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.

I went in in 1968. At the time most female personnel were either in the WACs, or in the Army Nurse Corps. Aside from the nurses, who were a very brave lot of young ladies in Vietnam, most women were kept well away from front lines

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had no apparent gender bias though. On occasion we encountered indigenous female enemy personnel in the bush, and they were every bit as skilled, lethal, and dangerous as their male counterparts were.

Going back to World War Two, the Russians even had female fighter pilots. Two were even noted aces. I believe one of their top snipers was also female. In fact, most of their snipers were female, and they were certainly deadly and proficient. Many Polish and French women fought very well and bravely in their nations' undergrounds in World War Two. And these are only just a few examples. fight, Women most certainly can fight, and are every bit as capable and proficient as their male counterparts.

Perhaps even more so from a couple of encounters I remember in the the jungle.

Let us not forget Kipling's poem, "The Female of the Species".