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2014-11-20 Home Front: Culture Wars

39 Wymyn to become U.S. Army Ranger school observers/advisors.

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Posted by Besoeker 2014-11-20 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Chilling, but only 8 days.

Posted by Skidmark 2014-11-20 00:21|| 2014-11-20 00:21|| Front Page Top

#2 Sorry - standards should remain the same. No waivers, no special programs, because in combat in the Ranger's type of missions, there is no room for anyone that cannot perform to the current standard.

That includes all the stuff that requires upper body strength which traditionally washes out most females.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-11-20 03:07|| 2014-11-20 03:07|| Front Page Top

#3 And no icky shirts!!!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-11-20 03:29|| 2014-11-20 03:29|| Front Page Top

#4 Sorry - standards should remain the same.

Agreed. But extra props to any woman who both can meet the standards and steps forward to do the work. Ditto for Marines and every other area.

Posted by trailing wife 2014-11-20 04:18|| 2014-11-20 04:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Physical capabilities aside, something about a woman popping a squat at the edge of the perimeter just seems.... WRONG! Very, very wrong.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-11-20 07:09|| 2014-11-20 07:09|| Front Page Top

#6 TW?, agreed but... A gold medalst female runner can run faster than most of men but there are many, many men (some of them 110 kg rugby players) who can run faster. Army and most particularly Special Forces require excellence. Sometimes a unit has to walk for fourty miles in a night or face anihilation. If someone is not able to walk at that speed he would have to be left behind.

Sometimes the people in this unit have to climb the one hundred feet high Pointe du Hoc or the entire D-DAY operation will fail, thousands of soldiers will be killed and another landing will have to be made a year later.

It is not that easy to find women who can climb _and_ run, and carry heavy loads, _and_ walk fast and for long time.

Not to mention a little problem. What happens when a unit has to let someone behind because he/she is slowing them. Evolution has made us be comparatively indifferemt to the death of a man respective to the death of a woman: since men don't need nine months for having children they are expendable while women are precious. But in situations whre one member of the unit has to be left behind that half-chivalrous, half-darwinian concern for the life of women can lead the unit leader to take the wrong decision and the unit being anihilated.

Posted by JFM 2014-11-20 07:51|| 2014-11-20 07:51|| Front Page Top

#7 When they do away with 'Mens' and 'Womens' Olympic events and just make it direct competition regards of color, race, gender, call me.

The 'other side' has not qualms about Political Correctness, judges, or politicians. They simply want to win and are, as observed and reported, unmoved by special interests debates. War is the ultimate Darwinian environment.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-11-20 08:40|| 2014-11-20 08:40|| Front Page Top

#8 Here Cindy, since you're not jumping any ammo, med supplies, or batteries, you can have the rigger tie this mortar baseplate to the bottom of your rucksack. Don't forget the rounds, we're jumping in two rounds per team member. I've got the tube. SGT Jones has the bipod. You ok with that ?

See you on the Drop Zone !

Posted by Besoeker 2014-11-20 10:14|| 2014-11-20 10:14|| Front Page Top

#9 When you watch a womans basketball game, baseball game, etc., they have just as much competitive spirit as men.

A battle on the home turf (Israeli womens homes in Israel, their home town of Kobane-Syria) when surrounded and out numbered women can step up and turn the tide of battle. They fight according to a different ways and means. One that is unexpected by the enemy if they have never fought a woman's brigade.

A video shows a woman's brigade that expelled an entire force of ISIS from a fortress at the loss of only two of their own.

A woman's brigade may or may not do well in a foreign jungle battle field, a foreign desert battle field, or on the high seas.

But if you are an enemy that is trying to destroy the home town or home turf of a well trained, well armed women's brigade. "Hell hath no fury" than that of a women's brigade.

Posted by Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2014-11-20 15:22|| 2014-11-20 15:22|| Front Page Top

#10 Another thing I am trying to say in the above comment is that there could be more benefit to a nation's defense if women's military training was segregated from men's military training, due to differences in fighting style and technique required for real success on the battle field. i.e., the kurdish women's units methodology may be a success, and possibly a first in centuries of military history.

Posted by Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2014-11-20 16:30|| 2014-11-20 16:30|| Front Page Top

#11 Ebbo - its one thing to fight as a line unit, and the YPG Kurdish femals certainly have. But its nearly a completely different thing to go into spec ops, especially Rangers. They're who gets called when the SEALs get stuck and need a rescue. They have very different operations methods, and require far more than most male soldiers can handle - there is a high washout rate, from injuries alone, of Ranger candidates, in addition to the washout from inability to perform. Stone Mountain gets a lot of them. No sleep, cold, and lots and lots of forced marches and climbing. Then there's the swamps and riverine where you are immersed for long stretches of time - physiology is not kind to females since they do have an open body cavity down there exposed to infiltration by swamp water that males do not have. Not being sexist, its just basic physiology.

The Ranger is a different beast. And no amount of political posturing can change the basic differences in physiology versus the differences in mission. The only way they will get women through this is to drop the standards, and if they do that, more will die, and there will be less success. Special Ops is not the place to play social science experimenter.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-11-20 19:28|| 2014-11-20 19:28|| Front Page Top

#12 We fight our own way ... and we fight desperate and dirty when pressed to that last extremity. Not in the classical male way, honor and chivalry and all that ... but for our babies and homes.

I honestly can't say much about the fitness of the average American woman for Ranger duty - I suspect that not many of our sex are fit enough, Olympic-class fit enough, which is what I suspect it would take - but give women the tools and the training, and - most importantly - the motivation of backs-against-the-wall and protecting our homes and children ... the results might be surprising.
The Israeli and Kurdish women are in that very situation. And women fight dirty and vicious - I knew that from junior high, when a guy fight would result in a bloody nose or two, but a girl fight would result for an ambulance called for one or both parties.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2014-11-20 19:33|| http//:ncobrief.com 2014-11-20 19:33|| Front Page Top

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