ive seen generation kill and if thats the kind of environment a woman had to live in, lol gl. not saying its in any way the woman's fault but the guys are unapologetic troglodytes who are on edge 24/7. think of your most obnoxious frat boys and multiply that by 10 and add in extreme sexual frustration.

would require a major course in leadership training to deal with all the problems that arises with mixed troops.

that said, thats a fault of the military and a blunder they have to catch up on and shouldnt be enough reason to bar women from the military. if they can pass the required tests, they shoild be allowed in.

i cant believe im arguing about rights in the military. military is an abomination at this point.

Maybe they should put this warning on the applications so the women know exactly what they're getting into lol

I think its a double standard to say that women cant handle the mental stress of combat. Men break down in combat too. Hardened soldiers. Go watch Restrepo. That dude was crying in battle when his boy died. By the logic of keeping women out you would have to tell that guy to go home. Would you really tell him he couldn't handle it because he had a moment of weakness after he's been fighting at that outpost? Hell no.

I do wonder how many times someone getting fireman carried out of a kill zone actually happens. I think it happens a lot less often than the people who think it is a point of contention. I would prefer if women had to pass the same physical. However no one knows how the wars of the future will be fought. As far as the marines Id put more value in if she could qualify with a rifle than how much she can dead lift.

I agree it changes the environment to have a woman in a squad on the frontline. It might be a lot to ask of soldiers to fight battles and be more PC. For the most part these soldiers are just kids so I don't know if it's a wise decision to add more dimensions to their plate. Time will tell. I don't really have much faith in our militaries top brass though. Their history of covering up rape cases is really disturbing and the first 3 or 4 years of our Afghanistan strategy showed a real lack of insight into warfare and history.


Some food for thought. Just remember history says some women can be just as bad ass. Woman WWII sniper 309 kills including 39 snipers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

As a marine Im guessing you know who Carlos Hathcock is. So you might know who the Apache was. She seemed like a very worthy opponent.

dat confident smirk

I'm not saying women can't handle combat stress. I'm talking more about the other point you made of the added dimensions of distraction and stress that putting a female in a front line infantry squad presents. I agree with most of what you say fwiw.

One of the kids who died in Restrepo was the son of the CSM for whom I worked in Afghanistan. I can't imagine what he dealt with every day. We had a female combat camera with us on a circulation and she was ice cold. A great soldier and a great camera. But we weren't an infantry squad. There are still options out there for females that want to see combat. The last ten years have shown is that.

Hopefully it's a long, long time before any of us get the chance to be indiscriminately shot at again though.

No friggin way does a petite emotional mess belong in this job!

A real man's man is needed.

This is the problem. The standards won't be different on paper or different to what the public perceives, but they WILL be different. There is already been pressure on commanders that said if you fail a female, be prepared to stand before the man and explain to the fullest why she was not able to pass. That kind of pressure is going to lead to people helping women along under the radar because it's not worth the hassle that will come when she doesn't make it.

I felt the exact same way before I deployed as well. I know I haven't stated it that well but it really is something you have to experience to understand but I was trying not to hide my argument behind "if you haven't done it, you'll never understand."

The average age for everyone in my platoon was around 21 when we deployed for the first time. I did my first deployment at 19, and the second at 20. Just because I was in the Marines doesn't mean I don't have the same issues that boys of that age have. And what you describe about being "wildly insecure, and can't keep it in their pants" applies to most boys that age. Not to mention the Marine Corps is filled with way more type A, "I want to be the best", "I want to blow **** up" personalities. Infantrymen are notoriously aggressive, combative, politically incorrect and downright offensive at times. This is precisely the type of attitude that the job demands, and it's why the Marines are the best at what they do.


Generation Kill is the absolute most accurate depiction of Marine infantry life and probably the best depiction of modern war and how it's fought. Most of the time when I watch movies about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan I end just laughing at how grossly inaccurate it is, but Generation Kill covers it perfectly. If you're on the fence, watch that series and then tell me how you think a woman would fare in that environment.

Haha almost missed this. Did several operations with some Airborne guys and they were are great guys who knew their stuff. Prob the only useful group in the whole Army. Besides helicopter pilots of course . The regular Army infantry guys are not even on the same level as Marine infantry, I blame it on their terrible training.

