Guard Dog

I don't think anybody here is suggesting that women can't serve in war zones on active service. This is a role-related issue. With respect you are missing the point slightly. And in most western armed forces bayonet technicians (inf) are usually on the lowest payscales. The technical roles (like Guard Dog working in aviation tech) tend to get articifer NCO status and higher pay increments to recognise their training and skills. The role we're talking about is infantry and armour. The pointy bit. It's just different. Like Shady said, you are paid according to your rank and time in service, your MOS has nothing to do with it. In many ways, having a MOS like I had works against you. It is a small field and it is very hard to make rank. You need to wait for someone to die, get discharged or transfer to get promoted. I was a Lance Corporal for almost four years with excellent PFT scores, Pros & Cons (Proficiency & Conduct scores) and I shot expert every time I qualified. If I was in the infantry I'd have made Corporal in half that time. I've always told everyone interested in the USMC, if you think you might want to make a career of it, do your first tour in the Infantry. You can make rank quickly and you have your choice of jobs once you re-enlist. Plus having that experience gives you the inside track on making Warrant Officer boards or later on selection to ranks like First Seargent or Seargent Major.

Things have changed then. When I was in they were exempt. Of course I turned my rifle in almost seventeen years ago. That is an eternity in the Corps, a lot has certainly changed. Do they (WMs) have to go to MCT now? They were exempt from that too.

@Wals, Di, Orogun & Thorton, Yes if women can be held to the same physical standards as men I see no reason why they cannot serve in the infantry. However, you need to understand something about how the military works that I think none of you know, there is no seperate standard for infantry and any other MOS (job). The same physical standards apply to ALL Marines. I was in the Air Wing, my MOS was 5953, I was an electronics tech who worked on Air Intercept radar. I was not a grunt but every Thursday of every week of my whole service (except when deployed) I did infantry training just like every other male Marine, I still went to the rifle range four weeks a year for qualification and countless hours for regular training. I still qualified with the Beretta and SAW. I took and passed the regular PFT (women do this too) & the Combat PFT twice a year. Every male Marine is trainied to fight as infantry if the need arises. Not to the extent of actual 0311's (infantry MOS) but not far off. If Women were to be held to the same standard it would not just be for women in the 03's, it would be for ALL WMs in the entire Corps. Last I read there were from 15000-20000 women in the Corps. How many of them would lose their careers if they were expected to meet male physical requirements? How many of them who are good at and love their jobs and give excellent service to their country would we force out simply to satisfy some ridiculous political notion that women are men are the same and interchangable in all things? To get a few hundred women into the infantry you would lose thousands of pilots, armorers, drivers, aviation tech, administrators, supply & intellegence personell, etc. Do any of you call that a bargin?

Yes there is a lot more to it. Including running fast for long distances while carrying very heavy loads. Being able to run without stopping until told, then fighting without stopping until told. Infantry is a VERY physically demanding business. I knew a lot of Women Marines during my time in and many of them were excellent marines in that they could do their jobs well and with professionalisim, but not one, not a single one of them could have hacked it as a grunt. Just as an example, you are a Marine platoon commander. You have been ordered to double time (that means run to those of you who have never served) over six miles of rocky terrain to relieve another platoon that is pinned under heavy fire. A Marine Rifle Platoon is roughly forty Marines and keeping with the percentages if it was integrated five of those would be women. Every platoon has one heavy weapons team (in my day it was the M-60e3 don't know what they use now) and every squad (three in every platoon) has a SAW team. Everyone in the platoon from the commander down to the newest boot private carries their own gear, their own weapons with ammo for them, plus a spare battery for the radio or 1000 round belt of ammo for the M-60 or two 500 round drums for one of the SAWs. The women would be expected to do this too. Now they will have to carry all of this while running six miles over rocky ground then at the end of that they will be expected to engage the enemy in a firefight. Every male marine can make that run, they do it in training ALL the time. That is the Combat PFT I told you guys about. Every male Marine has to pass it twice a year. What would you do as the commander if your five women can't complete the run? What do you do if even one of them can't? Not only do you lose her but whatever assets she is carrying. You can't stop because there is a besiged platoon waiting for your aid. You guys see the problems here? I'm sorry but there are some things that women just can-not-do. Failing to realize that is just politcally correct foolishness. Don't take this the wrong way guys but 99% of you never served in the military. And unless I'm wrong, Gfted1 and I are the only ones on this board regularly who have ever served in combat. You just don't fully understand what you are talking about. I do not say that to be confrontational or nasty, it's just how it is.

Steelers win in a big comeback. What a great game. Turnovers just kill you in football.

