So, I am sitting over breakfast having a conversation with my Man-Friend, who has spent some time in SOF and has also served in overseas and fought in Afghanistan.  He is retired now, and is playing games on the new iPad I got him for Christmas while we eat breakfast.

Me:  Did you see the news this morning?

Him:  Yep. (he is a man of many words when he wants to be)

Me:  (wincing) What did you think of that decision by the SecDef  (I try to talk his language sometimes, he thinks its cute)

Him:  Well, I can tell you straight up that he doesn’t know shit about combat, or women, or anything more aggressive than a stuffed teddy bear fight, because if he cared about this country, or the US military, he wouldn’t let broads be anywhere near combat.

Me:  (F’!!!  I hate that word BROADS!)  (Wincing again) Besides you being a man, what makes you say that baby?

Now, at this point, I should probably point out that this was probably where it went all wrong that morning, but for the sake of the argument, I will keep the relationship stuff out of this and just focus on the parts of the argument he made, which, as much as I hate to admit as a woman, who tries to keep my veejay out of the argument, made a ton of sense.  He can be a bit vulgar, and I have removed some of the swear words, but in order to get his points across, I left some of the less offensive stuff in there…

Him:  (takes a deep breath)   Babe, the experience of combat is unique to each individual soldier, and is based upon distance, time and location in the war zone; as well as what jobs they work in and where they spend their time.  The fighting may be close or far, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is still combat.  I can definitively say that the experience of a helicopter pilot flying close air support missions for me while the bullets were snapping around me or the artilleryman firing on distant targets that I have marked for him will be different than the experience of the guy on the ground receiving that support who is in the heat of the fight.

You only have to have 3 working brain cells, and the libs are running short already, to know that the nature of warfare has changed. The big set piece battles of maneuvering armies and massive invasions using combined arms are becoming a thing of the past.  Soldiers are now fighting what we in the military like to call the “3 Block War” and the result of this change in doctrine is that many occupations, such as human intelligence specialists, mechanics, military police and a whole host of MOS’s now find themselves in positions and situations that involve actual ground combat of some kind; such as fighting through an ambush or supporting operations taking place under direct enemy fire.  Women are serving in these roles in every service that in wars past were  previously reserved for men.  We have women flying attack helicopters in close air support missions supporting troops fighting on the ground, flying fighter jets and gunships in support of firebases under attack, returning fire and shooting the enemy while escorting convoys, patrolling with male infantry soldiers in order to gather intelligence, providing medical support on FOBs, conducting civil affairs missions, and leading engineer units in building infrastructure for local villages and at firebases far forward on the battlefield.  I have observed directly the fine work they have done to support me and they were an integral part of my efforts to accomplish my mission.  

But baby, you and I both know that those facts and those good works and great efforts do not change the reality of the nature of how combat, particularly infantry combat, has not changed in 2,000 years of warfare.  I can tell you from personal experience that Infantry Combat continues to involve, especially in the War on Terror, closing the distance with these crap-weasels and brutally killing them.

I will say that at this point, this is uncharted territory for our relationship, because he has never been specific about what he did overseas during any of his deployments and truly, I would really never want to know that side of him unless he was fighting off a home invasion by meth-heads or saving me from zombies….

Him:  (Continues)  Soldiers in the infantry, Special Operations, Armor and Cavalry still must, despite all of the advances and developments in technology, still have to move on the battlefield to a place where they can close within range of their weapon systems and engage their enemies with fire, maneuver and shock effect.  In order to dislodge their enemies from cities and villages, we sometimes close to within “bad breath” distance and are fighting hand to hand.  Infantry Soldiers still carry the same approximate weight load into battle that their comrades in the Roman Legions did, which averages about 60 pounds.  When we used to go on missions, my average gear load weighed 65 pounds, sometimes I carried 95 pounds of gear on my body if we were hitting a hard target and expected more resistance.  Artillerymen, for example, who once used wagons and horses to move about the battlefield, are now using vehicles to move powder and ammunition on the battlefield, but that ammunition and powder is larger and heavier than in any other time in history; and it is still loaded, moved and fired using hands and muscles.  Armor and Cavalry soldiers must move their ammunition by hand in order to load their tanks and vehicles and even the most basic maintenance on those vehicles is extremely labor intensive and involves the use of body, strength and leverage.  Special Forces soldiers especially, when we conduct missions far into enemy territory, we must take all of their equipment with us in rucksacks that at times are unbearably heavy.  Bottom line baby; Infantry combat is hard, dirty, bloody, murderous, and physically demanding.  It takes a terrible toll physically and mentally on men and they are never the same after taking part in it.

