Whats worse - Losing the black beret or.......

I predict this thread to go about like the one I posted in the spring about a woman making it through USMC OCS at Quantico.
 
As with y'all, I believe that the requirements are the requirements, and any candidate that can meet them should be accepted, whether that candidate is male, female, black, white, blue, green, purple, polka dotted, gay, straight, transgender, tall, short, fat, skinny, or whatever other demographic category might fit.

The key, though, is the ability to meet the requirements.
 
They meet established standards alright, after they are lowered and established for them.


This, pretty much.

Look, you can piss standing up, just like the boys.


Why do we do this shit? Call me old fashioned, but I don't think women should be anywhere near combat. Sure as shit, someone will have to bail/help them out, slows ops down, etc.


Rear areas, med staff, I've got no problem. What I wouldn't want is a bunch of female POWs, paraded around for the cameras, and then beheaded… or worse.
 
As with y'all, I believe that the requirements are the requirements, and any candidate that can meet them should be accepted, whether that candidate is male, female, black, white, blue, green, purple, polka dotted, gay, straight, transgender, tall, short, fat, skinny, or whatever other demographic category might fit.

The key, though, is the ability to meet the requirements.

Green or purple? In the words of Mitch Hedberg "We have to draw the line somewhere."
 
Master Chief: "Sailor, you have presented yourself as an exemplary and model military member. Before your awarded Sailor of the year I have one last question." What is your opinion of Women in Combat?"

Sailor: "Women in combat?" " I feel that is a fantastic idea Master Chief!", "Every Sailor should be issued one!"


On the real, it is not a matter of what a woman can do in the military, as a woman can be/become a strong and effective tactician. The issue is the mens stereotypes and values. What I mean by stereotypes is that most men are raised to protect women, shelter and care for them. Sure there is a brotherhood amongst men in the field or out to sea, but those stereotypes of women are deeply engrained into mens psyche.

The plain and simple fact is men will behave differently if women are involved in operational maneuvers. More than likely women will pose a huge distraction, effective or not.
 
The plain and simple fact is men will behave differently if women are involved in operational maneuvers. More than likely women will pose a huge distraction, effective or not.

I don't know about the other services, but I know that the Navy has pretty much worked out the issues of integrated crews on all ships. Subs are almost there and I'm sure will be equally integrated in five years time.

Various European navies proved it could be done, and we are no different.

I will say this, I attended the US Naval Academy from 1984 to 1988. I know for a fact that every single physical fitness, strength, and endurance test female midshipmen took had easier standards to meet than the same tests that I and the rest of the men had to meet.
 
All it will take it one photo of a woman combatant with her legs blown off and half her face gone to drive home to all the "equal" folks to step back a bit.
It's already happened. Well, minus the face part.
Tammy-Duckworth.jpg

An Iraq War veteran, (Lt Col) Duckworth served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and suffered severe combat wounds, losing both of her legs and damaging her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war
 
Actually, that is nothing compared to what the enemy animals will do to our ladies in combat. Ask Jessica Lynch why she will never have children and why she had MANY operations to save her life. She was raped so brutally, both vaginally and anally, that she was hours from dying when she was rescued. Oh, and if memory serves, she was awarded the Silver Star for running away... I mean heroics. I say this when parents ask me about their daughters joining the military today - DO NOT LET THEM. If Jessica Lynch had ANY honor in her body, she would tell the truth as to what happened to her and try to overturn having women in forward/combat roles. Guess the rumored payoff her and her family received bought any honor she may have ever had.

I'm going to assume you have direct knowledge of this?

No 'direct knowledge; here, but I do remember and article about her saying that all the hoopla about her being a hero and fighting them off was lies and that she was embarrassed by it.

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Lynch book tells of rape by captors
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
PALESTINE, W.Va. — Jessica Lynch, the former prisoner of war whose rescue made her the most famous GI in the Iraq war, was raped by her captors, according to her authorized biography.

Rick Bragg's book also casts doubts on the claim of an Iraqi lawyer who says he helped rescue the soldier.
Glamour Magazine handout
But the book, which will be released Tuesday, says Lynch has no memory of being sexually assaulted, and she appreciates her treatment in an Iraqi hospital after her vehicle crashed during an Iraqi ambush.

