Marines Weigh Closing Parris Island and San Diego To Open New Coed Boot Camp
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 7 months ago
From the annals of I hate America, God and everything good and decent, comes this from the USMC.
The Marine Corps is considering a plan in which it could close its two existing boot camp locations and funnel all recruits to a new base where men and women would train together.
Marine entry-level training is a long way off from being able to meet a congressional mandate to make its East and West coast training bases both able to support gender-integrated training in the coming years, the Corps’ top general said on Thursday.
That is leading the service to study the option of opening a third training base in a new location to which all new recruits would ship, rather than spending cash on construction projects at aging training bases.
“Nothing, the way we’re organized right now, lends itself to integrated recruit training,” Commandant Gen. David Berger said on Thursday. “If that’s our start point — and it is — we have to get to a place on both coasts, or at third location or whatever we end up with, that … there are male and female recruits around.”
Both the Marine Corps’ recruit training depots have storied pasts — particularly Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, which was first used by Marines in the 1890s. Hundreds of thousands of Marines have stood on the famous yellow footprints on each base at the start of their careers before earning the coveted eagle, globe and anchor and title of Marine.
But with a new law bearing down on the service to make both locations support coed training — within five years at Parris Island and eight at San Diego — the Marine Corps is exploring different options, Maj. Eric Flanagan, Berger’s spokesman told Military.com.
“The question becomes, ‘Are we better off just using [military construction] dollars to create a new third site, or put that money into our existing sites?'” he said. “No decisions have been made. We’re not investing any money anywhere else. It’s just an option we’re talking about.”
The Marine Corps hasn’t yet identified a state where the new boot camp location might be located, Flanagan said. In assessing the possible change though, he said they’re considering a lot more than just the need for coed squad bays and other facility changes to support gender-integrated boot camp.
Maybe put it alongside Portland or Seattle. It would go well there.
A once storied, dignified institution, now degraded and shamed. It’s all going according to plan.
On September 25, 2020 at 10:53 am, 41mag said:
Not a veteran here so wanting their input.
How does the IDF train it’s forces? Separately or co-ed?
I get the feeling the higher ups saw “Starship Troopers” too many times and wanna replicate the coed force…
On September 25, 2020 at 10:55 am, George 1 said:
What could possibly go wrong?
On September 25, 2020 at 10:56 am, Herschel Smith said:
“Starship Troopers” is stupid, idiotic fantasy. But actually, since you being it up, it’s recommended readers for officers.
So yes, maybe they’re trying to emulate fiction.
On September 25, 2020 at 12:05 pm, Wes said:
@41mag The IDF probably isn’t an appropriate model. While they have some of the same societal issues of “pc-conscious” politicians hawking the notorious “solution in search of a problem”, as well as the same cake-eater mantra of combat-unit assimilation, Israeli culture is a different deal. Even in these times, while they have compulsory service, 80% when notified jump right to it and enlist. They also have a fairly robust alternative national service mechanism. And, just to tweak all the Helen Reddy fans, even with fairly equitable opportunity in the military, ‘family’ is a thing in Israel (vs. a terminally-ill cliche). A ‘mother’ with children is a thing (vs. a burden to be dumped off at daycare to pursue breaking the glass ceiling).
It’s just a different deal, at least according to those I’ve spoken with. How much of that is because they’ve literally had to defend their lives from barbarians, literally at their gates, on several occasions?
On September 25, 2020 at 12:25 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@41mag,
The IDF doesn’t do stupid things to their females. Like put 100 lb kit on women and expect them to do foot marches of 20 miles like the Marine Corps does.
That’s reserved for males. Otherwise, it leads to lower extremity injuries, broken pelvis, etc.
In other words, they distinguish MOS between male and female.
On September 25, 2020 at 12:33 pm, John said:
@Herschel
About “Starship Troopers” I agree with you about the movie after H’wood got hold of it.
However, the Novel is definitely a must read on the psychology why and how we fight.
On September 25, 2020 at 12:44 pm, June J said:
Changing name to Marine Corpses. These Obama generals and the congressional idiots who come up with this crap are going to kill a lot of Marines.
On September 25, 2020 at 12:53 pm, John said:
Addendum: And there were no women in the direct combat units
though they were pilots and ship captains.
