Article

2005-05-26 Home Front: Politix

Congress Abandons Attempt to Ban Women in Combat

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-26 01:11|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 As it should be in the Mobile Infantry.

Posted by Sock Puppet 0â Doom 2005-05-26 01:53|| 2005-05-26 01:53|| Front Page Top

#2 Damn straight, SPOD.

Posted by Sgt. Zim 2005-05-26 05:58|| 2005-05-26 05:58|| Front Page Top

#3 The evidence from police forces is women are quicker to pull the trigger in threatening situations than men. I think more (heavily armed) women in urban terrorism situations would be a good thing.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-26 06:01|| 2005-05-26 06:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Any possiblity that, when the whining starts when a woman DOES get killed or maimed in combat, that the whiners will remember this attempt on the part of a Republican congress to head that off?

I have my problems with women in combat, mostly because of the propaganda effects leveraged by hypocritical liberal moonbats who demanded equality in the first place, then will forget all about it when they magnify the horror of female suffering that, if equality REALLY holds, should be regarded no more nor less than when it happens to males.

Bottom line: you'll get my respect when you prove you can accept responsibility for the consequences, AND handle them. Given the number of convenient pregnancies before Desert Storm Redux, I don't think SOME of our military women are capable of that. Hell, we KNOW some of our military MEN are not capable of that either.

I'll be honest: I can't shake myself of my upbringing that tells me that members of the fairer sex ARE worthy of higher regard and attention than mine. Some use that as a pretext to keep them "in their place" (Islam comes to mind), while I use that as a reason to demand that they be treated fairly and allowed to develop themselves and reach their maximum glory. My wife has assholes for her supervision, and she has to continually keep me from tearing into them when they insult her intelligence and blatantly discriminate in job allocations. I've fought before for her, and as a consequence, the employer has adopted the unspoken, unwritten rule that they will hire women, but NOT their spouses, because the latter will cause too much trouble when they screw the former.

Thus, having said this, if a female member of our armed forces is maimed during honorable combat in her country's service, and returns without moonbatting complaining, accepting the consequences of her desire to be in the front line, then I wish to be excused for revering and honoring her and her service more than her male counterparts.

Please, just no post-facto, retrospective complaining that she should have been prevented by congress from doing what she stated she wanted to do.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2005-05-26 06:04|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2005-05-26 06:04|| Front Page Top

#5 Hear, hear! Ptah does it again!

(While I admit to enjoying being treated as a member of the fair sex, equality means I must earn your respect the same way you must earn mine -- by ability and hard work -- and your scorn when I can't or won't. Real feminists understand this, and accept nothing less. The whiners who claim special privileges are as bad as those who kept women protected at home and hearth because they were thought to delicate for the rough'n'tumble of the male world.)

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-26 07:09|| 2005-05-26 07:09|| Front Page Top

#6 We have 2 women in our Civil War cavalry company and I'd go into combat with them. They pull their own weight. I realize a Civil War reeanctment group is not quite like the real army (having been there) but we still ride hard and live rough on occasions. There were a few women when I was in who couldn't pull there own weight and it degraded the effectiveness of the whole unit. Combat units aren't social clubs. If you can't measure up you don't belong there. Your life and those of your fellow soldiers depend on you making the grade.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2005-05-26 07:30|| 2005-05-26 07:30|| Front Page Top

#7 Caution!
If there is a reintroduction of a draft, technically the selective activation of the unorganized Federal Militia, there will be an immediate constitutional challenge why males have been and remain disproportionately subjected to this action. Given the likely case that the judiciary will still be unrefomred, this will force the government to treat both the same to fulfill combat requirements. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

Posted by Theaper Angaimble1231 2005-05-26 08:10|| 2005-05-26 08:10|| Front Page Top

#8 Phil B

Very logical. In fact women police officers have less options: if they accept hand to hand combat with the bad guy they could find themselves overpowered, maimed or even killed so they have to resort to weapons in situations a man officer can handle weaponless. And unless teh officer draws a weapon bad guys are more likely to resist to a woman.

