combat roles to women?

you started the whole tampon joke, fool

i just ran along with it



as for sexism being compared to racism...havent we crossed this bridge on numerous occasions before

guess you sexism heroes are still looking for that shifty victory

 

Panetta: Women May Be Included in Future Draft

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...y-be-included-in-future-draft.html?ESRC=eb.nl


Jan 25, 2013
Military.com| by Bryant Jordan

Females may be included in the Selective Service and qualify for a potential draft should one be ordered by the president, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

The U.S. military’s civilian leader lamented that he didn’t know who ran the Selective Service, but whoever does will “have to exercise some judgment based on what we just did,” Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference Thursday.

On Thursday, Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lifted the official ban on women serving in combat roles, removing gender barriers from jobs in the military.

Congress established the U.S. Selective Service as an independent federal agency in 1940, one year ahead of the start of World War II. Presidents had drafted men in previous wars, but this was the first time it was established in peace time. In America’s history, the military has never drafted a woman or ordered her to register for the Selective Service.

That could change as the service leaders determine how to institute the new policy of allowing women to serve in combat arms specialties. In doing so, it may force Congress or the president to include women or scrap the Selective Service, analysts said.

“That, frankly, could be true,” Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., told Military.com.

The Supreme Court cited the exclusion of women from combat in its ruling 30 years ago that the male-only Selective Service System was constitutional.

The inclusion of women in combat roles means a new constitutional challenge to the men-only system could turn out differently, Campbell said. That or the Supreme Court could rule that Selective Service can remain in effect only if women are required to register.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, called the Pentagon’s decision “ill-advised.” In part, she said, because it will affect “unsuspecting civilian women, who will face equal obligations to register for Selective Service when a future federal court rules in favor of litigation brought by the [American Civil Liberties Union] on behalf of men.”

On Wednesday, the ACLU issued a statement in support of the Pentagon’s decision, but said nothing about opening up Selective Service registration to women, or criticizing it for discriminating against men.

As far as Campbell is concerned, women should be signing up right alongside their male counterparts.

“Yes,” she said. “. . . On principle, yes.”

The U.S. Selective Service has begun looking at what it may need in terms of resources should Congress or the president want to make a change.

The system would operate the same way, but the number of people who would have to register each year would about double. The Selective Service has an annual budget of $24 million and 153 full-time employees.

The draft has gone through a number of changes over the past century to include age ranges reaching as high as 45 after the U.S. got into World War II. But through all the changes and wars, women were never included.

Growing opposition to the Vietnam War, coupled with evidence that people with money and connections could avoid it, resulted in Selective Service moving to a lottery system by the end of the 1960s and subsequently ending most deferments.

In 1975, with the U.S. then building an all-volunteer military, Selective Service registration was ended and with it, the draft.

President Jimmy Carter pushed to bring it back, but with a provision that both men and women register. Congress balked at that, however, and resurrected Selective Service as it had been -- for men only.

A lawyer suing to overturn the law argued the female exemption made Selective Service discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled otherwise, deciding that the exemption for women was not a violation of equal protections because women were barred by law from combat.

“The purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops,” the court stated. “Since women are excluded from combat, Congress concluded that they would not be needed in the event of a draft, and therefore decided not to register them."

The court said military experts testified before Congress in favor of registering women, but “uniformly opposed” drafting them.

In the event of a draft that required 650,000 people, the military likely would want about 80,000 non-combat jobs filled by women, the witnesses told Congress.

“[But] assuming that a small number of women could be drafted for non-combat roles,” the court said, “Congress simply did not consider it worth the added burdens of including women in draft and registration plans.”

 

who me?

 

Women in the draft?

Shoulda done that during vietnam, considering there won't be another draft for decades

 

Alright people, I am going to give you examples of things that I have seen with my own eyes.

But first, lets look at situations where both gender are at their peak physical shape. Lets look at the WNBA, the women's professional basketball league vs. the NBA, the men's basketball league.

Both genders who play this sport professionally are in top physical shape. But if you were to get the best female player like a Candice Parker or Lisa Leslie do you think they could go up against a Lebron James or a Koby Bryant??? There is a reason why they have separate leagues.

MMA or UFC cage fighting. Name any female, anywhere who would even come close to winning a match against a guy who is not only physically strong but is mentally sharp in fighting. A guy who knows different submission positions and can fight you standing or on the ground. A guy who while even back pedaling can hit his opponent and knock him out.

Football, a sport that I played at the college level. One thing that you notice that a guy can develope that a women can't is BRUT strenght. A 5'9" guy can spend hours in the weight room to build his strenght. On the football field, a 6'5", 250 lb lineman stands in his way to stop him. That 5'9" guy will pick that lineman up off the ground and start carrying him in the end zone with him. That BRUT force, no matter how many hours a women spends in the weight room, she never develops that.

