but training basically rips your emotions out from underneath you, doesn't it? It's team & unit above all else, and that gets drilled into you pretty solidly, doesn't it?
In other words, once you're out of training and on the field, your gender shouldn't matter in the slightest as that type of thing has been drilled out of you, correct? Or am I wrong on that?
I don't know about "rips your emotions out", but you learn to perform in high-stress environments. You train to be decisive in situations where you have very little time to choose between two equally shitty options.
I did cold weather training in Bridgeport, CA for a couple of months. In the infantry, you don't see women, so I hardly interacted with them. But at Bridgeport, we had two women participating. One was a Lieutenant and the other was a Gunnery Sergeant - both were above my pay grade, but there was instantly some animosity among our squad because we were infantry and everyone else was POG (person other than grunt). It's an endearment thing, because POGs get the good life and reasonable treatment while infantry units are typically hammered with shitty conditions to keep the stress high and the complacency low.
During this cold weather shitfest, we're going on these 25-30k hikes in the mountains. They actually weren't that bad compared to regular 30k humps imo. And every fucking hike, this Gunny bitch is whining. And some of our lower ranking grunts start cat calling and making remarks, and she wasn't correcting them. I remember hearing her once, "Guys, that's not funny."
My fucking mind could not comprehend this. If you so much as shit your pants in the direction of a Gunny in the infantry, you'd be eating your lunch through a straw for a month. And this bitch just kept on complaining about how tough the hikes were, falling behind each time. Her little princess ass would die in the infantry. She was attractive, too, so you start to wonder just how someone with such low fortitude climbed that rank structure. And everyone comes to the same quiet conclusion.
On the other hand, the Lieutenant that was training alongside us, also attractive, was a beast at these hikes. Seeing her in contrast with this Gunny bitch, you could tell that she took a lot of pride in being part of the pack. But not just that, she actually took the initiative and lead Marines without overstepping her bounds. She helped people, and overall boosted morale. While we had guys making audible comments under their breath about Gunny bitch, it only took a few weeks for all of us to conclude that we had a ton of respect for the Lieutenant.
We think WF is a a deadly force of pitchforks to be reckoned with, but that's because you neckbeards have never ran into a pack of grunts. I've got handfuls of stories about guys who can't handle the physical and mental conditions of the military and have no place on the front lines. But I would've absolutely gone to combat with that Lieutenant in charge.