In the book, author Rick Bragg writes that scars on Lynch's body and medical records indicate she was sodomized, but that Lynch recalls nothing: "Jessi lost three hours. She lost them in the snapping bones, in the crash of the Humvee, in the torment her enemies inflicted on her after she was pulled from it."

RELATED ITEM

Excerpts released Thursday of an interview with former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch by ABC News' Diane Sawyer, to be broadcast Tuesday night on Primetime:
• On whether she's a hero: "I don't look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Pvt. Lori Piestewa, who was killed during the ambush on Lynch's convoy), the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in that car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me. I'm just a survivor."

• On written accounts of her heroism: "It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that, because the other four people in my vehicle aren't here to tell that story. So I would have been the only one â€â€￾ able to say, yeah, I went down shooting. But I didn't. I did not."

• On the wrong turns that led to the ambush: "We weren't thinking quickly. We were so tired, we were hungry. It was just a mistake."

• On whether she fired her rifle in the ambush: "No. My weapon did jam, and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing."

• On why she is discussing not firing her weapon: "I'm ashamed, I'm scared, I was nervous, I was â€â€￾ I mean, every word that you can think of, that's the way I was feeling. But yet I was proud. I was proud to be there, I was proud to serve with every one of those in that vehicle. I was proud to know them. Everyone in that vehicle was a fighter. I knew that they were there in my vehicle fighting, for me, because I had no ammunition, I have a weapon that was jammed."

• On whether she killed any Iraqis: "No. No. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember."

• On her captivity in the Iraqi hospital: "I kept repeating, 'Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me.' They kept telling me, 'Oh, it's OK,' you know, 'We're not going to hurt you.' If you were surrounded by a whole hospital of Iraqis, would you believe them?"

• On her emotions while being held captive: "I was afraid to actually let it all out, like emotionally just, you know, cry. Because I was afraid, OK, if I do that, they're going to see that I am so weak, that I'm so terrified of them that, you know, they're going to win. I mean, that's what they want is to break me down to see that I am so weak and useless."

• On how she was treated: "From the time I woke up in that hospital, no one beat me, no one slapped me, no one, nothing. I mean, I actually had one nurse, that she would sing to me."

• On her Iraqi caregivers: "I'm so thankful that they helped me in any way that they could. I'm so thankful for those people, because that's why I'm alive today."

• On whether she was bothered about how her rescue was portrayed by the military: "It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. Yeah, it's wrong. I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know. All I know was that I was in that hospital hurting. I needed help. I wanted out of there. It didn't matter to me if they would have came in shirts and blank guns, it wouldn't have mattered to me, I wanted out of there."

• On why she wrote the book and whether it was for money: "No. No, no. Not about the money at all. It's just I want my story to be told. I mean, I wrote it just to let everyone know my side of the story, the soldiers who are beside me in that war and the soldiers that are still over there."


He adds, "The records do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead."

Lynch told ABC News' Primetime in an interview to be broadcast Tuesday night, that although she doesn't remember being assaulted, "even just the thinking about that, that's too painful."

Wrong place, wrong time

The book —I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story— will be issued by publisher Alfred A. Knopf on Veterans Day. The New York Daily News and The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, W.Va., obtained copies of the book and published sections Thursday. Their general accuracy was confirmed by Lynch family representatives in her home state of West Virginia.

Lynch, now 20, was shipped to Kuwait in January with the Army's 507th Maintenance Company and was captured March 23 after her convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital April 1 by U.S. forces.

The episode was originally described in heroic terms, with Lynch battling fiercely and later being rescued under dire circumstances.

But subsequently it was learned that Lynch never fired a shot because her rifle jammed. By the time U.S. forces arrived, the hospital was undefended. And Iraqi hospital staffers had earlier tried to sneak her to safety in an ambulance, but turned back when suspicious U.S. soldiers opened fire.

In the book, Lynch admits she was no hero: "I didn't kill nobody." In the broadcast interview, ABC's Diane Sawyer asked her, "Did you go down, like somebody said, (like) Rambo?" Lynch replied, "No. No. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember.

