In all the fuss about women in combat, I've noticed something.

Commenters decrying this development (which they ignorantly choose to believe is totally new, but let's ignore that) claim that soldiers need to carry 45 pounds on their back all day, every day. Or maybe it's 60 pounds. Or 75, or 100, or 200, or the weight of all their fallen comrades at once. No evidence is ever given for these assertions, a fact which even without the mysteriously changing numbers should be your clue that people aren't acting in an honest and upfront manner.

I could just google for the number, but I'd probably get more made up information, and for all I know none of it is true at all and soldiers never have to carry anything because the government secretly has invented hovercraft while we weren't looking.

So I'm going with option b, which is to ask if anybody has any idea which of those numbers approaches accuracy. I cannot believe it is all of them.

On a side note, for those seriously lowballing the weight required, I would like to introduce them to some more hardcore baby wearers. Carrying a sick three year old and the week's groceries up a hill, which I have done, has got to total more than 45 pounds. Sure, the groceries part wasn't all day, but if I'd been sufficiently determined I would have built up my endurance.