LRRPF52 Wrote:...We didn’t take the bait, and waited until the better part of the Wehrmacht had expended its combat power and men on the Russian front, then we entered the ETO. We of course had the whole Pacific Theater to deal with, which escapes a lot of Euro-centric critics who like to take swings at the US for “not entering early enough”...

cory Wrote:Not to distract from the conversation, but it's worth mentioning. Looking at the data it appears that our children being born today will very likely live in a time where one of their greatest problems is not over population, but a collapsing population.

Check out this Rogan podcast with Peter Zelhan. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's interesting none the less.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/406fOiiKMU0ot5AS1AIwve?si=c7cbb767a076497e

cory Wrote:My wife is Russian and got a history (and English) undergrad degree there before she immigrated here. This is almost word for word what I say to her when I want to pick a fight. haha They're a proud people. Our society could learn a thing or two from them when it comes to their admiration and appreciation for their country and their history. Even if their history is littered with propaganda.

Thanks for the welcome back man.

cory Wrote:I don't agree with everything he says, but it's interesting none the less.

• Females are physically weaker, on average. Male upper body strength and testosterone. Skeletal differences are scientific fact; males wider shoulders, females wider hips. Guess what? All those movies these days with Angelina Jolie kicking the asses of 220-lb linebackers? That’s pure Hollywood fiction, in case you don’t know.
  
• Females are emotionally weaker, on average. It’s a stereotype cuz it’s true. War can break the strongest of men at times. Women, on average, aren’t wired for intense stress of combat. I’ve seen women break down and cry at work cuz of a stressful business situation. Yeah, I know you’re an ice-cold bad bitch drill instructor who can yell in the faces of your male recruits when you get a hot shower and three square meals every day and men need to respect your chain of command for the sake of their careers. But real war is a different kind of hell where the law of the jungle applies and you earn your respect.
  
• Female soldiers destroy unit cohesion as men compete against each other for favor; no she’s never gonna be “one of the guys.” I hear Fort Jackson is a summer camp of young co-eds hooking up whenever possible. Not to mention the number of women getting pregnant on Navy ships and senior commanders getting busted for sampling the buffett.... Lonely and scared and bored and horny young men and women sharing the trenches is gonna detract from the mission as some get it and some don’t. Adding sex into the trenches destroys unit cohesion. “Ah, but we’re civilized and no is no!” People who say such things live in la-la land. They think war is an easy "shock and awe." They're not prepared for a hellish war of attrition slugfest against a capable peer superpower.
  
• Destroys unit cohesion as men overprotect. Men in combat fight for the simple survival of themselves and their buddies while carrying out their duties; the presence of females warps this dynamic.
  
• Menstrual cycle in field conditions — infection
  
• Men in a meritocracy resist female affirmative-action authority over males; yes, for example, more females go to college than men and, yes, they might perform better on standardized academic tests, but my suspicion is there’s other factors at play than raw intelligence so nobody really believes it.
  
• Already mentioned the strategic importance of childbearing in total war.
  

LRRPF52 Wrote:I lived in Russia from 2008-2009. I’ve never seen a people so proud to have such a low self-esteem, who simultaneously can’t be criticized and are the best at everything.

It’s a sparsely-populated northern Tzardom at Hudson Bay latitude, isolated from the trade routes. I was almost shocked at how primitive it is.

Driving is much easier in the winter when all the potholes are filled with ice and covered with snow.

BluntForceTrauma Wrote:You guys ready for my treatise? It's still half-assed and poorly written, but it's the best I've got with limited time:

First issue with women in combat is, and I hate to be crass, but childbearing women are a strategic asset — if you want to look at it through a coldly calculating lens of total war.

Also, most women in the military don’t actually want to serve in frontline combat units, so the point is ALMOST moot, but then there’s those who have something to prove to themselves or society — like the one in the article in my original post — and want to do it as what I would call a “stunt.”

And I don’t even know if THEY really want to serve in frontline combat in something like the Chosin Reservoir and suffer frostbite and have their fatigues stiff with frozen dysentery — not to mention the hell of sleeplessness and fear and gruesome mutilation and death. Men know it’s gonna be shit but they do their duty for the sake of their buddies and for their women and children back home.

What’s the motivation of these “superwomen”? I think they want the peacetime perks of being the poster children of a grand social experiment.

If I could, I would try to persuade the powers that be NOT to allow women in frontline infantry combat — even if they somehow pass the EXACT SAME training required of men.