"I did nothing," she added. "I mean, I was just there in that spot, you know — the wrong place, the wrong time."

Lynch also challenges the account of an Iraqi lawyer who says he saw her being slapped by military interrogators in the hospital.

"From the time I woke up in that hospital, no one beat me, no one slapped me... I mean, I actually had one nurse, that she would sing to me," she told ABC. "I'm so thankful for those people, because that's why I'm alive today."

In the book, Lynch describes how Iraqi doctors were branded "traitors" by those loyal to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for helping her.

The book describes Lynch's injuries in detail for the first time:

• Her right arm was shattered between her shoulder and her elbow, and the compound fracture "shoved slivers of bone through muscles, nerves and skin."

• Her spine was fractured in two places.

• Her right foot was crushed.

• Her left leg was broken into pieces above and below the knee, "and splintered bone had made a mess of nerves and left her without feeling in that limb."

• The flesh along the hairline of her forehead was torn in a ragged, 4-inch line.

Asked by Sawyer to describe her first physical sensation upon regaining consciousness, Lynch said, "I've never felt that much pain in my whole entire life. It was, you know, from my foot to my other foot to my legs to my arms to my back, my head...I knew that if I felt that pain, then at least my legs, arms, you know, head, back, everything was still attached...But I seriously thought I was going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life."

The ordeal left Lynch barely able to walk, unable to use her right hand or control her bowels. Now, she says, she still has no feeling in her left foot below the ankle and no idea when it will come back. And attempts to electronically stimulate her malfunctioning bowels and kidneys failed.

As for walking, "I just want to keep adding, you know, just steps every day, so eventually I can throw away the crutches and, you know, just start walking on my own," she told ABC. "That's my goal. I just want to be able to walk again."

Survivor stories

Lynch seems troubled by her lionization as a hero.

"I'm just a survivor," she says in the book. "When I think about it, it keeps me awake at night."

Lynch's treatment while in captivity had been a subject of speculation in her hometown of Palestine, W.Va. "Everybody suspected under the circumstances something like that could happen," LouAnn Thorn of Palestine said Thursday, referring to the rape report. "But since we hadn't heard anything about it until she got home, I thought just maybe it didn't happen."

The book's release coincides with NBC's airing Sunday night of the movie Saving Jessica Lynch. It's based mostly on a book by Iraqi lawyer Mohammed al-Rehaief, who says he helped Lynch while she was in the hospital. Lynch, however, says she has no memory of al-Rehaief. She did not cooperate in the making of the movie.

Lynch and Bragg will split a $1 million advance for the book, which will have a first printing of about 500,000 copies.

Bragg has written several books and won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996 while at The New York Times. He resigned in May after the newspaper suspended him over a story that carried his byline but was reported largely by a freelancer.
 
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Bill and Ray are in a bar having some drinks. They are pretty good friends but Bill is an angry drunk. You know the kind, the one looking for a fight or to piss someone off after about 4 drinks. So as the evening ends they head out and Bill is really getting on Ray's nerves. They get on an elevator and Bill wont shut up. Ray finally tells him he is a jerk and Bill squares off. Ray reacts and punches him in the face knocking him out. Does the media make a big deal out of this? Probably not, even tho Ray is a big time football player. Now we change out Bill for Suzy and it's a big friggin deal. So much for equality.

My opinion has been that this is a step towards the pussification of the country. They want a passifist population. They have used the media to control the politicians and this is another step in the plan. Yeah bad stuff happens during combat. Look at how they presented the 2 months of the Israeli Hamas conflict. According to the news not one single Jihadist was killed. They were all Palestinian women and children. Bullshit!! We have had troops in action for 13 years with an all volunteer military. Has anyone heard or seen one report that the combat MOS' have been diminished to the point we could not maintain operations? So why the need to bring women into a job they can not do? AGENDA AGENDA AGENDA!!!
 
All it will take it one photo of a woman combatant with her legs blown off and half her face gone to drive home to all the "equal" folks to step back a bit.