On September 25, 2020 at 1:06 pm, Bram said:
I signed up to be a radio operator in the infantry. Went through Parris Island, then the short Infantry course at Camp Geiger. Didn’t train with women until we got to radio school at Twentynine Palms.
All of us were stunned at how little the woman Marines could do physically. A couple times a week the training company did 3 to 5 mile runs in the desert – absolutely nothing compared to carrying a 100lb pack 30+ miles in infantry school. But all the women dropped out the run every time.
This would destroy the Marine Corps. Trump should intervene and dismiss every officer involved in this stupid idea.
On September 25, 2020 at 1:46 pm, Bram said:
Maybe Trump shouldn’t have signed a bill making this stupidity into law.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1790/text
On September 25, 2020 at 2:47 pm, =TW= said:
My Old Man did boot camp at Parris, then to Camp Lejeune before being shipped to the Pacific for the invasion of Guam.
He passed away in 2003. I doubt he’d be pleased with the current state of the Corps.
………..
The Starship Trooper movie(s) share little more than the title with the novel. Liberal filmmakers derailed the theme and made what amounts to a cartoon.
On September 25, 2020 at 3:35 pm, Sheepdog said:
Another American Institution destroyed on cue…
The U.S. Armed Forces have become mercenaries for those interested on our demise. They will be used against citizens deemed dangerous.
I think about what my Air Force CRO buddy said about the lowered standards even for special operations types. The Roman Legions deteriorated in much the same way.
I can’t tell my 92 yr old dad who became a U.S. Marine at PI in 46, he’s lost enough hope already…
On September 25, 2020 at 3:49 pm, The Dark Lord said:
the are just looking to bride Congressional support … spread the pork around …
they talk about the 2 bases “aging” like they are some sort of sheetmetal huts in Haiti just waiting for the next big wind … land doesn’t age …
On September 25, 2020 at 4:32 pm, Chris Mallory said:
Here you go HS, Marines and wildlife!
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/24/camp-lejeune-marines-warned-stop-running-dark-after-4-coyote-attacks.html
On September 25, 2020 at 4:50 pm, Bill Buppert said:
As I have mentioned before, my son is currently at 29Palms and ETS’ in January 2021. His day by day account of the USMC in Calizuela is a horror story every day from idiotic training to diversity indoc to women ALWAYS skating and evading the hard physical tasks.
The USMC needs to razed to the ground and buried, it will not be an effective fighting now or in the future.
Its Commandant is a delusional, morally crippled and intellectually stunted cretin whose military prowess matches that of all the invertebrate purpled princes who have lost every major conflict since 1945; 87k combat deaths since the end of the War to Save Josef Stalin. Of those combat deaths, 6x GOs killed in combat in Vietnam. Six.
It is only getting worse, they can’t even think straight: https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2020/09/delusion-piled-on-delusion.html
Get rid of the USMC sinkhole.
On September 25, 2020 at 5:21 pm, Trope said:
The military needs to change how they approach female recruits. There indeed are some women interested in combat, but realism must rule the day. To solve this issue and utilize talent at all physical strengths, create “levels” of fitness/strength requirements: To be on missions that require higher strength send in teams at a higher physical strength level. Some missions may require more stealth and finesse, send in teams with lower strength but higher accuracy. Yes, there will be those who can do all the above, but a major overlooked use of women is stealth. I’ve seen women who can outshoot men and obtain access to locations where a large, muscular man would stick out like a sore thumb.
Male and female differences must be leveraged. PC will get both men and women killed.
On September 25, 2020 at 7:01 pm, Ned2 said:
“The military needs to change how they approach female recruits.”
Why, yes. Females should not be in the military period. Maybe in a supportive role such as communications or intelligence, but there can be a women’s branch of each service distinctly separate for that.
Putting women into combat endangers all combatants.
On September 25, 2020 at 8:43 pm, The Wretched Dog said:
“ ‘Starship Troopers’ is stupid, idiotic fantasy.”
Herschel – the book “Starship Troopers”, by Robert Anson Heinlein, is a treatise on patriotism, as well as a guide to military leadership. Which is why it is on many (old) professional military reading lists.
The movie was a deliberate hit-job to discredit the book.
The Wretched Dog
Colonel, US Army, Retired
On September 25, 2020 at 8:47 pm, The Wretched Dog said:
That said, no argument that co-ed recruit training is a bad idea.
