Women in Combat

mixalot
Mon, 16 May 2005 22:59:41 +0000

I’m not taking sides on this one at all, but I know that the cadets I met at USMA weren’t too thrilled about the idea of women being at the Academies at all due to the lower physical standards they were required to attain. They talked about it like women were just recently allowed to attend. It was pretty surprising. I was captain of my wrestling team, we had 3 girls on the team this year. They really killed themselves at practice and at meets, worked harder than most guys on the team, but in the end they only ended up winning our respect, not any matches. Respect is important, and must be earned as an officer, but getting the job done is key. I’m not equating high school wrestling to the rigors of combat, but the Infantry is a physical, male-dominated culture. Either way, I’m going into Beast with an open mind and I guess I’ll (and most of the other people here) will get to formulate my own opinion regarding women in combat in a little over a month.