Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
After a substantial hiatus from SWC, during which time I spent over 3 years in Afghanistan and 6 additional months in Iraq, living and working mainly outside the wire, and always with females, I am absolutely committed to the concept of ending the exclusion policy.

1. The exclusion policy violates civil rights: I don't care if women cannot qualify, it is frankly anti-American to exclude ONLY on gender.

2. Physical size and strength is hugely over-rated. Our adversaries are tiny people with low strength, but somehow they have kept inside our OODA loop.

https://hotmilkforbreakfast.wordpres...itary-success/

3. Our enemies have figured out that there is a revolution in personal mobility. We've known for decades that light infantry and airborne infantry are pretty worthless on a modern battlefield. As a result, we should be more focused on providing ways to deliver guys with guns and their gear to where they need to go rapidly, not on who can hump 100 pounds 10 miles or not. The net effect of this is that the ability to out think the enemy becomes much more important than the size of one's bicep. Relative female incapability would act as a forcing function in this.

4. Professionalism: Our military suffers most of all from unprofessionalism. MIxed gender cohesive communities and teams have existed throughout history. The reason why SHARP is such a big deal with the US military is that we are still stuck in mass conscripted army mode; what we really need is a smaller, switched on military without "up and out" and the rampant careerism and stupid rotational policies that accompany it. Soldiers too unprofessional to co-exist in a mixed gender unit can be fired or imprisoned, as is appropriate.
Great to have you back. Couldn't disagree more though. Putting "rights" before the mission is one of the many reasons we're 0-2 since Desert Storm.

Good link above, one of the better pro-female integration arguments I've seen. The author makes great points on PPE and endurance over strength. But the whole debate is backwards, because we (or, more likely, the "infantrywomen" advocates) have laid out individual physical ability as the be-all and end-all of the debate. It should really be third, behind cohesion and attrition (injury, pregnancy, and everything in between).

All else aside, I personally don't know how anyone who has led teenaged soldiers/Marines/sailors/airmen from this sex-saturated generation, or even someone who has lived in a college dorm in the last couple decades, could think women in combat arms units is a good idea.