Lisa Benson for February 01, 2013

Serious question: while in principle I am old fashioned enough to feel totally uncomfortable with women on the front lines, don’t they make smaller targets?Strategically speaking, does a military front line force always need 200 kg bipedal missile launchers?

So women aren´t good enough to be on the front lines with the men now – too “frail” maybe? What exactly is this supposed to show besides being against Obama nomatter what is being done.

The military has physical standards for serving in combat, and if women can meet those standards, they can go in for combat duty.

This should be a no-brainer: It works well in Israel. Forget your theories about why it won’t work, reality says otherwise.

The illustration shows you what Tea Party Benson thinks of women compared to men. I’m surprised the thin little darl’n illustrated didn’t have an apron on so so we understood what Benson point is.As a combat veteran of Vietnam, I assure you that the hunky guys shown are not a universal representation of the men in battle. There were some pretty tough VC women up and down the Ho Che Minn trail too.

…. so we should send all the soldiers who are, say, less than 5’4" home? I guess you you don’t understand maodern combat – most of the strength needed is in the index finger. That and someone who can keep their wits about them in a fire fight.

At present there is no “Front Line” for combat. If you are in Afghanistan, you are in combat.

i am personally embarrassed that the US or any country would send their most precious resource, or mothers, sisters and daughters, to fight and die on foreign soil.

yes, if we’re attacked i would want women to be ablle to defend themselves, but does a women knowing how to disembowel someone w/ a bayonet or shoot someone’s eye out @ 250 years progress women’s or humanitys cause?i offer an old paraphrased quote," let us study debate and detente, so our children may study industry and agriculture, so our children’s children may study literature and the arts."

IF, you were talking about the actual defense of the USA itself, then you are totally correct. Those 99 pound women (and in some cases men) have actually had to fight in direct combat defending this actual American ground since the American Revolutionary War itself. When those British soldiers (or worse Hessian mercenaries) attacked an American Homestead by breaking in the door, I am certain that they met many an American woman with either a rifle or at least a hand gun in their steady hands.* * *

But, the last time that happened in any reasonable capacity was the Civil War, and even then it was our own people attacking our own people. What is now being talked about (and proposed by a military that evidently is running out of fighting men) is having women in direct combat wars where we are the attackers ourselves (regardless of how we supposedly justify ourselves, that is how the people in these other countries see us).

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So, do we now want potential wives and mothers (and worse actual wives and mothers) directly involved in the true horrors of actual front line combat. And then coming home (if they came home at all) injured, maimed, and with their minds even heavily affected (or down right destroyed) by such as PTSD? Is it not bad enough that we are doing this to our young men?

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Sorry, but this particular sometimes moderate liberal or conservative, depending on the particular issue, says no!!

Pound for Pound, male muscle tissue is stronger than female muscle tissue. It’s because male muscle tissue is more coarse, where female muscle tissue is more supple.

The right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon.

Way to be on topic Stray. Go troll somewhere else.

The “average” American male is 5’8", tall for much of the world. I know quite a few women 5’10" and over (like my daughter) who ARE “above average”, and can handle physical, emotional, and stress situations MUCH better than that “average” American male might. It isn’t likely that a “shrinking violet” under five foot female is likely to volunteer for infantry, or combat arms, but I also learned in combat and law enforcement, that the “big guys” weren’t the ones to watch closely, rather it was the “little guy” who might know (or think he knows) something you don’t about taking care of himself, and YOU!

I remember a scene from a movie a long time ago "How The West was Won’ where a young Confederate soldier told his counterpart Yankee soldier the great truth of actual combat,

“Thar ain’t much glory in looking at a man with his guts hanging out!”

* * *The truth of this statement was even more brought out by a more recent movie in the first fifteen minutes or so of “Saving Private Ryan”

Many of our WWII soldiers that were actually on Omaha Beach long ago stated that the portrayal of those horrifying minutes was the most truthful to that actual combat that they had seen since actually being there themselves. Once again, men with their guts hanging out desperately trying to stuff their bleeding innards back into their mutilated bodies. I have no doubt whatever that such scenes are even now being repeated in our own time by our own young men when they are attacked by such terrible weapons as IED’s. And then such nightmarish scenes are repeated again and again by these young men as they try to deal with the added horror of PTSD!!

* * *I have no doubt that young American women have had to experience these types of things in combat also. But NOT as an actual policy of our military. I also have no doubt that many of our young women are as capable of combat as our young men, but that is NOT the real question here. It is NOT have they, of can they, but SHOULD they be deliberately placed into this kind of position?* * *

Is it not bad enough that men have to go through this kind of horror? Do we really want to place future (or God help us, present) wives and even mothers into this kind of thing?

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I will probably be castigated here from those on both side of the political spectrum. but this somewhat old fashioned left over 1960’s technological hippy says NO!!!!

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