Women and combat missions

• Belly35

  

  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/us/2-women-sue-over-armys-combat-ban.html
  
  
  http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120529/NEWS01/205290311/Women-combat-divisive-Miss-
  
  I have mix feeling about this.
  
  Physically if women can do the job and willing to endure the punishment the body encounters on a combat mission …. I’m good with it.
  Emotionally and Mentality is the questionable area. I’m not questioning a women ability to handle the technical demands of being a soldier, it’s the psycho stress of combat death. The ability to detach oneself from the event to perform the duties (of killing) and then the ability to forget the emotional and mental anguish. I am not say that a woman could not do this but I think for some it would be very difficult over a period of time, even good men fall victim to this anguish.
  Another area is the men can they handle the fact that a woman is a combat soldier and set aside their expectations of a women or lack of.
  
  I have three daughters I would be very comfortable if two of them was in my platoon, the other one … no. She would be more of a liability to everyone around her.
  
  I don’t think the military can have a general rule for all women to serve in combat mission this would have to be a process of individual preparedness and volunteering. But here is where the problem come can’t have some women volunteer and others not, that would not be fair for the men not to have that same option. </SPAN>
• jmog

  The biggest concern the military has had for awhile with this is if the men would instinctively go overboard in trying to protect any woman in their platoon even at the expense of the mission.
• thavoice

  As a newbie to the military and not yet had been deployed, but I hope to soon, I cannot give an expert opinion like some but I will chime in anyways.
  While at AIT and at the unit I can say that yeah, I think some women are capable of physically doing the job, but it seems to be just a small percentage of the women that seem to be able to. Just going through the training scenarios and such I can honestly say I would take the worst male soldiers over a vast majority of the female ones.
  Now I understand that if this moves fwd it wouldnt be for every woman to be in combat. I would hope that if they do let it pass that they are extremely selective on whom they allow to do so.