Last time I checked, IDF training is separate for boys and girls. They do have a female “Infantry” battalion – for border security. Pretty much a photo-op kind of thing.
TWD
On September 25, 2020 at 8:51 pm, John Upham III said:
As a 10 year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and all of those in combat units, I would very much love to see these politicians go into combat after training like they are proposing. I think I may invest in the company that makes body bags, because all you’ll do is get good Marines killed. Do what you will, my Marine Corps has died. I mourn the loss to our Country.
On September 25, 2020 at 11:57 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Herschel
Re: “The IDF doesn’t do stupid things to their females. Like put 100 lb kit on women and expect them to do foot marches of 20 miles like the Marine Corps does.”
Immediately before, during and after the formation of the state of Israel, women were used for a brief period in the ground combat arms, specifically in the paramilitary Haganah. However, it was found that their presence was counter-productive, and the experiment was soon ended.
When the Arab forces opposing the Jews became aware that they were fighting women, it enraged them and they would redouble their efforts to win, since it would be humiliating for them to lose to women. And when female members of the Haganah were captured, they were invariably raped, tortured and murdered, and their bodies mutilated. When word of these atrocities reached the Israeli public, they demanded changes to the new IDF’s policies to exclude women from combat arms positions.
In today’s IDF, women can train as tankers, for example, not so they can go into battle in tanks, but so that they can train male recruits how to do so. Women are also used as MPs and in certain paramilitary-police jobs where their presence is required, i.e., at checkpoints for the searching of females being passed through.
The Israelis also exclude women from battle as much as possible, for civilization reasons. It is understood that their society cannot perpetuate itself unless women give birth to the children of the on-coming generations.
@ Trope
Re: “The military needs to change how they approach female recruits. There indeed are some women interested in combat, but realism must rule the day. To solve this issue and utilize talent at all physical strengths, create “levels” of fitness/strength requirements”
Respectfully, I disagree. The emotional and mental differences between men and women are just as important to this problem as the physical ones. Moreover, the very presence of women – even highly-competent women – in heretofore all-male units is highly destructive of unit cohesion, trust, and esprit-de-corps.
Someone ought to write a good analytical history of the coed AVF – all-vounteer force -era, since nothing remotely like that exists. Pretty much everything put out by mil.gov regarding women in uniform since the 1980s has been propaganda, pro-woman PR, a whitewash of the actual costs and benefits of women in the ranks. For many years now, it has been a potential career-ending offense for any male serviceman, whether officer or enlisted, to question the presence of women in the armed forces, or deviate from the “You go girl!” cheering section formed by the Congressional-Military-Media complex.
There are a lot of layers to this particular onion. We the people are told that the AVF is the finest military force this nation has ever fielded and that it is essential that it be kept in its present form. Yet, no one – at least no one currently wearing the uniform – is permitted to notice certain things about the current force structure, such as the fact that it costs much more money than it used to, or the fact that the AVF isn’t very good at winning wars.
The ruling class in this country used to believe genuinely in noblesse oblige, i.e., the “obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth (per Merriam-Webster dictionary).” President Franklin Roosevelt sent three sons into the armed forces during the Second World War, and all saw action operationally or in combat.
Today, however, the ruling class want other people to do the fighting, bleeding and dying for them, which is why they fought hard to abolish the draft. They are perfectly comfortable with the present arrangement in which they start and profit from the wars we fight, but for which the sons (and now daughters, too) of Middle America are the ones with actual skin in the game, the ones getting PTSD, being maimed for life, losing their marriages because of multiple deployments, or being killed in places no one will remember in a few years.
The draft is intimately tied up with our force structure, since without it, the big-shots claim we won’t have enough people to staff our armed forces without using women. Well, not so fast.
One of the reasons young men no longer aspire to join the armed forces the way they used to is that they know – from their older brothers, fathers, and uncles what a politically-correct train-wreck it has become, how hostile to traditional men it has become – throughout much of the military. I am convinced that if the armed forces were made a male-centric, male-friendly environment again, and the women shunted off someplace else, that guys would soon again join the military in the numbers needed.
Proponents of the AVF are fond of claiming that it is better, smarter and more-capable than any of our forces during the era of conscription. I don’t buy that. That conclusion implies that the men – and they were men, by and large – who won WWI, WWII and fought in Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War, and a whole host of smaller engagements – were somehow deficient or defective. Although there was a small cadre of professionals, those wars and actions were largely done using amateurs- draftees, citizen-soldiers.
