Well, when I felt a blog coming on last night, this was not it. I got into a thread this morning on my phone about women serving in combat MOSs. There's a lot of Army and Marines (it was a Marine thread) that are vehemently opposed to women in combat. Ok, I've heard it all before. Women don't belong on carriers, women don't belong in close quarters with men, men will go brain dead whenever "pussy walks by". Women can't carry the weight needed to pull chocks and chains and they can't run fast enough. We can't do as many pull ups, we can't....to quote a friend that popped into the chain after I commented...blah, blah, blah. Of course, his was sarcasm at my defense of women in combat. Well, first and foremost, if you Facebook at all, if you email at all, then you've probably seen the picture of the female veteran who is standing in front of a fireplace, big smile on her face, both legs gone, standing on two prosthetic legs. The reality is, regardless of any of our opinions, the women are there, the women are in the middle of the combat zone and tough shit America. War is not as simple as it was 100 years or 200 years ago. People don't put together picnic baskets and flock to the nearest battlefield to watch men charge each other, slaughter each other like bulls running upon opposing matadors and then go home and have a hearty dinner while what remains of those men take a break from the fighting to fight the next day. (Yes, that is really how the Civil War was and World War 1 initially was.) The airplanes, the tanks, the new modern era of warfare forever changed the landscape of warfare. The new landscape means that even civilians in a building in New York City, the other side of the planet from any warfare, may wake up one morning and become casualties. The back lines, where the administration of the war used to take place, is now in a bunker in the lower depths of the Pentagon or some other place, and everything in between is now free game. That is the world we now live in. That is the image of warfare for the 21st century. Women, whether we want to or not, will be a great part of the landscape for any war from here on out.
First, the front lines. There are no front lines. There are areas more at risk than others, but as I pointed out, even our own borders are no longer a guarantee of security. It's no longer spies that we have to worry about, but sleeper agents that their whole mission is to destroy something in the home front taking as many civilians as possible with them. It's frightening if we really think about it. Fortunately, women are no longer the meek, little meager things that have to have a man to protect them. Our grandmothers, great grandmothers for some, proved American women had the mustard. They became welders, made bombs, put together jeeps, tanks, ships, became spies and other things of a nasty nature. We think of all this now as common place. So what if a girl wants to weld. My Grams was a school teacher before WW2. She was a welder in the jeep plant during the Second Great War as her generation, the Silent Generation, referred to it. No one even thought women could weld. Seriously. But with over 85% of the men gone, volunteered--back in a day and age where all the men wanted to go to war, who was going to put together the weapons needed to win? Now, less than 2% of the entire American population, both male and female, volunteer. It was considered shameful in their generation to not volunteer to "do their duty" and men that didn't volunteer were ostracized, cast out, and looked down upon as cowards. But that was a different world then. Now, hardly anyone wants to volunteer because they might be killed. The young men and women that volunteer to serve in our armed forces do so with the complete knowledge that they might die. The American men between 14 and 40 volunteered at 85% after Pearl Harbor. That was in excess of 60% of the population at the time. After 9/11, 2% of the American populace--both male and female--volunteered. Figure that almost a third of that 2% were female. The reality is that women are not only going to combat roles; they're needed since most of our young men don't have the metal to volunteer in the first place. That's a harsh statement indeed, but true. Those young women have more metal than the male "pussy" that refused to serve in the first place.
Women can't meet the physical requirements. Fact, whether male service members current and former want to admit it or not, the physical requirements are unequal period. Women have had to do 4 times the sit ups as male counterparts. The two lame brain excuses we were given were that men didn't have as much abdomen muscle tissue and because the lack of muscle tissue would open them up to the risk of hernias. Not sure if it's true, don't really care if it was some corpsmen that made it up or the Navy or the Pentagon. It's crap. Fact is that by the time we get out of boot camp we've been conditioned to do what they need us to do. There were guys just like us girls that couldn't do a single push up when they got to boot camp. We all could do them by the time we were done. Is it a fact that men have more upper body strength? Yes. It is a fact that women have more lower leg and abdominal strength. It is also a fact that women have the better center of gravity than men. By nature we are more physically balanced--strange but true. With proper training and dedication, anyone can be taught to fight and win. While there are physical differences, training is everything. The fact that the military has let women have a little bit softer training on the pull ups doesn't change that women's bodies can be conditioned to perform. The fact that the military hasn't moved to change those requirements doesn't say anything about the women, but the military itself. It's still a man's world and there are a lot of men out there that like to think of women as weak, smaller, less. Maybe, but consider women multi-task better than their male counterparts, and have more patience in general. Why? Societal grooming? Probably. The men are taught these two talents in the military, but women have it by "nature". Why in the world would we limit women simply because one seems easier to teach than the other? Physical conditioning is easier to "teach" than multi-tasking. Ask any man that has been on the phone while his kids are bugging him.
