This article compares apples to oranges.

The woman that brought down the major was a police officer....which would be an MP in the US Army. Women are allowed to be MPs. It's a completely different job than infantry. I see that many women on these posts will say that women can fight in the infantry just as well as men can.....I'm sure you will see that many of these women are NOT in the military. They haven't and never will go through military training. I am a woman in the US Army and have seen MANY women end up having problems with their hips (myself included) because of the training (i.e ruck marches with all the gear, etc, etc) AND THAT'S NOT INFANTRY TRAINING! That is from Basic Soldiership Training!

Does any woman believe that they can carry a 150 lb ruck through the mountains of Afghanistan for 4 MONTHS?! I don't think so and if they do believe so, they need to strap on the basic fighting load and try to get through a 12 mile ruck march first! It's not as easy as one might believe! Lets see what they say after they have accomplished that!

ASIDE FROM THAT, a woman needs more showers than a man to keep her body healthy! A man can go much longer than a woman can in the field with no shower.....a woman with no shower ends up having yeast infections, urinary tract infections, etc.....

I take my hats off for men that want to do the 11B job because it's a hard job that I'm not willing to do (nor can my body handle)....but, somebody's got to do it!

Quite. Saletan seems to think that because this crime occurred on an Army base it's therefore military combat. It's not. I've got (male) friends who went in to the Army, they loved the idea of the physicality, the weapons, the whole idea of combat and killing... I've yet to meet a single female in my whole life who thinks like that. Maybe some do, I don't know, and maybe some of those could carry it through, but hen as the OP points out there are some physical limitations to living in a ditch for a week then running miles with your own body weight on your back...

Plus, the kind of guys who go in to the Army aren't generally the kind of guys who are all for women's equality, never mind taking orders from a girl about how to fight. Really. This is just the reality.

USAgirl: "ASIDE FROM THAT, a woman needs more showers than a man to keep her body healthy! A man can go much longer than a woman can in the field with no shower.....a woman with no shower ends up having yeast infections, urinary tract infections, etc....."

Where did you get this weird idea? A yeast infection is the result of an imbalance between the yeast and the friendly bacteria that are always in our bodies. Then there are specific yeast infection you can get from having sex with a man who is carrier, so that's a sexually transmitted disease. It's not connected with taking or not taking showers. As for urinary tract infections, you can keep clean with a mere half cupful of water, as long as you don't have sex...... The same goes for men who can also get yeast infections and urinary tract infections.

The first post completely hit the mark. Women can, and do, do a fine job at anything they put their mind to. While there are most likely women that could handle the stress the phyisicality places on there bodies, I don't think the female reproductive system could handle sustained combat operations. People will be quick to toss around the laudable accomplishments of women in our present conflicts, and the contribution of women to Russian resistance fighters like the ones in the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Viet Cong. These people where not fighting in sustained combat. They fight where they live or, in our case, go out on missions for a few days and then return to their homes. I know that when I was in the invasion of Iraq, I was without sanitary facilitys for 28 days, and 15 of those where in a MOP suit.

And while I can see where your coming from in your first paragraph, the idea that the men that go into the Army wouldn't like women being in command is slightly ridicules. That would all change once a female presence increased, the sensitivity towards it would decrease. All MOS's that have been fully intigrated with female command staff. Keep in mind this is coming from a former Marine 0311, which is the main Infantry MOS in the Marine Corps.

thatdamngoat:

I don't think the female reproductive system could handle sustained combat operations.

What in the name of honeybaked hell . . . .?????? Care to cite to a reliable medical journal for evidence to support that proposition? What is this, the 1890's?

uaskigyrl:

...

ASIDE FROM THAT, a woman needs more showers than a man to keep her body healthy! A man can go much longer than a woman can in the field with no shower.....a woman with no shower ends up having yeast infections, urinary tract infections, etc.....

....

Huh? A daily shower is actually a fairly recent invention of the industrialized nations. Thoughout most of human history people were lucky to get 2 baths a month.

C-Tips:

...Plus, the kind of guys who go in to the Army aren't generally the kind of guys who are all for women's equality, never mind taking orders from a girl about how to fight. Really. This is just the reality.

That's the sort of argument they used to use to bar blacks from becoming officers.

I actually did report to a female supervisor for a good part of my time in the military. I guess I just live in a different reality than you.