Posted on 11/19/2003 10:32:53 AM PST by kattracks
Writing in the Orlando Sentinel, Kathleen Parker explained that Jessica Lynch joined the Army to get the college tuition she needed to become a kindergarten teacher.Lynch wasn't looking for an assignment the Army never told her might put her into the combat situation that nearly cost her life, and left her shattered and crippled.
And Lynch was put into that situation because the Pentagon has caved in to feminist pressure.
Many veterans and observers have protested Lynch's "hero" status, and Parker feels Jessica Lynch's book is far from the story of a regular soldier, but rather "... the hijacked fairy tale of a scared, ‘prissy’ little girl who wanted to be taken care of."
So what was Lynch doing in the Army?
Parker says that Lynch's story offers Americans, and especially women, "a cautionary tale: A 5-foot-4-inch, 100-pound woman has no place in a war zone nor, arguably, in the military."
Parker goes further: "The feminist argument that women can do anything men can do is so absurd that it seems unworthy of debate. That some women are as able as some men in some circumstances hardly constitutes a defense for "girling" down our military - and putting men at greater risk - so that the Jessica Lynches can become kindergarten teachers."
Noting that Lynch was brutally raped while in captivity, Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, writes in the November 14 edition of National Review Online: "Experts in the field have noted that female captives, unlike their male counterparts, are almost always violated sexually."
That, she says, is a risk against which the Army does not warn women recruits. "We need brave women in the military, but no one's daughter should have to suffer an ordeal comparable to that experienced by Pfc. Jessica Lynch," Donnelly, wrote. "Not in the name of other women's careers, military necessity, or anything else."
Like Parker, Donnelly writes that many Americans also may wonder how Lynch got to the frontlines to begin with, and goes on to explain that "Under rules issued by the Clinton administration, female soldiers in support units are now being forced into areas involving a 'substantial risk of capture.'"
This policy, she notes, "is inconsistent with privacy rules that deny information about what happens to women who are captured. "
A petition now being circulated by Americans for the Military ( www.americansforthemilitary.com) asks President Bush to reverse the Clinton rules.
It also requests that Bush take action "to end admittedly inefficient Army co-ed basic training, gender-based recruiting quotas, and overly generous pregnancy policies that subsidize and increase single parenthood in the military. All of these problematic policies were enacted during the Clinton years. They can be revised in the same way — long before the next deployment begins."
Parker quotes New York Times arts columnist Frank Rich as noting that Lynch is not so much "a symbol of Bush administration propaganda," as she is a victim of the PC military career myth sold to young women through feminist propaganda.
Parker writes that it’s a pity a girl like Lynch had to be ‘broken’ to remind Americans that the Army is not an arbitrary career choice. As one Army officer told Parker: "Our job is to take human life on behalf of the nation."
Ahh, I remember hearing about her while I was on active duty... the USS Maternity Ward
Ummm, and your point?
I can keep with a subject, just not poorly worded (or non-existent) points. But then I don't expect much from those who think that it isn't "fair" that some think women don't belong in combat or combat support units. If you can't make a coherent point in EACH post, why do YOU bother to post?
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