[tshadow6]

If a female can handle the same equipment load as a male, then let her try it. If the Marines are requiring a 100 pound weight, but the actual combat load is 60 pounds, then some one is cheating. I believe women should be allowed into combat for the simple reason that when women start coming home in body bags, then maybe this country will think twice before sticking our nose into everyone else's business.

[fnfalman]

Originally Posted by tshadow6

If a female can handle the same equipment load as a male, then let her try it. If the Marines are requiring a 100 pound weight, but the actual combat load is 60 pounds, then some one is cheating. I believe women should be allowed into combat for the simple reason that when women start coming home in body bags, then maybe this country will think twice before sticking our nose into everyone else's business.

The Army used to limit the rucksack (or at least unofficially limit) weight to 70-lbs. Mind you, that's rucksack weight. By the time you add your LBE loaded with mags, grenades, knick knacks, weapons, body armor, the load will be around $100. More for mortarmen and machine gun crew or spec op groups that carry even more gadgets.

As far as women coming home in body bags, it already happened.

[BicycleDay43]

Originally Posted by skew12

Could we not look to women cops as an example?

There are many outstanding women cops out there with extremely strong minds. That been said, carrying another human being out of a fire gets a lot more complicated when you add an IBA or IOTV armour system on to you AND the casualty.

Sent from the bridge of an Imperial Star Destroyer

[PBR Sailor]

Equality means just that. Equal standards should be maintained. Standards should not be lowered for either sex or both sexes. Lower standards means lower performance, lower morale and lower respect for the unit.

[Brian Lee]

Originally Posted by TK-421

Sorry ladies, if your body can't handle the abuse, then you wouldn't be able to handle the abuse in the field. If you're not good enough to do the job, the job won't lower itself for you. If your job is to haul 100 pound sacks, the sacks aren't going to magically become 75 pound sacks just because you're a women. Either you can do it, or you can't. If you can do it, awesome, if you can't, you need to find something else to do.

This is exactly what would be said to any 120 pound man who cannot meet the requirements, so in the name of true equality, rather than "pretend" equality, I hope they never lower standards just so women can have (not do) a job more suited for a mans larger body. If we lower the standard for women, then there will surely be a flood of lawsuits from 130 pound men who were previously rejected for military service due to lack of size and strength.

There are better ways to be fair to women.

[Roering]

Originally Posted by PBR Sailor

Equality means just that. Equal standards should be maintained. Standards should not be lowered for either sex or both sexes. Lower standards means lower performance, lower morale and lower respect for the unit.

THIS! And while we are at it, how about having the females meet the same fitness requirements under the APFT.

[TKM]

I'm old and out of shape but I can still haul a 200 lb man up a ladder out of a burning ship.

Down a stairway too. People died in the towers because nobody wanted to do some heavy lifting.

I'm still waiting for Jane Wayne to show up and do the same thing.

[Glockworks]

Originally Posted by tsmo1066

In modern combat, a fight is more often decided by reaction time and hand-eye coordination than by sheer strength. To use your own gambit, should someone call "time out" in a firefight to wait for the slower male soldier with lesser fine motor skills to draw aim and accurately fire at a threat?

Oh I have had enough and must inject some reality here. My personal experience when I was 40 I was trying for a new job. They tested for hand eye coordination with a group of us who were applying, there were 50 in our group, mostly women and some men like me. Every test I came in second, to a guy who appeared to be around 35 or so. I was amazed that none of the women ever beat us as I had heard the mantra that women usually have better hand eye coordination. I'd just retired from the USAF and had always accepted the "fact" that women were naturally better hand eye coordinated, which fell flat when I directly had to compete on terms that neither of us had ever practiced on. I also at the time attributed it to me never having taken illegal drugs or in my case almost no alcohol thus my mind being cleaner than the general population.

Infantry is not PC, you DIE and others DIE if you cannot pull your weight. your life/mission is very important and is generally VERY miserable and it is not a video game, you must carry/hump heavy gear, and not just on flat clear land. I've had friends who were in the 25th Light Infantry while we were in Hawaii who told me of the up and down the slopes they did in the jungles there while carrying there gear (one was the guy with the mortar)and they were just exhausted when they got back. Women as a rule, are not built to withstand that, and this is just to get to the fight, not fight and sustain/win.