What was it Prime Minister Churchill said – “Wars are too important to be left to the professionals”?
Disentangling this problem will also have to deal with the fact that for many years now the Left has been turning the military – large portions, especially the non-combat portions of the force, anyway – into a de facto jobs program. Care to guess who is one of the biggest institutional providers of child care in the U.S.? Answer: the U.S. Army. All of those single moms need someone to watch the kids while they are off playing soldier.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that our female military personnel, can get breast augmentation or reduction surgery, gratis – for free – while in uniform, thanks to Uncle Sam and the taxpayers. Your tax dollars at work!
If you are interested in reading further on the issue of women in the military, consider Kingsley Brown’s “Coed Combat: The New Evidence that Women Shouldn’t Fight the Nation’s Wars” (2007), a very well-done examination of the issues involved.
On September 26, 2020 at 12:04 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Bill Buppert
Re: “The USMC needs to razed to the ground and buried, it will not be an effective fighting now or in the future.”
I understand why you and/or your son might feel that way, but the Corps doesn’t need to be abolished.It needs a good house-cleaning, true, and you could probably improve matters by firing most of the top brass – but there is nothing that ails the Marine Corps which can’t be fixed by giving some Old Breed Marines, your Gunny R.Lee Ermey types, carte blanche to fix things and the power to do so.
There are plenty of institutions which are too far gone to be saved, but we the people ought to fight – and fight hard – to save the ‘Corps and restore it to what we know it ought to be. We may find we have need of their services one of these days….
On September 26, 2020 at 9:16 am, Trope said:
@georgiaboy61
“Respectfully, I disagree. The emotional and mental differences between men and women are just as important to this problem as the physical ones. Moreover, the very presence of women – even highly-competent women – in heretofore all-male units is highly destructive of unit cohesion, trust, and esprit-de-corps.”
I actually agree with your statement, I should’ve clarified my thought process better…with the genie out of the bottle, implementing physical strength levels exposes the fact that different jobs have different requirements and not everyone possesses those requirements. Believe it or not, many young women don’t understand that a man their size is on average 30% stronger, never mind the average man is bigger than the average woman. Young women have been told they can do anything, but it’s not until they’re personally confronted with the physical superiority of men that they learn it’s not true. Note the cognitive dissonance in women who supported trans athletes until the biological males kicked their ass. They often are genuinely surprised. I do see problems with the mental/emotional aspect, and it makes me wonder how many females learn they aren’t cut out for combat during training.
Regardless, I don’t like the idea of women deployed with men in combat positions, it distracts and endangers all. It’s simple human nature. The typical combat stories I read about never seem to include females so I’m curious about what the true stats are.
On September 26, 2020 at 9:41 am, Frank Clarke said:
Men provide muscle mass and DNA; women create civilization.
A young (born female) acquaintance desperately wants to be a real boy and I cannot understand why she would accept such a deep demotion.
On September 26, 2020 at 10:38 am, JB said:
The USMIL is a joke, all branches.
The Eggs and Star crowd are nothing less than cultural marxists, or full blown traitors at worst.
China and Russia should be salivating..
On September 26, 2020 at 7:05 pm, Trope said:
@Frank Clarke
“A young (born female) acquaintance desperately wants to be a real boy and I cannot understand why she would accept such a deep demotion.”
As a child, she likely felt defenseless and equated being male with strength. Different dynamics can cause this but often some type of abuse is involved. She naturally still seeks to protect herself and the the only option she sees is becoming male. It’s a defense mechanism. Compassion is warranted.
On September 27, 2020 at 12:29 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Trope
Re:”I actually agree with your statement, I should’ve clarified my thought process better…with the genie out of the bottle, implementing physical strength levels exposes the fact that different jobs have different requirements and not everyone possesses those requirements.”
Thanks for writing and it is good to clarify things….
Re: “Believe it or not, many young women don’t understand that a man their size is on average 30% stronger, never mind the average man is bigger than the average woman. Young women have been told they can do anything, but it’s not until they’re personally confronted with the physical superiority of men that they learn it’s not true.”
