Women in the special forces?

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SgtQuiosegagne RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/12/2005 2:43:11 PM

"Sad, but funny! Only every 30 days or so...........heheheheheheeh" - Crash SF units are to be able to be deployed 24/24 7/7 365/365. Once you sign in the army you're at their disposal when your country wants you. Are you thinking about having a menstrual planning? So the SOF Command can see who can be there and who can't? THAT sounds funny! :)

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PeregrinePike RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 9:07:31 AM

SgtQuiosegagne: >> Bring me a woman soldier and let's check how much she can walks with a 40Kg (for a lot of women it's large more over than half of her bdoy weight) bagpack and a 4Kg in the hands under the heavy sun of Africa...<< Mmmm... French Foreign Legion thinks it can find such women to do the said things... atleast they better find some, since getting that order from that lady DM. ----------------------------------------------------- Frankly I would put all the women who join the military in the "Special Forces"... they are too damn practical to uphold the traditions of most conventional infantry units worth their salt. I can alredy see the comming cloud... a lady Inspector General of the federal police recently abolished giving bonuses for well maintained "buffalo moustaches" in a para-military unit that comes under the "federal police". God save the regular regiments from this tyrant...

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smitty237 RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 11:16:24 AM

I certainly agree with some of your points, SGT.Q. If the subject of this thread was "Should women be in infantryline units?" I would be on your side one hundred percent, but SF units are different. Like most of you, I would agree that any female candidates should pass the same physical standards as the male candidates. This would be a daunting task, but not an impossible one. There is a female officer on the police department I work for that could outperform most of the male officers any day of the week. In fact, she is probably a shoo in for our tactical unit when we have an opening. American women have been fighting in Iraq and have demonstrated that they can fight. A female NCO even won the Silver Star for leading her unit in combat during an ambush. If she is physically capable of passing the SF Q test, then why shouldn't she be given the chance? If she fails, she fails, but if she passes then why should we keep her out simply because she has different plumbing? Like Worchester, I too have heard of women in Delta Force. Like all Delta Force members, I'm sure their identities are classified. As far as the effects of hormones go, I think you might be a little off base on this one too, SGT Q. Women actually tend to be better natural shots than men because they have better hand-eye coordination than we men do. Once a female gets over the psychological hang ups involving shooting a gun they tend to rank right up there with the boys. In the end I think it all comes down to professionalism. If a female member of an SF unit demonstrates that she can do the job she will be accepted. If she can't, she'll be shunned.......just like any male candidate.

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lrsrng RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 12:31:28 PM

Never trust anything that bleeds and lives.Besides God gave them smaller feet so they could stand closer to the sink and stove.

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SgtQuiosegagne RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 2:22:41 PM

Good post smitty, I hate to show off, but I'd like to see a woman doing what our regiment operatives are doing... When you're in situation hesitation or lack of will or even emotion can fu** up a mission and cost lives I'd not pick this soldier. As long as there's a little chance this soldier can't give 100% of his potential I'd let him home. You know it's easy for politicians to say: women can do the same. But pick a "strong" woman, and pick a "strong" man. You'll see for same category men have the upper-hand. Women might be good for police (no insult here) forces as she can come back home daily, there's more tolerance for errors or hesitation, it's most of time dialog etc... But here's a list of the entry test for the famous GIGN to give you the "level" required for army SF (GIGN -> Gendarmerie -> French Ground Army): - Course including roping, passages on buildings roofs, climbing gutters, resistance test to teargases. Escape course and a confrontation with a dog (protected by soft tissu armor) from the unit. The applicant will be facing another applicant with boxing gloves 2 x 2mn (full agressivity). - Resistance: 300 sit up, 100 push up, climbing a 5m rope (timed) - Swimming: 100 m (109 yards) free style (timed), 50 m (55 yards) underwater swimming (no breathing), swimming 50 m (55 yards) hand and foot cuffed, jump off to water from 10m - Resistance: 8000m (8,749 yards) bagpack and rifle in hands in less than 60 minutes - shooting range: 200m with rifle 10 bullets, 15m with pistol, same 10 bullets. Score will be marked for global results - Bungy jumping from a high bridge (refusal will fail the entire test) - Psychological interview - Interview facing the staff I'm not pessimistic but I doubt much women are able to go through all this and have same score as men... Also as you're in the police, can you imagine much women in the SWAT kicking doors and handcuffing alone big guys with few help and no "tactical" help? Women for me surely do a great job as undercover agents, or not too close to enemy lines. But I think despite of the technical aspect there's also a cultural aspect: not much men can accept to let women suffer as a man. That's also the "male's genetical instinct" to protect others... ;)

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Ehran RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 2:55:23 PM

this may not be the problem you think it is sgt. good odds that a woman in good enough shape to make it through sf training doesn't have enough body fat left to trigger the menstruation cycle. it's pretty common for world class women athletes to not suffer from the "curse".

