Women in combat arms units.

[Cwood]

Now imagine one of those same females in an infantry platoon. Carrying an M-4, ammo, grenades, pro mask, body armor, nods, ruck, maybe even a 60mm mortar tube or base plate.....
.

Umm, NO!

 

[hornadylnl]

I remember in task force training for Bosnia, we had to have for vehicle convoys to leave our base. A support nco came to our first sergeant wanting to know if we'd provide the convoy for his females to go back to the barracks to get showers. It was an "unwritten rule" that females were supposed to be taken to the rear every 72 hours for showers. Our first sergeant told him too bad, we weren't doing it.

I have no problems with females serving in combat arms if they pull their weight but they will never be forced to.

 

[abnk]

That's like a woman wanting to be a King.

 

[Jay]

Women on the ground in combat is not a good idea. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, my opinion is it never has been a good idea, and likely never will be, for reasons already posted.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

If a woman becomes pregnant, she can't be relieved of her position. She continues to hold her leadership position, even though she cant fulfill the duties. Usually they move her to the orderly room. Now she's being rated as the leader of the squad or platoon, while some E-6 or E-5 holds performs the actual duties, but he can't be rated for doing it. She gets the credit for what her unit does while she works a cush job in the orderly room. I knew of one woman who held down a squad leader position for years while she had several children. She beat all the men to E-7, including all the poor saps who performed the actual duty she was being rated for.

I rode three aircraft carriers 1989-1994. We had a medical ship (USS Mercy, IIRC) docked across the pier from us. Any pregnant female on a ship was immediately transferred to a shore billet as they were disqualified from a sea billet. The Mercy had over 80% turnover in female personnel due to this issue.

Someone else mentioned something along the lines of prostitution. Off the Mercy, there were two enlisted females that were busted for running a ring, making over $100,000 a year according to NIS.

On Nimitz and the Carl Vinson we had female TADers (TDY for the rest of you pukes! ) for a couple of weeks at a time while we were on deployment. We were one of the first ships on the west coast to have females embarked part-time, but there were no full-timer females while I was at either command.

Will the Army guys be able to keep up with impregnating them as well as the Navy guys did in Gulf 1?

I can vouch that the Navy held up their end!

I am sorry, but I have to agree, women in combat units are a really bad idea. Oh and for the record, we had NONE, Zero women on board ANY aircraft carrier I was deployed on while serving, and I went to Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, etc...

INGunGuy

See above for my experience. Carl Vinson, Nimitz and Abraham Lincoln 1989-1994. I was a CTO3 (Cryptologist, 3rd class/E-4).

 

[grimor]

The strongest woman is stronger than the weakest man in the military. and there are some women that can perform up to the same standards as men. these are the very rare exceptions and not the rule. As long as they want the same standards then I don't see a problem with it.

 

[dross]

The strongest woman is stronger than the weakest man in the military. and there are some women that can perform up to the same standards as men. these are the very rare exceptions and not the rule. As long as they want the same standards then I don't see a problem with it.

I met one woman who could meet the male physical standards. Yet there is simply no way she could have served in an infantry unit. The physical requirements of the actual day to day work are much higher than the miminum physical requirements.

I don't know much about field artillery, but I am told it takes above average upper body strength.

I just don't see it, and I served with women - many of them very good soldiers - for eight of the eleven years I was in the Army. I think women should be allowed in the Army, just in segregated units performing tasks that they can actually do, and not only do because men cover for them. They also need to have a way to address pregnancy that makes some kind of sense.

I suppose in the abstract I don't necessarily have a problem with a woman being allowed into certain of the combat arms if she could actually meet the true standards of that type of unit, starting first with the same PT test requirements and then with the actual physical requirements of that unit. Truly applied, those standards would almost completely prevent women from making it. Certain types of units, like light infantry, would never have any women, because I don't think any could make it.

The problem is that the military, being government and run by politicians at the top, will reduce standards so as to make sure a certain amount of women are allowed in the units and that will affect readiness.

 

[pearlman1966]

My first few years in the Army, I was with the 82nd Abn. Later, I worked on the HAWK missile system, which is now discontinued.

Women have been allowed in Air Defense Artillery, the only combat arms field that allows them. Causes lots of problems.

The HAWK system required very little physical strength to operate once it's up and running. Unfortunately, one of the requirements is that you had one hour from the time the nose of the first truck hit the site to have the system up and operational. This requires thirty people to work at a dead run, super intense, for an entire hour. The physical demands are extreme for that hour. Cable reels weighing three hundred pounds have to be unloaded and rolled out, all the radars and launchers have to be hand leveled using jacks, and the 300' two inch diameter cables have to be run between all the pieces of equipment.

A platoon of women would NEVER be able to do it. So, how do you manage if you have several women on the crew? You assign them the less strenuous, more technical jobs. Those are the jobs a man has to EARN, however, by first doing the difficult work of unloading, dragging, and jacking. Then after he learns, he gets to move up to the more mental tasks. But if you have women, you have no choice.

