Women in combat- where do you stand?

[EmperorMing]

I had read that she did most of the seal training. Maybe the report was wrong.

What about if you had a woman like Chyna from WWF fame? She could sure carry a man outta a burning tank. Would ya'll object to HER being on the front line?

I would still object. The visiuals are sooo obvious...Nope. No way. Don't need it. Don't want it.

[EmperorMing]

Well lets also look at the whole submarinares/fighter pilot aspect. For biological reasons relating to tissue saturation of gasses. Women have better resistance to G-LOC and the bends then men do. It's been stated that an all female sub would probably be a good idea, at the very least coustoue and other's stated that they had bodies more efficeiantly designed for dealing with underwater activitites (Where that lack of upper body strength, and that greater flexibility worked in their favor), while the Pentegon is against them being Combat Pilots, and the navy has it's subs still crewed ONLY by men. Were looking at two front line branches where they would technically be better then the men at.

I can agree with what is being said here. BTW, don't the Isrealis have female fighter jocks at this time?

[Knife]

I had read that she did most of the seal training. Maybe the report was wrong.

What about if you had a woman like Chyna from WWF fame? She could sure carry a man outta a burning tank. Would ya'll object to HER being on the front line?

This would be another large problem with women in the infantry. There seems to be more who want women to be able to join the infantry than those who actually want to be in the infantry. The subs and aircraft I can see and if they are "built" to succed in those fields then god bless them. But I still do not see how the basic instincts (lack of a better term) of both men and women would jive well in the grunts.

[kheegster]

Well lets also look at the whole submarinares/fighter pilot aspect. For biological reasons relating to tissue saturation of gasses. Women have better resistance to G-LOC and the bends then men do. It's been stated that an all female sub would probably be a good idea, at the very least coustoue and other's stated that they had bodies more efficeiantly designed for dealing with underwater activitites (Where that lack of upper body strength, and that greater flexibility worked in their favor), while the Pentegon is against them being Combat Pilots, and the navy has it's subs still crewed ONLY by men. Were looking at two front line branches where they would technically be better then the men at.

I can agree with what is being said here. BTW, don't the Isrealis have female fighter jocks at this time?

I can't speak about the IAF, but last year there WAS a first female shuttle commander, and I read an article in space.com that discussed the advantages that females enjoy in space...

[EmperorMing]

Well lets also look at the whole submarinares/fighter pilot aspect. For biological reasons relating to tissue saturation of gasses. Women have better resistance to G-LOC and the bends then men do. It's been stated that an all female sub would probably be a good idea, at the very least coustoue and other's stated that they had bodies more efficeiantly designed for dealing with underwater activitites (Where that lack of upper body strength, and that greater flexibility worked in their favor), while the Pentegon is against them being Combat Pilots, and the navy has it's subs still crewed ONLY by men. Were looking at two front line branches where they would technically be better then the men at.

I can agree with what is being said here. BTW, don't the Isrealis have female fighter jocks at this time?

I can't speak about the IAF, but last year there WAS a first female shuttle commander, and I read an article in space.com that discussed the advantages that females enjoy in space...

Space is one thing, combat arms is another...

[kheegster]

I can agree with what is being said here. BTW, don't the Isrealis have female fighter jocks at this time?

I can't speak about the IAF, but last year there WAS a first female shuttle commander, and I read an article in space.com that discussed the advantages that females enjoy in space...

Space is one thing, combat arms is another...

True. But remember that there's a reason the first Gemini astronauts were all test-pilots...I think the point is that there are some things that women are better at, although admittedly in space you do not have anyone trying to blow you up.

[Captain Kruger]

Well, whatever guys.

Most of you are being really sexist, which is disappointing.

I'm leaving the board and I'm not coming back.

So whatever.

Goodbye.

Do you really have to be such a fucking pussy just because other people won't agree with you? How pathetic.

I think I'll trust the opinions of the people who've actually served in the military and have seen the problems with co-ed frontline units. Your posts on this thread have led me to believe you're just a politically correct, emasculated, feminist-programmed male anyway. If people like you had their way, you'd compromise the safety and effectiveness of the people protecting our country just to satisfy your socio-political opinions on sexual equality.

People like you disgust me.

