Is the US military ready for women on the frontline?

[Stealth694]

I believe Israel had female combatants on the front line and most of the squads had higher casualties, because the Male troops were watching out for the Female troops instead of watching for the enemy. If women want to go on the front line OK, but lets make it voluntary and not manditory.

From:wikipedia.org:
However, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Israeli soldiers reacted with uncontrollable protectiveness and aggression after seeing a woman wounded. Grossman also notes that Islamic militants rarely, if ever, surrender to female soldiers, lessening the IDF's ability to interrogate prisoners. On the other hand, Iraqi and Afghan civilians are often not intimidated by female soldiers. However, in such environments, having female soldiers serving within a combat unit does have the advantage of allowing for searches on female civilians. Children and women are more likely to talk to female soldiers than to male soldiers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military)

[Thorne]

If women want to go on the front line OK, but lets make it voluntary and not manditory.

In the US, all military service is voluntary. We just need to make sure that everyone who volunteers understands that they could be put into the front lines someday. And retrain the men to realize that the person next to them is a soldier, neither male nor female. Everyone's lives depend on that.

As for the reactions of enemy soldiers, well, since when are we expected to adjust our behavior to their prejudices? With soldiers wearing camo and body armor, helmets and camo-painted faces, how are they going to know that the soldiers they are surrendering to are male or female until AFTER they've surrendered?