Don't make me tell my Sergeant Janssen and Sergeant Garcia stories again. I'm warning you.

OOoohh, tell them again, daddy. Tell them again!!!!!!!!!

refuse to believe it all you want.  it is fact that, given identical situations, i would resort to violence sooner in the scenario than my fiance.  though i can't speak for him, i imagine he would use it sort of like last resort, self defense.  i, however, have no qualms about using violence for my benefit.

and again, you seem to think that you  know what is in my heart and my head.  and again, you would be wrong!

this superiority complex of yours is really getting old and tiring.  just who the hell do you think you are to tell me what is true and not true about my personality.  you've never met me.  you've never even held a conversation with me.  how in the world can you presume to KNOW what is true about my personality

[}:D]



never said it did.  but it has everything to do with the incorrect statement that women do not have a killer instinct or enough of a violent one to get the job done.  yet it also shows that there are women out there with more violent tendencies than males, but i have yet to hear anyone question whether or not a male has a killer instinct.  i've known a couple of guys throughout school and career that would cower at a verbal confrontation.  

personality has everything to do with fitness for being a soldier.

Look at your most ruthless warriors in history.  Take a Nazi, for example.  These men used Jewish prisoners as targets for [i]bayonet[/i] training.  I think a man is easier to mold into a killer than a woman...and that can be based on hormonal differences alone.

And you apparently, fail to recognize sarcasm. EVEN WITH my devil smiley icon I put in my original post (which you deleted)

[rolleyes]



I guess that would be your quick wit and mental sharpness shining thru to outthink your opponent. [}:D] [/sarcasm]

Its actually funny, ARLady -

You and I always end up arguing about this when i beleive we agree on teh fundamental issues.

1. The average male is ALWAYS more equipped for combat than teh average female.

2. this fact essentailly precludes women from combat roles.

3. Women are capable of both physical violence, and in some cases are predispsoed to it.

4. Generally speaking, women are more cerebral than men, and are quite capapble in the logical disciplines.

ANything you disagree with in my assertions???

There is a place for Women in War. A US Civil War General Hooker employed many such women to perform a valuable support function for troops. To this day such support groups still carry his name: Hookers.

thank you BT97.

With posts like this one, ***********even I ************ can feel politically correct (at least comparatively so) [:D]

There is a real grain of truth in your post tho in the role women play in "real" combat situations, and more particularly, the interludes in between.

Not condoning it, but it IS reality.

I would have to highly disagree with this one.

A man's brain is more logical than a woman's.  It is known that a man's emotions are confined to a certain area in his brain, whereas a women's emotions are spread out over her entire brain.  This means that women generally feel and see emotion in everything they do.  Whereas men generally are better able to seperate and ignore emotions.

If women were better thinkers and more logical, why aren't there women international grandmasters of chess?

Sol, in the real world, what are we supposed to do to seek out and find those "few and far between" exceptions to teh rule???

Is the military to actively seek them out, or just let them filter in themselves??

And since the vast majority of WACS will NOT be among the exceptions to the rule, are we supposed to wait till a combat situation to see if they can hack it???

There's such a thing as cost / benefit to outfitting an army of killers for hire (aka soldiers) The costs FAR outweigh any benefit to deliberately  inserting one of the "few and far between" into a killing role.

As a whole, men make better killers. To keep recruitment costs to a minimum, its ONLY logical to select ONLY men for those positions. Certain individuals of BOTH sexes will eventually prove unfit for combat, but by far, teh greater number will be among the female populace. And money NOT spent in recruitment to seek out, train, and then cull out the "few and far between" can be spent on important things like munitions, equipment and infrastructure.

So you say I'm a chavinist. Maybe so. if so, I really don't care, becasue I'm also a realist.

This isn't some theoretical, pie in teh sky debate. REAL peoples lives hang in teh balance. And ANYONE who would accept ANYTHING less than the best (and we both agree that on teh average, men are best suited for combat) is putting lives in danger. And given the cost / benefit of putting women into combat roles, it makes no sense to even try.

