Anon

"HHC 1st Engineer Battlion, Ist Infantry division.

Im a track mechanic."

Proud unit with a proud history. Ever seen the movie?

lemontree

Don't feel offended. This is one field where even the weak men are frowned upon, so it will take time for men to accept it, and for women to accept their own limitations.

Why should it be traumatic? On the contrary the experience should be a crucible where your character and outlook towards life gets moulded.
Please do elaborate, as to what did you find traumatic.

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Ray

Well this old fart didn't dance to their tune, though got up when they came in.

I ensured they came in before me and they got up instead.

I made them stand in the queue as per the pecking order suring buffets even though the General wanted the women to have the food first.

I told them to get back in the line for the buffet.

I told her and the General (as the Genral too had), that I have travelled a long way to get the drumstick of the chicken having graduated from just smelling the curry, having the neck and so on and so forth as I get senior in rank. These dames had to learn the same way.

Then there was this lady doctor, who complained during the Kargil war that the bathing facility for her was such that the men could see her nude. I told her that she wa such a 'beauty' that that is what was delaying the capture of the Kargil heights! I adviced her to bathe with her clothes on or not bathe at all. It would not be even noticed that she has not had a bath. She was anyway as pretty as Godzilla.

Was I rude? Maybe. If you want equal opprtunties, you must also have the equal amount of hardship and deprivation! Or just don't join. The Army is not a social service for unemployed women!

These women in the Army drive me mad.

lemontree

Thats good sir. I mentioned this, 'coz the 1st and 2nd course that passed out were given preferential treatment. These girls had staff cars picking then up from stations when they first arrived at their locations.
The only time I got the drumstick, was during dining-in and dining-out, or other rare occasions when the mess waiter was partial towards me (happened only after 3 yrs of service).
One lady officer from the 1st course has already created a reputation of sorts.

Ray

Lemon,

When you join the Army, you are not joining a Boys Scout Camp.

Therefore, the women must bone up about the 'horrible' life they will ahve to face.

Take it or leave it.

Remember the latest stink about some woman wanting to join the Army and she said for her medical exam she would only allow a woman doctor and that the Army better get one. She went to the Supreme Court!

I remember during my cadet days in the NDA where there was a civilian lady doctor (a young girl) who examined me and I was very uncomfortable.

The same doctor whose name was Miss Ranji was examining a wierdo Cadet (like Lull, no offence. I mean brazen and damn the world attitude) called Janji (famous guy for these crazy tricks even after he joined the Army; he got a senior to land him by helicopter on the Regimental Centre Parade Ground int ose days when helicopters were rare! he ahd trhe Commandant running to 'receive' the VIP since he knew only a VIP landed that way!)

For examination by Miss Ranji, he just took off all his clothes and said "Miss Ranji, I am Jhanji, a full medical check up of me would do good for you!".

He got relegated!

Ray

Lemon,

When you join the Army, you are not joining a Boys Scout Camp.

Therefore, the women must bone up about the 'horrible' life they will ahve to face.

Take it or leave it.

Remember the latest stink about some woman wanting to join the Army and she said for her medical exam she would only allow a woman doctor and that the Army better get one. She went to the Supreme Court! As if women doctors are a dime to a dozen!

I remember during my cadet days in the NDA where there was a civilian lady doctor (a young girl) who examined me and I was very uncomfortable.

The same doctor whose name was Miss Ranji was examining a wierdo Cadet (like Lull, no offence. I mean brazen and damn the world attitude) called Janji (famous guy for these crazy tricks even after he joined the Army; he got a senior to land him by helicopter on the Regimental Centre Parade Ground in those days when helicopters were rare! he ahd trhe Commandant running to 'receive' the VIP since he knew only a VIP landed that way!)

For examination by Miss Ranji, he just took off all his clothes and said "Miss Ranji, I am Jhanji, a full medical check up of me would do good for you!".

He got relegated!

lemontree

I know sir, stupid girl. Did'nt she know that most of the gynacs in the Army are male. All OR and Officers wifes don't seem to have a problem with male gynacs.
She must have freaked out

These girls don't seem to know what Jat and Sikh troops are like. I always wondered how they handled their 'batmen'/'orderlies.

Anon

"Take it or leave it."

Yeah, well, that's not how they want it.

They want to take it on their terms, not the military's.

Bluesman

You're generalizing again. And you're wrong as often as you're right, so think about what you post, please.

Lt. Bluesman is everything you'd want in a commissioned officer, bubba. Don't disrespect her with these kinds of negative general statements, and I won't have to lower my high opinion of you. Deal?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Ray

Bluesman,

There are many fine women soldiers and officers. The comment is not for such excellent people with whom I would go to war, shoulder to shoulder.

It is about the chumps who want special treatment for their gender.

There are women paratroopers, doctors, nurses, service support officers in our Army and they are tough and face all the rigours of soldiering. Obviously such fine souls are a great inspiration to all.

I am sure your good lady must be a fine and excellent officer and a soldier. No disrepect meant for her type.

Leader

I'm really not qualified to talk about this topic since I'm not in the military, but here's someone who is:

http://rebelrouser.net/v-web/b2/index.php?p=79&c=1

__________________

Anon

For every Lt. Bluesman there are a dozen slackers with boobies bro. I have a female reservist that fits the description working for me currently(in an increasingly diminishing role i might add).

Now where is the innacuracy in me stating that the women didn't join on the terms of the military, but under politically motivated reduced physical standards?

The women don't even do 'mens' pushups. In fact, i dont even know how they call what they do 'pushups' at all.
Their run times are slower, their sit-up requirements are lower, their expected field performance is lower, and they have their own dress code so they can still look pretty(as if that is of any importance whatsoever in a soldier). If a male soldier needs to have a buzz cut so should a woman. If a male soldier is required to have neatly trimmed unpainted fingernails, so should a woman(again, because sculpted and manicured nails are very important for a soldier).

