Considering the nature of today’s warfare, women have been and are now on the front lines. In addition to allowing Americans who happen to be women to fight for their country, this means opportunity for higher pay and promotions. There are still ridiculous limitations, like banning women from Navy SEAL Teams (sometimes smaller size can be very, very useful boys!) but it’s a good step and about time. When I’ve posted about this issue before TAMs had big differences of opinion. Let’s make sure we keep the fighting (if there is any) within the respectful realm đ
The Pentagon will maintain bans on women serving in most ground combat units, defense officials said Thursday, despite pressure from lawmakers and female veterans who called the restrictions outdated after a decade of war.
After taking more than a year to review its policies on orders from Congress, the Defense Department announced that it would open about 14,000 combat-related positions to female troops, including tank mechanics and intelligence officers on the front lines…
But the Pentagon said it would keep 238,000 other positions â about one-fifth of the regular active-duty military â off-limits to women, pending further reviews. Virtually all of those jobs are in the Army and Marine Corps.
Pentagon officials said that they were committed to lifting barriers to women but that it was difficult to make sweeping changes on the battlefield during a time of war…
âSometimes this takes longer than youâd like,â said Virginia S. Penrod, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy. âIt may appear too slow to some, but I see this as a great step forward.â
In the 1970s, Penrod recalled, she was one of the first women allowed to serve at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Female troops had previously been banned there because it was âtoo cold,â she said, adding that the military has come a long way since then…
Since 2001, about 280,000 women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics; 144 have been killed, and 865 have been wounded.
You’ve got to work with human nature, especially when you’re dealing with young people that are bursting with hormones and not very mature. If you want the boy in the foxhole to do the right thing, then don’t put a girl next to him. Boys fight with discipline when they’re thinking of the gal back home that they’re protecting; they’ll mess up when that gal is in the line of fire.
That’s my take, anyway. But really, my thoughts don’t mean a thing. I’d rather follow the advice of the people that have been in those foxholes.
i totally agree, yet I think it is time we give it a try. Hopefully the positives will far outweigh any perceived negatives. On the other hand there will most likely always be differences in behavior when you get all males and all females alone or mixed. It’s like when one has girl’s night out, or a party with just your close guy friends. There are different social dynamics that just free guys and girls minds to just relax, and be themselves, or in the military case focus totally on the mission. However, it would be a big distraction for the group and in many cases a buzz kill, to have a guy (gay or straight i might add) tag along on a girls night out, or to have your girl friend around when it’s a guys night out. hmmmm I hope I make sense in how this could distract our boys on the front lines. But I am like Newt in that I am very curious to see the results of this experiment;) If it works then lets work it:)
PS The shower scene in Starship Troopers just doesn’t seem to be anything that would be practical in the near future:) Talk about not focusing on your mission;)
Starship Troopers. Great reference đ
yah, it really takes me back to ’97. good times:)
I would expect male soldiers to “fight with discipline” because that is their job, just as it is for female soldiers. My experience with human nature is that motivated young people will rise to meet the expectations that are placed on them.
good call:) This just may work out! But then still you need to weed out those Abu Garab(spelling?) types:( They will ruin everything for the rest of us. Wasn’t that England girl in love with the Sergeant that was the ring leader of the idiotic abuse?
“If you want the boy in the foxhole to do the right thing, then donât put a girl next to him.” says Maynard. And so women’s roles are restricted because young American men can’t be expected to “do the right thing” otherwise.
Women must wear burqas!” (or hijabs, or long dresses and coats, etc.) say fundamentalist Muslims. And so women’s roles are restricted because Muslim men can’t be expected to “do the right thing” otherwise.
Is it really too much to expect that men anywhere are capable of respecting women enough to exert some self-control???
I think if a woman can prove she’s capable of doing the job, she should be allowed to do it. The thing that gets in the way are stories like the Army helicopter pilot – a woman – who couldn’t carry her 85-lb tool bag and cried foul when the Army wanted to put her in a different MOS. Once that story went to court the Army agreed to force another member of her squad to carry her tools.
That kind of thing is exactly what is going to be injected into the debate over whether women should be in SF roles.
Special Forces have physical & mental training for the specifics that will be needed to do the job. I think a qualification test should be the same for special forces. Strength, endurance, intelligence, rapid decision making, ability to stand up to torture techniques if needed, etc. Gender should not enter into the equation. I personally do not know a female equivalent to tennis’s Serena Williams. But I’m sure the branches of the special forces are aware of the super star females they have serving our country. I am also quite aware the Rangers & Seal teams would tell me that I don’t have a clue. They are right. I am so grateful for those serving our country. The only clue I know I am right about is: I need to pray for them.
I’m very torn on this issue. I am a woman and was a police officer for 13 years before I had to retire last year due to a back injury.
A police department is a para-military organization. It loosely borrows the same concepts from the military such as rank, mental and physical discipline, as well as mental and physical strength, to name a few.
