Women Will Serve Aboard Submarines

[John Picard]

Best part of the article up thread:

That crap goes on now, a submarine isn't going to change that. Hell some of the biggest gossips I know are or were in the Navy-- no offense to the Ex-Navy around here, just personal experience. We had a neighbor whose son was on the Ike in '94. To hear that boy talk the women that got assigned that ship did nothing but fuck and suck their way through the deployment.

So the whole "people will talk..." argument is empty and ignorant of one as people can use.

The USS Acadia was nicknamed The Love Boat for a specific reason.

Point being, that using gossip as an excuse for not doing something is ignoring the reality that it already goes on.

Oh, I agree. It doesn't matter if it's the military or private industry -- hanky panky happens. People make it out like all men in the military are hard working, hard charging workers. I encountered my fair share of shitbags of both male and female. I also met and worked with some females who worked harder and were more professional than some of the men.

 

[scotpens]

Rights ensure freedom and protection, surely, not servitude to a government (voluntary or otherwise)?

So even those who volunteer for the military are somehow in a state of “servitude”?

Military service is a chore, not a right.

Funny you should say that. Many consider it a privilege.

The main reason why we still have mandatory Selective Service registration is simple government inertia. The fact is, in the United States, we DON'T HAVE A DRAFT. And we're highly unlikely ever to have one again. The people don't want it, Congress doesn't want it, and, generally speaking (no pun intended), the military doesn't want it.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Rights ensure freedom and protection, surely, not servitude to a government (voluntary or otherwise)?

So even those who volunteer for the military are somehow in a state of “servitude"?

Yes. To serve voluntarily is still to serve. There is nothing wrong with truly choosing to serve. If that is who you are, if you find pride in being a soldier and choosing to serve, that's great. I was a little out of line to make the "chore" comment as though it was a generalization- what I mean is that a military life is hard, dangerous- whether you enjoy it or not.

Whether or not mandatory Selective Service registration will continue is a separate issue. The fact is, in the United States, we DON'T HAVE A DRAFT. And we're highly unlikely ever to have one again. The people don't want it, Congress doesn't want it, and, generally speaking (no pun intended), the military doesn't want it.

It's not a separate issue at all. If you're all so opposed to a draft or compulsory service- government, people, soldiers, etc, then get rid of the compulsory registration. Why keep it around if you don't want a draft? Let me guess: in case you ever decide you do want a draft again.

Compulsory registration is simply the government reminding its young men and adolescent boys that they can do what they like with them, and their freedom is only for as long as the government desires to let them be free.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Military service is a chore, not a right.

Funny you should say that. Many consider it a privilege.

It can be a privilege to serve. I for one feel good and privileged when I perform a service for a friend or peer.

And the issue isn't that some people see it as a privilege- the issue is that they are required to see it that way if you label it as a "right". To many others, military service is not a "privilege" at all, but labelling it in terms of a right makes it so regardless. That is an act of manipulating the public by using the rhetoric of freedom- IE talk of "rights"- to make the populace believe they are being privileged by serving a government. If the individual truly sees service as a privilege, good for them (and I mean that non-sarcastically). But to insist service to a government is a "right"- that is, something considered natural and unalienable and undeniable, like the right to life- is manipulation.

Believe me, many members of my family have been in the military, been to war- they did NOT consider it a "privilege" and believe it is highly offensive to try to silence those who hate the suggestion, through talk of "rights" or compulsory registration, that it is a good thing to view your sons (or daughters too, sometimes) as a resource for the government's wars.

It may be worth mentioning every soldier in my family that I'm aware of joined up voluntarily- they chose to serve, and would never pressure or force another to serve.

 

[scotpens]

Deranged Nasat: Excuse me, I slightly altered my above post before realizing you'd already responded to it.

Who knows? We may well do away with compulsory Selective Service registration within the next few years. It's not exactly a top priority issue. In any case, I'm about 35 years too old to be drafted, so I'm not going to sweat it.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

<b>Deranged Nasat:<b> Excuse me, I slightly altered my above post before realizing you'd already responded to it.

Oh, that's okay, no need to apologise!

 

[Marc]

Best part of the article up thread:

That crap goes on now, a submarine isn't going to change that. Hell some of the biggest gossips I know are or were in the Navy-- no offense to the Ex-Navy around here, just personal experience. We had a neighbor whose son was on the Ike in '94. To hear that boy talk the women that got assigned that ship did nothing but fuck and suck their way through the deployment.

So the whole "people will talk..." argument is empty and ignorant of one as people can use.

The USS Acadia was nicknamed The Love Boat for a specific reason.

Point being, that using gossip as an excuse for not doing something is ignoring the reality that it already goes on.

Though there's actually less chance for it to go on in sub because there's very little room for it to in and it's not like Subs visit foriegn ports to where the men and women can get it on while ashore.

 

[Bloodwhiner]

Serving is a privilege.. I wish I could have been in the military. I would have signed up in a minute back in 1980 (and given my ASVAB scores the military would have loved to have had me) but I didn't meet its standards due to physical condition that "they" consider a disability.

 

[UssGlenn]

Best part of the article up thread:

Let's say a sub leaves San Diego and resurfaces months later in Japan, and maybe at that point, the stories start to fly.

"Just think of a rumor getting out that this guy is fooling around with this young sailor," he said.

