Posted on 01/25/2013 2:31:09 AM PST by Kaslin
The first line of attack in political battles is language. Getting people to phrase things your way is the first step to getting them to think your way.
In the foggy mess of the debate over women in combat, you will see media references to a “ban” being “lifted.”
Bans are bad. Lifting bans is good. Therein lies the bias strangling this issue in the dominant media culture.
Am I “banned” from the women’s restrooms at work? No, I’m just not supposed to be in there, so that word doesn’t come up. The left has commandeered combat as a rhetorical battlefield, where excluding women is as vile as denying them the right to vote.
Just as allowing gays in the military has become a litmus test for human decency, the argument for women in combat focuses on their self-interest before the nation’s.
We see the same examples of noble service, as if they outweigh the arguments against. We hear scolding references to opponents stuck in some bygone era, steeped in bigotry. We hear no evidence of how this helps us win wars, which is the military’s actual job.
And beyond the damage this will do to military readiness, there is the broader harm done to our culture by permitting women in combat.
Before detailing the specifics of both detriments, there is the required pronouncement of my own high opinion of women and their strengths. Women are amazing people, often with talents and contributions beyond what any man brings to the table. My wife is one of the toughest, most capable people I know. My daughter has been raised to reach for any goal, striving for her dreams with all of the attributes God gave her, taking abuse from no one.
There. Now to the actual issue, which will draw charges of misogyny anyway.
It is because womanhood is special and sacred that we should not send our daughters, wives and mothers off to be killed, maimed or taken prisoner. If anyone is guilty of dealing a blow to womanhood, it is the oblivious souls who do not flinch at the risks of what might happen to them in battle.
But what if the women are willing? Doesn’t that negate that argument?
Far from it. The inspiring eagerness of a woman to subject herself to the hell of combat does not make it a good idea. The risks are not just to her, but to our entire society.
The number of women raring to see the front lines is very, very small. Their voices are not driving this. The engine here is the campaign to neutralize gender differences in all walks of life. This is not a quest for equal rights or opportunity, which is noble at its base; it is a campaign for sameness, an effort to craft a perverse worldview that manhood and womanhood are interchangeable-- in marriage, in parenthood, even in a foxhole.
God himself teaches otherwise.
But one does not have to take the religious path to objecting to this assault on gender difference. Even atheists can be chivalrous. Even agnostics know there is a dynamic to male/female interaction that irrefutably differs from same-sex environments.
This does not require a Norman Rockwell portrait of the little ladies baking pies while the men-folk prop up their feet and watch sports (even though there is nothing wrong with that portrait).
The advances of women have been of vast value to our nation and the world, as their hearts and minds and strengths have enriched corporate boardrooms, high elected office and many walks of military life.
But men are wired to regard women in a manner different than they regard their fellow men. The left may deny it, and individuals may try to thwart their own natures by suppressing it behaviorally, but properly raised men will feel an urge to protect women. Ignoring this central male instinct may be fatal on the battlefield.
A soldier under fire needs to regard his fellow troops with no complicating factors. The woman who was so tough in basic training may need extra assistance under actual enemy fire as a platoon dashes from one location to another.
This social dalliance will have a direct death toll, a fact of no consequence to those pressing for combat as a petri dish of contrived equality.
Combat is physicality at its most extreme. It is idiocy to deny the substantial physical differences between men and women. There are only two ways to shoehorn this policy into practice:
One is to suggest lesser physical requirements for women in combat, which is an admission of willingness to harm our armed forces to achieve a political goal.
The other is to argue for women to meet the same requirements, which is absurd on multiple levels.
First, the women who can match the precise training rigors of the Marine infantry could gather in a very small room.
Second, who in the world believes that standard would last? As soon as 100 or twelve or two actual women met those requirements, the diversity gremlins would swoop into action to lower the bar so that an acceptable number of women could be sent into harm’s way.
