American army?

Question

are army woman permitted to be front line soldiers as yet,do you think it will ever happen

Answer 1

no, they arent. i agree with it being so.
i am a soldier and i would admit, as a man, that women can do most things a man can do and probably better than us most of the time. i would have no problems taking orders from a female, or trusting that a female would have a level head and have good muzzle awareness during a firefight. i also have no doubts that a female would be able to make the hard decisions that must be made in combat. honestly, i believe women would probably be better suited than most males.
all that being said, i still dont think females should be in combat MOSs.
of course you can site exceptions, but by and large females arent as nearly as strong as males and that affects things on many different levels. i weigh 200 lbs and with a full combat load and dressed in full gear that weight goes up to 250-260. there are men much bigger than me so that weight can rise even higher. it is unreasonable to expect a female to drag an injured 250 lbs soldier any distance to safety, let alone carry him. it is unreasonable to expect a female to carry a 240b machine gun any sort of distance. it puts other sin greater danger.
besides that, the thing we fight for isnt america, it is for each other and the love for your squad-mates. put a female in a group with 5 guys and this will happen: one will fall in love, one will hate her, the other 3 will go either way. or they protect her more. or one will love her and she wants a different guy and jealousy becomes an issue. or she scores better on the PT test and it infurites 2 or 3 guys because it's a weighted scale and they actually did more puchups and etc but she scored better. or they have to carry her ruck on the 12 miler. etc etc
these things may sound immature and juvenile, but it is real life issues and it causes friction within a squad and that cant happen. combat is not the arena to sort out socail ills.

Answer 2

No, they are currently blocked from 'Combat Arms' - though they end up in front line combat as MPs, often as Transport and Maintenance personnel and even as Pilots.

I doubt we'll ever allow women in Infantry type arms. The Israelis experimented with this and if I recall, found them to be quite a bit too vicious - They had a hard time keeping them obedient to the rules of warfare.

Further, their presence inspired irrational behavior on the part of the males in the units with them, where the males would feel obligated to protect the females (a natural biological urge)...

Still - the front lines are rather blurred these days. But I don't see it happening as a matter of policy for the reasons I listed above.

I'm fine with women in any role - We've got women firefighters in our station and they kick BUTT. If someone can meet the same standards for the job, I don't care WHAT they are.

Orion

EDIT: I've added a link to an after action report on 'Raven 42' - where a female MP won the Silver Star for her heroism under fire in Iraq. VERY worth the read.

2nd EDIT: Finbar - Spot on. Well done.

Answer 3

as you know, there are no frontlines anymore, that type of warfare ended a long time ago, there are women that get in to direct combat but isolated, women will never be accepted in to the infantry and certain other career fields, i have served with a lot of women, honorable every one of them, but it will never be allowed for a woman to have a combat mos, too much psychology in to what it does to a man and all when we see a women injured

Answer 4

No women are not let on the front lines as of yet. Honestly I do not believe that one day women may fight right beside a man, however it will not be anything to surprise the Americans because they believe that women would be to scaried to shoot someone.

Answer 5

Will never happen. 7 out of 10 female soldiers are too... "sensitive."