Authority

These guys did not resent a woman hanging with them.

 Women serving in the armed forces is an old, old story now, but whenever I am dumb enough to think I will find something worth reading on the social internet I find women saying they oppose women in the military.

Well, okay, fine, don't join.  But no, that's not enough.  They want to forbid other women from serving. They want to tell other women what they can and cannot do. Be the boss of them.  And they don't want women doing things they believe they could not do.

Actually, they probably could.  They could be a PS-1 (Personnel Specialist First Class) screwing up people's careers in Norfolk as easily as they could  be a human resources staffer doing the same thing with Acme Industries in Phoenix.  I mean, come on, it's just a job. 

Civilians seem to have the belief that every person in the military is a Navy SEAL or is Sylvester Stallone blasting away with a belt-fed machine gun in each hand. Nope.

Delta Force G Squadron women operators in
Afghanistan dressed in traditional female garb.

Of course, there are combat specialties and, yes, men fill the majority of those just as they fill the majority of every other position. But there are exceptions, plenty of them. Some of them you never hear about. Some you are not supposed to hear about.

There were plenty of American women in Afghanistan.  At Camps Leatherneck and Dwyer, there were at any given time probably several hundred.  And they didn’t all stay inside the wire.  Female Engagement Teams went on patrol with Marines as did assorted IAs with specialized skills.  There were also female operatives with the SEALs and even with Delta Force.  

As for my own experience with Marines, I visited Torbert when it was just a Patrol Base with one infantry squad — three fire teams — 16 guys all alone against the world (later it was expanded to a Combat Outpost with two rifle platoons when I visited it later on).  The guys certainly did not resent me. I still hear from some of them. Friends for life.

One objection I read from a woman is that females should not serve because men would refuse to obey them. First off, doesn't this person know that women have been serving for decades, issuing orders that were obeyed.  I know of no incident where a male disobeyed an order given by a woman because it was given by a woman.  If he did, he would find himself in a world of hurt.

When I was a naval aviator aboard an aircraft carrier, I was also the assistant maintenance officer.  I gave men orders all the time.  It was routine.  The obeying of those orders was also routine. And sometimes men gave me orders and sometimes women did. And I obeyed them. Without resentment. Of course. If my superior tells me to flemish a line, I flemish it. What's the sex of the person issuing the order got to do with anything?  Until recently, a woman, Captain (now Rear Admiral) Amy Bauernschmidt, commanded the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. I think she gave an order now and again.  None were disobeyed because she was a woman.  She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994. Thirty-two years ago! Why is anybody still howling about women serving in the military today? They've been serving well, with distinction, for decades, generations.  What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you all resentful, clueless, neurotic losers? Apparently so. 

Nuts.

This is from 1944 for crying out loud.