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Tiber1 RE:Women are in SF...HORMONES! 8/13/2005 3:57:53 PM

I've wondered, what is the pregnancy rate of women in the military? It does have the potential to be a huge issue for combat units. Soon as a female gets pregnant she is effectively useless to the unit for 9-12 months. Even training is rough, what commander is going to risk GI Jane, getting a whiff of some nasty chemical or falling down running through the woods, causing a miscarriage and a lawsuit? There is always a risk of a male soldier getting injured, but those injuries have a huge differential in the recovery time, typically a few hours to what? Six to eight weeks for a good broken bone? None of them compare to the year a unit would lose a pregnant female for. Even if she didn't get pregnant on purpose (and that is a huge concern, but not one I'll deal with now), all it takes is an "oops" broken condom or forgotten pill. Considering that most of the military contracts are in 4 year blocks, you're looking at losing 25% of the contract of a extremely expensively trained soldier who is now only useful for desk duty. If that major issue is dealt with (and I have no clue how it could be done) I'd have no real problem with women in front line units IF THEY CAN PASS THE SAME PHYSICAL STANDARDS AS MEN. As has been stated before, she needs to be able to carry that m240/lmg/etc, several hundred rnds, and all the other equipment for several weeks at a time. Plus, she needs to be able to fireman carry someone who's north of 200 lbs for several hundred yards.

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GOP RE:Women in the special forces? - Side question 8/14/2005 9:49:20 PM

Are these women in the Special forces manly, or are any of them hot? I have a hard time believing that women in special forces are pretty, considering they must have alot of muscle mass and look manly.

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Old Grunt RE:Women are in SF...Worcester 8/15/2005 10:50:25 AM

"Women have passed SF selection in the US & UK for certain. They are there; fact. If anyone has a problem, perhaps it is just your problem." I'm sorry, but someone has fed you some bogus information with regard to women assigned to US Army Special Forces. There are not now, nor have there ever been, women assigned to operational detachments. There has never been a woman who has completed the SFQC. Some of the confusion may stem from the 1979 incident when a female CPT found a loophole which allowed her to attend the SFOQC (yes, we used to have separate courses for officers and enlisted personnel). The SFQC screening requirements stated that only male personnel could attend, however that caveat was left off the OQC requirements (this oversight was corrected IMMEDIATELY). After winning her legal challenge to attend the course she attended pre-phase, which was a six-week selection program that has been replaced with SFAS. At the end of pre-phase it was determined that she, along with the other 80% of the class, did not show sufficient physical, mental, and character ability to proceed on to the QC. She lodged a challenge based on ?bias? and the politically sensitive Department of the Army directed that she be allowed to proceed to Phase I and that all physical and mental test standards were to be ?gender-normed? from that point on, and that arrangements where to be made for her special "dietary, rest, and hygene requirements" to include a 5-day exemption from duty and training as neccessitated by her "cycle". To make a long and painful story shorter, each time she failed, she lodged a challenge based on ?bias? and was reinstated to the Course. When she had finally participated in all three phases she was given a certificate of participation. She was not awarded an ?S? identifier (this was before CMF 18 was created), nor was she assigned to any unit within the Special Forces community. The only females assigned under the Army Special Forces command are in support roles such as parachute riggers, supply personnel, medics assigned to non-deploying aid stations and administrative and finance personnel, and are assigned to the Special Operations Support Battalion (SOSB). ALL CMF 18 positions are female restricted. As for 1SFOD-D, only a small percentage of the assigned personnel (<5%) are ?operators? and of these operators, less than half participate in the (highly glorified and exaggerated by books and movies) traditional direct action role. Are there females assigned to SFOD-D? Most definitely, but there are also balding, nearsighted, borderline overweight guys who can modify weapons and other equipment to do things that they were never designed to do assigned as well.

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SgtQuiosegagne RE:Women are in SF...OldGrunt 8/22/2005 8:57:33 AM

Thanks for putting some light over the sci-fi ideas that a lot of civilians think women are what seen in movies. I'd like also to add: women in the army are more and more given jobs due to political decisions, if it was only regarding the skills women would have exactly the same physical tests requirement as men. And as far as I know for same category not much women can "stick up" with a man. Some people posting the contrary either didn't have any biological education, or watch too much movies. I'm not anti-women but I prefer having a male superior than a female superior. Women are a bit "y" when adressing men. They think being harsh will make them more respected. Once I've seen a female 1LT during a training going beyond her job many times. She was doing the job of her three SGT making their rank useless. Her men didn't like her much because she was a bit too "serious", not really joking or anything (I know officers aren't supposed to be funny! jk), she was y. And to make it even better it was an outdoor training I think it was for three days, there was some farm house ruins or something like that, because she was a female she was allowed to sleep in her own room, and the 26 guys were sleeping in one room... (didn't check this topic since last post)

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