SIgh. Okay. You got me. What is INT? :confused:

Intelligence. I assume the whole military FIG thing is a bacronym from the Field Intelligence Groups that the FBI has. Recently I have seen some British police forces using the term FIG (as is Field Intelligence Group) for some undercover operations, I assume because they want to be cool like the FBI.

Thanks commando552. I only ask because that's NOTHING like the acronyms we have in the U.S. Military and knowing he's a Canuck, led me to want to know MORE about his acronyms (which mean NOTHING to us). Since the discussion was about INFANTRY roles, I thought it was something like FNG, a generic term (like FOB). Thanks again. You know what they say about 'military intelligence' ;)

I think you may be dramatically overestimating how much the Canadian military cares about the FBI. We've been FIGs since at least the 80s, long before the FBI had Field Intelligence Groups.

It's a fairly straightforward acronym - intelligence operator = Int Guy, throw in Fucking and you have FIG. Figs are fruit, infanteers tend to consider anyone not in the infantry to be lesser soldiers, it just makes sense.

I know we've been abbreviating intelligence as Int since at least the 40s (Canadian Intelligence Corps was abbreviated C Int C from 1942-1968, the modern Intelligence Branch has worn INT shoulder titles / rank slip ons since it was founded in 82.), I suspect even longer before there was a separate Intelligence trade

Only straightforward to Canadians, I suppose ;) LOL If you ask an American what a FIG is, the first thing that pops into our minds is "Fighter Interceptor Group". I did a google search for military slang and it didn't turn up anything Intel related :D So of course, I had to ask. :rolleyes: Thanks for the definition.

Our S-2 guys rarely went outside the wire. Our Bde S-2 was a girl, who while hyper-competent at her job, was always skiddish about going out of the FOB.

Rightfully so, in my opinion. If I were female and had to interact with guys who were sexsist, stuck in the past, liked to fight, and generally rough around the edges, I'd be uncomfortable too. Not to mention the Taliban. :D

For the record, I carried an M-4A1, an ACOG, and AN/PEQ-2.

About halfway through our deployment, we did some personnel shuffling, and in addition to a squad leader I became a Grenadier, so I swapped carbines, for one with a -203.

You know, I've noticed that's really more of a problem with your military than ours (the female thing, not the WOG thing - I was pretty much chained to my desk for 9 months since no one else could do my work while I was gone / if I got killed). We're a lot more gender integrated than you are (women in the infantry for 25 years now) and it's just not an issue. Our medics are probably 50% female, my trade about 30%, and the infantry is about 5% - there's not that many women who can physically hack the infantry, but the ones that do are damned good soldiers. I've never met a woman in SOF, but had a good friend who worked in CSOR's S2 section and she did the same PT as the door kickers.

We do the same job, train to the same standards, share tents and ablutions and sh***ers in the field, and we don't have any of the weird stuff where women have to be escorted back to their quarters after 10 (yes, that's something I've experienced more than once working with the Americans), and I've never even heard of a female soldier being sent home from a deployment due to pregnancy. We had our issues with sexual assaults and harassment back in the 90s, but I think if you treat women like any other soldier sooner or later people will start to see them as one.

I'm not qualified to speak towards gender integration.

I was a Cav Scout and am currently an Infantry officer. Totally male career fields. And I have problems conceptualizing how a woman could integrate into said units. Especially if we out at a COP for a month straight.

I will share one story that sort of explains my view, and which my sister says is a sign a rampant sexism in America.

Being a Cavalry Squadron, we had organic aviation assets. A Troop of a Apache gunships and a Troop of Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters.

One of the Kiowas was flown by a warrant officer, who was a sorority girl in the real world. And she was also very friendly around us, not to the point of flirtatiousness or anything, but she wanted to know the guys she was flying support for. We cared for her immensely.

And one day, she got shot down in the middle of a firefight. And we went ballistic. Everybody and his battle buddy was wanting to ditch their sector, their overwatch position, whatever and go tear assing across an open field, liberally crossed with heavy Dishka fire, and pull her out of her Kiowa.

No way in hell we'd have behaved that way had it been a dude chopper jock.

There have been some dark and disturbing reports from the sandbox in the last ten years... :( You just gotta be willing to look at them. Those incidents, though technically rare, make me sick. And Rape by fellow soldiers in the field (again rare) is still an abomination in my eyes, but those incidents are still happening. :(

I have a female friend who used to work with me and then later went to work at the Pentagon. While she was there, she became interested in joining the Army as an officer. She went as far as putting together her entire OCS application package (which took the better part of six months) and getting ready to go before the board. And then her office got a new analyst who was former AF. That girl told my friend countless stories about getting marriage proposals from enlisted guys while she was deployed, and other female friends who had to fight off sexual advances. Needless to say, my friend lost her enthusiasm about joining the Army pretty quickly.

Interesting story. I recall hearing similar anecdotes while the pundits were debating Panetta's repeal of the ban on women serving in combat roles. I also remember k9870 mentioning this in another IMFDB forum topic. My reaction: Even if we buy that men have a natural instinct to defend women (plausible), can they be trained to suppress it? Being in the military requires people to suppress many natural instincts (namely, self-preservation) - why not this one?

Personally, I don't have a problem with the idea of women serving in combat roles, so long as DoD recognizes the inherent challenges involved and implements training to mitigate them.