'WOMEN SERVING IN COMBAT INFANTRY ROLES WITHIN THE U.S. ARMED FORCES'

It will never happen that women will be allowed to serve in a combat role within the Infantry or Infantry Special Operations Units. Why not?


Aside from biological issues and psychological issues, they'd have to lower the physical fitness requirements for the females (as they've always done in support units and military police units for females) which means that they'd be lowering the standards of elite fighting units to accommodate political correctness.

If you have to lower the physical fitness requirements for females (or males) than you've lowered the standards and quality of your personnel inducted into any combat unit, be it regular infantry, light infantry, special forces or any other special operations unit.

The idea of setting very high standards in the first place among males is to ensure that only the 'most' physically fit, strong, mentally agile, emotionally strong, capable alphas will be able to succeed.

This insures that what is left after culling the herd during selections and training phases, under such extremely high standards, is only the best of the best in the world!
We're not talking sports, academics, mere weapons qualifications, or even intestinal fortitude here.

Were talking biological differences that only the willfully ignorant would ignore which would lower the standards of our country's elite fighting units merely to be politically correct. This sounds just like an Obama campaign to put political correctness before practicality and survival at the expense of national security. To destroy the cohesiveness and fighting capability of our most elite combat units.

Any woman whose ever served and has knowledge of how hard the job of an Infantryman or Infantry Special Operations unit is would tell you that even among very physically fit and gifted male athletes few can meet the grueling requirements of the job.

Running 25-35miles at times with full combat loads and perhaps carrying a fallen comrade, who may weigh 250lbs. in addition to his combat load. Or often having to help an injured buddy carry his gear, in addition to your own, during that long combat ruck run at almost a 7minute mile pace. Non-combat units don't even run 7minute mile pace in P.T. shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. Some elite Infantry units do it in combat boots with full TA-50 plus weapon, flak vest, K-pod, and LBV.

Carrying a 250lb. dummy, aside from your full combat load, up and down four flights of stairs while being timed, as just one single exercise among many, during a training session. Competing against guys who actually were all American football stars, NFL football athletes before joining the Infantry (like my last battle buddy Ellan Banks), and college wrestling champions! Men whom can work out with 300-400lbs on the bench with dead weights, perform over one hundred correct military pushups in two minutes, a 'minimum' of twenty wide arm pull-ups, and operate under the harshest of environments under extreme temperatures.

I've seen guys who were college champion athletes buckle, not because they weren't physically strong enough to do the job and complete the extreme physical challenges, on the contrary some of them had demonstrated some of the most impressive feats of strength I've ever witnessed, but had failed because they couldn't operate under such extreme demands while suffering sleep and food deprivation!

You take away the factor of adequate rest and adequate fuel (food) and then force them to operate at Olympic athlete endurance levels and you rapidly see the herd of alpha males diminish.

Now don't lower the standards but require females to operate at the same exact levels, meeting the same standards (which the military has never done), and then let them try out!

But that would never happen, because the blanket parties and the hazing alone would draw the sympathy of the public once females had to endure what the males have traditionally endured for decades. The females who fell to the wayside would go to the media and report all of the horrible abuses: blanket parties, G.I. showers, fist fights, water boarding, 'koala-fying', and all of the other myriad of sadomasochistic culture that traditionally comes with serving in alpha male Infantry and Infantry Special Operations Units.

Next we would have to lessen the amount of mental and emotional abuse permitted to be inflicted upon females trying to qualify for Combat Infantry units. Just as they've always done throughout the military in training of support personnel and law enforcement. Particularly when they're emotionally vulnerable during hormone cycles, lest we have a political outcry over the increased suicides among females compared to their male counterparts attempting to negotiate training to enter the Infantry.

So now we've had to consider the emotional vulnerability of the female along with her physical and biological vulnerabilities in reference to combat capabilities in an Infantry or Infantry Special Operations role within the armed forces.

Now lets consider the close combat capabilities of a physically fit woman against a physically fit man. Let's consider an elite female fighter like Rhonda Rousey getting into the cage with an elite male fighter like Anderson Silva, Randy Coutour, or Rampage Jackson. Now would any rational person think that fair, or bet their life on her coming out victorious in a no-holds barred fight with one of them?

Lets make it more relevant and imagine her fighting under severe sleep deprivation, hunger, fatigue, encumbered by wet battle dress uniform, weighed down by heavy combat gear, and having to kill one of the aforementioned elite male fighters in a life or death hand to hand combat situation.

Now imagine she has to face all three of them under the above mentioned circumstances and fight for her life using all of her training to prevent either death or capture. This is not unlikely as in elite Infantry units and special operations units a male soldier always trains to defend against three attackers. Reason being it's a military rule to always try to outnumber one's enemy three to one. We teach this, though it's not always possible to do, and our enemies practice this as well.

It looks easy in the movies, but three trained enemy ambush you in close quarters before you can effectively neutralize them with a dedicated weapon and you have to struggle for your life, it's not an easy thing in full combat gear walking around like a heavy turtle.

If you found yourself and your battle buddy in such a close quarter combat situation, or perhaps you're shot and can't walk so need to be carried out over several miles of rough terrain and weapon fire in extreme conditions, would you prefer your battle buddy to be the best physically fit female or the best physically fit male?

Here's a simpler question to make it easy for all of the feminist and the liberals who have no idea what it requires to serve in an Infantry or Infantry Special Operations Unit: Let's create a 'tackle' football team of the best professional female tackle-football players (not futbal-soccer) and make them compete in the NFL super bowl against the very best male tackle-football players in the NFL.

How many really would bet the lives of their children, grandchildren, parents, spouse and themselves on the female team defeating the male team?

Let's take the worlds best female catch wrestler and put her up against the world champion male catch wrestler in a (life or death) cage match and how many people actually would believe that the woman would prevail?

So all of the political correctness about how women can perform as well as men in 'every' single situation is ludicrous. Not saying men are better than women as a gender, or putting women down, but merely admitting that there are biological differences between the genders.

Men can not perform as well as women in other areas in life just as women are not designed for the intense, harsh, rigors of serving in a combat unit. We must all know our limitations, for to fail to do so only invites defeat.

Last but not least the psychological factors of how women effect the minds of men is an important consideration in that men generally are geared toward being overly protective of the female gender and we develop strong attachments to them which is not conducive to combat. Male soldiers can not function at the high level needed if they're preoccupied with the opposite sex. And if captured it is easier for the enemy to use a female soldier to break down the resolve of her male comrade because it's in a man's nature to break down emotionally when witnessing a female being tortured and abused.

The liberals and the feminist can forget the idea of our military combat Infantry units lowering their standards to accommodate the female soldier, marine, sailor, or airwoman.

To do so is to destroy the effectiveness and cohesion of our combat units.

By AnDrew Soldier.
Veteran of: Dco. 3-327th. Inf. Reg., 1st Brigade, 101st Division.
Ft. Campbell, KY. 42223.