Not that I am begging, but can I get a job explaining to the LameStream Press at a duly called and constituted press conference why exactly allowing women in combat arms branches is a bad idea? I know I have talked about it before on this blog, and you can dig into the archive, but the leftards are back at it now with a lawsuit from the ACLU. The fact that the USMC just did this in their Infantry branch course and of the two that volunteered, one Female Marine didn't last the first day and the other didn't finish (along with 26 men who didn't make the cut either) should be an indication. And why in the world do these chicks want to be in the combat arms so bad? Do they have a mud fetish? Do they long to spend sleepless hours standing watch in a fox hole while their buddies snort and fart in their sleep underneath a poncho liner inches away in their patrol base? They have to check off "spend 3 hours putting 95 pound 155mm shells into a cannon and firing them" off your bucket list? They can't live any longer until you have carried an 81mm mortar baseplate up the side of a mountain, along with part of the machine gunner's ammunition and your own equipment after getting 2 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours? I can't believe I need to explain this, but since the SecDef and his PIO aren't in a position to comment on this, I will take it from here... It would go a little something like this: Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to address some of the issues surrounding the current litigation taking place regarding the placement of women in combat arms units and allowing them to serve in combat arms billets. I will make a prepared statment and then I will take your questions afterward. Let me start off by saying the experience of combat is unique to each individual soldier, and is based upon distance, time and location in the war zone; as well as what jobs they work in. The fighting may be close or far, but it doesn't change the fact that it is still combat. The experience of a helicopter pilot flying close air support missions or the artilleryman firing on distant targets will be different than the experience of the Infantryman on the ground receiving that support. The Secretary and the service chiefs recognize that the nature of warfare has changed. The big set piece battles of maneuvering armies and massive invasions using combined arms are becoming a thing of the past. Soldiers are now fighting the "3 Block War" and the result of that is that many occupations, such as intelligence specialists and engineers now find themselves in positions and situations that involve actual ground combat. We have women serving in these roles in every service that in wars past were previously reserved for men. Today, we have women flying attack helicopters in close air support missions supporting troops fighting on the ground, flying fighter jets and gunships in support of firebases under attack, returning fire and shooting the enemy while escorting convoys, patrolling with male infantry soldiers in order to gather intelligence, provide medical support, conducting civil affairs missions, and leading engineer units in building infrastructure for local villages and at firebases far forward on the battlefield. These soldiers have done fine work and they are an integral part of our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to achieve victory. However, those facts do not change the reality of the nature of how close combat, particularly infantry combat, has not changed in 2,000 years of warfare. Infantry Combat continues to involve, especially in the GWOT, closing the distance with your enemy and killing them. Soldiers in the infantry, Special Operations, Armor and Cavalry still must, despite advances and developments in technology, close within range of their weapon systems and engage their enemies with fire, maneuver and shock effect. In order to dislodge their enemies from cities and villages, they sometimes close to within bad breath distance and are fighting hand to hand. Infantry Soldiers still carry the same approximate weight load into battle that their comrades in the Roman Legions did. Artillerymen, who once used wagons and horses to move about the battlefield, are now using vehicles to move powder and ammunition on the battlefield, but that ammunition and powder is larger and heavier than in any other time in history; and it is still loaded, moved and fired using hands and muscles. Armor and Cavalry soldiers must move their ammunition by hand in order to load their tanks and vehicles and even the most basic maintenance on those vehicles is extremely labor intensive. Special Forces soldiers especially, who conduct missions far into enemy territory must take all of their equipment with them in rucksacks that at times are unbearably heavy. Infantry combat is hard, dirty, bloody, murderous, and physically demanding. It takes a terrible toll physically and mentally on men and they are never the same after taking part in it. The part of this that I want everyone here to understand is not that the SecDef believes that women aren't capable, because they have proven their worth. This is not, as the ACLU believes, a question of the denial of full citizenship of female soldiers in the US Army, as the denial of the right to vote would be. Nor is this a zero sum game in which if male soldiers are being promoted because they have combat experience, that some female soldiers without that experience are not. Soldiers in the US Army do not compete against other soldiers across the entire Army for promotion. Soldiers in the US Army compete with other soldiers in the Military Occupational Specialties they have chosen for promotion, so for example; Male Infantry soldiers compete against other Male Infantry soldiers for promotion. Female helicopter mechanics do not compete against...
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/pTQQYx0VUsY/can-a-grunt-get-a-job.html
Posted
Nov 28 2012, 08:37 AM
by
BLACKFIVE