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The first female 'Infantry' trainee after the change in policy has quit after just 2 weeks of an 18 week training course.

Not sexist but is going to take a pretty tough lady to qualify on these courses. It is just not going to work. The fairer sex are not designed to run up mountains with massive backpacks and guns.

I believe it was when the QM did the 'subtract wet from dry' pace stick measurement for trousers

Rock Apes still operate in a 19th century mindset, so nothing has changed. My take on 21st century warfare is that it's more smarts than brawn; where women can compete on an equal footing, but grunts will always be grunts. Part of a Rock Ape training most probably still includes running across an airfield carrying a Bren and a full ammo box because even when vehicles are likely to be available they would lack the intelligence to be able to use them.

Alison

Yes Alison but it was great when you signed in for your annual NBC training with them and signed out at the end of the day but they didn't realise that you hadn't actually been there for the course but in your office or the pub.

At Marham we did the NBC thing, but at Akrotiri we did the traditional 3 days ending with a day on the range with our beloved .303's and 2 mags of 10 rounds each, through a Bren.

That was the last time a fired any sort of firearm, must have been 1964.

Our tame Rockape remarked on the NBC course before we (as aircrew) deployed to the sand-pit for the first Gulf War he'd never seen a group as focussed as this one.

These NBC suits hadn't been through the washing machine either . . .

On topic, brave lass for trying and I suspect she didn't receive much help in terms of the group's attitude towards her. Diversity includes matching people to the task at hand and demands flexibility. In my 24 years I didn't notice much flexibility because there were too many careers, turf wars and egos involved.