Women in Combat? Yes. Sex integrate units? No.

Whites and blacks must be segregated in the military. This is the standard and it will never change.

Tanks exist only to support infantry. That is the standard and it will never change.

The battleship has dominated the seas for countless centuries. This will never change.

If humans were supposed to fly, they would have wings.

The GREATEST curse to militaries are old ex-military. They tend to be true pigheaded ego maniacs for which their past glories are eternity. The reason Germany could run over France - which had a larger military not even counting the British joining it - is because France's military leaders were hang-ons from WW1.

You will never leave your military past, will you? By your messages you are stuck in the past forever - and then demand everyone stay back there with you so you can remind forever in the future what you were in the past. You take your 15 minutes of past fame too seriously.

 

You're off your rocker man.

 

By your messages, I suspect when you are in your 80s at a family reunion those there will smile nicely when you look at them, but then roll their eyes thinking "he's going to tell his war stories again?!"

Reminds me of the old person who says "when I was your age, I walked 12 miles to school in the snow and I didn't even have a coat." Two years ago, it was 10 miles. Prior to that it was 8 and didn't have gloves. The older they become, the better they were. A lot of vets are like that too.

The year is 2018. Try to keep up.

 

I surely won't be telling stories about how the Army lowered AOT and standards just so small females with weaker bone structures can earn their fixed bayonets.

 

Reminds me when I had to walk 3 miles to school in the rain without a rain coat because I was indoctrinated in that it never rains in California.

I hear that today kids take a school bus to school any time the school is over 1 mile away.

 

That's just the wrongheaded ego of low ranking grunt's perspective of warfare.

 

Well let's see. My way is the way warfare actually works, and your way is what you dream it would be.

Hmmmm

 

Maybe over 200 years ago. I suppose some insurgent groups still follow your limitations of warfare given that is the only option they have, though even they tend to have armed women. Fortunately, no one in any role in the military would ever adopt your ancient view of warfare in which a military is limited to only armed infantry carrying light arms.

 

No, it's right now. I suggest calling your local recruiting station to get a reality check. Seems you aren't grasping the current standards I'm laying out for you.

 

Hey what's next...bring the kiddies? They can fight. And Granny's got a mean left hook. Come on ya'll, there's a war a brewing. Who needs an all male, professional, kick app killing machine?

 

LOL all anyone need to do is look at the former SSR record of employing their women in combat to know the nonsense contain in his thread.

Tell the thousands of German families who lost their loves one to Russian women snipers how they are not good at the hunting/offenses parts of combat.

 

LOL.........so 309 kills are not enough and the Russians could had done better with a man behind her rifle.

 

You had no business getting there by helicopter. Remember, the premise is that the ONLY combat roles in the USA military involve carrying heavy packs. No one but Infantry or Marines carrying heavy packs are ever in combat and accordingly no one else should ever be in any combat zone. That is the premise of calling for women to be banned from combat roles.

But, then, you could have flown the Chinook yourself as could everyone else in the unit because, as you stated, there no longer is any "specialization" and everyone must be able to do everything - so you could fly the Chinook, overhaul the tanks and otherwise do every task everyone does in the Army. That's your claim anyway. "No specialization."

BTW, when you are calling for senior male officers to meet the same standards as male 19 year olds, your message would have more credibility. As you claim, ANYONE can be required at anytime be required to climb mountains carrying 80 pound rucksacks up mountains. Except the military does NOT have the same standards for all age males, does it? So that blows your reasoning out of the water.

We don't have time for the PC correctness of different standards for different ages. Anyone who can not meet the highest standard of any age group must be removed from any possible combat role - meaning banned from any theater of combat and disallowed and foreign deployment or combat pay. We MUST stop being PC correct for older members of the military. The military is ONLY for young men - very young."

^ You agree with that, don't you?

As for my view, if grunts made the decisions we might as well surrender and be done with it. The absurd claim that only grunts do "soldiering" gives the reason why.

In WW2, the greatest percentage of casualties was not ground troops. It was the Merchant Marines. Greater damage and greater casualties were done by air units, not ground forces. But some grunts take the "tip of the spear" hype to offset that they are considered cannon fodder way too seriously. Ground troops really are not the only "combat" personnel or the only person "soldiering."

 

In the USA on tour she chided the men by saying "don't you think it is time to stop hiding behind me?" LOL

 

Yes, and even more relevant was how female units would stand and fight inflicting massively greater casualties after the male units had fled and left the female units to fight on their own.

