I have served with women in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery since the early 1990s. These women are among the best Canada can muster. They meet high standards and are driven to not just succeed, but exceed. They yomp with the rest of us. When they are killed in action, as happened with Captain Nicola Goddard in 2006 in Kandahar, their troops carry on and complete the mission. The guy who took her place found she left big boots to fill, but the forward observation officer's party she had led was solid.

Armoured corps crews are similar. You need to worry about, as Bruce Coburn put it, "the brain behind the gun."

Think of a brain that has been that challenged as the leader of engineers. The booby traps--we'll take the tit jokes as read, thank you--are likely going to be nothing of which you had ever thought.

Infantry is another thing, since part of the stock-in-trade of a grunt is physical menace. Few men and even fewer women can bring it off. They are, however, out there in both flavours. Watch out.