I think women should be on the front line in combat situations.
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I think women should be on the front line in combat situations.
FLORHAM PARK — Lauren Silberman's NFL tryout lasted all of two kicks, neither of which traveled 20 yards.
Silberman became the first woman to compete at an NFL regional scouting combine on Sunday, but left the New York Jets' practice field after re-injuring her quadriceps. She tried two kickoffs, the first going 19 yards and the second about 13 yards, and then asked to see a trainer.
As more than two dozen media, including E! Entertainment network, watched her every move, the 28-year-old Silberman was examined off to the side of the practice field. About 30 minutes later, while 36 other kickers continued their workouts, she called the scene "surreal" and thanked the NFL for "this tremendous opportunity."
A former club soccer player at Wisconsin, Silberman took no warmup kicks until she attempted her first kickoff and even appeared to have some trouble keeping the football on the kicking tee.
"I've always been an athlete, and I've always been a gamer," she said while fighting back tears. "When I had the opportunity to be in the NFL, one of the world's most competitive leagues, I absolutely had to take the chance."
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/jets/female_kicker_injury_tryout_with_7Xcp5DWXb1Q4qWXTaU7G3L
Silberman became the first woman to compete at an NFL regional scouting combine on Sunday, but left the New York Jets' practice field after re-injuring her quadriceps. She tried two kickoffs, the first going 19 yards and the second about 13 yards, and then asked to see a trainer.
As more than two dozen media, including E! Entertainment network, watched her every move, the 28-year-old Silberman was examined off to the side of the practice field. About 30 minutes later, while 36 other kickers continued their workouts, she called the scene "surreal" and thanked the NFL for "this tremendous opportunity."
A former club soccer player at Wisconsin, Silberman took no warmup kicks until she attempted her first kickoff and even appeared to have some trouble keeping the football on the kicking tee.
"I've always been an athlete, and I've always been a gamer," she said while fighting back tears. "When I had the opportunity to be in the NFL, one of the world's most competitive leagues, I absolutely had to take the chance."
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/jets/female_kicker_injury_tryout_with_7Xcp5DWXb1Q4qWXTaU7G3L
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Re: I think women should be on the front line in combat situations.
Women on the Front Line?
Well, there are a few women...
Well, there are a few women...
Female-Combatant Speaks Out...
"Yesterday’s column on women in combat elicited a number of passionate responses from both sides. Some of them came from proponents of the move, frequently citing alternate motives on my part. These ranged from “trying to keep women pregnant in the kitchen” and “Republicans want to lock women in the 1950s” to whichever variant of the GOP’s “war on women” you’d care to name. Many others lent a more sympathetic ear. One in particular, though, caught my attention. It was from one of America ’s female veterans who served in Iraq , delivered with a first hand, been there, done that background. The Marine in question – who for purposes of publication will go by the pseudonym of “Sentry” – had previously submitted this history and opinion as a comment at National Review, but her story was compelling enough that I checked into her background, contacted her and decided to republish it here in its entirety. I offer the following as a third party testimony to stand your scrutiny on its own merits.
"I’m a female veteran. I deployed to Anbar Province , Iraq . When I was active duty, I was 5’6, 130 pounds, and scored nearly perfect on my PFTs. I naturally have a lot more upper body strength than the average woman: not only can I do pull-ups, I can meet the male standard. I would love to have been in the infantry. And I still think it will be an unmitigated disaster to incorporate women into combat roles. I am not interested in risking men’s lives so I can live my selfish dream.
"We’re not just talking about watering down the standards to include the politically correct number of women into the unit. This isn’t an issue of “if a woman can meet the male standard, she should be able to go into combat.” The number of women that can meet the male standard will be miniscule–I’d have a decent shot according to my PFTs, but dragging a 190-pound man in full gear for 100 yards would DESTROY me–and that miniscule number that can physically make the grade AND has the desire to go into combat will be facing an impossible situation that will ruin the combat effectiveness of the unit. First, the close quarters of combat units make for a complete lack of privacy and EVERYTHING is exposed, to include intimate details of bodily functions. Second, until we succeed in completely reprogramming every man in the military to treat women just like men, those men are going to protect a woman at the expense of the mission. Third, women have physical limitations that no amount of training or conditioning can overcome. Fourth, until the media in this country is ready to treat a captured/raped/tortured/mutilated female soldier just like a man, women will be targeted by the enemy without fail and without mercy.