The part of this that I want you to understand is not that I don’t believe that women aren’t capable of being good warriors.  Hell!  one of the Apache pilots in country when I was there drove a Hell-Fire missile into a cave and had 73 confirmed kills from it.  They have proven their worth and this is not, as those retarded imbeciles in the ACLU believe, a question of the denial of some measure of full citizenship for female soldiers serving in the US Army, as say the denial of the right to vote in elections would be or to own property.  This isn’t a zero sum game in which if male soldiers are being promoted because they have combat experience, that some female soldiers without that experience are not. So you know, soldiers in the US Army, all soldiers, do not compete against other soldiers across the entire Army for promotion.  Soldiers in the US Army compete with other soldiers in the Military Occupational Specialties they have chosen for promotion, so for example baby; Male Infantry soldiers compete against other Male Infantry soldiers for promotion.  Female helicopter mechanics do not compete against male infantry soldiers for promotions or preferred assignments in the Army.  Female soldiers can transition to other career fields that will undoubtedly place them in combat situations like I said before like Military Police soldiers escorting convoys and protecting generals or Human Intelligence specialists and Counter-Intelligence working alongside us when I was deployed and other line combat units.

And not every man that signs up can be assigned to combat arms, especially the Infantry or Special Forces.  To be accepted into those branches, you have to meet standards that are higher than basic US Army standards.  There are dudes out there who are dirtbags and cannot make the grade physically of not only US Army Standards, but also for what is expected of them to maintain the standards of the combat units they could be assigned to. Those jackwagons get sent packing because we know, and the unit knows that they won’t be able to do the things that save my life in a firefight.

And this is not something that the ACLU can get injunctive relief for, The Supreme Court cannot rule on, the US Army cannot regulate nor can the US Congress legislate; and here it is baby

…and that is the fact that men and women are created differently.  No matter how many times the libtards try to tell us that your plumbing is the same as mine, just that it is on the inside, that don’t make it so.

OK, by this time, I am filling his coffee cup again (and mine too, because I was up, not because it was my job or anything…) but like I said, I have always tried to keep my vajay-jay out of it.  It isn’t a poncho so I always argue the relevance of it.  He starts furiously typing away on his iPad and when I hand him his coffee, he hands it to me with this page from Wikipedia…

Males weigh about 15 percent more on average than females and they are on average, taller as well.  Males are physically stronger than females. The difference is due to females having less total muscle mass than males, and also having lower muscle mass in comparison to total body mass. Males are stronger than females when adjusting for differences in total body mass. While individual muscle fibers have similar strength, males have more fibers due to their greater total muscle mass. The greater muscle mass of males is in turn due to a greater capacity for muscular hypertrophy as a result of men’s higher levels of testosterone.  Males have denser, stronger bones, tendon and ligaments.  Male and female pelvises are shaped differently.  The female pelvis has a wider pelvic cavity which is necessary for giving birth.  Male pelvises did not evolve to give birth and are more optimized for walking.  Males typically have larger trachae and branching bronchi with about 56% greater lung volume per body mass.  They also have larger hearts, 10% higher red blood cell count, and higher haemoglobin which allows for greater oxygen-carrying capacity. They also have higher circulating clotting factors (vitamin K, prothrombin and platelets). These differences lead to faster healing of wounds and higher peripheral pain tolerance. 

OK, Yeah, I know I am physically inferior, my “girls” get in the way sometimes when I am doing physical things and I can get emotional and tired; but I am trying hard to be neutral on this, because I really think that as a conservative woman, who thinks that opportunities for women are important, I must have SOMETHING to offer, or at least some other girl who is in much better shape than me whose emotions and breast tissue are a bit more under control.

This is something, try as every libturd might, cannot be wished away.   Because, as I was sayin’, there are dirtbags right now that cannot meet the standards to be in the combat arms and these are men, who despite being dirtbags, have dense bones, good lung capacity, and good red blood cell counts that make them stronger on average then women. The machine guns we pack around, mortar system base plates strapped to our rucks, the ammunition that goes with them, the rucksacks themselves and the rifles are not going to suddenly become easier to pack, carry or maneuver because SecDef  says that the ban on women serving in the combat arms branches is lifted.