For example, in the police academy there were physical ‘feats’ that had to be accomplished such as a certain number of sit ups and push ups, and running a certain distance within a certain time period. These tests of physical strength were divided up by gender where there the benchmarks for each gender were different.
Was that a good thing? Was that a bad thing? I don’t know.
What I can tell you is that I worked my a** off, pushing myself like I’d never pushed myself before, so that I could reach the heights of what was expected for my gender. Being an over-achiever, I didn’t want to ‘just get by’ – I wanted to prove that I could go above and beyond the ‘norm’. But that was me, not all women were like that.
In addition to your peformance on the shooting range and your performance behind the wheel of a car in high stress situations, there were other physical requirements that were NOT adjusted based upon gender, such as being able to drag a 150 lb. dummy a certain distance within a certain period of time, jumping over a 6 ft wall, etc..
Even with as hard as I pushed myself, I can honestly say that there was no way that I could’ve ever met the physical benchmarks set for the men.
Because of my experience in the atmosphere of a para-military organization, I’ve often wondered if the military is like that, where the physical expectations and benchmarks are ‘adjusted’ for men and women.
Let’s face it, men and women are physically different. Therefore, they often cannot perform the same feats of strength. And I’m okay with that.
So how is this factored into the realities of the military?
And if some physical expectations are adjusted and tailored according to gender, is that ‘wrong’ or is that ‘practical’?
And more importantly, would it manifest itself in a combat situation to the detriment of the soldier herself or her fellow soldier?
My daughter was in the Army from 4/03 till 12/07 (age 19-23). She went to a school in Ft. Huachuca, AZ for intelligence work and attained the level of sergeant pretty quickly (more than some of her male counterparts). She was in Kuwait once as an intelligence analyst and received info from intelligent officers (who were on the front lines and were men). One thing to remember is in the military it is rank that matters.
Something to consider here is that women get pregnant. In fact, in Ft. Hood in her office job, she was often tasked with lots more work than her pregnant female soldier co-workers (i.e., she couldn’t be sick but the pregnant lady could).
“The Pentagon will maintain bans on women serving in most ground combat units, defense officials said Thursday, despite pressure from lawmakers and female veterans who called the restrictions outdated after a decade of war.” I don’t believe this statement. I believe that if ALL female veterans were actually consulted about this, their opinions would not be as stated above.
As a woman and parent (and Christian) I think the differences between sexes are relevant and on purpose by our Creator, and I for one was glad that she was not the intelligence officer, but the analyst. I’m not sure that the benchmarks were the same for her as men in the strength category, but in boot camp, things such as the gas chamber or sharp shooting, etc. were the same as for her male counterparts.
I have a nephew in the Air Force whose boot camp was “tailored” down from the expectations of boot camp for the Army, if that means anything. In other words, my daughter had a tougher training than my male AF nephew (And I think the Marines may have it harder than the Army at least in boot camp.)
Who knows how it is now with the DB in office as the top military commander (YECH).
What I do know is that the history of the military is that it is finely tuned and works for the USA and at one time made the US the top military machine in the world who could actually win and end wars. I think any changes that the DB makes, especially those from “female veterans and lawmakers” are not going to be for the better. The politicians should not ever have been the decision makers in war (WWII vs. Vietnam for instance).
One problem I’ve read about pairing male and female police officers together is; in most western societies, it’s instinctive in a man to want to protect a woman. Women have a place in the military. But, in front line combat, I’m not sure.
America’s daughter have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with their male counters for many years in the Global War on Terroism. The first female to die in combat in Iraq, was right alongside Jessica Lynch. From talking with our warriors returning from their 3rd or 4th deployment to the warzone, any help is welcomed. Many of our gals in uniform are real scrappers, and when equally trained and equipped as their male counterparts, are as effective in combat as the male warriors are. I worry about their treatment should they be taken prisoner, but as for their courage under fire and tenacity, I feel they are more than up to the challenge.
slightly OT, but let me through this monkey wrench in. full disclosure, my sister in law in ANG pilot, son in law is a PA in the army and my son is a medic in the ANG.
what is this about not arming our medics in the war zone? because of the geneva convention? tammy has noted in the past that apparently the convention doesn’t apply to radical islam. our rules of engagement are hurting our guys! the taliban can blow up children and hide in mosques and behead journalists on youtube but we stand on formality. this is why tammy’s idea of turning the place into a parking lot is so appealing. to bring it full circle, if the mission requires less physicality, let the those men and women who are qualified complete the task. same if its more physical. get soldiers who can complete the mission. my concern is that our barbaric enemies will commit unspeakable atrocities to our women. i know that a life is a life, but women in the front line with an amoral enemy bothers me. i can’t defend it any more than a feeling.
which is why i am ok with bombing them into the stone age. they technically are modernizing.
rick