However, as I’ve learned how the world works and how change gets done, these days I’d hardly bother to try and convince the other side because they don’t argue in good faith. I realize I’m not gonna come up with the perfect, bullet-proof argument that’ll cause them to change their minds on any of their Leftist agenda issues. Not even God himself, should he thunder the most perfect rationale out of fire and smoke on a mountain, could change the minds of Woke ideologues.

So, it’s time for power politics: It’s gonna be my way cuz I’m right and I have the votes and cuz I say so.

However, if there are any left who can be reasoned with, I present my reasons why women shouldn’t be in frontline combat units:

• Females are physically weaker, on average. Male upper body strength and testosterone. Skeletal differences are scientific fact; males wider shoulders, females wider hips. Guess what? All those movies these days with Angelina Jolie kicking the asses of 220-lb linebackers? That’s pure Hollywood fiction, in case you don’t know.
  
• Females are emotionally weaker, on average. It’s a stereotype cuz it’s true. War can break the strongest of men at times. Women, on average, aren’t wired for intense stress of combat. I’ve seen women break down and cry at work cuz of a stressful business situation. Yeah, I know you’re an ice-cold bad bitch drill instructor who can yell in the faces of your male recruits when you get a hot shower and three square meals every day and men need to respect your chain of command for the sake of their careers. But real war is a different kind of hell where the law of the jungle applies and you earn your respect.
  
• Female soldiers destroy unit cohesion as men compete against each other for favor; no she’s never gonna be “one of the guys.” I hear Fort Jackson is a summer camp of young co-eds hooking up whenever possible. Not to mention the number of women getting pregnant on Navy ships and senior commanders getting busted for sampling the buffett.... Lonely and scared and bored and horny young men and women sharing the trenches is gonna detract from the mission as some get it and some don’t. Adding sex into the trenches destroys unit cohesion. “Ah, but we’re civilized and no is no!” People who say such things live in la-la land. They think war is an easy "shock and awe." They're not prepared for a hellish war of attrition slugfest against a capable peer superpower.
  
• Destroys unit cohesion as men overprotect. Men in combat fight for the simple survival of themselves and their buddies while carrying out their duties; the presence of females warps this dynamic.
  
• Menstrual cycle in field conditions — infection
  
• Men in a meritocracy resist female affirmative-action authority over males; yes, for example, more females go to college than men and, yes, they might perform better on standardized academic tests, but my suspicion is there’s other factors at play than raw intelligence so nobody really believes it.
  
• Already mentioned the strategic importance of childbearing in total war.
  

In conclusion, as a reluctant nod to the current cultural milieu, I would allow women to take the same training courses as men under STRICTLY the same rules. However, for those very, very few who actually pass, I would allow them to use their certificates to advance their careers in women’s military roles — analogous to how they served in WW2 — but I would NOT allow them in frontline units even if, technically, they “qualified” for it. I’m reluctantly trying to reconcile my “old-fashioned” views with current culture in a sort of sexist “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Mostly, however, I’d vote out the bums who are trying to re-engineer the U.S. military and then slash-and-burn, search-and-destroy, all Woke leadership out of the military, staring with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. No more "Mr. Nice Guy." Welcome to power politics. Obama, for example, immediately fired all Conservative federal attorneys and replaced them with his own idealogues. Turnabout is fair play.

And Gawd help me if I see another photo of U.S. Army soldiers wearing high heels to “increase gender awareness and sensitivity.”

EDIT: I should add that I fully accept the exceptions in the case of desperate national survival, such as Russia in WW2 and the modern Kurds persecuted by, first, Saddam, and then ISIS.

JASmith Wrote:You're right about a population implosion looming on the horizon.

That significant possibilty is one of the reasons the observation is relevant to our discussion about women in combat - frontline or otherwise.

BluntForceTrauma Wrote:Wouldn't surprise me if there were female Viet Cong shooting at us, but that might be a myth.

Double Naught Spy Wrote:According to Carlos Hathcock, yep. This is one combatant with whom he dealt...
https://cherrieswriter.com/2021/06/06/who-was-known-as-apache/

Also see...
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181623

JASmith Wrote:The Wikipedia article partially discounts that narrative, however https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_(Viet_Cong_soldier). The rationale sounds more like a PC apologists' fantasy.

cory Wrote:To your initial point of Mother's being assets, there's an idea I've been working on and it goes like this. Societies need three things and only three things to survive. All else is nice to have at best. Societies must have Mothers, Warriors, and Fathers (in that order of importance) or it will not survive. Many things bring great values to a society, but it will not survives without these 3 pillars.

The point being that I agree that our society drastically under values the importance of Mothers. The only thing more important than the warriors are the Mothers.