Chicks in combat? What's next?

No doubt, it appears to me that what most miss is that once you sign up (at least in my enlistments) you do so at a standard mean test requirment, this for all applicants.

Screw up or just be unable to accomplish a task or test and you find yourself out of the running and painting rocks white at the Base for whatever your enlistment time covered.

 

I am, myself a newbee here. if you will accept an unbiased opinion, the Lady just made a better argument than you did. trust me, I will argue with anyone, if I feel I am right.i will also play the role of Devil's advocate (Court Jester) I have ruffled a few feathers here myself, so I can tell you, this is not a stacked deck. You simply came off second. Someone has to. Make a better argument, or concede the point.

 

Check you conversations.

 

Equating one's abilities in combat to their ability with words comes up real short in the order of importance. One earns the Crossed Rifles, it isn't a debate won with words.

Back in the day, if a solder enlisted for MP then went OCS and dropped out, he would go to MP school. A lot of the old has been changed and I am non-current.

 

Well since you ask or is that accused.

Sorry Quigley, but when a moderator, no matter how long they have been on the board, has to use veiled name calling to "one line" her reply then having a chip on my shoulder has nothing to do with the discussion.

The rules say no insults, no name calling.

 

This thread is hosed.

Edit: My apologies kellory, but this thread is hosed..

 

This thread was hosed after the title dude...

The implication said it all. It wasn't really an invitation for discussion or even polite debate. Just my two copper clad zincs but I've been watching it go _exactly_ the direction I thought it would since I saw it pop up.

 

I'm not a dude.

Well said and normally I'd enjoy the discussion; unfortunately there can't be a discussion. Best thing to do is let it sink; but there were lessons learned.

 

Tikka - sorry, no offense meant. I just rattled it off without thinking, my bad.

 

I've always heard that the two things that cannot be discussed or debated logically and calmly are politics and religion but I guess gender issues would have to be added to that short list.

Mores the pity

 

One issue that has been mostly ignored in this thread (my hat's off to yard dart), is that combat involves one hell of a lot more than shooting. And even if we distilled it down to only shooting, there is an enormous difference between qualifying on a range and shooting at someone who is shooting back. Invariably, combat marksmanship is in the range of 30-40% effective at best. I bring this up because there is an emotional aspect to combat. And women are less able to detach themselves emotionally.

Maybe I've been in all the "wrong" units, but during almost 14 years in the Marine Corps, I have yet to run across that elusive "female who can hang with the men". In my opinion, she doesn't exist. I'm 39 and can kick the ever-loving piss out of all the female Marines I know, and I bear the pains of 14 years of service. If I can kick the piss out of them, I can definitely kill them. I haven't EVER known a female who could haul her own weight in the field. And that's where combat happens. Not on a range. Not in the back yard or the north 40.

DoD says standards won't change. Bovine scatology. There is no branch of the military in which females meet the same objective standards as males. The Marine Corps did a study of 318 female Marines. We found that they could do an average of 1.63 pull-ups. Men must do a minimum of 3 to pass in humiliating fashion. For decades, female Marines have been executing flexed arm hangs instead of pull-ups because the Marine Corps says that the are built differently. Exactly. The Air Force did a study several years ago and found that very few females could lob a grenade outside of its lethal radius. Probably not a good thing.

I don't care how well someone can shoot on the range. I care how well they can shoot when it comes time to murder the enemy or save my life. When that time comes, all the females will be at BAS with stress fractures and dehydration issues. No thanks.

 

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. I've seen it, so I know what I'm talking about. This isn't an abstraction for me, it's my life. If you revere hypotheticals over reality, feel free to put your rear, or your son's or daughter's on the line. But I'm certain there are "good" reasons you can't.

By the way, given 13 years, 8 months as a Marine, I'd appreciate not being lectured on what soldiering is or isn't. I'm pretty sure I've got it down.

 

I will have to disagree with you. I'm not mad at you, but a lot of experience walking in my shoes shows me that women just don't have the same capacity to murder that men do. And combat feels a hell of a lot like murder.