Thinking that pointing a gun at someone and shooting at them is combat is very naive. Even if you get into a fire fight you have to remember your opponent is shooting back. I don't care how great of a shot you are in target practice, things are very different when a person is shooting at you and the bullets come so close to your head you hear it whiz by you and hit the tree or building behind you ... zip.. zip (ping)... zip,zip (spat).

Combat is a VERY, VERY humbling experience for anyone, male or female. The vast majority of females in the military wants nothing to do with combat. They don't mind being in the support units but the front lines .... NO !!! Even the real butch women change their minds when they get a dose of reality.

G. I. Jane was a movie staring Demi Moore and should remain just that, a movie.

 

bullshit...GI Jane is a hero


i'm still miffed that wherever u go, whether it be ROTC, basic..whatever...that there are separate minimum PT requirements for men/women

there's no fucking equality in that..which is hilarious considering that the big picture is ALL about equality and equal opportunity

hell..I think even the brigade ranger challenge for the for army ROTC cadets mandates that every team must have at least one female on it

granted ranger challenge is for sport, it still bodes of serious PC interference. I'm assuming that a woman is selected based upon her status among other women (regardless of where she places among the male cadets), and gets selected that way...or if she's stud enough to be better than the guys, she gets in like that.

either way equality sure as hell doesn't really look equal on paper

as for the whole 'what about blacks and their fight'

what you have to consider is that black men have been held to the same fucking standard all across the board in the military...we didn't get handicaps and modified workouts and less gear to ruck because we were black

 

In fact that shit was twice as hard. Look at sports we didnt just have to compete we had to be undeniably better across the board. Thats how its always been. We get nothing for free

 

My freshman year in college the FIRST DAY I showed up for our mandatory lifting session after track practice, there was this 5'5, 145# blonde girl hammer thrower from Rhode Island who sat down at the BP, loaded 200# on the bar laid back and repped out 5 times.

It was un-fucking believable. Later that day I found out she was a FRESHMAN too.:smt104

Just from my own athletic background and personal experiences, I've seen enough women who can run 6-7 minute miles as a part of routine training for soccer, were national level ranked judo competitors and a few who could full back squat 300#. These examples were all just from college.

Just saying, it's mistaken to put an automatic limitation on what a woman can or cannot do when it comes to qualifying for military combat training.

ArmyRanger tried to make the point that most women athletes are inferior to their male counterparts, but what he left out is elite female athletes are better than a large percentage of random male weekend warriors.

I just tend to believe if you searched the campuses of West Point or Annapolis, you'd find several women who physically are up to the challenge of combat duty.

Panetta is trying to secure the rights of those EXCEPTIONAL female candidates to participate in combat, he's not installing a quota to indiscriminately put women on the front line.

 

You are not going to find weekend warriors on the battle field.

In war, there are no second places, you win or die ... period. If you have ever been in the military, your drill sargent points that out to you very quickly in boot camp. In many of the elite forces, it is mandatory that you workout daily, MANDATORY so that you will be ready at a moments notice.

What YOU don't see is on the battlefield, she will be going up against elite male forces of the enemy.

The only way you can change my mind on this is to go to West Point or any of those other colleges were you say there are elite female athletes and put them in an MMA or UFC situation. Have her go up against elite men of her caliber. If a female can beat men consistently in that setting, I will be all for her in combat.

Until then .... No!!! G.I. Jane needs to stay in the movies.

 

Sell it somewhere else that every infantry soldier is in elite physical condition.
Being a fighting fit soldier is just different from being in outstanding cardiovascular shape generally speaking.

Besides it's the psychological grind that makes some people good soldiers and others not, it's not the physical toll on their bodies, other than being blown up by IEDs or being shot at.

It's the dying part that's hard, not the physical demands.

I've seen more than a few active duty soldiers who are borderline sloppy looking with their shirts off.

And the U.S. military hasn't faced 'elite' enemy forces since WW2. Maybe the residuals from Saddam's Republican Guard who fought as insurgents in the 2nd Gulf War.

Ever since Vietnam, we've been fighting irregular enemy combatants, and none of them had the extensive combat training U.S. forces are given.

Basic training is a modern military concept in industrialized countries.

'Basic training' in Iraq and Afghanistan is showing a former shopkeeper or goat farmer how to load an AK47, point and shoot.

How many U.S. soldiers engage the enemy in hand to hand combat that requires the skill level of a mixed martial arts fighter??lol

You still are talking about this like we're considering thousands of women.
We're only talking about I would guess 20-100 women who are combat ready across all the armed services.