OP, you have mentioned a few times the added costs of allowing women to be in the infantry. Honest question: what are these costs and how much of a factor are they?

Kind of shocked at some of the agrument points being made for the women.

This is such a unique environment. Yes if a women can carry the men she is in combat with and pass all the training then its fine, she needs to be able to do everything that her other soliders can do. Obviously the % of women who can do that is small.

As for the fabric of the soliders and the enviornment, its certainly something that has to be considered. We teach 19-21 year olds to kill people and feel good about it, if the people in that enviornment tell me that as a result of this the men behave in a way that would make women feel uncomfortable, or tell me that a women on sight is a distraction to the cause of killing, then I'm going to believe them

I'm certainly not going to ask for the whole organisation to change the way it asks these men to kill for us so they can accept women into the environment, or ask the soldiers to compromise. They arent out there selling cars, its a ****ing warzone, give the soldiers what they ask for. It seems to me to be a fact of the job, if we want these kids to kill people, we need to create the right atmosphere around them and women shouldnt be a part of that atmosphere

Why is that so difficult for people to accept?

I can lists few:

*separate facilities for sleeping and bathing need to be provided

* a female would always need two male buddies with her on every duty. It's military policy as opposed to just two males or two females.

For the first, the cost of separating the team in morale is larger than one would think on the surface.

One thing I also considered was the amount of grab ass that goes on would be shocking to someone who has never seen it. It certainly was shocking to me. I can only imagine a female inserted into that environment.

I'm sure it has already been said, but if a woman can pass all the same endurance, strength, and mental tests that the men have to in order to serve as infantry, then I am all for it. Under no circumstances should the physical requirements be changed.

I was at a fair a few years back where there was an Army booth with a chin up bar, the men had to do X amount of chin ups to get a prize, (hat or something) where as the women just had to hold themselves up with their chins above the bar for X amount of seconds. I have no idea if that how it actually is in boot camp, but if so I don't agree with it. At the same time I guess the Army's policy isn't the individual woman grunt's fault, and shouldn't be looked down at for it.

I can't think of a single other government job that only a man is allowed to do, and at the end of the day that is what an infantry position in the armed forces is, a job. If a woman can fight in the White House for diplomacy between countries, I don't see why they can't fight in a fox hole for peace between countries. (or oil)

I get that this is a big philosophical debate, but I am curious to how practical of a discussion it is. What I mean is if the armed forces decided tomorrow that woman could be infantry grunts, how many actually would? While I don't mind if a woman is on the front lines, would they? It's just my opinion but I think that the average woman would rather the men fight and they offer support, but the average woman isn't in the armed forces so I guess the real question is what the average woman soldier thinks. What percentage of women in the armed forces actually want to be infantry? Would it even be worth it strategically? What i mean is would the number of infantry soldiers increase enough to where it would be more beneficial to have those extra soldiers than to have disdain in the ranks? If I was a law maker those are questions I would like to have the answer to before I cast a vote.

lmao at the absurdity of all this. im not disagreeing with your points but just find it funny that we are arguing about political correctness of killing others. i hope there is a huge debate over this and draw attention to the fact that its crazy that we still are in need of an elite killing unit.

As previously mentioned there will be significant costs to the separation of women's facilities from the men's. This will have to occur in areas where it's not really feasible.

Injury claims from women will be very high. It's well known that a woman's body is more likely to be injured during heavy physical situations even if she is in amazing shape.

Unit cohesion will be severely affected. I feel there will be many sexual harassment issues, and while some will be real I think many will be fabricated as use as weapons against superiors that they don't like. Think if you had 70 roommates in your apartment that you had to be around 24 hours a day. Tensions rise sometimes.
Issues of violence would be dealt with in the extreme. When two guys have a problem, it's quite normal to throw a few blows and let that solve the issue and get back to winning the war. If every time a fight happened between 2 guys, they were punished to the max, half the unit would constantly be in some form of trouble or restriction. However any physical altercation with a woman infantry marine would bring the most severe form of punishment possible (as it should). I can promise you that this will start to give the women the feeling of "I can't be touched" after awhile which will cause major issues. There will also lead to issues of favoritism. If you think a woman isn't going to play to her sexuality in order to get out of doing certain jobs or duties, you're crazy because they do that now in non infantry units. And it works. And it would work even better in a unit that's 98% men.

