On a person-to-person level, though, everyone has something to prove to the world. Even among the majority white guy population of the American Army, you've got the skinny guys and the short guys who catch shit and have to prove they can push through. Every single minority catches shit, usually for being whatever minority, at some point.

The thing you're doing right is proving, on the micro level, that you can hang. The thing you're doing wrong, unfortunately, is assuming the rest of us can and that it's politics and not nature holding us back.

I know some great hoss females. I know some weak freaking guys. It doesn't change the overarching generalization that physically, the guys can out-perform the gals physically. Those generalizations are important when it comes to determining MOS standards. We're in a groovy experimental phase in the military right now in which we're saying, "Hey hell sure, let's give it a shot and see if women can hang with this and if it's worth the expense to do so."

Personally, I wish women in the military started out in an all-female BCT led by the most hardcore females the force has to offer in the role of drill sergeants. We don't, though. We start with male drill sergeants who either don't know the ceiling of our limitations and hence over- or under-train us (or are more willing to give up on us), or with male peers who are around to carry us if we turn out to be dead weight instead of pushing us to get through. We get indoctrinated into this culture that never shuts up about how we're lesser, is obsessed with reminding us that we're lesser, and in all that posturing about how we could never be equal to the most hardcore men, fail to bring us up to the level of the most hardcore women.

We can't do shit about the macro level. You and I aren't personally going to change policy. All we can work on is our own interaction with other soldiers. You're on one end of the spectrum proving that women can be physical badasses, and I'm on the other end proving that permanent profiles aren't all bags of malingering shit.

Keep up the good work in the real world.