Dudette 07
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123249387
A precedent (of sorts)! It'll be interesting to see how the whole male/female military plays out in combat situations. It's always been unrealistic to divide the military into combat/non-combat. Due to the weaponry and tactics, one can die just about anywhere for the past 50 years. I suppose the big question remaining is combat infantry. My understanding, (which may be erroneous), is that the Israelis, who pinoneered this, gave up on it. NOT because the women were somehow lacking, but because the men were taking too many unnecessary risks to "protect" them once the shooting started. Risks they probably would not have made for another guy. I will leave it to others to debate/determine if this is instinctual or cultural conditioning. But it is an interesting aspect to my question.
A precedent (of sorts)! It'll be interesting to see how the whole male/female military plays out in combat situations. It's always been unrealistic to divide the military into combat/non-combat. Due to the weaponry and tactics, one can die just about anywhere for the past 50 years. I suppose the big question remaining is combat infantry. My understanding, (which may be erroneous), is that the Israelis, who pinoneered this, gave up on it. NOT because the women were somehow lacking, but because the men were taking too many unnecessary risks to "protect" them once the shooting started. Risks they probably would not have made for another guy. I will leave it to others to debate/determine if this is instinctual or cultural conditioning. But it is an interesting aspect to my question.
posted by mendip at
6:24 PM
1 Comments:
Rob, this may have been an Israeli jerking around a poor, dumb schlemiel.
In Athens, sometime around winter, 1972, happened to meet the Israelit military attache at an embassy function. We got to talking and I asked him about how the women in the IDF handled combat situations.
According to him, they were not allowed to be in combatg units, although, fully trained for such. Mostly this was because of the greater casualties among men in their units. As you noted, they did overexpose themselves to protect their female brethren.
However, the other reason he cited was that in the 48 War, the women were vicious toward captured prisoners. A lot were former partisans from eastern Europe, and they took up with the Arabs, the way they had fought against the Nazis.
Since the Israeli leadership wanted to establish some sort of moral highground (this from the Stern Gang), it was decided to keep women out of combat.
Cannot say if this is true, or the booze talking, or he was just having fun with a gullible american.
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besilarius, at 7:11 PM
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