[Captain Kruger]

Can't you just discipline them beforehand? Like setting down ground rules?

Not if they intend to get out by getting pregnant. The only way I could see that working is too make is mandatory that women in overseas posts get a depro-privera (spelling?) shot. Which is a whole can of worms.

Depo-Provera prevents two things: pregnancy and that-time-of-the-month bleeding. Both would obviously be good things for a female groundpounder. But there's a possible problem with that. Depo sometimes has the personality side-effect of putting the woman in permanent PMS-attitude mode. The harmony of the unit is not exactly going to be served by some of its' soldiers being in a permanent drug-induced bitch fest.

[Vympel]

Nitram, not NitrIam.

That is my second spelling mistake in ... months. Fuck.

[Captain Kruger]

I think the solution for all this is very simple. Any citizen, male or female, who wants to serve their country's armed forces should be allowed to do so provided they can pass the physical and mental requirements needed to do their job effectively. If that means there is still a 10-to-1 male-to-female ratio in infantry units, so be it. Considering women tend to have higher reflexes and better multi-tasking skills than men, the ladies would obviously excel in other areas. Their reflexes would probably make them awesome pilots. Their multi-tasking abilities might get them a lot of positions in electronics and communications (a job my best female friend did quite well in the US Army).

As for the pregnancy problem, let's make this nice and easy.

Pregnancy due to fellow infantry shagging each other is punished, period. If you got knocked up, you're going to jail. In this era of DNA evidence, it would be trivially easy to find out who the daddy is and lock him up too, since he's equally responsible for the problem. I realize many of you might find this unreasonable. But think about this — if we rely on these people to defend our countries in time of war, is it so much to ask for them to be reliable enough keep their damn pants zipped up? As stated by others earlier, becoming a mother-to-be means that's one less live body capable of fighting if the shit hits the fan. I don't see anything wrong with punishing soldiers who would cripple the effectiveness of their unit just so they can get their rocks off.

If made quite clear well in advance what the consequences of their actions would be, I think many soldiers would be capable of enough professionalism to exercise restraint. Those who can't show that level of responsibility, IMO, shouldn't be representing our country in dangerous situations. Sex can wait for R&R…after all, that's the way it's always been with all-male units, isn't it?

I suppose leniancy would be called for if it's found that no one the pregnant soldier is serving with was the father. After all, a woman should be entitled to the same R&R activities as her male comrades, and no matter how careful she is, no method of birth control is 100% effective. I can't see jailing her if she accidentally got a civvie's seed planted in her.

Comments? I'd particularly like to hear replies from those of you in uniform about the feasability of my suggestions.

[jegs2]

I think the solution for all this is very simple. Any citizen, male or female, who wants to serve their country's armed forces should be allowed to do so provided they can pass the physical and mental requirements needed to do their job effectively. If that means there is still a 10-to-1 male-to-female ratio in infantry units, so be it. Considering women tend to have higher reflexes and better multi-tasking skills than men, the ladies would obviously excel in other areas. Their reflexes would probably make them awesome pilots. Their multi-tasking abilities might get them a lot of positions in electronics and communications (a job my best female friend did quite well in the US Army).

See any difference between standards for men and women?
http://academic.udayton.edu/rotc/apft.htm

As for the pregnancy problem, let's make this nice and easy.

Pregnancy due to fellow infantry shagging each other is punished, period. If you got knocked up, you're going to jail. In this era of DNA evidence, it would be trivially easy to find out who the daddy is and lock him up too, since he's equally responsible for the problem. I realize many of you might find this unreasonable. But think about this — if we rely on these people to defend our countries in time of war, is it so much to ask for them to be reliable enough keep their damn pants zipped up? As stated by others earlier, becoming a mother-to-be means that's one less live body capable of fighting if the shit hits the fan. I don't see anything wrong with punishing soldiers who would cripple the effectiveness of their unit just so they can get their rocks off.

Such a regulation and/or law would never pass. The women need only make a charge of rape (even "date rape"), and/or, both parties can claim they both used birth-control, and it just didn't work. That doesn't begin to address the impact on unit cohesion, morale, and esprit-de-corps. All of the stuff you suggest is a pipe dream and completely unworkable in practice. I've been there, and I've seen it. Male and female soldiers, when deployed overseas, find ways to screw each other. Each soldier can and will write to their Congressman if they feel their rights are being violated. The only Infantry that should be integrated with females is perhaps France.