There have been a lot of girls like that already. I watched the IED go off that took a female medics leg after we had just cleared that area, she has a prosthetic and is kicking ass still. Another time I moved from an over watch position down to a convoy that had two chics mangled up from two more IED's. Pictures of this will only make the guys that are affraid to see a woman hurt more hardened in their case, not step back those who are for women in combat arms.

Maybe if those for women in combat arms saw the men around the women fail to do their jobs under fire, because they were busy holding and crying over the wounded chics, instead of returning fire and gaining some sort of fire superiority, security, working on God damn 9lines, and tending to the other people wounded, they might change their minds. Or the 2 guys doing nothing at all, just hanging out in a truck with a chic during a TIC, instead of getting their asses out and helping. But even that won't do it. It's going to happen; I just hope the standards aren't lowered and we get some decent girls instead of the EO drama queens that are rampant right now. Like men, there are some great ones and shitty ones.

Also if women are going to be considred equal and allowed in combat arms, this whole stigma of never hitting a woman has to go. Would any of the NFL guys be kicked out of the league for an assault on another dude? If we are truly equal, that means no special treatment. No more special protection laws. If you are just as equal to me on the battle field, you are the same back home. Also, no more women's sports, they have to compete in the olympics with the men.
 
Women are treated differently. Period. And God help you if you're counting on a 140 lb female to drag your wounded plate-wearing ass to cover.

^^^^^This! And try having one as your 2nd medic who refuses to get out of a vehicle and leaves you to treat 8 patients by yourself, while you are still taking fire. Fuck that shit.
 
Just like they would if the wounded was a man. So spare me the bullshit, Major.

Ask the Israeli's how women fighting along side men worked out for them. If you're a man, you might have your Battle Buddy pause to assess and render first aid. If you're a woman, you have everyone's attention. Call it a cultural thing, hormone's, or as Chris Rock say's "Just Try'in To Get Laid", women fighting alongside men are an un-needed distraction.
 
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I remember my parents talking about the impact on the public when they showed the corpses floating off the beaches of Tarawa. I know that women have been hurt or killed in the line of duty, but I don't remember ever seeing a disfigured, severely injured woman on the news. I guess I'm old fashioned, and to qualify, I have never served in the military, but what does a woman have to prove by going into combat.
 
I remember my parents talking about the impact on the public when they showed the corpses floating off the beaches of Tarawa. I know that women have been hurt or killed in the line of duty, but I don't remember ever seeing a disfigured, severely injured woman on the news. I guess I'm old fashioned, and to qualify, I have never served in the military, but what does a woman have to prove by going into combat.

She has to prove herself on the same playing field as a man. Hump the same amount of weight and not detract from the units capabilities. What happens when she's cramping from her period and can't go on patrol?
 
Actually, that is nothing compared to what the enemy animals will do to our ladies in combat. Ask Jessica Lynch why she will never have children and why she had MANY operations to save her life. She was raped so brutally, both vaginally and anally, that she was hours from dying when she was rescued. Oh, and if memory serves, she was awarded the Silver Star for running away... I mean heroics. I say this when parents ask me about their daughters joining the military today - DO NOT LET THEM. If Jessica Lynch had ANY honor in her body, she would tell the truth as to what happened to her and try to overturn having women in forward/combat roles. Guess the rumored payoff her and her family received bought any honor she may have ever had.

She used to live down the street from me and dated a buddy of mine after she got back. I don't think she had any payoff, if she did it couldn't have been much because she still drove a mediocre car and rented the place she lived in. Not that this really says much, but if I got a large sum of money I would have a nice house and a good vehicle.
 
While much of what I think has been covered, including the elevator incident, and the other hypocrisy...

What really gets me....is every time you see someone trying to justify this, they claim it's so women can have the same promotion opportunities...

Uh...so it's all about you? and not self sacrifice and serving your country?....


Bob
 
Ask the Israeli's how women fighting along side men worked out for them. If you're a man, you might have your Battle Buddy pause to assess and render first aid. If you're a woman, you have everyone's attention. Call it a cultural thing, hormone's, or as Chris Rock say's "Just Try'in To Get Laid", women fighting alongside men are an un-needed distraction.