That tracks with my experience as well. I have been a martial artist for much of my adult life, and have more than twenty years experience in karate, judo, jujitsu and hapkido. I am a black-belt level practitioner of the last, the Korean art of hapkido. For many years, an old friend of mine and one of my original teachers in hapkido, ran a program as head instructor and I was his number two.
We’ve had some talented and dedicated female students over time, but over my long years of experience, I have never seen a teenaged or older male beaten in hand-to-hand combat by a female of any age, level of experience or training. The gals beat prepubescent boys, but that’s it. The disparity in size, strength, speed, reflexes and aggressiveness is simply too high a mountain for our female students to climb.
Our philosophy as an organization, as teachers of the martial arts, is not to B.S. our students. We believe in preparing them for the world, for the mean streets, as they really are – rather than feed them politically-correct nonsense of the kind they see in the movies and on TV. We do not lie to our female students by telling them that size and strength don’t matter. Rather, we do our best to teach them ways of counter-acting those advantages, to survive the fight.
A case in point illustrates what we sometimes deal with. We get a fair number of teenaged female students in grades 7-10, middle school and the first two years of secondary or high school. We do our best to keep our students, whether they are male or female, but it is a fact that we tend to lose them at two or three keys points:
First, when they realize that they are not as big, strong, fast or aggressive as the guys.
Second, during the weapons training portion of our program.
Third, we also lose some gals who hit young womanhood and decide that martial arts aren’t their interest after all (and they go try out for swim team lacrosse, etc.).
“Weapons training” is actually defense against guns and knives. We use realistic hard rubber handguns (they resemble Glocks) and knives to teach weapon disarms. We typically reserve this for the advanced students, but students at all levels get a taste during demos by the instructors and open workshops periodically.
When we tell the students we’re going to do weapons disarms, or work with weapons of any kind (staff, dan-bong/short stick, wooden sword, nun-chucks, etc), the guys get excited. They’re pumped. The gals tend to get pensive and quiet, if they show any emotion at all. We had one female student, a very nice young women well-liked by everyone, actually start crying when we brought out the rubber handguns and knives. We did our best to comfort her, but she quit the program soon after.
The problem we’re dealing with as instructors is what I like to call the “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” effect; you know – 105 gals who look like super models beating the snot out of guys twice their size. Throwing them around like beach-balls, etc. It’s everywhere now. The problem is that this media-entertainment propaganda and fantasy is so pervasive now, that we get people who believe it to be an accurate representation of reality. That’s part of what we have to train out of them, in order to make them better and more-effective martial artists.
Believe me, we’d be more-than-happy to run across a woman capable of making it through our program and becoming a black belt, but so far it hasn’t happened. Our only black-belt graduates have been guys. And the highest-ranking graduate of the program – who is a third-degree – is also a man.
There are probably a few tough women capable of making it in martial arts; we see them in UFC, for example – but in our program, we haven’t run across any of those. Which suggests that they are quite rare. Which is the opposite of the media-entertainment propaganda, which suggests to girls and young women that there is something wrong with them if they don’t learn to fight in the ring.
Re: “Regardless, I don’t like the idea of women deployed with men in combat positions, it distracts and endangers all. It’s simple human nature. The typical combat stories I read about never seem to include females so I’m curious about what the true stats are.”
With you there, sir, with you there…
Ever since the formation of the AVF force structure model back in the 1970s, we the people have been bombarded with stories about how effective it is, how elevating/liberating to the human condition that it is, how economical it is. And so on. Most of that, any old salt with time in the military will tell you, is nothing more than Pentagon/DOD propaganda, public relations designed to spin a politically-correct narrative reinforcing the “I am woman, hear me roar” mentality.
There’s a reason you don’t tend to hear stories about women winning medals in combat. Especially women in ground combat. It is because very few women want to be there, and even fewer are qualified to be. The blunt truth of the matter is that in all-male combat units, women are neither needed nor wanted.
In certain specific situations, women can be very effective. The history of WWII shows us that women can make good members of underground resistance movements, and they also can make exceptional spies. The Soviets had some success using women as snipers and as pilots flying night fighters (although as soon as the crisis passed and the war ended, women were again banished from these jobs). The right kind of woman can also function well in special units doing work at the intersection of law enforcement, counter-terrorism and light military operations.