There are others that I've already mentioned in this thread.

I covered this earlier but there are around 8000 woman Marines. When polled only 7.5% said they would even want an infantry position if offered, so about 560 possible candidates. Of those 560, at the current fail rate of 81% only 91 would even make it past the school. The fail rate would actually be higher because of that 560 possibles some won't be in nearly the same physical shape as the ones that attempted the school. Of those 91 I'm fairly confident at least 20% would fail to adapt to infantry unit life. So like 65 of 8k maybe could hack it and maybe less than that.

You can complete Army infantry basic training/AIT without having to do a single pull up

Reading this post and SandmanNess's actual experiences with marines, the real question should be "should infantry marines be allowed to be part of civil society after deployment is over?"

I certainly wouldn't one of these animals as my neighbor.

Sounds a bit like the "you dont want me but you need me" scenario. Veterans have been well documented in their struggles returning to society.

Obviously war is stupid, but humans have been doing it since our creation. Bears **** in the woods, birds fly whichever way for the winter, humans go to war against each other. I tend to believe what we do a lot of is in our nature, so our history suggest war is in our nature.

The argument to stop war is a good one and one that I am on the side of, but while we are at war, I also want to be on the strongest side. If that means no women in the infantry, then I'm happy for that to be the way it is

Pull-ups aren't part of the army's physical fitness test. They are a part of the marine corps' male physical fitness test.

In general fitness tests are just another metric that measures one's ability to adhere to a flimsy, arbitrary standard. If you want to know if someone is worthy you put them in extremely realistic scenarios. I know coworkers that can carry their 80 lbs for a 12 hour patrol and suck ass on physical fitness test. And soldiers who can max events who are worthless on patrol. Any discussion of fitness testing is misguided really. You can either do the actual work or you cannot.

Exactly, and currently women have a 81% fail rate at the "flimsy arbitrary standard". Although the USMC did try to charge the not realistic physical testing by implementing the combat fitness test in 2009 which is closer to the physical stress that occurs during combat.

I completely understand that line if thinking and it is a very difficult. You're basically molded to think a certain way at a very impressionable age. A few months before you finish you go to many briefs and classes on how to properly rejoin society and what's acceptable and what isn't, classes like it's not okay to beat on your wife when you're mad, (sounds crazy I know), learning to quell certain reactions that you have from every day events, etc. The first 6 months after I got out was pretty strange and I don't mean in a ptsd kind of way, it's just the way you look at things. I got used to being part of a big unit so being alone for long periods of time still bothers me (I've been out for 5 years). On the other hand being in crowded areas makes me extremely nervous. After 2 deployments I was an old dog so to speak and garnished a certain amount of respect from the younger guys for the "been there done that" aspect but that doesn't carry any weight on the outside. You take away many good things too, and I don't regret my time served in any way however I didn't want to do it anymore.

Lots of people ignoring the possible benefits of having women.

A whole host of studies show that increased opportunities and participation by women in the professional world can increase performance and profits. You tend to get a wider range of viewpoints, a preference for reconciliation and compromise over (internal) conflict and a number of other benefits.

My understanding (and I'm open to correction by those with more experience of course) is that modern conflict is increasingly less about just running, carrying, shooting and blowing **** up, and more and more about understanding and solving deeply complex problems covering people, technology, communications, teamwork, culture, geography, leadership, systems, language, etc etc.

Doesn't seem a stretch to say that you might see the same benefits in the military that you do in every other field?

pull ups were just the example i chose because that was what they were doing at the fair. My point was there should be no difference in the training requirements.

If that number is accurate, i really don't see the point strategically. It certainly would not be a strategic advantage in war to have an extra 65 soldiers spread throughout all the USMC. Hell wouldn't be worth it at 650 I don't think. But that is only if the presence of women would cause disdain in the ranks. Like I said there would have to be a greater number of additional soldiers to out weigh the trouble it would cause internally. My argument doesn't really take women's rights into account at all though, to me its all about what is best for the USMC or whatever branch as a whole. Not the 65 woman who feel they are being held back from something they want to do..

So i guess my position is, should they be allowed to? yes. Do I think its a good idea? no.