"The men will go brain dead as soon a pussy walks by." This was a quote from the thread from a woman who never served, who's sister and father served, but she herself has never. We won't know if her sister's opinion is the same, but as someone that served, this is bullshit. Statements like this do a great disservice to the men that serve our country. Are there some that are neanderthals and morons that would go brain dead as soon as a girl walks by? Sure. The military is comprised of a piece of the American populace afterall. But trained, under stress, with a mission objective? No, bullshit, those young men are more than capable of staying focused on their mission and objectives. Are there going to be young men attracted to some of the young women? Yes, they're human, aren't they? From experience and observation, the mission will still get done. Are there some women that will abuse the system? Yes, but they'll get weeded out just as much as the men that go brain dead everytime "pussy" walks by. The Navy is fully integrated now with the exception of the Navy Seals, including the submariner community. The reality is that percentage wise, the cheating, the whoring around, the fears are more than in the civilian community, but as most military and former military will probably agree, it is usually the civilian spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends that leave the military members in the lurch. The stories of men and women serving coming home to a cheating significant other are far greater than the other way around. Statements accusing men of being incapable of doing their jobs because of a woman walking by are ridiculous. Statements accusing trained military men under orders of being incapable because there's women is even more ridiculous. Life and death situations throw that all out the window. Mission will take presidence. And maybe that's what people are really upset about. Women on the homefront will be as much at risk. Who's going to carry out the "missions" at home? Good news America! There's veterans, male and female, to guard and take care of them, along with the real "pussies".
My Grams used to tell me I could do anything a boy could do. My Grandfather and Daddy would encourage me to do whatever the boys did. I played football, could throw a perfect spiral almost 40 yards when I was 10, I climbed trees and I played cowboys and indians and "war". My Grams would dress me up as a lady and I learned to curtsy, which fork was which, and how to walk with high heels on, perfectly erect, with a 20 pound dictionary on my head. My dearest friend is a guy I've known almost 40 years, because we played football, we goofed off, and to this day, I'm someone that he would expect his wife to be able to count on if anything ever happened to him. So, I'll admit I have a very unique perspective on life. I've always considered myself equal to men. Not better, not less--equal. I've beaten the crap out of a grunt Marine that hit me in the back of the head with a beer bottle and I've bounced a 300 pound redneck out of a bar, also after knocking the living crap out of him. I also was a little sorority girl for a while and even President of the sorority for a two terms. I'm the oxymoron that most people think doesn't exist. I raised my boys to believe a girl can do anything a boy can and to be able to be supportive of her whether she wants to be a housewife or an astronaut. Likewise, I've hopefully taught them to look for women that will be supportive of them whether they want to be rocket scientists or house hubbies. Our society holds us back, we hold each other back and we make feeble ass excuses that don't stand up to scrutiny why others, male or female, can't do something. Protecting our country, our freedoms, and dying in defense of us or others isn't just a man's thing. It's a soldier's, a sailor's, an airman's and a Marine's dream and life. There should be no reason that any of our military members should be barred from living that dream and life, providing the blanket of freedom, in whichever MOS they are qualified and capable of. It's a low ASVAB number to be most grunt, infantry jobs; the trade off is often the physical requirements of those jobs. If women are capable, then we need them to step up to the plate. Not just because only 2% of the kids are joining (although it's good sound reasoning), but because we as a society need to start truly understanding what equal is and practice what we preach. We go into these countries tooting off equality and freedom for all. Time we start leading by example.
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