Consulting the “experts” on women in combat
I had to think a couple of times before I posted this link that James sent us because I didn’t want it to sound like I’m being the big bad infantryman bashing some Air Force chick, but, ya know what, she’s asking for it. She’s Senior Airman Stacy Fogarty and she says she served in Iraq, which is honorable enough, but I’m guessing that as an expert on women in combat, her experience is somewhat lacking. But that’s not what she tells the reporter dude;
“The enemy is not looking at us and say oh, they’re women. Let’s not do what we were going to do. They just see us as Americans and we should see each other as Americans not broken down by male and female,” she said.
“Do you feel that you had combat experiences when you were in the Air Force?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Yeah,” she said. “Civilians are throwing bombs over to the base. So at any time we could be hit. You’re not segregated out there as to who is combat and who is not. The minute you hit the AOR (area of responsibility) that’s a combat.”
Fogarty acknowledged there is a difference between being “in combat” and being in an infantry unit where you have to pull a trigger.
“Do you think you could have been on the front lines pulling a trigger?” I asked.
“I do. In the military you’re trained to do what needs to be done for the greater good,” Fogarty said.
“As soon as I asked that question I thought I’m not sure I’d even ask that question to a man,” I said.
“It’s interesting isn’t it?” she said.
Now, my wife’s friend, a nurse, was killed in Iraq when she was out running around the Green Zone one day when a mortar landed near her, I’m pretty sure that if she had lived through that experience she wouldn’t admit that because she’d been blown up, she’d make a good infantryman. But Fogarty, somehow thinks that because she *could* have been blown up at some point in her tour, that makes her equal to any infantryman. Actually all that makes her is a potential target. I’m sure she did a fine job, whatever that was, because she doesn’t tell us what she did in Iraq, but I think if we knew what her job was, we’d think her bravado would seem even more ridiculous.
While I’m sure her Air Force training was the best they could give her, I’m also sure that none of it had much to do with pulling triggers, not that it’s a bad thing, the Air Force seems more focused on their specialties and less on the ancillary war-fighting stuff, mainly because they have people in the Air Force to protect their technicians from the war-fighting stuff, and they depend on the Army and Marines for extra layers of protection.
I’m also sure that Stacy joined the Air Force so she’d be back from the battle, otherwise, she might have enlisted in the Marines or the Army. but, that’s just speculation because I don’t know what her job was in the Air Force, but she’s not exactly forthcoming on that point.
On edit: MCPO NYC USN (Ret.) dropped a video off in the comments, and it turns out that she worked in a medical supply room, so yeah, she’s a hardened combat vet more than qualified to comment on women in combat.
Category: Military issues
So is it time for Congress to require women to register for the draft?
@46 Jonn, I in no way intended to harass her at her job, that is why I posted at her SOTD page, not her personal page. It is her SOTD Facebook page where she was accepting accolades for her military and current service. I took great and genuine care to thank her for her service not only overseas but in helping vets now. But as @49 said someone who says I was there “in a combat” as she put it, is like a wannabee in a vets support group. They can do a lot of harm. If I went overboard…my apologies.
that “woman” is comedy gold. Since the myth has always been that the Air Force gets the hot chicks, did she have to get a waiver to enlist? Someday before I retire, I too hope to see “a combat”. Not participate mind you, just see one.
6 month tour STFU.
By the way her personal Facebook says nothing about Iraq. It states:
United States Air Force
Medical Logistics · San Antonio, Texas · Jan 2005 to Jan 2009
Maybe she left her deployment out. I don’t know.
Who is this Scott Funk guy that’s all over this blog lately. Its curious how fervently he’s all over this issue. He keeps equating this to flying planes. Since flying a jet has little to do with physical strength I’m going to assume this guy is a troll or a moron. Or both, judging by his combative tone. I question his manhood. Feverishly advocating sending females into harms way to actively seek out enemy contact when there is no shortage of men to do the job speaks to your absence of grit you pussy.
@56 Newer to TAH, so, who or what is a Scott Funk?
I did my time in A-Stan providing Convoy Security, doing escort missions typically in an up armored Gun Truck. I have over 150 missions under my belt, some close calls, and I DON’T call myself a Combat Vet! By her definition, I could call myself a Korean DMZ Combat Vet (AND I DON’T) from my tour over there 92-93, we were within “spitting distance” of plenty of cross-DMZ spats between the Norkies and the ROKs (In Garrison, we were barely over two miles from the Southern Tier). THAT dingbat publicity whore needs a mental tuneup!!