(Note: No posts about what women trained in martial arts can do: a woman trained in martial arts is nice but a man trained in martial arts is better, he has also has the option to arrest the suspect without causing unneeded harm while the woman will have to resort to violent techniques)

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-05-26 08:30|| 2005-05-26 08:30|| Front Page Top

#9 Theaper Angaimble1231, that registered an 8.4 on my opacity meter. Mind you thats the Australian version. Other versions may vary.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-26 08:35|| 2005-05-26 08:35|| Front Page Top

#10 A woman trained in martail arts with a weapon is good, but she will still have to demonstrate to the bad guy that she must be obeyed. A large, muscular-looking man is less likely to need to prove anything.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-26 09:13|| 2005-05-26 09:13|| Front Page Top

#11 This is very nice until it comes to infantry work, there it happens like this: you carry substantial loads, even at the lightest ie an M16, plus ammo plus boots plus water plus body armor is not light. But at times you could be carrying over 50 pounds of stuff. From to time your survival depends on how fast you run to cover. All things equal (ie trained men versus trained women) women run slower, specially when loaded. From time to time your survival depends on how high you jump or if you can climb a wall or from a rope. Women don't jump as high and don't climb as well, specially when loaded. And from to time you have infiltration missions: here being able to walk fast before sunrise is crucial: if sun rises before unit has returned, established a defensive perimter in that crucial position, then the whole unit could be wiped out. Women don't walk as fast, specially when loaded and a unit goes as fast as its slowest member.

I will not mention problems like strength to carry wounded comarades, like male and female soldier alone and banging instead of attending the radio/keeping watch (has happenned), sexual rivalries, the fact that sometimes you HAVE to let a comrade behind and that male soldiers would compromise the mission/unit before abandonning a a woman and, of course, I will not mention that, given the ennemies US forces usually fight, captured women soldiers will be likely raped

Sorry but political correctness has no place in the battlefield.

Oh, and there is a reason for men feeling that women deserve a better treatment in dangerous/straining situations: it is in our genes: we are expendable, they are not.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-05-26 09:14|| 2005-05-26 09:14|| Front Page Top

#12 Phil_B,

Under the American Constitution, all able bodied adult citizens are part of the unorganized Federal militia, and, as such, may be called up to defend the country in case of attack. If the draft was re-instated, then feminists could sue to be included in it on grounds of discrimination.

Of course, the real reason feminazis want "women in combat" is precisely to hobble the American military with "dead girl" footage, the pro-fascist hypocrites.

Posted by Ernest Brown 2005-05-26 09:43|| 2005-05-26 09:43|| Front Page Top

#13 I personally think women in combat is a bad idea and just another facet of the multi-culti culture wars. Note, I have not served, so perhaps other rantburgers can enlighten me. Comments/questions to follow:

First, there are certain biological issues intrinsic to being a woman that can potentially degrade performance, such as pregnancy and menstruation...is this not a valid argument?

Second, women are just not as strong as men, it's a biological fact (with some very rare exceptions). If I am wounded in a fire fight, and I need a comrade to carry me out of there before I bleed to death, it's doubtful a woman can do this.

Third, while we are focusing on being "enlightened" and "inclusive" enough to include women in combat units, the terrorists are going to strive to use captured female soldiers as another reed with which to flagellate our liberal society. It's bad enough when a male soldier is captured and subjected to physical torture, but won't the image/idea of a woman being tortured, raped and interrogated and the subsequent calls for us to do "anything" to get her back weaken our already weakened resolve? Especially when the press turns from crowing over this victory to criticizing the plight of women in combat?

Fourth, there is most likely a reason women have not been included in combat units in the past, and that is because they self-select roles that do not include combat action.

Fifth, the last thing we need are audits by Congress of military branches/units to be sure that the gender composition of units is "fair" and women are proportionately represented. Don't tell me that this isn't the first step towards affirmative action in battle...I just don't believe it.

Sixth, from what I have seen, mixed-gender units already inject logistical, morale, and ethical questions. What about if a commanding officer is dating his sweetie in the unit? Is he going to make the proper decision and send her into battle? What if there is a nasty breakup between a commanding officer and their sig other in the unit...what happens there?

It's a terrible idea...

Posted by mjh 2005-05-26 09:59|| 2005-05-26 09:59|| Front Page Top

#14 One of my former lab techs had previously been a captain in the Army and commanded a military police company. Lovely woman, smart, sweet, competent ... and dangerous to anyone who tried to corner her. From the stories she told, she had no qualms about soldiering, carrying a rifle, and using it properly when required.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2005-05-26 11:11|| 2005-05-26 11:11|| Front Page Top

#15 1. Quite a number of women HAVE been killed in the US armed forces in Iraq, IIUC. No particular complaining from the left about women being killed (as opposed to men)
2. The current army policy is NOT to put them in infantry or other combat units, but they ARE put in support units that often colocate with combat units
3. I presume all such women are required to meet physical requirements for their role. As are men.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2005-05-26 11:19|| 2005-05-26 11:19|| Front Page Top

#16 What LiberalHawk said.