However, they will explain to you that the reason Germany lost to the USSR is because Russian men could carry heavier packs. Their stance is that whichever side's ground forces can carry the heaviest packs faster and further wins the war.

Somehow, can't imagine how, all historians missed that in their reasoning behind battles and wars won and lost.

 

Your message is BS. If not, you would agree that regardless of age or rank, no male that can't meet the "80lb rucksack up a hill" should be kept out of or throw out of "the infantry." Are older males in the infantry required to meet those standards? No. For that, your message is BS.

In fact, for Iraq they were putting reservists into infantry combat even who had heart conditions and couldn't run 100 yards with no pack without dropping dead. Your claim that all army personnel in "infantry" could run up a mountain with 80 pound rucksacks is false BS - and you know it too.

As for your "experience," that is the kind of crap male officers do to try to prove women are incapable. I know (extremely well) women in the military and in "combat roles" (though not infantry) and they all have had the experience of male officers outright telling them "I've never had a woman in my unit and never will" piling loads on them put on no male, hoping the women are foolish enough to file a complaint. If so, the officer might get a reprimand, but the woman's career with a record as a complainer would be over. Those officers are ignorant dinosaurs and they are being pushed out fast because overall their arrogance and ego also means they are particularly stupid. There is such an extreme prejudice that for critical missions for which only a female is capable of completing the mission she will have to go off-the-books.

Only an idiot of an officer would send "tankers" or anyone else not capable, including women not capable, on the mission you described. That officer should have been thrown out of the military for recklessly endangering lives. Although that is possibly still not uncommon, more and more are getting busted for doing exactly that.

What is the greatest BS of your message is the ego you portray declaring that the ONLY "combat" is "infantry." Yes, you maybe believed the entire US military revolved around you, but it never did, does not and never will. Infantry in the military - in the past, present and future - are the expendables - cannon, machine gun, IED, and sniper fodder. Infantry is necessary - and thank you very much for your service - but to claim combat = infantry is absurd. Combat = combat.

There is NO shortage for men who can run up a hill with a heavy pack who want to enlist. For every ten to try to enlist who are qualified, 9 are turned down because they are not needed. What the military is desperate for it high intelligence people. The military can not compete with universities and the private sector and the shortage is severe. It may surprise you, but brainaics are necessary including "in combat" roles.

Millions more women than men will be enrolled in college this fall .
https://www.google.com/search?q=men...ome..69i57.10799j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Nor is this new. What do you think that means to the military when the MAJORITY of educated young Americans are FEMALE, not male? Do you believe ANYONE in military planning at ANY level for the future discusses racksack weight? When discussing Russia, China, N. Korea, Iran, or even ISIS or the Taliban, do you think they put up a racksack weight chart? That is the foolishness of your messages. The military is making no secret their future military planning does not involve large deployment of infantry into combat zones. Rather, it is to calculate how to win without ever having to do so. There will never be another large scale deployment of ground troops for combat - fortunately. Brainiacs are making that the least effective choice. They can see the enemy from space and kill that enemy - 1 or 10,000 - from hundreds of miles away. Or, I suppose, they could fly in dozens of guys like you were and have them run up a mountain carrying heavy loads - and then pay all your death benefits, lifetime costs of crippling wounds, and other benefits. It's more certain and cheaper in the long run to kill them from afar. But, that "afar" may still be within a combat zone.

The flip side is NOT training the brainiacs for combat even if necessary to be in a combat zone, which would be tactically stupid and as unethical as it gets. A female we know, part of an aircrew that went on combat missions in two different nation's combat zones, found their aircrew in a broken aircraft on the ground alone and under attack by a superior force - they only armed with side arms and none "combat trained." But brainiacs are smart. No only were they not killed or captured, but in the end killed every one of the attackers. And not one of them even had a rucksack. The future of the U.S. military is not based upon rucksacks, including in combat.

Your "everyone has to be like I was" doesn't work. But, again, thank you very much for your patriotism and service to us all. You deserve our praise, support and appreciation.

 

A growing trend in the US military is the ability of lower ranking personnel - enlisted or officers - to refuse to carry out orders that 1.) violate rules, 2.) violate protocol, 3.) endanger the mission or 4.) recklessly or needlessly risk lives - and not only does the military back them up, but if severe will be very harsh towards whatever CO gave such orders.

