Gays in the Military

[Mia]

There's already a thread on this in a regular thread, I'm curious what you guys think.

[Logjam]

I've written this subject to death. I'm sick and tired of it.

We should not allow homosexuals in the military.

BTW: I hate the fact that homosexuals have kidnapped the word "gay". It was such a nice word and nothing quite replaces it. If one felt light hearted and contented one felt "gay". One would say, "I feel gay today". Can't do that now.

Furthermore I know how homosexuals became "gay". There was a shrink in New York who had a lot of homosexual clients. They were overcome with self loathing. Suicide was commonplace. So this well meaning shrink started calling his homosexual clients "gay" because it was a happy word.

Well it stuck.

I prefer "queer" to denote homosexual (if one isn't going to use homosexual.) Because I believe that homosexual behavior is queer, which means abnormal and strange.

[rcne]

Don['t ask, Don't tell would work if left alone. For some reason now I feel forced to accept 'Gay' as an equal lifestyle.

I don't. I know some gays and consider them friends. What they do privately is their business. Now if they tried to convince me of their rightness - the friendship would end. I don't like to be forced into anything.

[James]

I think that allowing gays in the military is a hindrance to them and what they have to do. When I go in, I don't want to have to worry about Jimbo behind me. Seriously. The same thing for the police and fire fighters. Their jobs are just too important to have to take anything like that even into consideration.

This is not a sexist remark, but I don't think women should be allowed to be in the military, police force, or be fire fighters. I am a conservative, you know. But if a sexist is someone who doesn't think that a woman can do EVERYTHING that a man can do better (physically), then yes I am. Because having women being a fire fighter, a police officer, or in the military is also a hindrance and a distraction. And as you know, the military is all about conformity and making everything as efficient as possible.

Who says that? I say that, James D.--super conservative.:)

[Logjam]

Quote by: James But if a sexist is someone who doesn't think that a woman can do EVERYTHING that a man can do better (physically), then yes I am.

I was a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson, SC in the early 80's. The Army had just decided to add women to the men's training program. We had companies with two female platoons and two male platoons. They did not sleep in the same quarters, but they ate together, ran together, and trained together.

So I got to see them both and I got to observe how they responded to Basic Training.

I found out that men and women are indeed very different (seems like one would know this already doesn't it?). Please allow me to generalize: Women took instruction better, they marched better, they wore their uniforms better, they were better in first aid. They ran very well.

Women could not carry nearly as much weight as men could. If you loaded females packs as heavily as we loaded the men's packs many women would pass out (and some die) in forced marches. I had one women die in my arms after a hot summers day forced march. (It wasn't too, hot. When it got rreally hot we ceased training outside.)

When we discovered that women couldn't carry the same weight as men did we did not just lower the weight in the women's packs. Since we were ordered to treat the women as equals to men we had to lower the weight in men's packs. So men's were short changed in their training.

Women cannot drag or lift as much weight as a man can. Nor can they throw a granade as far.

Maybe the biggest difference that I noticed right off of the bat, was that women in basic training were just miserable. They hated it. Their moral was terrible. The men, however; loved it. They revelled in the mud, blood and beer. They loved being dirty and they didn't mind the rain.

No matter how hard we tried we just couldn't keep the men and women from falling in love. We hammered into them that they were all just fellow soldiers, etc. (Of course, we knew that what we were hammering into them was bogus.) So now we had another problem over and above the normal training.

In a few years the Army figured it out and they seperated the men from the women, it took them about two years to get the word. Today you still see women in Fort Jackson, but the last time I was there the two sexes were usually seperated.

There were however; some very hard charging and fit women. Some were wonderful athletes. We had a female set the push up record; 147 perfect pushups. But none could pack the weight or hump the gear. Just about all of them had trouble in the heat. But the average female wasn't nearly as strong, fit, or dedicated to the infantry than was the average man.

Yep, there's a big difference between men and women.........viva la difference!

[James]

Thank you, Logjam, for making my point.

I don't think of women any less except in the physical labor part. And I don't aim to keep women down or make them think they are any less. It goes along with the whole 'chivalry' thing, too.

[Logjam]

Quote by: James Thank you, Logjam, for making my point. I don't think of women any less except in the physical labor part. And I don't aim to keep women down or make them think they are any less. It goes along with the whole 'chivalry' thing, too.

I wonder about the women fighter pilots. When I was an attack/fighter pilot there weren't any women in the corps. Now in the Navy and Air Force there are female fighter pilots. I don't think that the Marine Corps has succumbed to feminist pressure to put them in cockpits yet.

I was at Tail Hook in 2001. There were several active duty squadrons there and there were at least half a dozen female pilots. They wouldn't look directly into the old guys' eyes. I think they felt that they weren't accepted, which was probably true. But I didn't hear any negative comments from the men. I wonder what the truth is.