- Joined
- Aug 30, 2019
So the tl;dr is that when the aliens come, we are fucked.Am glad to be long retired. The top brass go along with this stuff because they don't want to piss off Members of Congress who vote to approve or reaffirm promotions/ranks and those plum assignments. Lower down, they pay lip service to these initiatives and assign their worst people as project officers/NCOs.
In my military specialty, you had both men and women doing the job. No problem. Very little likelihood they'd go out into combat. Can somewhat see females in the military police - they can defend themselves in the combat/operational zone. No problem with women as pilots of any military aircraft, fixed or rotary-wing. But don't agree with women in the areas of infantry/armor/artillery. Not that many women who can hump a heavy pack for miles and then fight. Not many women who could maintain a tank in the field. Not that many women who can lug shells to a cannon for hours. Not every man, can, either, for that matter. Have no problem with women serving on surface vessels but not on submarines. Can you imagine the potential for problems with a few women among a crew of 80-100 in a basically closed environment, out for months at a time? Don't envy the sub captain that has to deal with such problems.
The "political" admirals and generals have largely triumphed over the warfighters. If we ever had to fight a world-class opponent that had their shit together, we'd be outgeneraled and outadmiraled quickly. It was sickening a few years back to see a top Army officer name "lactation support" as a top Army priority. Remember seeing a female "paratrooper" many years ago during the last assignment. She was overweight and smoked. Believe standards for special operations types/Rangers have been lowered or gender-normed in order to get females in these jobs. Might have to use nukes, things could get that bad. Saving grace - our most likely world-class opponents, Russia and China, are at least as fucked up as we are, maybe even more.
I mean, provided they don't Independence Day us first.