Also, there is a great deal of resentment at the different physical standards. Of course you can't expect a woman to do as many pushups as a man. But the disparity in the amount of situps and the two mile run is ridiculous, and it isn't grounded in reality.

There's more. If a woman becomes pregnant, she can't be relieved of her position. She continues to hold her leadership position, even though she cant fulfill the duties. Usually they move her to the orderly room. Now she's being rated as the leader of the squad or platoon, while some E-6 or E-5 holds performs the actual duties, but he can't be rated for doing it. She gets the credit for what her unit does while she works a cush job in the orderly room. I knew of one woman who held down a squad leader position for years while she had several children. She beat all the men to E-7, including all the poor saps who performed the actual duty she was being rated for.

In my eleven years in the military, I met exactly one woman who could perform physically like a man. She would have been a relatively weak man, but she could hold her own. Exactly one.

Mixed sex units are a bad idea. And this is coming from a guy who thinks homosexuals serving won't cause as much disruption as some claim. I think women mixed with men is much more harmful to readiness than allowing gay men to serve.

You are the first fellow IHAWKer I have met in Indiana. I was a 24C.
I once saw a 2nd LT. hump a data cable for a female E2 because she couldn't

 

[dross]

You are the first fellow IHAWKer I have met in Indiana. I was a 24C.
I once saw a 2nd LT. hump a data cable for a female E2 because she couldn't

Where, when, what units did you serve?

I was a 24C as well. Graduated from AIT (I was already a SGT) in 1986, 11th Brigade until 1988, D 6/52, Hardhiem FRG, until 1991, then I was an instructor at the missile school until I got out in 1993.

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

WAAAY WRONG ANSWER ! Just like turning females into medics .

 

[pearlman1966]

Where, when, what units did you serve?

I was a 24C as well. Graduated from AIT (I was already a SGT) in 1986, 11th Brigade until 1988, D 6/52, Hardhiem FRG, until 1991, then I was an instructor at the missile school until I got out in 1993.

1985 OSUT Ft. Bliss D3/1
85-88 C3/60 Hohenfels
88-90 A 3/60 Grafenwoehr
Joined the Guard in 90
Retired in 06

 

[Duncan]

Form the depths of my gallows humor I think this and a lot of other stuff is neat .
Why ... because it is going to cause more and more pain in many ways to the people of this country and we as a people deserve it . I like seeing people suffer that are too stupid to know that they by action or inaction , I am not talking about a kid touching an open flame .. that is a different story cause their own pain .
No the voting public , the people that are the age of majority ,emancipated .
That kind of stupid ... it does not give me joy .. but it does humor me .
When the caskets come home of these young girls because they wanted to prove their manhood and there parents failed to teach them that there is a place for women and a place for men .. well I don't shed any tears ..

Enjoy the downfall of America it's history in the making it only come around once an eternity .
thanks
Duncan

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

You're more incoherent than usual. Are you saying you won't shed tears for and see humor in dead female US soldiers?

Form the depths of my gallows humor I think this and a lot of other stuff is neat .
Why ... because it is going to cause more and more pain in many ways to the people of this country and we as a people deserve it . I like seeing people suffer that are too stupid to know that they by action or inaction , I am not talking about a kid touching an open flame .. that is a different story cause their own pain .
No the voting public , the people that are the age of majority ,emancipated .
That kind of stupid ... it does not give me joy .. but it does humor me .
When the caskets come home of these young girls because they wanted to prove their manhood and there parents failed to teach them that there is a place for women and a place for men .. well I don't shed any tears ..

Enjoy the downfall of America it's history in the making it only come around once an eternity .
thanks
Duncan

 

[marine4life]

Has anyone had Mountain training, Jungle Warfare training, or any type of Survival school traing with women. If not let me tell you it's not a pretty sight or does it smell good. I had the oppurtunity to have training with WM's and it's horrible. Mood swings and crying and everything emotional feeling you can expect. Living a week or four in the terrain with little or no outside influence is impossible for the female. Way too much hygene to keep up with. And it requires to much physical ability that they just genetically dont have. They body weight decreases and deminishes way to fast. Never gonna happen. I've seen it first hand. Never gonna happen and be effective.

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Has anyone had Mountain training, Jungle Warfare training, or any type of Survival school traing with women. If not let me tell you it's not a pretty sight or does it smell good. I had the oppurtunity to have training with WM's and it's horrible. Mood swings and crying and everything emotional feeling you can expect. Living a week or four in the terrain with little or no outside influence is impossible for the female. Way too much hygene to keep up with. And it requires to much physical ability that they just genetically dont have. They body weight decreases and deminishes way to fast. Never gonna happen. I've seen it first hand. Never gonna happen and be effective.

Yeah it's hard to admit but WMs in the field made me cry too.

Oh ... You meant them crying. Yeah that.

 

[marine4life]

LOL!!! I love it. I should have proof read a little better.