Women in combat (but not really) Vol. III

We have rapists and sexual deviants in the ranks...
Google "Lackland AFB sex abuse scandal."

The argument, women have no business being there in the first place is ludicrous.

So a drill instructor should not be held responsible because a female recruit was just "too gosh darn pretty not to molest."

We have a readiness problem well beyond allowing women in the ranks...
how about weeding out deviants first, or gang related infiltrators who want the military skills to take back to the streets, or extremists who decide to go on killing sprees, or just plain crazy soldiers who decide to kill innocent civilians in country.

Blaming women for all the woes of the military is acting like an ostrich with his head in the sand.

I'll take a female maintainer who may need help lifting heavy objects versus a rapist...or murderous lunatic...

any day of the week.

 

After a little research, I found the strength requirement for being an aircraft maintainer/mechanic.
It's listed as L for 80 lbs. of lifting...which is somewhat high.

The question is, if a female can't lift 80 lbs., she automatically DQs from eligibility for this job.

Depends on the available pool of eligible mechanics and maintainers.
I don't see "affirmative action" placing females in certain jobs just because they happen to be female...
there are other requirements to being a mechanic/maintainer aside from being able to lift 80 lbs.

For example knowing the principles applied to aircraft systems; the application of maintenance directives and data reporting;
using technical data.

If we're going to weed out females who can't lift 80 lbs., the same should apply to males who can't lift 80 lbs...
even a 20 year technical sergeant with a bad back, who asks a younger maintainer to lift an engine part for him.

Sorry, we don't need you any more...you don't meet the strength requirement.

I find it difficult to believe that "hundreds" of female maintainers are ill suited for the job and just let "the guys" do all the real work.

Is the suggestion these female airman were there solely on the basis of affirmative action to fill the ranks with ladies?

They passed aircraft maintenance courses did they not?

or should we just hire weight lifters to fix complex airframes and powerplants if it's as simple as
"lefty loosey" "righty tighty"...hey if you can lift 80 lbs., you can fix a multi-million dollar aircraft...

Clearly the intellectual ability of applying mechanical knowledge to fix these planes matters most.

If a female can only lift 50 lbs, and not 80 lbs, but otherwise qualifies and there is not a long line of qualified mechanics/maintainers
who can lift 80 lbs waiting in the wings...(no pun intended)...should this female be DQ'd regardless and fill the job with someone with less
mechanical ability but can lift 80 lbs.

 

The military is representative of US society. If there are rapists and "sexual deviants" in the military, it's because our society has rapists and such in it. Rape and sexual abuse are arguably more pervasive in civilian society than in the military. According to some studies, 25% of women have been raped or sexually abused.

 

How is it stupid? You said "people like you" after calling me young. The logical question arises as I stated it.

Where have I once avoided an argument? Name one instance where I refused to address an argument.

Yeah I thought you might want to discuss the topic. Obviously you are here to troll.

 

She said (I watched the video, I didnt have time to read the article, so please correct me if I am wrong or missed something), from what I understood of it, that the personal drawbacks for women outweigh their desire to be in the infantry. As far as I am aware she gave no evidence as to women being incapable of doing the job. Personal drawbacks are a personal matter. If she found it to hard, that's her problem - if other women dont mind and can do the job, then they should be retained as the effective employees they are. ALL THAT MATTERS is if they can do the job. I have yet to see someone say it is impossible for women to be effective members of the infantry. If this can be proven, then I would entirely agree that woman should not be in the infantry.

 

Again, how does that effect woman applying for the job?

 

Mr. Death, consider this.

In my Battery, there was only one individual that could keep up with me on a forced march with pack. Typically once a week we would do a 5-10 mile forced march, without weapon, without body armor, and with a 40 pound pack. Now granted, we were an Air Defense unit, but to me this should be an absolute basic military skill for somebody in the Army or Marines.

The only person who kept up was my Lieutenant, a 27 year old infantryman who was moved to Air Defense after he got his comission. He and I would set the standard pace, of around 7 miles an hour. We would hike for an hour, take a 10 minute break, then start off again. And that is a pace we could have kept up almost forever. The women he gave a break to, their pack only had to be 20 pounds.

Not a single female in our battery ever came in among even the first half of the finishers. Most times we would start our second 5 miles (after a 10 minute break) before even the first one reached us. And we were always the first 2 in, normally beating "the kids" by at least 5 minutes, most of the females were at least 15 minutes behind us.

And I am 47 freaking years old! My Infantry days are long-long behind me, like 20 years. But I could still hike the boots off of every single female in a 120 person Battery. I have done 26 mile forced marches in under 8 hours. I doubt that more then 5% at most of females could ever do that (with 50 pound pack, full battle gear, and carrying a weapon and part of a crew served weapon on top of that, total weight around 100 pounds). Then after getting to the destination, perform a mock assault onto a fixed position, then dig foxholes and set up a defensive perimeter and repel an assault.

