fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2218 ]

[ SECRET POST #2218 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2218 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 079 secrets from Secret Submission Post #317.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Um, not trying to be facetious but what on earth do you mean? O.o All I can think of is TSS which is avoidable by simply swapping tampons tor maxipads.

You couldn't use tampons or maxi pads in those situations. What are are you going to do with the used ones? You couldn't burn or bury them. You also couldn't carry enough clean underwear to last you for months and you couldn't wash what you wore.

Why couldn't they be burned or buried? You can find plenty of brands of maxi pads that are just cotton. I mean tampons' secondary use were discovered by battlefield nurses.

And why would we need more clean underwear than men? Especially if we're using liners for a majority of the time.

I'm just bewildered to think that these would be problems that only applied to American women once they were officially allowed to serve in combat. And not any of the other women who have found themselves in comparable situations throughout history or in other countries militaries.

Anonymouslyyours I am perplexed and sad that you did not notice the sudden dip in tragic Toxic Vagina deaths around 2001. Truly the Shower Revolution is a boon to all us female creatures

Hey I was busy distracting menfolk into protecting me and making sure I don't trip over stuff I can't see under my boobs and washing out my icky bleeding vagina to notice things like that.

Female, I am just happy I am finally allowed to burn this giant pile of used tampons. I have begun to have trouble hiding it behind my feminine unmentionables

Oh I just cook those up into a nice pot of chili for my family. ...wait is that not what people mean when they say women have a natural gift for caretaking?

You're thinking of feminine products as they exist today. In the 50s through the 90s they weren't made of the same materials or of the same design. Just carrying a 90 day supply would mean she couldn't carry her full combat load of ammunition. You're also thinking of combat as a mobile and fast paced environment, which it mostly is now. That wasn't the case in conflicts the US participated in before the Desert Storm. Burning and even burying maxi pads or tampons could give away their position.

Male soldiers during most of that time were discouraged from wearing underwear and in some instances were prohibited from it (Granada, Panama). Females who don't wear underwear for prolonged periods of time combined with an inability to wash with soap and clean water WILL get yeast infections and treatment wasn't available.

This is concerning all conflicts prior to Desert Storm and some after. Since 2001, the US hasn't been in any conflict where women couldn't have served in a combat MOS. President Clinton ordered a review of the policy in the mid 90s which included an experimental training unit with females as 11Bs. The training had no more adverse effect on the females than it does on males (some got hurt, some got sick, gender meant nothing). When the same trial was done with females working in an artillery battery, the number of injuries went way up because of the way artillery was (literally) handled at the time (no longer applies). It was because of this that the trials were stopped and the review panel came back with a recommendation that females were not suited for ALL combat MOS and the administration took the hardline position of all or nothing. That review and those trials were a big part of making females in combat MOS a reality today.

The number of females who have been in combat (not to be confused with serving in a combat zone) is far above and beyond what anyone expected in September 2001. Warfare has changed so drastically and the government has been scrambling to adapt but allowing females to serve in combat MOS was the easiest thing to change but sexism is why it hasn't happened until now.

Could I see some citations for this because a lot of things aren't making sense for me but I am willing to admit I don't know as much on the subject so I'd rather do some reading before picking stuff apart.

But I would like to know how would burying tampons differ from burying bodily waste?

How do you account for documented cases of women passing as male soldiers during the Civil War or the women who had to live through similar situations throughout history?

I'd also like to ask if you accounted for the fact women's periods were much lighter and shorter than they are today when you calculated the 90 day supply of feminine products.

I am interested but very busy so any response to your reply might be slow in coming but not due to lack of interest!

I'm also busy but will dig up some citations for you later. Some of this comes from personal knowledge because I am a female that was in the US Army before and after 2001, when things really began to change. I don't know how complete the archive is for Military Times because I haven't gone there in ages, but it used to be pretty limited. I will see if I can dig up some of the stories about President Clinton's review from that time, but it might not be until tonight that I get a chance to even begin looking.

Burying bodily waste: rarely done before the 80s because of the possibility of giving position away. When it was done, it was most often a shallow communal trench. Those were used mainly when a group (usually no larger than a squad element) was about to change position. Pits were used when they were far enough behind the front line that their commanders deemed it acceptable. Women were usually serving in those areas, anyway. Also, tampons weren't the norm, maxi pads were.

Historically (US only): Firstly, I'm talking about about a military that allows females to serve, so I did not include anything from WWII or earlier. Women serving in combat in the Civil War was known at east as early as the Korean War but the risks to women in those situations was also known. The government will not allow someone serve in a capacity that it deems more hazardous for them than is explicitly necessary. (yes, I'm aware of how laughable that is when you're talking about sending people to their deaths)

90 day supply: took into account that maxi pads were the norm and their size was more than 10 times what it is now. As for how many are included in a 90 day supply, that hasn't changed at least since 1975, the original date of the ALARACT message addressing it (available on APD): "Females are required to take Seventy (70) individual feminine hygiene products when deploying: Ten (1)0 per day for Seven (7) days of Three (3) months"

90 day supply is a common thing in the military and isn't just for tampons. Soldiers on medications have to take a 90 day supply of their medication with them when they deploy and all unit logistics are planned on the assumption that resupply won't be possible for 90 days (which is often the case but I think some of that has to do with the resuppliers not acting as fast as they might because they know the unit has a 90 day supply with them). Clothing is usually carried on a 5 or 7 day model but it varies by unit based on their location and mission. Because of the way we pack, the clothing model is based on a single bag (usually the ruck) and then additional clothing is required in additional bags (A Bag or B Bag or both).