Meanwhile, consider the plight of the young lieutenant picking a half-dozen soldiers from his platoon for a demanding mission. Imagine the shrieks of sexism if he dares to bypass the ladies to dispatch the strongest six men, improving the likelihood of mission success?
Isn’t war hard enough? How many burdens must our military bear to satisfy the cravings of the politically correct?
But let us consider the case of a rock-hard, amazingly fit young lady who can match the best male times on the obstacle course at Parris Island. Surely we can send her into harm’s way?
Oh, we can, if we wish to invite the darkest consequence of all.
A soldier has many duties. Among the most important is the resiliency he must maintain if he is captured by an enemy. Enduring torture is one thing, but our enemies know a particularly excruciating tactic is to force captives to listen-- or watch-- as their brothers in arms are beaten and broken.
But we ask our fighting forces to do just that, with lips sealed. Asking them to withstand the horror of a woman raped or mutilated before their eyes is simply too much. Anyone blind to this difference has shut down part of humanity itself.
These are heady days for terrorists. Four fresh years of an Obama presidency and the approaching prospect of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel? Now that’s an Arab Spring.
Do we really want to give our enemies the joy of a new and searing way to mistreat Americans they capture?
Apparently we do, among the ranks of those pressing for women in combat without considering or caring what comes with it.
I would love to know how many people favoring combat for women have told their sons not to hit girls. This lesson is taught because girls and boys are different. One would hope a boy learns early that the behavioral standard around girls is higher, leading to a life where women are respected and honored.
It is that cornerstone of basic decency that is about to be sacrificed on the altar of our equality fetish.
We cannot know how many of our wives, mothers and daughters will be lost, or how many battles, as we engage in these skewed priorities.
But we can know that we will lose a fundamental precept of our existence-- the precious regard for womanhood as something worthy of protection from social experimenters.
Here’s the deal before everyone gets excited. Typically, if you fall into a Marine or Army fighting unit...you can expect to be dropped by parachute or land at a beach...with one hundred pounds of gear (maybe more). You can figure hours and hours of hiking around with this one hundred pounds on your back.
The odds of finding of any women out of one thousand young ladies finishing high school this year who might be physically up to these standards? Maybe five women might be capable of sustaining the 100 pounds...but then this odd rule pops up....about weight to height, and 180-pound women are heavily frowned upon in either the Marines or Army.
So they might grin at the camera and say they are ready for bold women to step forward, but that one-hundred pound backpack and the weight to height rule....will virtually guarantee that almost no females ever make it.
This isn’t about women slogging away in the field. It’s about leftist feminists (who will never join the military and most likely despise it) pushing a radical agenda for personal reasons. It’s also about female officers who see this as a means to higher pay and promotions.
This is not about military readiness, and the women will not be held to the same standards as the men. The standards will either be weakened or separated. They already are.
So let’s say a heavy piece of equipment needs to be lifted. This is how it works. The military designates the equipment as being a “two person” lift or buys special equipment to lift it. One guy can just grab the stuff and get the work done (I know. I know. They aren’t supposed to lift it by themselves, but the point is, they can). A woman, on the other hand, requires help or must be deployed with the special lifting equipment. That means more time and $ money to deploy a woman instead of a man, plus the job takes longer (more time to use the equipment than to muscle it).
This also ignores the additional costs of women in military units, to include the cost of separate facilities and greater need for medical care. Even if a woman can lug 100 packs, their bodies aren’t designed for it. That means more injuries.
“Mr. President, would you be in favor of a Draft, for your daughters for example, and assignment of them to Combat Roles? Isn’t true Equality putting them in line for The Draft, too?”
and commanders will be forced to encourage and support the women.
anyone stupid enough to complain about having to do extra work to compensate for the woman will be disciplined
You forgot the discipline problems. You have a large group of young men and women together and things happen. Especially when the ratio is 15 to 1 and the women are getting far more attention then they ever have before.