"I saw the male combat units when I was in Iraq . They go outside the wire for days at a time. They eat, sleep, urinate and defecate in front of each other and often while on the move. There’s no potty break on the side of the road outside the wire. They urinate into bottles and defecate into MRE bags. I would like to hear a suggestion as to how a woman is going to urinate successfully into a bottle while cramped into a humvee wearing full body armor. And she gets to accomplish this feat with the male members of her combat unit twenty inches away. Volunteers to do that job? Do the men really want to see it? Should they be forced to?
"Everyone wants to point to the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] as a model for gender integration in the military. No, the IDF does not put women on the front lines. They ran into the same wall the US is about to smack into: very few women can meet the standards required to serve there. The few integrated units in the IDF suffered three times the casualties of the all-male units because the Israeli men, just like almost every other group of men on the planet, try to protect the women even at the expense of the mission. Political correctness doesn’t trump thousands of years of evolution and societal norms. Do we really WANT to deprogram that instinct from men?
"Regarding physical limitations, not only will a tiny fraction of women be able to meet the male standard, the simple fact is that women tend to be shorter than men. I ran into situations when I was deployed where I simply could not reach something. I wasn’t tall enough. I had to ask a man to get it for me. I can’t train myself to be taller. Yes, there are small men…but not so nearly so many as small women. More, a military PFT doesn’t measure the ability to jump. Men, with more muscular legs and bones that carry more muscle mass than any woman can condition herself to carry, can jump higher and farther than women. That’s why we have a men’s standing jump and long jump event in the Olympics separate from women. When you’re going over a wall in Baghdad that’s ten feet high, you have to be able to be able to reach the top of it in full gear and haul yourself over. That’s not strength per se, that’s just height and the muscular explosive power to jump and reach the top. Having to get a boost from one of the men so you can get up and over could get that man killed.
"Without pharmaceutical help, women just do not carry the muscle mass men do. That muscle mass is also a shock absorber. Whether it’s the concussion of a grenade going off, an IED, or just a punch in the face, a woman is more likely to go down because she can’t absorb the concussion as well as a man can. And I don’t care how the PC forces try to slice it, in hand-to-hand combat the average man is going to destroy the average woman because the average woman is smaller, period. Muscle equals force in any kind of strike you care to perform. That’s why we don’t let female boxers face male boxers.
"Lastly, this country and our military are NOT prepared to see what the enemy will do to female POWs. The Taliban, AQ, insurgents, jihadis, whatever you want to call them, they don’t abide by the Geneva Conventions and treat women worse than livestock. Google Thomasina Tucker and Kristian Menchaca if you want to see what they do to our men (and don’t google it unless you have a strong stomach) and then imagine a woman in their hands. How is our 24/7 news cycle going to cover a captured, raped, mutilated woman? After the first one, how are the men in the military going to treat their female comrades? ONE Thomasina Tucker is going to mean the men in the military will move heaven and earth to protect women, never mind what it does to the mission. I present you with Exhibit A: Jessica Lynch. Male lives will be lost trying to protect their female comrades. And the people of the US are NOT, based on the Jessica Lynch episode, prepared to treat a female POW the same way they do a man.
"I say again, I would have loved to be in the infantry. I think I could have done it physically, I could’ve met almost all the male standards (jumping aside), and I think I’m mentally tough enough to handle whatever came. But I would never do that to the men. I would never sacrifice the mission for my own desires. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if someone died because of me."
- Sentry
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/27/some-advice-on-women-in-combat-from-a-female-veteran/
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