How do Women handle active duty?

Question

By that I mean how do women manage to keep themselves clean and prevent infections when they are wearing 50lbs of gear in the middle of the desert during the summer while taking fire from insurgents. Do they take breaks every hour to change their pad? Seriously, r they issued antibiotics or something to prevent infections?

Answer 1

I served with women in my JAG section for 14 months in Iraq and had an MP female with my infantry company when I was still a parartrooper on patrol in the mountains of Afghanistan for two weeks straight...I never seen or heard of any problems in this area that would stop traffic or limit performance. And in Iraq, my females were icking in doors to help with detainee ops and provide on the spot female search teams and legal guidance in Ramadi, Iraq.

They kept themselves clean just like us males...

Answer 2

They have to do the best they can.

Answer 3

dont know but most women are not in the dessert they are at the fob.  

Answer 4

The gear we wear is not 50 pounds and not many women are kicking in doors.  We do patrols and things, but rarely are we in the same positions as infantry men.  As far as keeping clean, its easy, but hard.  we had to do this training out here and there was no showers for 7 days.  We would go in the port a john, the only shelter besides the tent we slept in with men, and take a bottle of water and our wash rag, sounds gross, but not putting water down there for 7 days sounds even more gross.  I have cleaned myself with a bottle of water in the back of a 5 ton, in the middle of the woods at like 1 at night, I have even made a make shift shower out of poncho liners that came out the back of our tent and we stood on trash bags and dumped the water that sat in the son on us.  If washing with water is unavailable, we use baby wipes, powder with cornstarch and change our panties.  If we are on our cycle, most of the time, situations present themselves for us to change our sanitary napkins.  I am comfortable enough as a woman if I need to change it and the oppurtunity seems as if it is not coming in a timely manner, i will tell someone, male or female.  Better that then to bleed all over myself.  I have not got even a yeast infeciton and I have been deployed twice and in field problems that have lasted 10 days...you gotta be prepared to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to keep your self clean. fds

Answer 5

As far as infections it goes the same as men, if something happens you take care of it, as for your period, there's no reason why you should be changing your pad every hour, and I'm sure there's bathroom breaks, which is ample time to take care of what you gotta take care of. Women are pretty much treated the same as men in the military.