The military has an answer for that (discipline problems). They’ll just order everyone to behave. See. It’s that simple. “Ignore the fact that you are men and women. Remember you’re a soldier first. No sex!” That’s the military’s answer, and they’ll hide any problems. For example, it’s a common meme that women already serve with no negative impact on the military whatsoever. Of course many women serve honorably, and there are positive benefits from their service. Nevertheless, there are negative aspects. Anyone who says different is pushing a political agenda, not the truth.
What kind of negative impacts? For one, a number of women get pregnant. That means more $ for medical care, and the women may not be able to perform their speciality while pregnant or for several months after giving birth. For another, women require separate facilities. That also means more $ as well as a greater deployment footprint.
Again, I’m not saying women in the military is all bad. There are good and bad aspects to it. My point is simply that the left lies. They are pushing an agenda, and they don’t really care about the military. Most of them hate the military!
I think the worry is that the deal you cite will be broken and women will be parachuted into a war zone carrying a wicker picnic basket.
I’m joking, of course, but my fear is that standards will be dropped to accommodate women.
The “society” threatened by women in combat is disappearing anyway, and the “replacement Americans” (Hispanics, Asians) aren’t about to send their women into the military anyway.
At this point, because of the legal obstacles thrown up hindering white guys from getting an education, job, or promotion, I have no problem with letting any “preferred minorities” do whatever they’d like to remove themselves from the workforce/college classes. Whether they go in a car accident, from a sickness, or combat casualy is all the same to the millions of disenfranchised young men with no means to support themselves or start a family.
I know, we’re just supposed to take this lying down...
I know from personal experience that adding women into a all male environment will cause problems.
Was in a group that only had one woman, well technically she was female but frequently talked about her son pulling her leg hair. Then there was the 2 inch long strands of hair hanging from her chin that any guy would have been forced to shave.
So add in about 3 young cute women. Lots of discipline problems caused by both sexes.
Then I went to a remote site where a few women would be your girlfriend for a microwave or tv. Most weren’t that bad but it caused a lot of problems.
“but my fear is that standards will be dropped to accommodate women.”
No need to fear a sure thing.
So the republicans are guilty of a “war against women”
But now the liberals are all jiggy with war BY women
Imagine frontline troops in the war against islamists, who are physically weaker than men and exceptionally vulnerable to torture and rape if captured- and who have to be guarded from the enemy by other troops who ought to be fighting the enemy as their main preoccupation
and I say this as female retired military
WOW... I read all these responses, but I only have one question...
Ever been to Israel????
driftdiver: “No need to fear a sure thing.”
Yep. There are already different physical fitness standards for military men and women. So a man can get kicked out for not being able to run a certain number of miles in a given period of time, but a woman who runs at a much slower rate can be fully qualified for the exact same job.
Also, where does DOD get the authority to make this change? Does the law allow for it?
Are you claiming Israeli women serve in the same combat units as the men and literally fight side by side. If this is so, are you claiming the Israeli military is somehow better than the US military? We haven’t exactly won many wars lately, but neither have the Israelis.
How many women do you see playing Football in High School ?
They are allowed to under current rules but not many do.
My niece, who was an excellent athlete played Pop Warner Football as quarterback until 9th grade and did very well.
She had to quit in 9th grade because the guys were growing up and really knocking the heck out of her physically, even though they were taking it easy on her.
Also, the practices just became too physically demanding and she could not keep up.
Women have a place in our military but direct combat is probably not one of them. Look at the experiance of the Russian Army in WWII. They used women in combat where could, but the only place they actually could do the job was as snipers.
The IDF uses women in some combat roles but they really don’t have much of a choice. Still, the hard core front line soldiers are still the men.
To follow up, from what I gather, Israel only started allowing women in “combat units” in 1999. Initially, they did jobs like border patrol, but the Israelis have opened up more jobs since then. Both men and women are required to perform national service, but women in the military were (are?) generally in support roles. Whether or not this is good or bad for Israel is unknown. Whether the same policies are good for America are also unknown.
I was in Israel in ‘78, on shore leave from a carrier..
you would see 2 men and 1 woman on patrol everywhere...
the woman always carried the uzi with the real long magazine..