As the military aggressively pursues big brains over strong backs, such refusals may be increasing because increasingly lower rankers are smarter than older officers. I've posted a few recounts of that on the forum before, as great as an E5 outright refusing the orders of a base CO leading to a major combat mission having to be scrubbed, and the inquiry resulted in the CO removed and the E5 promoted. The base CO had ordered violating standing protocol and in a way that would have both cost lives and lead to a horrific breach of security - although the CO too stupid to realize it and instead probably saw it as a power struggle with an insubordinate enlisted personnel. In another instance, an entire squad refused orders for good reason, and that CO was blown out after the inquiry - though in the distant past that would be considered a mutiny.

The military MUST constantly evolve at every level. Any military that stays in the past is increasingly an inferior military. The future is technology and those smart enough to make it, understand it and use it.

BTW, I've mentioned a few times that the Marine squad leader we know who was in the Helmand District of Afghanistan said that as soon as they were out of sight, they would dump much of the rucksack crap so they could move faster and more efficiently. He was intensely against women in such as the combat roles of his squad prior to that experience, but not afterwards. To his mind and experience, great physical strength was all but irrelevant. It was courage, the ability to act cohesively as a unit, intelligence, combat instinct and shooting ability that matters - not weight lifting.

 

Here is what the men on these threads, most being veterans, do not grasp.

Yes, the military has lower standards for women. Instead, the standards are set high for the person based on age, gender and NEED FOR THE PERSON. Increasingly, the military will bent, change and doctor books to get who they want.

The "everyone has to meet the same standard" does not apply in reality. Blacks test stronger than whites. Whites test smarter than black or Hispanics. Asians test smarter than whites, blacks and Hispanics, but come in low on physical testing compared to blacks. Aptitude testing variance between men and women is smaller, but it depends what is being tested for. In technical knowledge, men test higher. But in other skills, women test higher.

It is ONLY for women that it is claimed there can be no adjustment in terms of physical strength. There is no hesitation to set standards so that Asian men and white men can meet the physical standards, though on average black men can reach a higher standard. In short, claiming there can be no compromise to get people in is true BS. The military does it exactly due to race. It does it exactly based on age too. It is only for women is it claimed this can not be done.

It does not take much thought to understand that just over half the population is female and female are running away from men on the academic measure to understand why the military wants more women. But I do understand how frustrating it is to men who were in the military and their pride was becoming able to rapidly travel distance carrying a lot of weight isn't the singular focus of the military, including for combat roles.

As endlessly more men who are physically strong try to enlist - vastly more than needed - the recruiters and those making the decisions are looking over the paperwork to try to see if any of them are SMART as in notably intelligent. If way up the scale like that woman was, if need be they will bring in a special doctor just for that person - and to no surprise that person - male or female - is going to pass as being perfect. The standards are excuses to get rid of people they don't need or don't want. The standards don't apply if there is someone they really do want.

 

Could you provide some verification of this please? Not saying this is nonsense...but it sounds like nonsense.

 

No, I'm not going to dig all that out and I'm talking about IRAQ WAR 1 under H. Bush. They were calling to active duty anyone who was still alive. This was very highly covered.

 

Good message.

We may not really be that far off in opinion. I did not serve in the military, but have kids and friends of kids who have or currently are in and my opinions are from their experiences as they tell it. This includes male and female - again including my own kids - two of which have been in combat including both Iraq and Afghanistan including in combat - real combat as under fire combat, killing the enemy trying to kill you combat. Warriors, so to speak.

The Marine squad leader I referred to is the only person I know who joined up specifically wanting to be sent into combat to kill enemy. A lifelong hunter since a young child, he wanted to hunt the most dangerous game of all - armed humans. He proved his had extreme skills in basic training (stories I've told) and his wish was granted - straight into the Helmand District at the height of fighting, just his squad on extended policing patrols all the way to the Pakistan border on foot. He commented that the first thing he did was find a way to get the personnel (all male) out of his squad - preferring a smaller squad than one with liabilities. Out of sight, they'd then ditch half the weight the were carrying, plus off came the Kevlar gloves because "how the hell do you shoot well with those on?" He went in absolutely against women in ANY combat roles, but completely changed his view afterwards. I explained why earlier, but that also likely because of a few combat females he got to know. Maybe 80 pounds up a mountain wouldn't work, but they could kick most men's asses, were fearless, and could hit a fly in flight at 100 yards (so to speak). As for mountains? What may have done it was when a female literally out climbed a mountain (sport mountain climbing) - and he's a tough guy, a fighter, was state wrestling champ in his division. Liked to get in bully's faces for the job of scared or beating them down. Very tough, extremely intelligent, though not real big.