Israel has used women in certain fields of combat arms. They have had interstices where female soldiers have shot and killed terrorist attacking their male partners. Israel has also had female fighters who dropped there weapons and ran off and hide during the shooting "no females first line combat units, and no SF".Male's have even dropped there weapons and showed cowardice in combat...

During this last Gaza incident some of the female Paramedics with the different units in combat. Granted they stayed in the APC's until they are needed but they did go into the fighting to provide care in a number of incidents.
 
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What I wouldn't want is a bunch of female POWs, paraded around for the cameras, and then beheaded… or worse.

What would the outcome, fall-out, public opinion, etc. be if female solders were captured and held by the enemy, and the enemy being Muslim extremists who don't even value women in their own society, do you think those women POW's would be treated as fairly as the male POW's? Do you think they would even think about or consider rules of war, Geneva convention, etc.?

Something to seriously consider.
 
What would the outcome, fall-out, public opinion, etc. be if female solders were captured and held by the enemy, and the enemy being Muslim extremists who don't even value women in their own society, do you think those women POW's would be treated as fairly as the male POW's? Do you think they would even think about or consider rules of war, Geneva convention, etc.?

Something to seriously consider.
Already happened, see Jessica Lynch
 
I don't know about the other services, but I know that the Navy has pretty much worked out the issues of integrated crews on all ships. Subs are almost there and I'm sure will be equally integrated in five years time.

Various European navies proved it could be done, and we are no different.

I will say this, I attended the US Naval Academy from 1984 to 1988. I know for a fact that every single physical fitness, strength, and endurance test female midshipmen took had easier standards to meet than the same tests that I and the rest of the men had to meet.


Women on subs aren't being held to any of the traditional standards. If they were held to the same qualification standards that men were it would be sexual harassment immediately. As far as the sub force goes, you can not compare what we do to any foreign navy. With the exception of Britain, all European subs are for coastal defense. Going out to cruise the coast for a couple weeks is nothing like 4-9 month deployments back to back. I got out of the navy right as the first women were coming on, and my boat was one of the first to get some. I have heard nothing but stories about easy qualifications and looking the other way when if a man was there it would have been a critique at best, and a mast at worst.
 
Women on subs aren't being held to any of the traditional standards. If they were held to the same qualification standards that men were it would be sexual harassment immediately. As far as the sub force goes, you can not compare what we do to any foreign navy. With the exception of Britain, all European subs are for coastal defense. Going out to cruise the coast for a couple weeks is nothing like 4-9 month deployments back to back. I got out of the navy right as the first women were coming on, and my boat was one of the first to get some. I have heard nothing but stories about easy qualifications and looking the other way when if a man was there it would have been a critique at best, and a mast at worst.

My understanding about subs is that space is such a valuable commodity that at the start of a cruise the floors are basically paved with food cans and as the food dissapears you gain ceiling height.

If that is the operational necessity what is lost by making special accomodations? Are heads shared? Do sailors of different sexes hot bunk? If life aboard a sub is straining under peace conditions how will this special accomodation effect under combat conditions? Is the intent that when shit hits the fan adults will step up and say "Okay expirement over, lets go to war. Toss any ballast off the boat!"?

Never having served on a sub my questions are based on ignorance and perhaps too much exposure to "Petticoat Junction". My apologies.
 
It's just a matter of changing the paradigms of the "old guard" to make these changes. It's not that big of a deal on ships/subs, just a change and has already been stated, getting over the "traditional standards". I remember when the first females came on carriers and many of the senior enlisted decided to retire rather than be on an integrated ship. Things will get washed out and in 10 years or so, many of the Sailors won't know the difference anymore as females on these platforms will be rather common. During OIF I had been in charge of a medevac team and one day three females showed up out of nowhere saying that they had been selected and trained to function in this role but when they went to their camp, the Navy Captain that was there refused to use females so he sent them down to my camp. Long story short, the Captain was eventually relieved in the field and sent home for numerous reasons and I added them to my flight schedule and went along as business as usual. This is a pick of HM2 Rubic (now a Senior Chief I believe) on her first flight with my team to bring out the seven POW's that had been released in 03. You guys can complain all you want but you need to find a way to make it work, or you will be replaced by those that can.....
 

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