Navy studies show that only 12 percent of women can accomplish the two-person stretcher carry, a requirement critical to ship security. Women may be able to drive a 5-ton truck but need a man's help if they must change a tire. Women can fire field artillery pieces but often can't handle the ammunition. That's the kind of stupid thinking that ignores important physical and psychological sex differences and has compromised our military readiness. Women have a much lighter skeleton, which means, among other things, she can't pull G forces as well as men and is at greater risk of skeletal injuries.
Women soldiers are four times more likely to report ill.
The percentage of women being medically non-available at any time is twice that of male soldiers. Then there's pregnancy. Each year, between 10 percent and 17 percent of servicewomen become pregnant. In certain posts, the rate is higher. In 1988, James Webb, secretary of the Navy, said 51 percent of single Air Force and 48 percent of single Navy women stationed in Iceland were pregnant.