To a grunt, that is part of their usual training. For many jobs (like firefighters) they had to seriously handicap the tests for women to pass (this was done because of lawsuits because to many females failed these tests). But you just can't do that in the case of combat arms. Because the failure means that people have died.

And opening up a field to where such a small percentage could successfully meet the challenges would be horribly expensive, and a complete waste of time and resources.

I love how you have never been in the military, yet you consistantly try to tell those of us who have been there that we are doing things all wrong. Tell you what, go on out and talk to your nearest recruiter tomorrow. Tell him you want to be an 11B or 0311, then go do the training.

And when you are done and spent a few months in a grunt unit, then you can come back and give us an informed opinion, and see if your belief in this has changed at all.

 

Please read the article.

 

Why should I? Did I not get her argument right?

 

If you're too lazy to read an article, then I'm not going to bother discussing it with you.

 

I should have chosen that as my username. Sounds so much cooler. Yes, go on...

Can you tell me where I said that even once?

Given you clearly have a knowledge of the military, can you tell me what the requirements to join the infantry are? By this I mean, what are the official standards - not yours.

 

Explain why I have to read it in order to understand her argument, and I will.

 

Well I just read it and once again I see nothing that would contradict what I said. If the standards for entrance into the infantry are too low, by all means change them - but that's another matter. As for the rest of the article, it didnt add anything else to what was mentioned in the video and thus to my earlier point. If you believe me to be wrong, by all means correct me. I have a feeling you will simply disregard my argument now.

 

He realizes that if he reads the article he'll be forced to admit the female Marine Officer might be on to something. Rather than open his mind and have an honest debate, he'd prefer to stick his head in the sand and respond with quick little defensive one-liners.

 

I have read the article. She didnt say anything that would change my mind. Now, since you lot have wasted my time reading it when it entirely unnecessary, perhaps you can tell me what the hell she said that would challenge my argument let alone refute it.

MATE! I've been asking you ALL to tell me where I am wrong. NO ONE HAS EVEN TRIED! Holy crap I'm the one MOST OPEN to debate here!

Are you military people all this retarded, seriously?

 

Misogyny is so engrained in the combat arms...I see a very hostile work environment for any female who wants to be part of that. Even if they were physically capable of handling the rigors of the infantry. I wouldn't want my daughter or sister to be part of it, and suffer through the hazing process.

 

Ok, but if a woman doesn't mind the possibility of encountering misogyny, she should still have the choice of joining. Perhaps that same sexist mentality is what is driving the hostility pushed here.

 

In which part of my response did I blame women for any sort of depravity or crime among service members?

I didn't.

I merely point out that there are some jobs, quite a few actually, that they simply can NOT do as well as a man and it DOES have an impact on readiness.

 

Can women meet the minimum requirements of joining the infantry? Yes or no?

 

We're drawing down now and shrinking the military, but should the (*)(*)(*)(*) hit the fan again, as an all-volunteer military; I don't think they could afford to disregard female's contribution to the services.Afterall it was "Rosie the Riveter" working in aircraft, tank and ammunition factories back in WWII...keeping arms production up while the men were off fighting the wars.
Factory work used to be thought of as "man's work" also.

Aircraft maintenance is a support funciton, it's not combat....though a male dominated field, I see no reason to disqualify all women from that specialty. Often times a females smaller hands and better dexterity is an advantage working in small spaces and with sensitive avionics.

Brute force doesn't always rule the day, but I understand your point though, and it's duly noted. It's not the first time I've heard the complaint that females don't or can't do a lot of the physical labor on maintaining the aircraft.

 

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Not enforced. EVER.

Yes.

Passing a course is not nearly the same as hauling a PC2 pump from the roof to the hangar bay. Let alone removing it from the wheel well.

 

Surely. As the minimum requirements have been shaved to allow it.

 

I was an aircraft mechanic for 20+ years. Never did I run across a male sailor who was incapable of doing his job. Numerous times I have run across females who were not.

Imagine this: An airframe shop has 15 billets. If 5 of those billets are filled by women who physically can not perform certain tasks, it will up to the other 10 sailors to 'take up the slack'. This has a definite impact on morale, welfare and readiness.

 

What about the medical issues she's facing? She didn't even do half the work the infantrymen did and she is suffering from debalitating, gender-specific health problems that the military has to pay for now. The attrition rate and the medical problems that would arise are potentially very damaging to our combat efficiency if we attempt to integrate females into infantry units. How would it impact an infantry unit if the females were always getting injured?

 

Not if they're held to male standards, no.