They’re already being deployed with the male troops, if they can make it through the same kind of training and other requirements as the males why not let them fight with the males?

Because of nature. Women in combat disrupts unit cohesion and kicks in the “must save the woman” mentality in men. So no way. There are many positions for women in the military. The front line is not one of them.

I believe Congress needs to take a step back and rethink this. Define “combat” for me, please? I was stationed in Iraq, as a squadron commander of a unit that is traditionally provides combat service support. Until Iraq, such a unit would have been “behind the lines.” Instead, I found myself in the midst of rocket & mortar fire every day as we did our job of resupplying the force, repairing vehicles, refueling aircraft, moving cargo on/off airplanes, etc. Don’t believe our military or political leaders ever imagined that my type of unit would experience combat. But we did! So…if we take women out of these units, what’s left for them to do in the military? Are we going to tell the Air Force to take their women out of the fighter jets they’re flying? Are more of you guys ready to volunteer to join the military and fill the job vacancies that will be created if women are not allowed to serve in this capacity? I’m proud to say I served in Iraq, and honored to have served side-by-side with 170 superb men and women under my command….and I’m proud to be a wife of a terrific guy and mom to two wonderful kids!

Well,…. if there was a draft and not a volunteer army for the past 30 years there would be enough men to do the jobs. What I hear and ocassionally read is that women who don’t like it there just get pregnant and come home. Men just don’t have the option of getting pregnant and other gender related manipulations that women do. I also hear direct reports that men are constantly faced with accusations of sexual harassment if they challenge female control. My nephew, when he left the Navy told me that women run the armed forces now and I hear that from soldiers I treated last year in private of course. My nephew also told me that prostitution aboard ship was rampant. But being shot at and in bombing zones is not exactly the same as being in actual combat and taking offensive actions in units against direct enemy fire and even the possibility of hand to hand combat. The fact is however, the men are slowly retreating from the armed forces because it has been being feminized for three decades now and is operating as a socialist organization. I think in the future as the armed forces fail, more men will fight as paid mercenaries (where by the way they do all over the world currently) and do things they way they always have in history. Also, the armed forces have the Rangers, Green Berets and Seals for example as all male units with “special training” that take the heaviest risks and casualties. AND YES, the training for males and females is not the same and we will soon see this if and when women actually do go into offensive action units. In addition, males have been conditioned to accept as PC that women can do anything and probably better than them by the media and public school systems. Is it any surprise that enlisting into the probability of getting killed because they are male is not such a high calling any longer because it gains them nothing in terms of respect or opportunity in life. For the past 30 years the military has become a welfare system with uniforms. Now, a protracted war is going to cause many changes. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of US power as some experts predict, or a reforming of the military closer to what it was in WW2, including a draft so that the poor and women looking for personal advancement oppportunities would no longer dominate in a lopsided unrepresentative military. That’s my three cents. – Bye