Scott–MOS, please?
Scott Funk, huh? I guess he doesn’t know about the female USAF pilot who flies Warthogs, does he? She’s no short stuff.
How come Stacey gets to retire as an E-4 and I didn’t get to retire until a few years ago? That’s so unfair!
I served in Iraq back in 2009 with the Air Force (mobilized Air National Guard) and, while Sather Air Base took fire on a couple of ocassions, I do not claim to be a “combat vet”. I always make it clear to people that I was not out kicking in doors and that I was serving inside the wire just so no one can accuse me of inflating my service. People like this chick make me sick because I have family who have served on the front lines in the Marine Corps and the Army and they literally put their lives on the line day in and day out. I am currently in EBOLC out at Fort Leonard Wood and hope to graduate soon and return to my Army Guard Combat Engineer unit. Of course, this is a slightly different animal than my Air Force engineer days since obviously there is a little more risk involved. But using this broad as an “expert” on women in combat just seems offensive to someone who has served in both the Air Force and the Army. Hell, I make Air Force jokes all the time now, but I am proud of the fact that I was an Airman and never saw the need to embellish my service record; I was just glad for the opportunity to serve!
@52, Sparks, I meant my comment for no one in particular
@62 Understood.
For those inquiring about this Funk character – look up at the top of the comments – he posted some nonsense in the FB area.
To the rude and crude idiot Funk: I am one of those hard charging females you so cavalierly throw under the bus in your comments. You have no idea what it takes to succeed and how badly most of us females do not want military missions compromised by sticking folks into jobs in which they cannot possibly survive. I am not willfully ignorant enough to contemplate that a statistically significant number of women would be able to do what most men cannot do. That is how difficult the challenges are in special operations.
A few around here know me personally and could attest to the fact that decades ago I was smart enough, clever enough, and mentally tough enough to have done the job but I simply did not have the physical stature to sustain myself through the training much less in the field. No amount of wishing otherwise will ever alter the basic truth that a special combination of aptitude, trainability, and strength is required for field operations in war.
Those who do not understand the principle that most real combat positions require an ability to stick everything you will need for a few weeks into your pockets and/or carry it around with you should have no input into the policies directing these operations.
That is very, very curious Sparks. Perhaps she runs with a FB crowd that holds kittens to their faces and doesn’t want to be associated with those Veterans who actually engaged in “a combat.” Or perhaps…
Hey, ANCCPT! (@ #50) Don’t be advertising for that job – I already volunteered! You may, if you like, be posted at the door. I might need some medical attention by the time I get through with her. She already has my BP highly elevated.
One side insists on listening to the experts, which the other side then produces: women who’ve been in and around combat. But it’s limited combat. Inside a FOB. Occasional missions outside the wire.
What does the Infantry do: walking, running, sprinting from the cliffs of Normandy to eastern Germany. With a full rucksack. And ammo. In all weather. Against a very determined, experienced, and barbaric foe (a clue for women: the Taliban and AQ worship the SS).
Then return home, start a family and a job, and leave it all to climb up mountains from Pusan to the Yalu River in extremes of heat and cold. With a full rucksack. And ammo. In all weather. Against a very determined, experienced, and barbaric foe.
I guess a mission down to the Bagram PX to purchase the latest Lady Gaga CD counts as combat these days.
@66 OWB, I have bacitracin for your knuckles, and a self help book for the SPC entitled ‘Regaining Self Esteem After A Royal Smoking-The guide to recovering from being a self inflating sh*tbag”. It’s endorsed by the E-4 mafia, so you know it’s good. How’s that for Army Medical efficiency?
I also have that amazing officer hearing that can selectively turn on and off when needed.
I could be sitting outside the door and not know that there was even anything going on….Like my joes say… “This is NCO business, Sir.” “Ok then. Carry on Sergeant. Don’t get caught breaking any regs and don’t hurt anyone”
PC Media running crazy looking for a PC spokesPERSON on controversial PC subjects.
“The minute you hit the AOR (area of responsibility) that’s a combat.”
Go home, Airforce. You’re drunk!
You better believe the enemy which can attack when they want specifically targets females and other POG’s. They do it because they know their chance of survival is better than if they go after infantry units.