If made quite clear well in advance what the consequences of their actions would be, I think many soldiers would be capable of enough professionalism to exercise restraint. Those who can't show that level of responsibility, IMO, shouldn't be representing our country in dangerous situations. Sex can wait for R&R…after all, that's the way it's always been with all-male units, isn't it?

If your perception of the military comes from Hollywood, then the above statement makes sense. In reality, it does not work.

I suppose leniancy would be called for if it's found that no one the pregnant soldier is serving with was the father. After all, a woman should be entitled to the same R&R activities as her male comrades, and no matter how careful she is, no method of birth control is 100% effective. I can't see jailing her if she accidentally got a civvie's seed planted in her.

No, she'd just get a free ticket out of her deployment and back to the States. The unit would continue to have to track her as "assigned," so she couldn't be backfilled, costing that unit in money, operational readiness, combat readiness, unit cohesion, and morale. Such things already take place in CS and CSS units in the US Army.

Comments? I'd particularly like to hear replies from those of you in uniform about the feasability of my suggestions.

See above.

[Captain Kruger]

In other words, what you're saying is that any practical method for integrating men and women in combat is doomed to failure either due to unavoidable male-female drama, pansy-ass political correctness, or both?

[jegs2]

In other words, what you're saying is that any practical method for integrating men and women in combat is doomed to failure either due to unavoidable male-female drama, pansy-ass political correctness, or both?

They are already integrated into combat in the form of assignment to Combat Service (CS) and Combat Service Support (CSS) units that support combat units on the battlefield. As a Smoke Platoon leader several years ago, one of my NCO's was a woman. My platoon was responsible for providing smoke coverage to advancing Mechanized Infantry and Armor companies. We were on the front line. I still remember the time she kicked her crewmen out of her track when she was on her period, so she could sleep inside (they slept outside, on the ground). Even so, the platoon was workable, although morale did suffer somewhat. However, integrating that into an Infantry company, where fire and maneuver are crucially tied in with unit cohesion and morale, would be absolutely disasterous...

[Knife]

In other words, what you're saying is that any practical method for integrating men and women in combat is doomed to failure either due to unavoidable male-female drama, pansy-ass political correctness, or both?

You have it.

[jegs2]

What I wrote before addresses existing and potential issues in the field, but read what I posted earlier for the nightmare in CS & CSS units overseas (Korea, Kuwait, Bosnia). Hollywood would have you believe that soldiers still live in squadbays with mean drill sergeants keeping a prison-like watch over everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, soldiers live from two to four in a room, with lockable doors. NCO's are not allowed to make unannounced inspections (health & welfare inspections being the sole exception, and those are rare). Unless the unit is deployed to the field, soldiers are usually off-duty and in civilan-mode after 5 pm. That means they can and will do whatever they want to do (whatever 18 to 24-year-olds in regular civilian life like to do). They don't have to be back in uniform until the next PT session. Oh, and weekends are almost always off-duty as well...

[Alex Moon]

What I wrote before addresses existing and potential issues in the field, but read what I posted earlier for the nightmare in CS & CSS units overseas (Korea, Kuwait, Bosnia). Hollywood would have you believe that soldiers still live in squadbays with mean drill sergeants keeping a prison-like watch over everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, soldiers live from two to four in a room, with lockable doors. NCO's are not allowed to make unannounced inspections (health & welfare inspections being the sole exception, and those are rare). Unless the unit is deployed to the field, soldiers are usually off-duty and in civilan-mode after 5 pm. That means they can and will do whatever they want to do (whatever 18 to 24-year-olds in regular civilian life like to do). They don't have to be back in uniform until the next PT session. Oh, and weekends are almost always off-duty as well...

So it's like a coed college dorm in many ways.

