The women of the IDF talk the talk, and they walk the walk.
Women were allowed to become fighter pilots in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) after a landmark court ruling in 1995. In the year 2000, Israel's military service law was amended to allow women to serve in any capacity that male soldiers serve, including combat units. Israeli women serve in the infantry or mechanized units, or any other combat occupation. They make up a third of the IDF, and are treated as equals with males.
The United States military started allowing women to serve in direct combat support units, such as Military Police, in the late 80's. During Operation Just Cause - the Panama invasion - a female MP platoon leader was decorated for valor in combat.
According to current Department of Defense policy, women are not allowed to serve in ground combat units at the battalion level and below. But because of the highly mobile nature of modern warfare, there are no "front lines" one imagines in classic war scenarios.
Special operations units and irregular forces traditionally operate far behind enemy lines, choosing when & where they engage enemy forces, and their targets are quite often support & logistical units. During the initial stages of the Iraq War, our supply convoys experienced close ambushes and we took the heavy casualties - including women in non-combat MOS's.
Women are now integrated into almost every military role - only combat arms units remain the exclusive domain of men only. The Navy has women serving on all ships, and the Air Force has female pilots flying everything from C-130s to F-16s.
Army Sergeant Catherine Ross pulling security in a Stryker, Mosul, 2004.The New York Times story 'WOMEN'S WORK' by Catherine Ross vividly demonstrates how the military’s policy on barring women from combat doesn’t match reality.
I know I'm going to take a lot of flak from my SF compadres over the sentiments expressed in this post. Here's what I've got to say to that: there are a lot of women I'd take on my team over some of the miserable excuses for soldiers I had to tolerate during my time in - especially toward the end when the X Box Generation started showing up.
- S.L.
.
The IDF is not an apples to apples comparason to the US military.
ReplyDeleteThe IDF is NOT expeditionary. IDF personnel are fighting within a few miles of their own homes. In such a case, having women doing whatever makes sense.
Before you can even begin to try to apply that same metric to US military, you have to consider the expeditionary nature of our military.
Infantry, for example, have to be able to function in small units isolated in hostile territory for long periods. Before you can say that "shouldn't" or "wouldn't" be a problem, find one mixed sex ship in the USN that isn't a floating whore house. Find one ship that doesn't loose manpower (speficially woman power) to medical evacuations due to pregnancy over during a deployment.
Find one mixed sex unit in the US military that doesn't loose womanpower prior to deployments through the use of pregnancy to avoid deployments.
Peeps need to pull their heads out of the "gender norming" bullshit that the Clinton Regime started pushing down everyone's throat in the US Military. It's way past time for good men to get back up off their knees, pull their lips off the idiot propaganda spigot and quit letting themselves get played for a punk on this issue.
And remember. When someone's tugging on your heart strings, they're doing so only to lead you to a bench convenient for being bent over.
Israel had "co-ed" combat units during it's early history. When they were fighting for survival they needed everyone who could pick up a gun. As they developed a professional military, this was changed as it was decided that women were disruptive.
ReplyDeleteBringing back female combat soldiers, if in fact they are doing so, shows they are no longer interested in a professional military but want a PC one instead.
Unless one is a postmodern feminist, it is obvious that women are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to combat. They are substantially weaker than men and hence the men in their unit are required to be the ones to lug the heavy weapons. As someone who has taught women's self defense classes, I know from experience they are also far inferior at hand to hand combat with trained men who out size them and out weigh them. And finally, if they are at all attractive, they are a big distraction and a potential source of disruption of morale with the men in the unit. That, or they tend to get pregnant rather often.
There are only advantages to women in combat. One is that the left wing "bring the war home" types can show pics of dead women on the 6 oclock news hour and the second is that gun fetishists can have lots of soft core porn shots to fondle.
I was an intel geek for many years, and finished up as First Sergeant in a combat support-type unit. Yeah, we lost "deployable assetts" because they turned up pregnant, or a single mom suddenly lost her child care. But we also had women that were second to none in their job performance. Same way with guys: Some are deadbeat losers, and some are da bomb. I don't think personal plumbing is the defining criteria in personnel selection.
ReplyDeleteI don't personally like the idea of women in combat, but then I grew up in an era when men were expected to open doors for women, or give up their seat on a bus. But not liking something does not give me the right to ignore the objective realities of the situation.
As usual, FWIW,YMMV, IRDDU.
