I wonder if this will also affect transgender women?
QuoteThat may be a difficult question from a societal standpoint, but the answer is straightforward, according to a legal analysis. On Thursday, the Pentagon will lift its ban on women in combat.
http://news.yahoo.com/women-combat-register-draft-225900518.html (http://news.yahoo.com/women-combat-register-draft-225900518.html)
Nope. Transgender people are barred from the military period.
Being transgendered has no effect on registration.
Natal females are exempted in the federal statute for selective service registration.
Big difference between registering for Selective Service and being drafted. Especially since there is no draft.
If there actually was a draft i'm pretty sure they would turn me away...
Wow. Big step forward!
Oh joy, now women can get shot and maimed more often. And they call this a step forward.
Sorry I know my feelings on this are probably not popular.
I know women have served honorably and I appreciate them, just why now put them in further harms way.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 09:38:52 AM
Oh joy, now women can get shot and maimed more often. And they call this a step forward.
Sorry I know my feelings on this are probably not popular.
I have mixed feelings about it because yeah, women are at a physical disadvantage against enemy men because of hormones, and physical requirements for them are lower. But I still think it's a step forward and I think lots of women will be proven valuable to combat roles.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 09:38:52 AM
Oh joy, now women can get shot and maimed more often. And they call this a step forward.
Sorry I know my feelings on this are probably not popular.
Well, war is never a step forward, but a sometimes necessary evil.
There are women who want to fight and were denied that right. If they want to fight I say let them but no one should be forced to do so.
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore. We don't go in to win, we go in hoping for a draw.
I understand sometimes war is necessary, but if we are going to put our young people at risk, we should do it full out. Go in, win and get out.
Somehow we lost the will to win after WWII, I hated the way we fought North Korea (my brothers war) and Vietnam (my war).
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 11:03:22 AM
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore. We don't go in to win, we go in hoping for a draw.
I understand sometimes war is necessary, but if we are going to put our young people at risk, we should do it full out. Go in, win and get out.
Somehow we lost the will to win after WWII, I hated the way we fought North Korea (my brothers war) and Vietnam (my war).
I believe we still fight to win, it's just our end goal is different. Before, our goal was to decimate the enemy. Now, it is to get rid of the head of the problem and attempt to help the country recover. I know that from my personal experience, we fought to win. It was us or them.
I'm very anti-war, but this gives military women the same(ish) opportunities for advancement as men within their profession, which they did not have before.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 11:03:22 AM
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore. We don't go in to win, we go in hoping for a draw.
I understand sometimes war is necessary, but if we are going to put our young people at risk, we should do it full out. Go in, win and get out.
Somehow we lost the will to win after WWII, I hated the way we fought North Korea (my brothers war) and Vietnam (my war).
I don't think we lost the will to win. In WWII we were fighting for survival. Losing had a very high price in every war since then we have not been fighting for are survival and all we have done is lost lives and gained nothing.
Beginning with the Korean war and on we have been fighting proxy wars, these are wars for other countries and for people who don't have the will to fight for themselves. The American people have somehow been duped into believing that it is for the survival of our own country with God Bless America and a lot of flag waving. However it is really all about keeping the military industrial complex in the chips, protecting oil interests abroad, and nation building all of which is none of our business and is a perversion of the US Constitution. Meanwhile those self aggrandizing people on both sides of the aisle in Washington, DC don't mind sending our brothers, cousins and our children off to far away places to die for an ambiguous cause. I was a proud army paratrooper during the Vietnam War, my friends were killed right and left and we killed a lot of little people for no good reason. I wrote this poem many years ago, it tells it like it is.
Verdant Woods
Jungles smelling of decay, sweating, suffocating heat,
Stinking fungus, rotting sox, wet and tired feet.
Dengue and malarial fever, liver flukes and leeches,
Those verdant woods a far cry from Vung Tau's sandy beaches.