When Shannon Faulkner forced her way into the citidel under the men's standards she didn't even last a semester.

Then you've got that feminazi McPeak that wants to buck every regulation she sees fit to make a feminist political statement. Like showing up at press-conferences in men's headgear after she was ordered to refrain from wearing the male headgear. And yet she skates on by because the brass is afraid to 'persecute' her. Meanwhile the community she came from(A-10s) despises her.

Frankly, it sickens me.

You're making the assumption that i'm laying out a 100% blanket statement when i'm making a general observation.

You and me both know that there are women(and oh yeah, men too) that have no business even being in uniform because they flat can't/won't do the job.

I've already stated all this stuff earlier in this thread. If you were gonna be mad at me Top it should've been last week.

I'm not gonna change my views just because an E-8 leaned on me a little...that would make me a pusssy.

But, i have met excellent female soldiers, and i have no reason to doubt you when you say your better half is among them.

Bluesman

Alright, Sniper, fair enough, but you made what I took to be a blanket statement. Did I get you wrong? If so, okay, but it reads...
...like you meant 'ALL women'.

I was calling you on that, not on an undisputably true statement that SOME women aren't worth their pay.

You made no distinction; you said 'they', and it appears you meant 'women'. I didn't read that as 'some women'. Perhaps I took your meaning wrong.

You're from combat arms, and it's true that most women have no business trying to make it in that world, because even if they COULD, it's bad for those kinds of organizations.

But you are completely outside your realm of knowledge when you state that they have no business in the military, as I believe you have before. I've been served by too many truly excellent female subordinates during my time in; I serve with several right now. They are vital, and that's a voice of much superior experience telling you that. In intelligence - especially in the field of linguistics, with its rather uncompromising demands in recruiting and keeping VERY rare assets - they're irreplaceable. Literally.

Finally, I say all this in a friendly voice. We are on good terms, and I want to keep it like that. I'm not leaning on you, mate, because I have no leverage on you to do so, and it wouldn't be friendly if I did. But you absolutely CAN NOT make aspersions about my wife and her worth to our beloved Air Force. If she weren't worth her pay, I would've insisted that she go make a pile o' money on the outside, and as Johns Hopkins' top grad last year, you can bet she could get it.

But she wanted to serve her country more than she wants to serve herself, and she's capable of doing that. VERY capable.

Now, that's more like it. I know the feelings run deep about this subject. I know that some females like to trade on their sex...but some don't, and you know some, as you said yourself. So I guess we're really only disagreeing on the extent of the 'female issue': whether the ratio of bad to good really is 12 to 1 (your hyperbolic point), or possibly closer to my assertion that it's worth it to the military to have females (as long as it isn't pushed to the ridiculous extreme of having women infantry, and stoopid thangs like that - a point neither I nor Lt. Bluesman never would try to make or defend).

Veni Vidi Vici

Like Bluesman said, one cannot be so general. Although I will say that if I was the person on scene who had to take her complaint/whining I would have laughed her ass out of the Army.

__________________
"Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS…" -- Thomas Paine

Anon

I don't know what % to put on it(women who are unfit), because i'd only be making a guess anyway. Likewise, i couldn't put a % figure on the men that are unfit either...but there are both varieties.

In my limited experience i'd take a wild guess and say 40% of the women i had contact with completely lacked in what to me was always the most important thing- combat soldiering skills.

Being a great typist(or whatever) may make you a great clerk, but it's really got nothing to do with being a good soldier.

See, what we've forgotten(because it'd been so long) is that if the enemy gets in your rear areas the people behind the FEBA better know how to fight.

We certainly learned that at the battle of the bulge, and we certainly learned that numerous times in Vietnam...yet we now have seemingly completely forgotten.

I blame the Army more than anyone for the low standards of not just women...but REMFs(and even the front line troops to a lesser extent) in general. They(REMFs) are so poorly trained at the most important of soldiering skills(shooting, moving, navigating, roadmarching, etc), and fire their weapons so infrequently that expecting them to be anything more than a speedbump once an enemy gets into the rear would be hopeless optimism.

We saw this when the maintenance co(whose unit number escapes me at the moment- i think it was the 505th?) was overrun during OIF. The soldiers were poorly trained and were unable to mount ANY coordinated defense, no one was able to call in air or arty- cause no one knew how, no one was able to figure out just how lost they'd gotten(and they were WAY lost) cause none of them could navigate, and they'd all oiled their rifles- which is nigh on stupidity in a desert environment(either use teflon or nothing at all), so that even for the few individuals who tried to defend the perimeter once they were ambushed had to do so with single-shot M-16s, causing an entire US unit to be lost for the first time in over 30 years.

I believe that most soldiers- male and female- will slack down to the minimum expected standards. It's human nature. But that can be combatted by the chain of command by installing, and enforcing, tough physical, mental, and performance standards.

I'll never forget the day a 2Lt foolishly attempted to dress me down at the range i was instructing at for getting in the faces of his female troops- none of whom could've shot their way out of a paper bag. One of the girls started to cry while i was berating the lot of them, so in pre rampant PC NCOese' i told her to "Get the fucck off my range".
So she ran to her REMF Lt who took it upon himself to usurp the chain of command(just as his pvt. did) and come and get in my face without coordinating through the range NCOIC.

He thought he could intimidate a lowly corporal into treating his girls 'nice', and i told him that if he went into combat with his piss-poor excuses for soldiers that he'd be putting a toe tag on every last one of them before the first day was out...and that i blamed HIM for their sorry state.

It starts at the top...