That crap goes on now, a submarine isn't going to change that. Hell some of the biggest gossips I know are or were in the Navy-- no offense to the Ex-Navy around here, just personal experience. We had a neighbor whose son was on the Ike in '94. To hear that boy talk the women that got assigned that ship did nothing but fuck and suck their way through the deployment.

So the whole "people will talk..." argument is empty and ignorant of one as people can use.

I think the point was that since communication is only one way on a sub, not two way like the rest of the navy, the rumor problem would be more severe than in the rest of the fleet. Don't ask me for the logic behind it, but I think that was what they were trying to say.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Wait, they're giving women the same Rights as men now? I propose a Constitutional Amendment to stop this nonsense.

Well, I'm assuming you mean something along the lines of "the right to fully participate in civic actions". But that doesn't strike me as right, personally. That is not how rights should work. Rights ensure freedom and protection, surely, not servitude to a government (voluntary or otherwise)?

Aside from being sarcastic about this being the tenth year of the 21st Century and they're finally getting around to letting women serve on subs, I was talking about Equal Rights-- if a woman wants to join the Navy and serve on the submarine, she should have the same opportunity to do so as a man.

 

[JiNX-01]

Wait, they're giving women the same Rights as men now? I propose a Constitutional Amendment to stop this nonsense.

Interesting read on this very subject:



Newport News Daily Press
October 3, 2009

The Debate Is On: Do Submarines Have Room For Women?

By Hugh Lessig

Do you have a link to this? If it's the entire article, it shouldn't be Posted here for Copyright reasons.

Doesn't look like it was copyrighted.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Though there's actually less chance for it to go on in sub because there's very little room for it to in

Ah, but never underestimate the power of gossip. There's always room for two people to whisper to each other about a third person. Human nature and all that.

and it's not like Subs visit foreign ports to where the men and women can get it on while ashore.

Not fully true.

Ballistic Missile Submarines do not visit foreign ports, but Fast Attack Submarines do. There are more Fast Attack Subs than Ballistic Missile Subs as well.

 

[indranee]

From NPR:

At issue is the end of a policy that kept women from serving aboard the last type of ship off-limits to them. The thinking was that the close quarters aboard subs would make coed service difficult to manage.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates notified Congress in a letter signed Friday that the Navy intends to repeal the ban on women sailors on subs. Congress has 30 days to weigh in.

I don't know if hotracking with an 18 year old girl would be a good thing or a bad thing.

The Progressive in me is proud that we're breaking barriers.

lookin' forward to a whole lotta happy sailors

 

[Danoz]

The argument is fair enough (sexual tension in the workplace- same argument for gays in the military) but it also suggests a lack of responsibility, focus and training on the part of our U.S. military. Beyond the clear issue of women's rights, I think we need to give our military more credit than to suggest they'll all be getting boners in combat situations.

 

[SPOCKED]

Though there's actually less chance for it to go on in sub because there's very little room for it to in

Ah, but never underestimate the power of gossip. There's always room for two people to whisper to each other about a third person. Human nature and all that.

and it's not like Subs visit foreign ports to where the men and women can get it on while ashore.

Not fully true.

Ballistic Missile Submarines do not visit foreign ports, but Fast Attack Submarines do. There are more Fast Attack Subs than Ballistic Missile Subs as well.

Yeah, I didn't quite get that either. I saw lots of liberty ports (Ft Lauderdale, Bermuda, Naples, Halifax etc) on my first boat - alas, no women crewmembers but plenty women out in town. I was once in a relationship with an IC1 who was a regular member of our Squadron tech support and thus she was belowdecks fairly frequently in port to help work on our equipment. We were exactly the same rank and rating; and she could have run circles around half my crewmates. The only thing she didn't have was the SS (qualified submarines) after her name. It was a delicious time - I remember her later on turning heads up at my code when she'd show up to meet me for lunch in her sundress (she felt as if she was always in uniform and wanted everyone to know there was a woman underneath... and she wasn't bashful at all about it ) The last I heard from her (~1986) she "captained" a tugboat and crew to support submarine transits.

 

[Chaos Descending]

^^^ Nice. Actually, some of the coolest girls I knew from the Nimitz were ICs from E-Div.

 

[Barbados Slim]

I don't think the argument is capability. The argument is sexuality locked tight in a tiny tin can for three months. I know if there were girls on my boat, I would've been fucking. I was 18! And submarining can get extremely boring. Dark bunkrooms, tiny nooks in the engine room to go of an get lost. Professionalism isn't the question. Plus, having a young seaman getting knocked up midway through a patrol is a helluva lot different than on a surface ship.

I think the solution is similar to teen pregnancy. Confront the issue of hormones and train about abstinence and birth control. Which is probably the route the Navy will go anyway. But making it an equal rights/women are capable issue is making it a false argument and not addressing the actual operational effectiveness problems that could plague a coed submarine.

 

[CorporalClegg]

If it becomes a problem, why not have subs with all women crews? I think they do/did that in other countries.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I hope they make it all volunteer because if they assign some chick to a sub and she dont want to be on it then all she has to do is get knocked up and they will have to waste time and money dumping her off at a US port.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Submarine duty in the US Navy is already all volunteer. In fact, it's not that easy to get posted to a sub even if you ask for it.