The female I've mentions it the most amazing person in terms of diversity I've ever met. Extreme physical prowlness, intelligence off the charts and that proven, and outstanding interpersonal skills.

The idea of just ordering "all of you grab all that stuff and run up that mountain to take position" is the wrong way to do, on that we both agree. And I agree both people should be put into roles they are suited for - BUT also ANYONE who might be in a combat zone should be combat trained - for the reasons you gave. So males or females who can't do what is required? Don't assign them to that task.

As for women in the AF, yeah some of them are good, very very good at what they do. I think sometimes women can focus better because they do not get lost in the macho and some may feel a powerful need to prove they are good as any man - so go the extra effort that men may not feel they need to.

Congrats on being a pilot. The female I've most mentioned fairly early on was offered to be put into helicopter pilot training under a "Blue Goes Green" program - and back then that would have been a serious promotion. Her response to the offer was " My aircraft has come under missile and arms fire many times. It's annoying because the defensive systems explosions are so loud they wake me up. Those helicopters, they get shot down sometimes, don't they? Don't they crash sometimes too?" That was her way of saying "thanks, but no thanks." LOL But probably the real reason is when you are in charge of billion dollar aircraft - aircraft that kills enemy with precision and certainty - somehow helicopters may seem sort of cheesy and cheap.

Obviously I have reason to take it personal. My kids have been under fire, including female. They have killed enemy. They have received combat injuries. They take the life risks of "combat" the same as infantry, though depending what manner of service the risk quite different. There are huge prejudices among male officers - the ignorant ones - against women regardless of all the PCism rules - which do go overboard. For those women who are capable, it is possibly their greatest challenge of all. Such officers will try to ruin their careers deliberately and even endanger their lives to do it. Fortunately, those male officers to tend to be low IQ types and in the end usually just blow themselves out.

One thing I have learned, or so it seems, is that when it comes to "critical" missions, the value of rank tends to diminish and the people critical to the mission in a sense have more actual power than pencil pushing officers who may be good custodians, but are truly ignorant about the missions or what all is involved. I'm not talking about differences when the officer is wrong. Officers are likely wrong all the time, but rank rules. Rather, when the officer is wrong in ways the hinder or endanger mission success, or endanger personnel and/or equipment solely due to true arrogance or stupidity. The days of ordering the troops to mass charge cannons or machine guns - and anyone who refuses could be shot or seriously court marshaled are over in the US military, fortunately - though you better be able prove up the reason for the refusal.

Back to topic, clearly women should not be put into units where raw physical strength matters, nor should any man incapable. I do know what you mean about how fast the pencil thin personnel can run, which is not a good measure. However, the fact is that specialization is an absolute necessity at every level, moreso than ever as it all gets more technology dependent. It is only in the most dire of situations where personnel should be used in ways individuals are not capable of. Yet all need "combat training" in the event such dire situation arises. Even nurses should have marksmen, survival and unit cohesion training. In my view, anyone sent into a combat zone with any potential to come under fire is "combat personnel." But that is just my opinion I suppose and maybe you and I are just bandying words, not really in disagreement at all.

 

I question sex integration of units and that is the PCism I tend to oppose. Men and women are not the same. So why are they in the identical units of identical roles? Two toilets and personal items in packs isn't really that big a challenge. They can in combat interact and support each other as all aspects of any military operation do. In that, female units as much "combat troops" as the men, but in different roles, just like a tank gunner is different from a sniper is different from machine gunner is different an artillery man who is different from a spotter who is different from a _____________________ etc. It is only dire urgent situations were orders should put people not suited into dangerous roles. That can happen of course, but it is rare. The Russians did it right. Women were in all female units. Men in all male units. Women proved excellent and even superior at defense in some instances - and there is psychology (maternal instinct) to back that up. Certainly as good as men as snipers. Better in some intelligence and infiltration work - possibly the most dangerous of all. But men tended to be better on offense.

BTW, that is the topic of this thread. It really isn't the endless women in combat roles debate. It is about sex integration of military units in which men and women are put in the same squads doing exactly the same thing. In many roles, I think that is a mistake. That by no means is my claiming women are of lesser value. Rather, they are of different value.