You have two enemies in war. The guy who is trying to shoot you, and the guy who is ordering you out to be shot.
The Special Forces is an aggressive and violent organisation. I wouldn't want to see a woman going through that and getting shot at.
The science of booby-trapping has taken a good deal of the fun out of following hot on the enemy's heels.
In a fight, you got to know that there's a strong chance you're going to get hurt. But at the same time, you know, most of the injuries you sustain in fighting are not career-ending injuries.
You know," he (Tweedledee) added very gravely, "it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle--to get one's head cut off." pg. 199
And if the liberal media and political community cannot accept that sometimes the wrong people get killed in war, then I can only suggest they first grow up and then serve a short stint up in the Hindu Kush.
When you work with chains or any kind of weapons, or just when you're using hand-to-hand combat, you are going to get hurt.
Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers - danger, death, and live ammunition.
The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a very valid priority, but it has to be balanced against many other priorities, especially not killing too many locals in the process.
There's this talk that we're asking soldiers to make the greatest sacrifice, but the reality is that civilians bear the burden of war more than the combatants. You're much more likely to get accidentally blown up or killed by a death squad than you are to die in a firefight.
