Quote Originally Posted by Breukelen advocaat
It was over 30 years ago, and I didn't get into it with the guy, but he looked like he'd been in military service himself. I think that he meant that the women were not pleasant to be with, for various reasons.

One of the strongest arguments against putting women in combat, or any dangerous occupation, is that men's lives are put at further risk because they tend to have a protective instinct toward females. I realize that the lunatic fringes of feminism are trying to eliminate this tendency in boys, but is this really what we want? It would probably make things worse.
In response to that top part, that's interesting. His comment cracks me up for some reason.

In response to the bottom part, I can see why that might be a fairly strong argument, to be honest. The military men I know do indeed have a protective instinct toward women, and I suppose it could put them at risk in a combat situation in certain ways. I find that protective tendency, incidentally, very sexy, just like chivalry. Some women don't like that protectiveness, but I think you're right that they're the ones who aren't comfortable with femininity (or vulnerability).

In practice, from what I've seen in documentaries about military prep, if it's anything like paramilitary/fire and police training, and from what they taught us, that's what fire-police training is based on, that protective instinct is actively cultivated and trained into all the military "brothers" and "sisters."

The whole unit is drilled over and over at supporting and protecting each other in all sorts of situations. Your entire reason for being there is to back your brothers/sisters/partners up, support them, firefight or rescue alongside them, step in and save them if need be, serve the department together, and protect your fellow "soldiers" whether you like them personally or not. That's all part of the whole military "team" mentality. At least in theory it is.

I'd hope that a well trained combat soldier wouldn't necessarily sacrifice one gender over another, but I'm sure the situation could come up. Those male-female dynamics definitely have a way of sneaking in and changing things even when they're not supposed to. Maybe with enough time and training, it could work. Be interesting to me to see if it could. I think if things get worse in Afghanistan or with Russia or Iran in addition to Iraq, we're going to need to give serious consideration to both a draft and to females in combat. I'll get some flack from the no-wars-for-any-reason folks for saying that, but I think it's true.