth that all wars in the future will be fought hundreds of miles from the sea. Back I guess in 2000 I got in an argument with an Air Force "Top Kick" who happens to have a popular military forum on the internet. I mentioned how I wittness in Nam airmen, aircraft mechanics and other technicians running to the perimitter wire to assist the Marines from keeping charley off the base. Even one airman climbing on top of a M-48 tank and manning the .50 cal machinegun.

My argument was that the Air Force should teach individual infantry training to every recruit.

His argument was, that the Air Force will never again have bases in a combat zone like during the Vietnam War, that they will always be stationed a couple hundered miles from the combat zone.

A few years later we were in Iraq and guess what the airmen were doing ? Doing the Army's job of protecting bases and riding convoy security in a war zone. Now it looks like it's the Navy who's not training their sailors during basic to be able to pick up a rifle and fight.

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Peter Grimm said:

Haha bite your tongue grandpa. You're still here? I would have figured someone would have unplugged your respirator by now, you senile old bastard.

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SMTA said:

You harbor mediocre and disproved opinions from the 60's, and I am old?

Right.

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notquiteright said:

I didn't say my dad, I said back in my DAY, my dad was a cannon cocker officer, no Tigerland for him.

What does fighting on the perimeter in 'Nam mean about fighting in future ahhhh conflicts? fact is we train for the fight at hand, it is 'tween wars that training can be faulted for training for the last war, not the next one, hence our armor heavy forces ill equipt to stand guard after the Fall of Saddam. SEALS have long since shed their UDT roots, I'd say if they left the dirt only missions to the Army and stuck to the shoreline I'd agree, keep 'em wet...

I can't agree with every Zoomie a rifleman, for that matter 90% of the army doesn't need the ACU or battle armor.

The correct answer is SOME Zoomies were doing convoy escort duties but not the radar repairmen, the cooks and dozens of other specialties never set foot in an up-armored vehicle. Grand sweeping statements but the facts are the few needed to pull convoy duty doesn't mean every Zoomie needs to be a rifleman.

Now can we get back to your very first statement about liberals embedded in the Puzzle Palace to begin social engineering in the 90's?

Like much else, a grand sweeping statement that lacks any facts... the military has been a social engineer since the end of WWI.

Female soldiers, not every female can be a soldier, and that is just someone who is in uniform, but then again i can assure us all not every man can be one as well.

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Peter Grimm said:

Because I've seen women drive!

:lamo

Seriously, I had a female airline pilot the other day, she couldn't have been 30 years old, I was biting my nails the whole flight.

You remember the last plane that crashed in the US, I think it was near Buffalo? That was a woman pilot, she was texting when she should have been flying the damn plane.

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shlunka said:

Sorry if I'm misinformed, but, wouldn't some women struggle to carry the heavy gear?

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