That's completely different. To the max. Sniping isn't anything like frontline combat.

Well, it's not exactly a walk in the park either.

You're hundreds of meters, if not many kilometers away from battle. You don't see the person's guts go everywhere, you don't watch as he begs to return to his family, you don't see him give a final prayer to his god before he dies. You don't have to be hardened to that.

No. No it's not the same thing.

Kilometers away? Somehow I doubt that is accurate, my friend!

Can't see whats wrong with Women in the military. As a liberalist, I believe in the concept of 'Equal Rights'. Women deserve the right. As for Iraq that is a 'frontline', of war that most people are fed up with. Just ask that to the all the families of dead soldiers that died in Iraq.

Bah. Snipers aren't soldiers who just shoot from farther away and still miraculously hit. The use riflescopes, and see very well what they are hitting - oft much better than the ordinary soldiers using diopter sights (who have little time to watch their victims suffer in real situations).

I recall a Spanish statement that said women in frontlines are problematic because men supposedly have strong natural instincts to try to protect women, and thus expose themselves to unnecessary danger (as opposed to just watch your male comrades being hit, as expected casualties of war). It did sound a bit like Mediterranean machismo to me...

My guitar teacher always told me: if you want to split up a jazz band, introduce a female singer to it.

I think that was similar to the excuse I heard, whether true or not - if women were on the frontlines, if injured or put in harms way then the men may feel a stronger need to protect them instead of completing whatever objectives they may have.

It's much better to have a group of soldiers that are of one sex. Why? Well, Men have a natural instinct to protect women, and during combat, that could make things very confusing and the common soldier. Also, it's bigger strain on resources to have to set up separate showers, and any number of other different facilities for the different sexes. If you have just one sex out there you it reduces the complications a lot. Men are, of course, the obvious choice, because A) even though some women may be strong enough to keep up with the men, as a general rule men are stronger. B) Women have more needs that need to be taken care of. C) There are much, much fewer women who want to go fight than men.

Guess what Dj! You're stupid!

Snipers have to witness the horrors of war, just as every other soldier in combat does. A sniper may be ordered to engage an enemy who is simply taking a walk in a park, having a bite to eat, at any moment could the sniper be ordered to engage that enemy, no matter what he was doing, sleeping, etc. I've heard tales of snipers feeling guilty as **** because they felt horrible that their target didn't even have a fighting chance, they said it just felt so wrong.
Snipers also... require some of the most advanced, and rigourous training to become snipers..., you have to calculate, windage, and elevation, as well as not being seen. You have to co-ordinate with your spotter to find enemies. You may have to lay in wait for days even up to a week or more, crawling through brush, and pissing yourself. Snipers hold very key information to the Army's success, and will be interrogated and brutally beaten if captured... in order to milk information out of the sniper.

BTW the max distance snipers usually engage enemies is less then 1000 meters.

If a woman can hold her own when stacked against some dumb peice of meat on the frontlines thats like a bajillion pounds of muscle, then let them.

Not saying that everyone on the front lines are dumb pieces of meat..

But hey, all my friends in the army ended up "on the front lines" and well... the people I used to hang with aren't the kind of people who are widely regarded to as intelligent...

All this doesn't change the fact that sniping is very different. Sure you need to calculate wind, distance etc. but really, it's nothing like close up combat MENTALLY. You are simply not in the same amount of danger.

So yeah... since when have you been a sniper?





Tom Clancy is millitary sensationalism.

One of my friends is going into the Guards, and one of his training options is being a sniper...

well, i agree that being a sniper is NOTHING like being on the front lines, because i think it's WAYS more difficult, in both physical *and* mental aspects.

in WWII, when people found the relative location of a sniper they called ARTILLERY on the spot. also, one more thing about snipers... they rarely live to be P.O.W.

and if they do... they're tortured.

badly.

Hows about this.


All war sucks.

Period. (not a pun)

End of discussion.

I don't see what is your point about seperate showers. They have to be there anyway because women are already in the army.

Wouldn't men already have the natural instinct to protect their troops anyway? It seems you bring up vague ideas.

That's what makes it even harder.

Prove it.

You're putting us humans down terribly. The reason we are what we are is because we're not slaves to 'natural instinct'. Any conflict between 'male' and 'female' is entirely social.

But on the frontlines, your natural instinct must take over to survive. Read "All Quiet On The Western Front"...

It can be ignored, but it is an instinct, and it just one more complication. Not to mention the complications of having to have women medics, trouble with soldiers getting pregnant on the front lines...

Anyway here's picture of a Russian sniper who had 54 kills. Of course, Russians are crazy. :p

This conversation didn't really go anywhere.

Except to increase our post counts.

*cha-ching!* Post count +1!

No, your training must take over. That's why soldiers are very well trained.

My cousin is a sniper in the army. But MMMK I guess you'd know more than me.

Bingo.