One last thing about how warfare has changed for the US military: we work out of established bases now; we go out for combat and then come back to our base where we have all of our supplies, facilities, medical care (though field medics are out when we are), and food. This has long been true of combat support MOS but was not true of combat MOS. Infantrymen and artillerymen especially would operate outside of our support bases for prolonged periods. During Vietnam, for example, it was common for an 11B to leave the base within days of arriving in country and not return even once until their tour was over. Resupply for those troops was inconsistent and it was either retrieved by a small element or very rarely it was delivered to them. The military is slow to adapt to a changed battlefield and stuck to this model even in conflicts when they shouldn't have (Panama and Grenada both jump to mind immediately again). So by the time Desert Storm happened, we were still conducting warfare this same way, though not always to such an extreme (coming back more often/frequently, not having as many soldiers out for prolonged periods). We even started out this way in Afghanistan in 2001 and it wasn't really until Iraq in 2003 that we finally began operating the way we do now.

My military background: US Army 1990-2011, SFC (RET). MOS: Ammunition supply 1990-1997, EOD 1998 (1 mission), Intelligence Analyst 1998-2011. Positions of note: platoon sergeant (multiple), Master Analyst 2002-11, Acting 1SG 2007-08, Acting CSM 2009-10. Combat Tours: Kosovo 1998, OEF 2002, 2006-07, OIF 2003-04, 2005-06, 2007-08, 2009-10. Echelons: BN, BDE, DIV, Corps
Also, I've never encountered anyone over the age of about 20 (someone who is literally too young to be in a position of authority due to lack of experience) who had the mentality that female soldiers were in any way lesser or needed protecting. It's also been my experience that males are more likely to freeze in combat but that might be due to the fact that I know more males than females who have been in combat (no surprise as there are more males than females in the military). If I had some way of cooking the numbers down to percentages divided by gender, I don't know how close they would be.

Hey--thanks for this! I know I was a bit derisive earlier but this stuff is very helpful! I'm studying military history (albeit an earlier period).

Have you considered starting a blog? We need more woman veteran's voices.

The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project

http://library.uncg.edu/dp/wv/about.aspx

takes oral history interviews and might be interested in what you have to say. I've done work in their archives and can confirm that they're legit.

Edited 2013-01-29 21:11 (UTC)

I will definitely look into that, though I don't know yet how willing I'd be to participate if they even wanted me to. Thank you for the link, regardless. I am absolutely fascinated by other women's experiences in the military and will give it serious consideration.

What specifically are you studying? My training and work as an intel analyst necessitated I learn a staggering amount of military history, sadly more than I can remember. But my interest has never faded and there's always something new to learn. I can still map out D-Day perfectly but I can't remember the maps of The Six Day War or the name of the woman who was behind the V2 rocket or even how many operatives were involved in Operation Wrath of God :( I'm rambling, but my point is that despite my inability to retain certain really cool facts, I still love learning military and intelligence history because it's just so interesting. There's a good chance that whatever you're studying is something I know little or nothing about and it might be the next thing I take up reading about because I'm almost out of books to read and haven't decided what to start on next.

I can't get too into specifics (project might be googled) but I'm starting a dissertation about women in uniformed organizations (so both official military and paramilitary clubs) during the World Wars. Recently I've mostly been working on the WAC.

It sounds like you're into strategic stuff; my interests are more cultural! But you might be interested in this. Probably the best source on the WAC that you can get easily online is Mattie Treadwell's official history:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Wac/index.htm

It's biased, obviously--Treadwell was a WAC officer herself--but she does a really good job.

Bookwise Creating GI Jane

http://www.amazon.com/Creating-G-Jane-Leisa-Meyer/dp/0231101457

and Mobilizing Minerva (WWI)

http://www.amazon.com/Mobilizing-Minerva-American-Women-First/dp/0252074963/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

are both really important in my field and fun to read.

I don't know if you have university library access, but if you ever want someone to send you a JSTOR pdf or anything like that I'd be happy to. I love talking about this stuff!

I mostly skimmed and bookmarked for later so apologies if I overlooked something. But I think we're having two different conversations (I think that's my fault).

I'm not asking about or disputing anything you said about modern attitudes, standards, or practices.

I'm mostly curious by your assertion that poor genital hygiene would have killed more than half of women ("more often than not" = <50% of the time to me) had they been in combat situations they were banned from in the past. I'm sorry for the confusion but thanks for the interesting read!

I'm am a little confused by your mention of bodily waste trenches not being used for fear of giving away position. How is a human-sized BM not as, if not more, attention getting than a freshly covered hole? But I can probably google that for myself later if that's something you can't really expound on.

I'll come back with a proper comment later but the trenches issue was because of how much time it takes to dig the tench or hole and then fill it in and it would have to be a ways away from them (technically 50 meters but soldiers have a way of making meters into feet). Walking a short distance from the position and not using a hole or trench was a time-saver and BMs were typically pretty small because of the diet. That was the explanation given to me in the field sanitation course and it fits with what I know of the attitudes of that time. Most of my senior leaders my first few years were Vietnam vets and that explanation fits with their attitudes about how to do just about everything whenever we were in the field on an exercise.

How many days can my nasty self rewear the same underwear before I die. This might be urgent.

Reading these comments I have to wonder about how clean some of the people in F!S are. Do you guys seriously not know about hygiene? Do you not know that washing your nasty ass is one of the main reasons why life expectancy is more than twice what it was 500 years ago? I'm glad I can't smell this thread.

I'm sorry but all I understood from that was "Dirty britches kill, y'all!" so now I'm wondering what the hell is going on in your vag. Maybe now we have women in combat the military can weaponize their vaginas to spray the enemy with this deadly poison.

Pretty sure the increase in life expectancy had more to do with people washing their nasty hands than their nasty asses. The various orifaces in the underwear region may not be particularly clean, but most people don't go rubbing their bare crotches and anuses on things constantly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2218 ]

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

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