Draft Chicks!

Never Yet Melted  Why Republicans Were Suggesting Women Should Register For the Draft:

Many – I want to say most – men cannot handle the rigors of combat arms jobs, and it is reflected in the wash out rates just in the infantry. The two things the flurry of studies before this stroke-of-a-pen change have proven about women in combat arms are: if the president says women shall graduate Ranger school, then farking wimmin shall farking graduate farking Ranger school, and the standards shall be de facto lowered.

Oh, yeah?

You've been there?

I've between 145 and 125 pounds while I was in the Army, and I was an Infantry platoon sgt.

If the criteria was "could I have carried a wounded man" while I was in Viet Nam, the answer is NO, I could not have done so.

But I did my job, and I never had to carry a wounded man out of a combat situation.  I worked hard to ensure than my men were not needlessly subjected to the vagaries of war .. including wound.

No, I was not always able to protect them from wounds; the few men wounded under my guidance never noticed the balance I had to achieve between caution and aggression.

  No, it was not always an easy job, and no, the troops usually never noticed, let alone acknowledged, the things their Platoon Sergeant did to keep them alive.

If you think that a 125 woman could not have performed her job in the same situation, you're just crazy.  The job of a trooper may be more physical than that of a leader, but competence in a lesser role causes a member to be promoted to a leader role.  
Which is very much more complicated and onerous, but requires less PHYSICAL contribution to the mission.   (Which is why I don't think that Women should be 'shielded' from the Combat branches of the military .. such as Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry.

(Okay, Artillery has to do mostly with toting heavy shells to the gun; that specifically requires "upper Body Strength", which is gender-specific)



BUT IN THE INFANTRY:

The job of a leader is to lead.  Not carry wounded men.  We wanted to avoid "wounded men", not rescue them.

When ignorant people (that would be YOU!) arbitrarily define qualifications for combat infantrymen based on undefined criteria, you always come up short.

It's like trying to define who should or should not be allowed to own a gun; you are bloviating out your ass, because you have an opinion but you don't know what a gun .. or a MAN .. really is.

Why don't you just admit that you don't know what the HELL you're talking about, and fade quietly into the background?

Most men .. and I suggest that many WOMEN .. when put into a combat situation, will do just fine.  Because it's a rare day when they find themselves required to (all by themselves) carry a wounded man out of free-fire zone.

Personally?
I always called for a dust-off.  The helicopter boys put the injured man in the chopper.  That was never My Job.

MY JOB was always to protect my men, perform the tactical mission defined by my officer, assign each job to the best qualified man in my platoon, and ensure that he did HIS job.  Nothing more, nothing less ... that's what Sergeants do.

People who assert that women are incapable of doing the same job ... have never done The Job.  

The role of the NCO is to care for his troops, accomplish the mission, and assign the best man for the specific job.

The role of the platoon leader (a commissioned officer) is to define the mission, and specify the azimuth & pace-count necessary to move the unit to the assigned mission.  The NCO makes sure that the azimuth and pace count are accurate ... at which time he informs the Offcer that "Hey, Dude .. We're Here!"

Neither role is gender-specific; although I do admit that the officer (a 1st or 2nd Lieutenant, at the Platoon level) is probably so reliant on the experience and expertise of the Platoon Sgt. that he can only say "get us to the rally point" and the Sergeant is responsible for carrying out that order ..in a timely fashion, accurately, and (usually) tell the Platoon Leader officer when we get there.