Go back to my four assertions, and lets see what we really disagree on.

garandman, taken by itself, the one post may have been seen as you meant it.  however, given the history between us, and your tendency to assume certain things to be fact (along with the tone of your second post), i failed to see the sarcasm in your post.

i do believe we're agreed on a things.  men are better suited to combat as a whole than women.  but this does not mean that women are incapable of performing in combat.  only that some women are incapable of performing in combat.

i don't believe that women belong in combat (or even the military) for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with their phsyical prowess.  but i wouldn't deny a woman the chance simply because the odds say she'll not make it.  which is what so many were doing.

i deleted my response to your second post, mostly because after reading your later posts, i realized it wouldn't really make that much of a difference (if i'm lucky you didn't have time to reply with a quote before i deleted it!).  you'll still believe certain things.

"Cerebral" does NOT equate to "logical." Which is why I ALSO went on to indicate they can be quite capable in the logical disciplines.

I suspected this statement would arouse some questions. I guess i should have explained myself better. My bad.

Woman should not be allowed in ground combat, period end of story!!!!

[soapbox]

dang.  didn't get it deleted before you got a hold of it.  [:D]  see above.

and the answer is no.  for crying out loud.  is it so freakin' hard to see how easy it is to weed them out.  they same damn way we weed out the MEN who aren't capable.

I've already shared my opinion on this topic, so I won't get into that again. Just a couple of things to add to the Garandman and ARLady discussion from a grunt....

ARLady- Being quick to resort to violence can and will likely get you or those around you killed. There's a difference between being quick to resort to violence and being quick to kill if you're in the shit. But I think I know what you meant.

Garandman- I have to disagree with you when you say that wit and being cunning have little use on the battlefield. Maybe this is the case with the lowest pee-on ranking Marine or soldier out there, but being able to trick, fool, surprise the enemy, makes all the difference in the world and usually decides loss or victory.


***Nomex back on as I jump back into the fighting hole***

Guys...and Lady,

I have a brief recommendation...stop postulating on the future and review your history (I admit it...my major in college.)  If you do, I think you can safely extrapolate what the consequences would be if women take the field of battle.  (Now follow me on this for a moment...[;D])

Take a few minutes to go over in your mind just a few of the more notable battles in history.  Then try to imagine women serving in the ranks of either side and consider the most likely outcome of the battle.

Just imagine for a moment.....
1.  Women Spartans at Thermopylae vs. the Persians
2.  Women serving with Scipio Africanus at Zama...when the Romans finally ended the incredible string of victories of Hannibal Barca.
3.  Women serving in Bon Homme Richard under John Paul Jones, working the guns, women Marines in her fighting tops and women crewmembers boarding HMS Serapis for the final furious hand-to-hand combat with pistols, cutlass and belaying pins.  THAT is what you call close combat!
4.  Women serving with King Henry V at Agincourt.  Remember his famous speech?
5.  Women serving in the 20th Maine on Little Round Top with Chamberlain...or with Hancock's men at the Rock Wall fighting off Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.
6.  Women serving with Marse Robert (That's General Robert E. Lee for you Yankees!) at Spotsylvania at the Bloody Angle...(or anywhere else in the Civil War for that matter).
7.  Any shit-hole island in the South Pacific in WW II, Normandy, Bastogne, Kursk, Okinawa, or the previously mentioned Chosin Reservior.
8.  Ah Shau Valley in Vietnam...or maybe Khe Sahn in 1968.
9.  Iwo Jima?  Nuf said.

Answer to the question (in part...):
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;"  (Note...he didn't say, "sisters"...did he?

Finally...just ask yourself this one last question:  Ever wonder why they're called Grunts?  Read "Up Front" by Bill Mauldin for an easy explanation.

Flame suit on tight!

YHS, Ma'am.  [;)]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.

King Henry, in Henry V