For anyone wondering about “Scott Funk”, I believe this is the guy’s website.
http://www.2funks.com/home.htm
Not much content there I could find other than photos of himself/family and related stuff. Seemed a bit narcissistic and lacking in purpose to me, but to each his own.
@64 sapper3307, yea, I lol at that too. on my second tour in Iraq we were sitting in the MWR watching AFN and they had a story about some F15 unit that just finished a “grueling” 90 deployment to Balad Air Base. Being as we were all Infantry on a FOB with pretty much nothing, we were sure it must have been tuff for them there at Disney Land with the 24hr PX and the food court.
So I suppose when the hadji’s threw rocks at us, that was combat too? What about the Scuds that were thrown at us in the early part of OIF, but didn’t hit any of us? (We heard they were inbound, and had a few bunker runs because of them, but we hardly considered that combat.)
That young lady needs to learn there’s a difference between ‘being in danger’ and ‘participating in combat’ – but chances are, she’ll only get that experience from reading a book.
And as for Scott Funk? He wrote “Women have fought in combat beside men in the deepest of shit throughout history…” Really moron? When? Where?
I love you!!!
As I sit here procrastinating over whether to run or not, I figure I’ll leave my two cents. This won’t be about women in combat necessarily, but rather my personal observations about Soldiers in general over here. First off, ten years ago my unit was full of highly trained young men who had been among the first in Iraq. Some were reluctant, having joined for the college money rather than to go to war, but all were physically and mentally capable of operating outside of the proverbial wire. There were some females around–the truck driver that drove us from FARP Shell to Baghdad was one of them–but they disappeared once we started actual combat operations. Our driver supposedly acquitted herself quite well during an ambush outside of SIAP (after the convoy stopped[!?] and her gunner froze, she tried “manning” the .50 before she was ordered to get back in the driver’s seat by the 2LT TC’ing her). Ten years later, and I’m on my second deployment. A different war in many ways, and the Soldiers here on the FOB are anything but the motivated combat Soldiers I knew years ago. Down in the Infantry and Cavalry units there are doubtlessly many, but in the support units and at the brigade level very few Soldiers have any desire to leave the FOB. Even fellow Infantrymen (and senior NCOs at that!) readily tell younger 11Bs in the unit that they should be in no rush to get to the line. An E-7 and an E-8 in particular have the philosophy that sending these 11B1O-level Soldiers to the line will do nothing besides decrease their life expectancy. Never mind that a couple of these Infantrymen will one day be leaders (a few others have made their decision to ETS due to the inaction of the senior NCOs), with no operational experience at lower levels since all of them will have spent their formative years sitting in a TOC. Meanwhile, there have been a handful of female casualties, as well as some who have earned the CMB (many have received the CAB, as I’ll… Read more »
Leave to an Air Force POG to think getting rocketed on a camp is the same as being in combat…
Maybe she’s Italian like Chef Boyardee and said, “That’s a combat!”
So, now that the DoD has started preparing to open combat positions to women, does that mean that women should now have to register for the draft?
All men do on our 18th birthday (per federal law). The reason that women do not have to is given as they weren’t eligible for combat, they weren’t considered part of the ‘unorganized militia’ for conscription purposes.
It’s odd….I don’t hear the women’s rights activists clamoring for it…All the privileges, none of the responsibilities….
she said. “Civilians are throwing bombs over to the base.”
Screw that, if they got civilians capable of “throwing” “bombs” we need to pack up our shit and get out.
If this is about women breaking through the glass ceiling, there is no room for slackers in combat, male or female, and there are plenty of those of both sexes in all walks of life, aren’t there?
But speaking of combat, we girls are over in the trenches holding our own against Paul K Wickre, with a few guys helping us out. I guess we can hold our own in combat, after all, ’cause we’re winning. 🙂
A little FYI,Lance one of my twin Grandsons is now at Fort(?) Still, Ok.. Started his BCT? basic training.Boo and all the Docs and Corpsmen he is on a combat medic c ontact. No FMF Corpsman for him. He found out to care for Marines that he had to join the Navy,they would assure him of FMF Duty. So I will be asking you Army types for advice to pass to Lance from time to time. Example=they are already trying to talk him of Combat Medic because of his scores. Joe
YOU NEED TO ACCEPT THAT TIMES ARE CHANGING, YOUR STANDARDS ARE SEXIST
MAYBE THEY CAN’T DO EQUAL WORK BUT THEY DESERVE EQUAL CREDIT
She’s just a “Garatrooper…hardly worth going to war no more.”