 

You make a good point. Unless we have swrved and KNOW the çonditions we shouldnt comment

 

The U.S. military is set up on the premise they can take almost anyone with a basic level of physical fitness and intelligence and turn them into a soldier. The problem now is that most teenagers graduating from HS nowadays don't have a basic level of physical fitness.
Most can't do ten pullups, 40 pushups, or run a mile.

The hard part, the really fucked up aspect of being a soldier, just from what I've gotten from talking to guys who've served, is being able to perform at peak mental and physical abilities when someone else is trying to kill you.
Basic training I believe in theory is supposed to get recruits out of that self-reflective or active thinking mode and just learning to react to their surroundings the way they were trained to do.

This argument that most soldiers need to be borderline Olympic caliber athletes with the fighting skills of 3rd degree Black belt is a myth.
Those are Special Forces troops.

The only real argument I've read in this thread about whether women should serve in combat is questioning if they're strong enough to pull a fallen comrade 10-50 yards out of harm's way.

 

Have you served? Been in a combat situation?

 

if you are asking to say that he is wrong....well he is not too far off but not on the head.

fact....the military has been complaining that about 30% of recruits are not fit to join....we have nt talked about new boots washing out the military

http://politix.topix.com/homepage/2...reaten-national-security-say-retired-generals

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-06/...ical-education-military-service?_s=PM:OPINION

also basic training is about getting you physically fit but also forming a military mindset. they train you to kill without hesitation. they refer the enemy as not as a person but as the target. that way you can kill at will and not even think twice.

yes, you must be highly physically fit. hell, when i was in...i was running 4 miles a day and we didnt breathe hard afterwards or sat down to rest. it was 2nd nature to finish run , take a shower and be in the chow line fully dressed within 30 minutes. I was just a scrub soldier at that. meaning i was in a field artillery unit...wire commo. thats it and believe me at that time...i could have ran most civvies in the dirt . I believe my fastest time in 2miles was about 12 minutes 50 seconds and thats about the median

 

No I haven't. I haven't been a woman either.

Everyone in my family has served in the military. All my uncles, my grandfather, my mother and father.

I feel like I have a standing appointment at the Washington, D.C. VA, as many times as I've been there taking family members.
And no matter how many times a soldier tries to tell you what combat is like, they can't. Because there's no way to explain what it feels like waking up everyday knowing there's an enemy who wants to end your life. Or realizing you might have to kill someone today.

And no I don't think IRL pettyofficer or ArmyRanger would have a problem serving with a woman in combat, even if they're questioning how plausible that is in this particular thread.

 

Your post is so wrong on so many levels, it is very obvious you have NEVER served in the military.

I am refering to "combatants" for one thing, guys who do fight on the front lines. You have many people who are in "support" units and NEVER see combat.

If we are to continue to have this debate, lets limit it to the "combatants", those who fight. Lets not bring in the "support" units like the cooks, supply clerks, etc. No, they don't have to meet a physical standard.

Another thing, lets not bring in our opinions to this debate. We are from now on going to make statements based on facts.

Your comment about the U.S. not facing "elite" forces since WW2 makes no sense. Didn't the VietCong over run Saigon in 1975 and forced the Americans to leave?? So with all the "extensive training that the U.S. forces receive" those "irregular enemy combatants" STILL kicked the Americans out of Vietnam???

Didn't Russia invade Afghanistan in 1980??? Russia, who at that time was the second strongest country in the world. Yet, eight years later "those former shopkeepers or goat farmers" defeated Russia and kicked them out of their country??? The ones that you stated whose basic training was "how to load an AK47, point and shoot" ?????

You see why I am having such a hard time with your post??? Come back with some intelligent information and we can debate otherwise stop wasting my time.

 

when you debate.....you are giving opinions...at least for the most part. just saying. carry on

 

That's my point.

Physical fitness isn't what makes someone a capable soldier. Being an MMA level fighter doesn't make you a formidable soldier.

Not one U.S. military commander during the Vietnam War era classified the Vietcong as an 'elite' fighting force. They were rag tag, undersupplied, poorly trained and yet they could not be defeated by the American war machine.

The Afghanis who drove out the Soviet Army weren't elite fighters per man, but they were supplied by the CIA with American shoulder fired stinger missiles than leveled the battlefield.

Weapons and tactics are the bedrock for modern warfare, not the gender or physicality of a particular soldier.

'Soldier' is defined differently in other countries, and the standards are arbitrary.

We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined, and yet we rarely have a tactical advantage on the battlefield. That has nothing to do with whether or not women are allowed to serve in combat. That stat isn't going to decrease if a handful of women are allowed to serve in combat either.

I stand by the comment we haven't faced a real professional army since WW2.(And the Korean War).

 

Lol