And this is about standards and what it takes to fight and win the nation’s wars,   In the heat of battle, when we are locked in the fight to the death in the last hundred yards of territory, my physical strength and my size will allow me to carry heavy loads of ammunition hour after hour, up mountains and through cities without injury.  I have thicker bones, and bigger muscles and the ability to carry heavier loads greater distances than any female Olympic athlete, triathlon competitor, or farm girl.  And that ability  to have that with my physical size and strength will truly mean life or death; not only for me, but for my friends.  Me having stronger ligaments and tendons means less possibility of  non-combat injuries before encountering enemy forces.  Hand to hand fighting requires physical strength and muscle mass that absolutely will mean life or death not only for me, but for my friends fighting alongside. The small unit battles that are becoming the norm on the battlefield will be won by strong men with muscles who are closing with their enemies and destroying them, most of the time with rifles and machine-guns, but sometimes they will have to do this with knives, fists, feet, hands, clubs, rocks or whatever they can lay their hands on. Ask the Soldiers and Marines who fought insurgents in the city of Fallujah how close, dirty and violent Infantry combat can be.   Those libturds should sit down with British Soldiers who fixed bayonets and fought house to house in Basra and ask them about the degree of physical difficulty and bloody violence their job involves. And then after listening to them, they could explain their theories on how gender-norming the standards and allowing women with less physical strength, but who are really better at communicating than men should be assigned to units that conduct combat missions to kill or capture our enemies because it’s a great idea whose time has come.

Damn…  The communication card.   But I do talk more than he does, but that probably wouldn’t be helpful in sorting out the kinds of conflicts he has dealt with.  He has a good point.

So you know, I know I haven’t talked about this, because it is boring as hell, and it ain’t like we would be talking about this over dinner or anything, but there are US Army regulations that require theater commanders to provide Female soldiers in combat theaters specific kinds of medical and life support.  There are OBGYN needs that the US Army is required to provide for and female soldiers have specific housing requirements that must be met.  I will tell you that living on a Combat outpost or remote fire-base makes providing these kinds of support impossible.   The idea behind small firebases and combat outposts where small footprints and close living situations are the norm is so that units can function to the highest degree possible with the smallest footprint.  

And now we are going to be putting 18-25 year old men in the company of 18-25 year old women.  What do you think is going to happen?  Do you think that they are going to be concentrating putting rounds downrange or poon-tang?  How is this going to work?  I mean, between this and the DADT, when the hell is a combat unit leader going to be able to concentrate on his damn job instead of  spending more time being forced to worry about who is boinking who instead of killing the enemy?  I mean is it going to be “OK, Helmet?  Check.  Grenades? Check.  Ammo? Check.  Birth Control pills?  Which day was I on again?

I know he feels passionately about this, because he has dedicated most of his adult life to making sure that I can sleep well and live free and he feels like they are taking the last thing he had that was really “his” away.   This is one of the reasons I love him so much.

He tied it all together at the end.

Him:  Baby, the number one mission of  the Military is to fight and win the nations wars.   Anything that takes away from that not only weakens our freedom, it affects our society. Dropping the ban on women serving in the Combat Arms for which they are not physically qualified weakens our forces.  Saying that we as a society measure full citizenship by allowing the equal opportunity to both men and women who volunteer for military service to plunge a bayonet into the torso of an enemy soldier while fighting to clear an assigned sector of the enemy during war is a poor measure of what it means to be a citizen.  Furthermore, our military is large enough that women seeking to advance don’t have to have infantry combat experience to advance to higher rank or receive preferred assignments.  

The bottom line, bottom dollar, soup to nuts, down and dirty, stone cold reality is that like it or not, men who have bigger muscles, thicker bones, and generally nastier dispositions; who are trained and hardened up in these combat units throughout the US Military are the people to get this nasty, dirty, bloody, foul, thankless and dangerous work of fighting and winning the nation’s wars done.  We as a society have to decide what the assignment of women to these jobs means and how it will affect readiness. The fields that involve direct ground combat as the main part of their mission are the tip of the spear of our military and the fact remains that women were denied entry to these career fields not only because the law did not allow it but because, as a group and by percentages, they do not possess the requisite physical skills, mental toughness, physical stamina or keen steely eyed resolve to be successful on the battlefield as a combat arms soldier.

And call me old fashioned, but I thought I signed up and fought so that women wouldn’t have to fight.  I would rather you not have to crush yourself physically to be able to do what I do as normal and I am not afraid to say that I like things a bit more traditional.  I wouldn’t wish on you the things I have had to see and do in 14 lifetimes during my military career.

That was a reasoned intelligent argument, and that last part got me.  Thanks for your service to our country baby.  I don’t think I could have said why this is a bad idea any better myself.