Scorpions, Cobras, great variety of very poisonous snakes,
Some strike to kill some cause blindness like the Banded Krait.
Food's sweet residue on our breath, lips gnawed by rats,
Stealthy nighttime creatures, rodents large as cats.
Mosquitoes in the millions buzzing noisily around our heads,
Wondering if morning will find us all alive or dead.
Watching intently in the darkness for VC and NVA,
Praying earnestly to God to see the light of day.
Stench of blood and rotting corpses lay all round about,
Nostrils recoil while maggots roil the course of war in doubt.
Demonstrations in the streets, flags burning way back there,
There is nothing in the records saying war is ever fair.
173rd Airborne Brigade (Sep)
Republic of South Vietnam
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 11:03:22 AM
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore. We don't go in to win, we go in hoping for a draw.
I understand sometimes war is necessary, but if we are going to put our young people at risk, we should do it full out. Go in, win and get out.
Somehow we lost the will to win after WWII, I hated the way we fought North Korea (my brothers war) and Vietnam (my war).
Well, we haven't fought a war of conquest in a while. This isn't the age of Tamerlane or Napoleon any more. With the ease of information and and destructiveness of weaponry, nations cant just go around conquering other nations these days. The hard fact is that if you are playing to win in war you must be prepared to kill and destroy without mercy and frankly I don't like it and neither does much of the world for that matter. Any attempt to "win" will be met with hard international resistance and for good reason. People are tired of the mass slaughter of other human beings and you cant hide the reality of it all with propaganda any more.
QuotePeople are tired of the mass slaughter of other human beings
Yeah i am too, and so is my dad, he was in Vietnam. His truck was blown up by a land mine, and he lost a few friends. He has PSTD from the war.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 11:03:22 AM
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore. We don't go in to win, we go in hoping for a draw.
I understand sometimes war is necessary, but if we are going to put our young people at risk, we should do it full out. Go in, win and get out.
Somehow we lost the will to win after WWII, I hated the way we fought North Korea (my brothers war) and Vietnam (my war).
I beg to disagree...a well planed war has an exit strategy...the first gulf war was well planned, executed, and we left once the goal was achieved...
The second gulf war no so well planned but we won and we left (sort of) and Iraq is progressing towards something better than Saddam plus we have the oil field rights...
In Afghanistan we dismantled Al-Qaeda and put the Taliban on the run, yet in my book we lost that war because the Afghanistan war poorly planed with no clear goals or exit strategies...
so you see it is not a question of a lack of will to win but rather poor planing...
Quote from: peky on January 24, 2013, 07:57:53 PM
I beg to disagree...a well planed war has an exit strategy...the first gulf war was well planned, executed, and we left once the goal was achieved...
The second gulf war no so well planned but we won and we left (sort of) and Iraq is progressing towards something better than Saddam plus we have the oil field rights...
In Afghanistan we dismantled Al-Qaeda and put the Taliban on the run, yet in my book we lost that war because the Afghanistan war poorly planed with no clear goals or exit strategies...
so you see it is not a question of a lack of will to win but rather poor planing...
Very well said, Peky. One of the most intelligent analyses I've seen of what went wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 11:03:22 AM
I suppose part of my problem is I don't like how the United States fights war anymore.
Uh, the United States doesn't fight wars anymore. We fight "conflicts" and engagements. Congress hasn't declared an act of war since World War 2
Quote from: Sarah Louise on January 24, 2013, 09:43:51 AM
I know women have served honorably and I appreciate them, just why now put them in further harms way.
They are already there. There are quite a number of women who have been in combat positions, flying helicopters in very hot zones, etc. The difference in the new regulations allows women to get equal pay, be given medals and commendations, and being eligible for advancement, which can be very hard if they are not really considered to be in combat. It's basically equal status for equal work.
Since I doubt the draft will be reauthorized, I don't know what is going to happen with selective service. Kind of moot I suppose.
--Jay