Most voter studies I've read (admittedly only see them in newspapers who all seem to have an ax to grind these days) seem to come out along the politcal lines of the groups behind the studies. For example, the 2010 election was a complete and total repudiation of the left, not so much a statement of dissatisfaction on the economy as has been reported everywhere. Most pro-democrat news organizations (which IS most of them) seem to ignore or gloss over the voters dissatisfaction with Obamacare and the conduct of the congress in general under Pelosi-Reid. My evidence of this is the near complete devastation of the democrats in the state office elections. Congress can change hands over and again but a loss change at the state level such as 2010 brought has not been seen since the depression. As for public anger at the 111th Congress, their attitudes towards their constituents and the public at large was, and I'll be kind, one of condescedning arrogance and contempt. And then Congressional leaders had the gall to wonder on Sunday Morning news shows why everyone was so angry. But anyway, this is not a politcal thread and I really don't want it to become one. Those politicians who sought to make politcal hay out of this have been pretty well humiliated. As for the crack-downs that was a little dramatic wording on my part but since the shooting there have been three new gun control bills promised, another promised to silence some politcal speech and a new all out attempt at dragging the fairness doctrine out of it's grave. None of it will see the light of day however. and none of it has anything to do with this shooting. It's just cynical people trying to capitalize on a tragedy to get their will imposed.

No surprise I guess. I just found it by accident, had not heard of it yet but from what I saw it did not get the juices flowing.

I just heard about this one, a new NWN Type game called Neverwinter. It's made by Cyptic & Atari & it's got the WOTC endorsement so I guessing it's D&D. It looks like an MMO which is a big turn off for me at least but it might not be. The descriptions are pretty vauge. Anyone know anything about this? http://www.playneverwinter.com/

Just got back from a trip to DC/Virginia. That was a real eye-opener.

No.. do not answer that if the answer is yes Gorgon, I do not want that image in my head!

Did you? Through most of my time at FAU I was notorious for showing up only on test nights.

Sadly true. There is little wisdom to be found in the halls of power between Baltimore and Arlington.

Yessssss! Packer win! Way to go baby! Not that I give a hoot about the Pack but it makes me very, very happy that Dog-Killer and the Eagles lost.

After 9-11 a considerable number of Washington liberals spent a lot of days naval-gazing in wonder as to why the jihadists hated America. They wanted to understand why they are so angry. Isn't it a wonder they have never spared a moment to wonder why the American people are angry? Why do conservative talk show hosts resonate so well with so many? I mean we're are talking about tens of millions of people. Those talk shows would not exist let alone be so fabulously succesful without that audience. Instead of lamenting how nasty the politcal dialogue has become why does no one ever ask why it has come to be like this? Perhaps the Washington "ruling class" should be wondering if they are antagonizing the people into anger rather than disparaging the folks who are saying aloud what most people seem to be thinking. Apparently they did not learn the lesson of the 2010 election. Hopefully they will get a refresher in 2012. Now here I go posting about politics in a thread about an instance that has nothing what so ever to do with poitics except that the victims were at a political function. But I do think Greasy is right about one thing, the knee-jerk government reaction on an incident like this is to go ape**** and crack down on everything in sight. That would be the worst thing they could do in a tense political climate.

Great opinion piece from he Telegraph on paople trying to maske poitcal hay out of a tragedy http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharn...na/#dsq-content

And the winners are.... Seahawks & Jets? WTF?

Don't fight it Krook, you've got the "kavorka"! Kudos to anyone who gets that reference!

Well, if we must get into politics about this (since this tragedy was NOT politically motivated in ANY way) no, there is NOTHING you can do about the rough political discourse in the country today. You do not strip the rights of and silence millions of Americans because to the actions of a lone nutjob in Arizona who never had a politcal position to begin with. You WILL be courting a civil war then. What disgusts me the most was MSNBC and CNN reporting this guy as a disillusioned military vet. All false but actual facts have never mattered to those two networks. Especially since it plays into the current liberal groupthink that military vets are a bunch of dangerous rabid dogs that are particulary contemptable because they tend to vote republican by and large. Personally I think politics stopped the moment this jackass picked up his gun. It does not matter what politcal party any of those people belonged to, thye were good, descent people who did not deserve what happened to them.

Absolutely horrifying. My thoughts and prayers are with her and the others and the family of judge Roll and the poor nine year old girl. Apparently the shooter was a real nut job. He believed the government was trying to use mind control on him. He tried to enlist in the army and was rejected for psyc reasons. He also had a number of arrests with a few convitions so I wonder how the heck he got a gun? Probably stolen. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/08/shoot...-youtube-video/

This is just plain wrong

Too early for the annual baseball thread but I've been ranting on boards all day about the Rays trading Matt Garza to the Cubs for a slice of deep dish pizza and a small grape soda. Actually they did not even get that much back. What the hell are you THINKING Andrew Friedman?

That does it! http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/01/04/a...w-kind-of-high/ I will only look at houses in Virginia now!

I wish Law and Order had been given one more season, I really liked BSG but could never get into Caprica, the last Sci-fi show I thought was any good was DS9 but Voyager & Enterprise did have their moments. The rest of the crap on SyFy is just garbage. I only follow two shows regularly and those are Southland (glad to see if found a home on TNT) and The Dog Whisperer on NGC. Other than that I only watch sports, mainly just football, baseball or hockey, but only if the Preds are playing.

Totally agree with this post. Especially that last part. Fortunately NetFlix has a big collection of MST3K that can be viewed on line.

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