When I was going through Basic Training back in '88- men and women trained completely seprately. When I got to advanced training though- there were women soldiers training alongside the men (a recent development at the time IIRC). The first thing we did upon arrival was that everyone had to line up to get vaccinations. Now these are not needle shots. The army uses an airgun that uses a blast of pressurized air to shoot the vaccines into your arm. It's fast and they could use the same air gun on every soldier. It hurt like a mofo. Every men who went through grimaced or groaned. 1 or 2 passed out actually. Those of us who just went through sat there and wached others go through it for the entertainment value. After the men were through it was the women's turn. All the men were sitting there waiting to have a good laugh at the women 's expense. Guess what- to the very last woman- not even one of them so much as twitched her lip. The men were very quiet after that.

Later on during the training- I certainly saw plenty of women bitch and moan when they were pushed to do push-ups or running or marching. So they were certainly not above complaining. But what I learned that day is that women simply have a higher tolerance for pain than men. Just for that reason alone I would say women deserve a place in combat roles as women.