But anyone putting women into ground combat arms, i.e., infantry, armor, artillery, combat engineering or special ops – is making a big mistake. They just aren’t cut out to hump 80-100 lb. packs on 15 mile road-marches, to the AO, and dig in all night long to prepare ambush positions along an enemy trail.
All of my friends in the army have told me how women suddenly disappear as if by magic when there are 6×6’s to be unloaded. Where are they going to be when it is time to break track and install a new one, or when it is time to lug artillery or mortar shells to the guys at the weapons?
We are told in the MSM that women have “made it” into the Marine Platoon Leaders course, into the Army Rangers and Green Berets, and so on. That they can be in the SEALs and Delta. Most guys with an IQ above room temperature know these claims to be so much hog-wash. The only way any female “passes” the selection process is with some senior officer’s thumb on the scale. In other words, by cheating.
For my part, I continue to believe that only a morally-corrupt and confused society sends its daughters, sisters and other females into the military and into combat when there are males available to to do the job. If it came down to it, I’d even much prefer to see older men (if sufficient young men aren’t available)in uniform than women of any age.
Women are the cornerstone of civilization; only they can bear children. Only they can sire the oncoming generations. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, and all of that. If they abandon that critical task, our way of life will disappear. All which we have built will disappear, just as ancient Rome did. The job of men is to build, protect and defend civilization, as they are expendable in ways that women ought not to be. Yes, it is tragic when a man perishes in wartime, but it has always been thus and the way of the world. When a woman perishes, however, in particular one of childbearing age – it is an atrocity, an affront to everything we once claimed to hold dear as a society.
That’s the civilizational argument for keeping women out of harm’s way. Not enough people are making it. More need to do so.
On September 27, 2020 at 12:31 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
Typo alert: “105 gals who look like super models” should read “105 lb. gals who look like super models…”
On September 27, 2020 at 10:06 am, Trope said:
@georgiaboy61
“105 lb. gals who look like super models beating the snot out of guys twice their size.”
This has long annoyed me with movies. Compared to the fitness models who actually weight train it always baffled me as to why they would cast a woman with spaghetti arms for a super hero part. (Not that they could throw men around either.) But when you look at the demographic for these movies it makes more sense.
“We had one female student, a very nice young women well-liked by everyone, actually start crying when we brought out the rubber handguns and knives. We did our best to comfort her, but she quit the program soon after.”
This is interesting but not surprising. Half of my female friends shy away from weapons training of any kind while the other half readily engages in some form. As a female myself, I prefer to have the knowledge but our protective instincts can manifest differently…some women see all weapons as a threat, others see them as tools.
“All of my friends in the army have told me how women suddenly disappear as if by magic when there are 6×6’s to be unloaded.”
A friend who was in the Army told me that during the furthest PT runs some of the women would disappear only to suddenly re-emerge further down the trail. He said they all knew the drill sargent loaded them onto the back of the trailing vehicle and dropped them off so they could finish.
“I continue to believe that only a morally-corrupt and confused society sends its daughters, sisters and other females into the military and into combat when there are males available to to do the job.” and “The job of men is to build, protect and defend civilization, as they are expendable in ways that women ought not to be.”
This is a refreshing attitude, I hope we can return to this concept. But when a man isn’t present or becomes incapacitated, a woman who is prepared will increase the likelihood of survival for herself and her offspring.
On September 27, 2020 at 12:53 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Trope
Re: “But when a man isn’t present or becomes incapacitated, a woman who is prepared will increase the likelihood of survival for herself and her offspring.”
Which is exactly as it should be. Women should know the means of defending themselves and their loved ones. As you note, if that protector – the man of the house, let’s call him – is absent, or unable to fight for some reason – then she’d better be able and willing to do the job.
On the frontier, when an isolated outpost or fort was besieged, every able-bodied adult, male or female, pitched in to help defend it, if not by fighting, then in some other way. On the homestead, if her man was gone, and something threatened, then she’d better know how to use a rifle or a shotgun.
On September 27, 2020 at 6:58 pm, Trope said:
@Georgiaboy61
I envisioned frontier women also, it is an excellent example.
The revolutionary families were similar. People think those in that era somehow had less to lose, but there was no official public assistance back then so the fact that men chose to go off to war tells you how seriously they viewed the situation. But their predecessors strongly instilled in them the reasons they left Europe and so they understood the threat of tyranny.