Should gender be a consideration for guard duty?

Nope. Stop looking at them by gender and start looking at them as Soldiers. Back when I was a PVT in the Marines the race issue was still a big deal. a crusty old Gunny told me there is only one color in the Marines....Green. You might have different shades of dark and light green but in the end it is all Green. The same concept applies.

Why not? They want into combat arms, you get all duty associated with it too.

Having spent my entire 22 years in the combat engineers, we have had numerous support roles that were filled by women. Even though they were support roles they still were part of guard duty rotations and even slept out in the field with us. We have never had any issues. Leadership and professionalism goes a long way to ensure nothing negative happens.

I have been a firm believer in non-discrimatory practices. To answer your question. Unless either party feels unsafe that they may be harassed or attacked, then no other special accommodations should be made. They should be performing their duties in a professional manner, so gender should not be of question unless there were facility issues to consider. Even then, that's a stretch.

Here is the truth, women will be volunteering for infantry, so using your logic is wrong, and also having a male and female is risky because you have to take in too account mother nature. Better yet have two females or a mixture of lesbian and male.

It is the right thing to do even if we had no Combat Arms females. Women have been performing guard duty as long as I can remember, Soldierly duties are Soldiers duties.

The only question that needs to be asked is: Is she capable of safely doing the job? Not, she is a girl, is it wrong to let have her do it?

Gender should not be a factor in guard duty. The military is working hard to destroy any mention of gender in all paper work. May have already done it. I know the AF started years ago.

I would say No, I come from a community that intergraded women in 1995 Navy Seabees. This took some time but we do same thing you guys do and we have armory watches, comm watches, ammo, camp rover watches and HQ watches and they are all mixed. The one thing we did do and there were several reasons not just the female thing but that was the biggest we stopped have a react watch while on deployment at our camps, we have are own camps on all the big Navy Bases we deployed to so security was on us with the big base providing back up. We stopped the react because the basses wanted primary security duties and quick response and I believe the other was the react had to stay in a react room over night for their watch and so I feel they stopped because they did not have facilities to mix the two. We have changed that and can do it now if needed and we do it in the forward FOB's when needed. I would say LT Rosa is locked on in what you should and you know your NCO's and they know theirs. I have a feeling that the ones they will send you will be the top performers because that is how it started with us the females were picked form Shore duty (This was the only duty that are females could do, because they could not be in battalion and deploy with us until 1995) jobs and were top performers. We also have them in the field like you guys will, in that case we do have female to female battle buddies, do to going to showers the latrine or as we all know porta potty and or four hole burn out. You guys are going to have to adjust but I think it will be ok. My suggestion is talk to the MP units and or Engineer 12C type units they have been doing this for a while. One more note: We deploy all over like Africa and South Central America and are mixed all the time.

Do you normally run two male guards at the ammo point? If the answer is yes then two guards in any configuration is okay. That would be two males, two females, or 1 male and 1 female guard. If you normally post one male guard, then it would be inappropriate to post 1 male and one female guard, or 2 female guards. Until the government and the military makes a decision that females are not the same as males, any special consideration in assignments or posting is a violation of the UCMJ.