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From: ded@aplvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Bloody shreds revisited
Message-ID: <203@aplvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Jul-83 13:59:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: aplvax.203
Posted: Tue Jul 26 13:59:44 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jul-83 08:52:24 EDT
Lines: 26


I've received several similar responses to an article I posted, so I suppose
it's time to answer them all publicly.  Here is a representative quote:

	"The military should only put appropriate people into combat,
	 men AND women."

The question is: how can this be done?  The military currently uses a blanket 
policy to put the "appropriate" people into combat: they use men.  The basis 
for this policy is that, over-all, men will freeze-up less, kill better, etc.,
than women.  And in a general sense, this is true.  If you randomly select a 
group of 100 men and 100 women from the population, the group of men will 
most likely be the most effective combat force.

I am not a fan of the military, but I can't for the life of me think of a
better way to choose cannon fodder.  Will we have some sort of "combat
suitability" test?  If we did, would you try to pass it?  There isn't a test
written that I couldn't flunk if I wanted to, especially so-called
"psychological tests."  What about it?  Is there some fair and
gender-independent way to choose who will risk their lives in combat, given
that there won't be enough volunteers?

					Don Davis
					JHU/APL
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