This has nothing to do with RIGHTS! Women are not allowed into combat for many reasons, an example is below, while they are being shot at and blown up, so weren't many in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, etc....it is the nature of the beast that a mortar, artillery, sniper, IED, etc..will get someone who it is not intended for. Also, a tiny handful of women have been in actual combat, the only one who deserved the Silver Star was the Female Medic, I read the citation and report for the others given, a total joke and a prime example of award inflation via the Army. Again, as for the others-being shelled with totally inaccurate fire while your in your FOB, to me, that does not count, everyone gets that at some point over there.
As for some info for the question-
From the report of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces dated November 15, 1992, it states in part:
The average female Army recruit is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4 fewer pounds of muscle, and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit. She has only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the lower-body strength.
An Army study done in 1988 found that women are more than twice as likely to suffer leg injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer fractures as men.
Further, the Commission heard an abundance of expert testimony including:
- women's aerobic capacity is significantly lower, meaning they cannot carry as much as far as fast as men, and they are more susceptible to fatigue.
- in terms of physical capability, the upper five percent of women are at the level of the male median. The average 20-to-30 year-old woman has the same aerobic capacity as a 50 year-old man.
After a study was conducted at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, one expert testified that:
- using the standard Army Physical Fitness Test, the upper quintile (top 20?of women at West point achieved scores on the test equivalent to the bottom quintile (bottom 20?of men.
- only 21 women out of the initial 623 (3.4?achieved a score equal to the male mean score of 260.
- on the push-up test, only 7?f women can meet a score of 60, while 78?f men exceed it.
- adopting a male standard of fitness at West Point would mean 70?f the women he studied would be separated as failures at the end of their junior year, only 3?ould be eligible for the Recondo badge, and not one would receive the Army Physical Fitness badge.
Also, recent studies indicate women are more at risk to getting PTSD, as documented from Iraq and Afghanistan, women who were never in direct combat but whose camps were shelled were more likely to develop PTSD than there male counter-parts.
In short, Women are in the Military Jobs they are in out of politics, not need, not due to merit but politics and quotas. The 15?f the Military that everyone always brings up, it is MANDATED, look it up, do not trust me, check for yourself or just ask a recruiter if they have to fill female billets, that will clear that part up for you. A women can be just as BRAVE as a man but that does me no good when she is hurt more easily, or I have to carry her load because it is to heavy or even worse, she is to weak to drag me back to the Hummer or Helo. Also, Urban Combat is very Physical and having had to have women with us to search female prisoners I can tell you that I have yet to meet a woman in the military who can perform a combat job as well as a man, that is in 18 years of being in a combat branch. Only a few countries have ever let women fight, the former USSR did so because they had no one else left really, the Israelis never did it and it is a common myth that they did. Sorry folks, it is not your "right" to endanger me or my platoon mates for your chance at a job and unlike the corporate world, if people fail in our area of work then people die, not lose money, shares, a bad quarter, etc...people die. Another myth, "Women can take more pain", that is a falsehood spread a long time ago and was thought by teh famous "feel good" Dr. Spock and he tried to relate it to the fact that women go thru the pain of giving birth, not based on anything else but good PR and being in some movie quotes and perpetuated by feminists. As for a lot of the posters, they crack me up-Air Force folks outside of PJs and CCTs have no room to argue, your bases are like hotels in country and your tours hardly count for combat. I salute your service but it does not constitute making you as having expertise on humping into a village and shooting someone. The majority of folks who go over and who are talking from sitting on FOBs the whole time they were in-country, that does not constitute "being in the s***" so to speak, you will also notice that a lot of the folks posting are people who have never been in the military and look at the idea of women in combat as a "concept" and as though it is an idea that should be tried, it should not
COMBAT IS NOT A SOCIAL RIGHT FOR ADVANCEMENT, PEOPLE GET KILLED IF THEY CANNOT PULL THERE WEIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the end, even if a woman is held to the same standards they will scream discrimination or they will just lower the standards. The Navy SPARTAN Program did a damage control test and all the women failed perfroming a 2 person carry of taking a wounded sailor up and down the ships ladder. They were then put on a 6 month weight training program, they sill ALL failed taking the wounded man up the ladder and about 2?assed going down the ladder. What did the Navy do? they changed the standard to a 4 person carry! lol! Ever been on a ship? Good luck with that!
The above does not even touch on a lot of the other problems they cause by being in mixed units, nor the fact that officers who are female know that they would be in a front line unit if allowed only for 4-6 years of there 20-30 year career since the rest of the time they would be in TOC, there are soooooo many reasons not to do it and only one reason to do it-a "feeling" that it is a "Right"! Well, what about my right not get killed for someone's inability to do there job? Do I have to get killed in the name of PC?
Oh, and no, you are not allowed to be snipers, I am sure some PDs and some MPs are allowed to be SWAT/SRT snipers but you are not allowed to be a sniper outside of that and the difference is vast.
Here is one more tidbit of info on female quotas- a good link about a case of quotas for females:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003... I am sure you can be just as brave as a man but physically you actually cause more harm than good, that is just the way it is, anyone who tries to tell you the physical ability does not matter is either A-never humped into a target B-is ignorant or C-both