@82: Caps lock. Live it, use it, love it.
Punctuation is not rules set by the man to oppress you.
And they do get equal credit.
Now tell me, how is that the standards are “sexist”? Or are you a one stop kind of troll?
She claims she’s “retired’, I say she’s RETARDED. I finally watched one of the videos and felt my IQ points drop as I heard her speak! Maybe due to a long time in Grade, she was Senior AIRHEAD while her rank was Senior Airman?
OWB, want me to get my gear and stand door security for ya, ma’am? 😉
Pax, that’d be a drive-by……
@84 TO SAY THAT WOMEN SHOULD BE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS AS MEN IN THE MILITARY IS SEXIST, PLAIN AND SIMPLE
“MAYBE THEY CAN’T DO EQUAL WORK BUT THEY DESERVE EQUAL CREDIT” So, the guy who can’t hack gross anatomy still gets the medical degree, because, you know, he can’t do equal work, but he does deserve equal credit. I’ll pick the doc who can tell the ventricle from the aorta, thank you.
My limited experience with the AF log types in theater tells me that the “reporter” should have at least looked for an SP or MP if she wanted an expert on women in combat. I’m guessing that the Fogarty has her name readily available to the press as an “expert” so it was easier to call a number on a business card then actually research and find someone like Leigh Ann Hester.
“MAYBE THEY CAN’T DO EQUAL WORK BUT THEY DESERVE EQUAL CREDIT”
Mr. Bryant, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this blog is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Now Brandon, someone making such blatantly asinine statements as those must be either mentally challenged, a troll, have no military experience, or, perhaps, all three.
I would love to have been able to take her out just one day during Operation Together Forward, where we kicked in doors 18 hours a day. I’d be willing to bet she would change her mind.
@90- if that is the real Brandon Bryant, he’d be the drone operator who caught the PTSD after watching a guy’s body cool after a drone strike
A bridge somewhere is missing its troll.
I may be in the minority, but I have no problem with the lady claiming she “served in combat”. In my book, if you’re getting shot at – with direct or indirect fire – in a declared war zone, you’re serving in combat.
However, if she’s holding herself out as some type of “expert” on close combat, she’s as deluded (and as dishonest) as our “good friend” Paul K. Wickre.
There’s a huge difference between being mortared/shelled/rocketed on a base and going outside the wire and “doing what the combat arms does” – e.g., closing with and destroying the enemy. Both are combat, but only the latter meets the definition of “close combat”.
Street, was counting on you to do just that. Thanks!
Meanwhile, Brandon, when you gain an understanding of the meaning of words, come on back here and play again. We’ll leave the light on for ya.
@94 And the physical requirements for each of those are markedly different. I think you are correct about the honesty//deluded part, although I’m even willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as it might be based more on ignorance of the requirements as opposed to any malfeasance.
Nonetheless it is interesting that, as many have observed, no one seems to be talking to infantrymen or even seems interested in doing so. None of these dumb 4ss reporters are even asking the military what the current physical standards are for entrance to these combat arms MOSs….it’s as though nobody really wants to ask a real question or know a real answer regarding the physical standard because that would raise far too many intelligent, and perhaps, unsettling questions.
@87: So it’s “sexist” to hold women to the same standards as men but it’s not “sexist” to say that women can’t handle the military as well as men unless standards are lowered to accommodate them.
If you had been in my platoon, I think I would have referred to you as an ASVAB Waiver.
VOV: kinda thought it went without saying that the physical requirements are radically different, amigo. But I probably should have spelled that out explicitly for the benefit of any libidiot sans military background who might wander by and read the comments here.
Hold it right there, pilgrim – whoever that ALLCAPS IDIOT is.
Holding women to the same standards as men equals sexixm?
Hell, no, it doesn’t! It is NOT sexist, it means if you’re too weak physically to carry the standard load, you don’t qualify. That isn’t sexism, you dumb clunk. It’s setting a standard FOR EVERYONE.
Meet it and go. Don’t meet it and don’t go. That’s it.
Okay, troll–the only “equality” you’ll have by letting the little girls do less than the little boys is that they’ll BOTH end up just as dead when she can’t hold her end up and the whole group gets fucked over because she couldn’t hack it. Same goes for a man in that situation who can’t hack it.