[Knife]

What I wrote before addresses existing and potential issues in the field, but read what I posted earlier for the nightmare in CS & CSS units overseas (Korea, Kuwait, Bosnia). Hollywood would have you believe that soldiers still live in squadbays with mean drill sergeants keeping a prison-like watch over everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, soldiers live from two to four in a room, with lockable doors. NCO's are not allowed to make unannounced inspections (health & welfare inspections being the sole exception, and those are rare). Unless the unit is deployed to the field, soldiers are usually off-duty and in civilan-mode after 5 pm. That means they can and will do whatever they want to do (whatever 18 to 24-year-olds in regular civilian life like to do). They don't have to be back in uniform until the next PT session. Oh, and weekends are almost always off-duty as well...

So it's like a coed college dorm in many ways.

When you are not on duty or not in the field on an exercise, yes its alot like that. There are usualy Duty NCO's to watch over the barracks durring liberty but they are not allowed to barge into someones room and inspected it. Generally they answer the phone and head off major transgressions like fights. What people do on liberty in their room is generally their own buisness.

[EmperorMing]

O.K. guys, question; Does Isreal still use women in the frontline units? I remember coming across an article somewhere's that they did such a thing (infantry, I think it was). Anyone have any further info? Or has it been abandoned for them.

I do realise they are in a rather interesting situation where women in arty/armour/infantry units could be an exception than what is normally seen today.

And are there any other countries with women in the frontline arty/armour/infantry units today?

[tharkûn]

Israel has a very small number of women in the IAF, this is fairly recent and few, if any, of them have seen heavy duty (i.e. those nights where you take off, perform your mission, if you are lucky you get to land to refuel, and then go on to the next one, and keep doing that till the night is over).

I wish them the best of luck, but I have also heard some talk about lowering the standards (on the initial pass 1 out of 843 women made it through).

I don't have a problem with rear deployed females (those who are not expected to live on the front lines). There is no way to avoid sex on the base, and frankly any number of positions are easily filled by females with zilch for problems.

Punishment for sex is a VERY tricky issue. Most successful female combatants faced severe penalties for sex while on duty (i.e. summary execution) and rape was not a permitted excuse.

The only workable way I see to do this is to form all female units. The problem here is that your top females (in terms of physical apptitude) are equivalent to your bottom males. So already your base has been whacked 90%, couple that with the fact that far fewer women want to serve in combat (especially infantry) and you run into the problem of the smallest unit.

[TrailerParkJawa]

This would be another large problem with women in the infantry. There seems to be more who want women to be able to join the infantry than those who actually want to be in the infantry.

I think this is a very accurate statement. When I was going to school at SJSU there were some debates over this issue. One girl that stood out as the most vocal for letting women serve in combat units was obviously more concerned over the politcal aspect than the safety of soldiers.

She would simply not acknowledge that men have a strength advantage over women that is important when it comes to the 3 traditional combat arms.

[tharkûn]

Does Isreal still use women in the frontline units? I remember coming across an article somewhere's that they did such a thing (infantry, I think it was). Anyone have any further info? Or has it been abandoned for them.
Up until 2000, no. Back in '48, yes they briefly served on the frontlines. Even then it was decided (at least in theory) to have seperate battalions for women. After that the IDF kept women out of the frontline.

In 2000 a supreme court decision came down and the IDF will now deploy women in certain select positions in the infantry, armor, and even some of the elite units.

Prior to this the closest thing you found was women serving in paramilitary positions.

I don't know the specifics of this and none of my friends still in the IDF have had direct experience here (at least enough to bring it up in casual conversation). What I do know is that some people are complaining about lowered standards to accomodate women, at least in the IAF.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Now I am getting flashbacks to my copy of WAR. Where U2 has these women singing "I wanna be an Airborne Ranger"

[Captain Kruger]

…far fewer women want to serve in combat (especially infantry)…

Yeah, they love prattling on about equal rights, but they're sure happy to leave us men to be the ones to bleed to death on a foreign battlefield while they're off getting their nails done and shopping for shoes.

[Pu-239]

Why not just use Norplant to solve the pregnancy problem?

EDIT: It lasts 7 years instead of 12 weeks like Depo Provera. It's a plastic implant in the arm that releases hormones.

[Alex Moon]

Why not just use Norplant to solve the pregnancy problem?

EDIT: It lasts 7 years instead of 12 weeks like Depo Provera. It's a plastic implant in the arm that releases hormones.

How durable is it? Infantry isn't exactly the gentlest place, and the last thing you need is for the implant to break in the field.