(Dang, I actually agreed with LH! ;-p)

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-05-26 12:11|| 2005-05-26 12:11|| Front Page Top

#17 Muddled comments here, to some degree.

"Combat" roles go beyond infantry. They include, for instance, attack helicopter pilots. We already have very successful fighter and A10 Warthog pilots who have done well in combat, dealing with heavily damaged aircraft etc. ... and happen to be women.

And we've ALREADY seen women pilots be captured, tortured and raped .... it happened to a Lt Colonel in the USAF in Gulf 1 and she has talked about it on TV. No obvious maiming ... sorry ... but the torture was real.

As a female I have to say this is a silly argument IMO -- and yes, I'm associated w/ the military.

Posted by too true 2005-05-26 12:21|| 2005-05-26 12:21|| Front Page Top

#18 The majority of women are not capable of doing the job, but since we don't need 50,000,000 people in the infantry, that shouldn't be a problem. Some women are taller and stronger than the majority of men. As long as we have the exact same requirements for the two sexes (which we do not right now), I don't think there would be a problem.

The argument is even weaker for Armor, Artillery, fighter pilots, snipers, ...

That said, I'm an old fuddy-duddy and don't really like the idea of women being put in danger. I just wasn't made for these times...

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-05-26 12:34|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-05-26 12:34|| Front Page Top

#19 I'm all for the Congressional abandonment of the idea, but should the status quo continue indefinitely or be replaced with a gender-blind physical minimum standard?

Posted by Edward Yee">Edward Yee 2005-05-26 12:46|| http://edwardyee.fanworks.net]">[http://edwardyee.fanworks.net] 2005-05-26 12:46|| Front Page Top

#20 The key to women in combat is to make sure that they are properly trained -- which must include strength and endurance training. My tiny mother (5'1/4", 92 lb., definitely not muscular) used to haul around her paraplegic and quadraplegic patients when she worked as an occupational therapist at the Veteran's Hospital back during the Korean War. "It's all a matter of knowing the proper leverage," she says. And she is of the WWII generation, so I have no doubt she would haul a wounded comrade as far as needed. That generation is tough.

Again, it comes back to standards and training. Make the first equal, and the second rigorous, and qualms about ability to perform evaporate. As for the whole affairs thingy, every good manager knows you don't screw around with subordinates, or super-ordinates either.(Sorry.) That kind of thing messes up group morale worse than just about anything.

But these days, with the entire country of Iraq being the front line, it would be criminal not to require female troops in all units to be as able and as trustworthy as the men in the front-line units.

Oh, and menstruation shouldn't be an issue, although pregnancy is. So SOP should be to issue each female troop with one of those long-term birth control injections, to be effective for the duration of her stint. After that, rape becomes just one more method of torture, which anyway isn't necessarily limited to females in that part of the world.

Remember mother bears and their cubs. We can handle it if we choose to, even me -- if it became truly necessary.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-26 12:57|| 2005-05-26 12:57|| Front Page Top

#21 Jackal mentions snipers. The Soviets used women in their elite sniper units - they were deadly and justifiably feared, were responsible for heavy casualties inflicted on Germans in WWII IIRC.

Posted by too true 2005-05-26 13:08|| 2005-05-26 13:08|| Front Page Top

#22 Steve Whittle said:

Lovely woman, smart, sweet, competent ... and dangerous to anyone who tried to corner her. From the stories she told, she had no qualms about soldiering, carrying a rifle, and using it properly when required.

Ah, because you think war is about carrying a rifle? It is about carrying a damned machine gun, tons of ammo, food, water, a kitchen sink and being able to move fast despite the weight.

Have you read the post we had a few days ago, about a WWII MOH recipient: with his unit in danger of being overrun, he shifted a Machine Gun (25 pounds without ammo for a "light" machine gun) from right to left flank and mowed more than 100 Germans. All depended on him being strong enough to move fast despite the weight and when arriving being fresh enough to deliver accurate fire intead of panting and having shaking hands due to exhaustion.

Or about that Army/Marine chaplain who carried over 40 wounded over a cliff?