Retired Spook
K and Grimmy make great points. My exeriences and thought on this issue could not really add much but, the over-the-top ignoring of this issue suggest a very disturbing reality. During Desert Storm, the Army Times did an article regarding the whores houses in Daharan, and all the soldiers making big money. Then Sen Pat Schroeder got her panties in a wad and they pulled/retracted all those issues. Now, there is no real anaysis, media or otherwise, just alot of fluff. Except that is for the soldiers themselves, men and woman who know the reality. The best alternative to the current situation is women in their own CS / CSS segregated commands. We all know how ruthless they can be with other women, put it to good use, and keep the soft porn gun fetish stuff coming too.....jd
ReplyDeleteGrats man. You're earned your "I'm not a sexist" badge for today... I'm not sexist but I wouldn't want to serve alongside women in an infantry role. Even in a mechanized role it's questionable. There's a reason men have always done the fighting all throughout human history. It wasn't because they were sexist, even though they probably were, it's because men simply make better soldiers for a variety of reasons. Sure there's some female freaks of nature who could probably serve just as well as some men. But I don't want a military comprised of freaks. There's all kinds of important support roles for women to fill in the military. The infantry and elite special forces is not one of them. Combat is a sacred and terrible thing. Keep the politically correct bullcrap out of it. If you want to go on an ambush with a bunch of female soldiers be my guest. When you get hit by a mortar and can't walk, have fun laying there since your female sisters in arms can't drag you out of the kill zone or wrestle an enemy soldier down and take his weapon as he comes to finish you off at close range. At least you died not being a sexist.
ReplyDeletecjboyles:
ReplyDeleteI spent a little over 6 years as a Marine. 3 of those years as a grunt, 3 as an intel weenie (tac level only. nothing super secret squirrelish). I know, full well, the different needs and standards that exist in both the grunt and REMF world.
In the REMF world, it would seem quite doable to put women where ever they "qualified". What the REMF world misses is the day to day living conditions in the grunt world. It's not just about the physical ability to do a job. It's also about the psychological compression, emotional drain, extreme morale shifts, etc and so on, that can come from simply living asshole to bellybutton with no privacy at all, everyone in each other's face, 24/7, day in day out for months on end. That is life in the field for an American grunt.
American grunts wont always have the bennies of working out of well developed FOBs with near garrison life type barracks and all the rec facs available, as the Iraq Campaign developed into as time went by for many grunts.
Grunt units MUST be able to operate under the most austere and adverse/hostile conditions possible.
Do us all a fav. Reach out to someone you know, or a friend of a friend, who served aboard a "float" in the Corps and have him explain the living conditions for the battalion of grunts onboard an LSD or an LPH. Now, form up a mental pic of having whatever percent of of women in among those grunts. And that's peace time.
Now, wrap your head around the nightmare horror story of discipline issues, unit cohesion and every damn thing else that matters when a platoon of grunts is placed in an isolated combat outpost in bumphuk wherever. Said outpost under constant attack. The emotional roller coaster that comes from that. The sense of psychological isolation. The fear. The loneliness. Now mix in a squad's worth of women into that.
After you're done being embarrassed, consider doing a proper mea culpa and chewing a bullet.
You're getting played by the cultural destroyers. They're making you feel all warm and fuzzy while playing you, but you are getting played.
Don't fuck with my brother grunts. Their lives are miserable enough as it is.
There are issues worthy of debate and those that are only fit for a fight. This aint debatable.
Semper Fi, Mac.
I spent five years as a grunt in the 82D Airborne before I went "down the street" and spent twenty years in SF. I personally cannot imagine women serving in the Infantry, although I am aware of females serving within certain Special Operations units, in various armies worldwide.
ReplyDeleteBut then I saw this clip with the Israeli women - my purpose today was to explore this concept. If the Israelis can do it, this suggests to me the obstacles are cultural, not physical.
my sister is serving and she looks good in camo toting and m4 instead of a purse. i must say i hope they keep the bullets away from her when aunt flow is in town.: skullhead
ReplyDeleteMy $0.05 worth of experience is that most of them do clerical duties in their conscription stage if they volunteer for more mostly they serve as mos instructors.Believe me it's rather interesting to go through the sniperschool with an instructor who saw at most low-level conflict.There's currently 1 battalion 'Caracal'which is experimentally desegragated,they saw no combat as of now.1 MP. a former BrigGen, the former IDF spokeswoman is pushing for a affirmative action quota of female flag officers fwiw.In my experience in the Nachal female soldiers are rather exaggerated.
ReplyDelete