Let's hope they finally get rid of the fucked up 'don't ask don't tell' policy alltogether now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11528661

let's hope they let women into combat. I can't wait for the first all-woman tampon company to completely own the enemy for a week every month.

Not sure if that's a random joke or a sarcastic comment about how gays in the military is a bad idea?

haha, actually no, it's more that I think that the inability for women to fight in combat is just a big of an injustice as outlawing homosexuality. More so, perhaps, since with homosexuals they've been allowing them, just please don't tell us, whereas women they're just flat-out no.

Well, the tampon company was a bit of a joke, but I am serious. I think women have every right to fight on the front lines along side of men.

Mmm it's a tricky one for me. I do think they should have the right, but I don't think they should be treated by any other standard than the men - physically or mentally. And by that I don't mean mixed showers. And if we do that I think we'll see relatively little women in combat forces anyway, since movies/games/TV where women go toe to toe with men notwithstanding, there is a pretty big gap between (most) men and (most) women when it comes to physique. Not just strength, but also when it comes to more specific things like personal hygiene, spatial awareness (for shooting) and so forth.

There also should be VERY clear rules in place on relationships with direct colleagues (same for gays btw), since that kind of shit can seriously fuck up your ability to function as a proper part of the team.

I think the significance of this problem is proportional to the number of homos in the forces, or number that want to be in the forces.

Derf is so sensitive to gay rigihts.

The rules are already in place, since we do have women already in the military. Basically, it's against military rules to have relationships in your own chain of command, or within a unit. Hell, in Korea, us Army folk weren't supposed to have relationships with anyone on base... so, by the rules, we were only supposed to be screwing Koreans. Of course, everyone ignores the rules.

I agree that men and women should be held to the same physical standards, but I think that should be the case now, as well. It's not, and I think it's BS. Double standards are double standards, regardless of who benefits. BTW, regarding women's physical capabilities, they may lack the general strength of men, but on average they're supposed to have better reflexes. I think you'd see a disproportionate number of female snipers and helicopter pilots.

Wouldn't that also involve a lot of spatial thinking? Like calculating distances and whatnot. In sports, women come closest to men's results in long-distance events of for example running and swimming. The more a sport is based in strength and/or explosiveness, the bigger the gap tends to be. But I'm sure the eggheads of the military have been studying this shit a lot longer than us, so maybe it's pointless to discuss it here.

@ Derf: I think you might be surprised at how many gay dudes are in the army. Or in a football team. Being gay doesn't mean you're necessarily a fairy pansy. Anyway, I can imagine a lot of gay people aren't too 'hot' on joining the army with the current rules in place. There are some really infuriating stories about (apparently) good soldiers being fired for no real reason because one of their superiors finding out they're gay. Which, I imagine, no one is cool with.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/24602171/detail.html