And haven't you heard about those German units who covered 50 miles in a single night, moving on foot for stealth, in order to wreak havoc in the Soviet rearguard? It is not enough that pretty woman of yours being able to carry a rifle: she has to walk those 50 miles before sunrise, all while carrying much more than a rifle. If she makes only 49 miles the unit is spotted in the open and is exterminated. As simple as that.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-05-26 13:29|| 2005-05-26 13:29|| Front Page Top

#23 After she's walked 49 miles in the dark, she isn't going to be any prettier than her male comrades. And if she can't do that last mile, she should be in a different unit that doesn't need to. It's as simple as that. That is, after all, why so many more women choose support functions where their comparative weakness isn't an issue.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-05-26 14:08|| 2005-05-26 14:08|| Front Page Top

#24 because you think war is about carrying a rifle? It is about carrying a damned machine gun, tons of ammo, food, water, a kitchen sink and being able to move fast despite the weight.

The nature of warfare has changed a lot since then, JFM -- and will change much more rapidly in the coming few years than most might imagine.

Which is not to deny that there will continue to be a role for light infantry - but overall, combat already is mostly no longer quite this sort of thing in most cases. And what is coming by, say, 2015, will make personal physical strength much less central to combat success.

Expect: robotic 'packmules' linked to the soldier and bringing along a lot of equipment. Expect: nanotech uniforms that not only harden into more rigid armor when needed but which also recognize when a soldier is wounded and use electromechanical nano'muscles' to apply pressure to the wound to control bleeding - a self- actuated, intelligent tourniquet, essentially.

Expect: voice-activated robotic artillery and similar weapons, controlled via a battlefield network that merges sensor data with self-organizing swarms of intelligent mini-missiles and other armaments which can be given a set of objectives and left to accomplish them under software control.

All of these are in the demonstration stages now.

Posted by too true 2005-05-26 14:12|| 2005-05-26 14:12|| Front Page Top

#25 We will see when there are robotic mules, actuators or light sabers. In the interim they don't exist and there are plenty of opportunities where greater speed and strength can make the difference between a LIVE male soldier and a DEAD female soldier.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-05-26 17:02|| 2005-05-26 17:02|| Front Page Top

#26 Actually, there are indeed prototype robotic mules. Some terrains still defeat their autonomous movement, but they do rather well in other terrains.

I've seen them. ;-)

Posted by rkb 2005-05-26 17:48|| 2005-05-26 17:48|| Front Page Top

#27 LH,
In the Army, there are separate physical fitness tests/standards for men and women. Unless they recently changed that. As far back as the 70s, the GAO has hammered the Army to put physical requirements on specific military occupational specialties, which the Army has resisted for decades. Before the integration of females in the front line, medical units operated upon the standard of two male stretcher bears for carrying each wounded. With the introduction of females up front, that went up as the average female lacks upper body strength that males did. Its little things like that which impact manning issues [increase the number of support troops to do the same job while pushing for more combat slots. Doesn't make sense does it?]. However, you're told to shut up and deal with it. Now, the capabilities of the women can be raised with increased weight and resistance training to make up for these types of physical issues, but that means more training time which is already in very short supply in the normal unit schedule. We'll muddle through it all, but both sides are not speaking the full truth on the matter.

And TT, the battlefield always has to have boots on it for control. Technology is not going to change that by 2015 any more than it has changed since 2000 BC. The story that wonder weapons are going to replace the grunt have been too many and been going on for too long to be anything but fantasy.

Posted by Shaviling Thromotle9261 2005-05-26 18:00|| 2005-05-26 18:00|| Front Page Top

#28 The story that wonder weapons are going to replace the grunt have been too many and been going on for too long to be anything but fantasy.

Of course - that's why those UAVs aren't doing battlefield surveillance and sometimes direct kills. Never happened, right?

Yeah. Sure.

Look: yes there will be boots on the ground. But the number and kind of them HAS changed significantly in the last few decades and will do so a great deal more in the future.

Posted by too true 2005-05-26 18:18|| 2005-05-26 18:18|| Front Page Top

00:13 Barbara Skolaut
23:57 Barbara Skolaut
23:54 Phil Fraering
23:46 gromgoru
23:43 gromgoru
23:34 .com
23:07 Frank G
23:06 Frank G
23:03 Frank G
23:02 Frank G
22:58 Frank G
22:57 badanov
22:55 Frank G
22:53 badanov
22:53 .com
22:48 Frank G
22:46 .com
22:43 Frank G
22:40 trailing wife
22:38 trailing wife
22:35 trailing wife
22:33 Barbara Skolaut
22:30 Lone Ranger
22:28 .com