If you are under fire, does it really matter who is standing beside you?
as long as that person is firing and fighting with all they have, then you are good..
I find it amazing how people here go from ground pounder to special forces in an instant...
I have no problem with women serving on the front lines, the question is, why would a woman want to???
you want pure mean, put a company of women on their periods at the front, and watch what happens.... :)
this society sacrifices its lifegivers and its innocent
We know physical standards will be relaxed for the women. The “front lines” can be extremely physically taxing especially when there really are no “front lines” in todays wars.
ALL of Iraq and Afghanistan are front lines.
was saying same as a former female military officer to my son who is appalled at the idea of women in combat that the Army had already looked at all this and knows that women do not have the upper body strength, cannot carry the required pack, get colder quicker in frozen environments, that the guys are wired to protect the women instead of just fighting...on the other hand, women could be fantastic spies and snipers in my view, but women as grunts.............no
Yes. It matter who is next to you when you’re under fire. Can that person drag you to safety if you’re injured? Are they capable of protecting your ass in hand-to-hand combat, even if they’re “fighting with all they have?”
It also matters during all the other times when you’re not under fire. Does the Israeli military deploy all over the world and have troops spending months in the field? I think not.
this society sacrifices its lifegivers and its innocent
As a woman who has carried, nurtured and given life to three children, I find it inconceivable that any woman could want to or handle being ordered to purposely go out and hunt/shoot/kill other humans. It is just not in my nature and even seeing a fellow soldier hurt or killed would render me useless in battle. Maybe it’s just something that comes with being a mother, and the young, childless women in the military are different, but this is just bizarre to me. Women were meant to give and nurture life, not actively seek to take it. I would fight and defend my children to the death in the face of a threat, mind you, but that is different than killing strangers on a battlefield.
By all means put men and women in the same foxhole. Why should gays have all the fun?
agreed
Yeah, been to Israel
Seen plenty of 18 yr old female soldiers in sandals hitchhiking home every day after work
Israel is a poor comparison to the types of combat faced by the US military, living in barracks and deployed to bases hundreds or thousands of miles from home and in remote theaters all over the world.
If much of our military only had to fight terrorists while largely living at home, over a territory about the size of the state of NJ, then it might be a better comparison
It’s about leftist feminists (who will never join the military and most likely despise it) pushing a radical agenda for personal reasons
Exactly. this will have disastrous consequences for society as a whole. Just think of how men will relate to the women in their lives when they come back home after being conditioned to see them as just another guy in the foxhole with them and other atrocities. Think of how demoralizing this is that men can no longer even feel like they can protect the wives/mothers/daughter in their lives or in society in general? How are men going to feel being powerless to protect the women in their lives from the horrors of war? This just goes against all that civilized society stands for. I’m sorry if it sounds old-fashioned or chauvanistic (and I’m a woman!), but thats how I feel about it.
I’m a retired 10 year vet, Canadian army, and I will tell you with utmost certainty that having a woman beside me in combat will affect my ability to do my job. I would put her safety first and that could endanger the mission or my other brothers in arms.
God made us different. Women are something to be cherished and protected and loved, not stuck in front line combat. Even the idea that they could be there and caught by the enemy and raped and who knows what else is enough to make me extremely upset.
Perhaps my morals and principles are outdated, I don’t know, but the fact is we’re different.
Well said usmom, I think it’s safe to say most mothers would die to protect their family, but that’s different than like you say to go out and actively seek out death.
I will re-iterate what I said earlier. Women are to be cherished and protected, it’s what men are programmed for.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter what any of us think. President Obama is pushing a far left agenda. Him and his ilk are going to do so no matter what. The left has wanted to force homosexuals and women on the military for many, many years. Now is their chance to impose their immoral, anti-American agenda on everyone else. There’s really nothing we can do about it.
When Congress writes law, they typically include exceptions, like, “subject to the SecDef’s discretion” or “subject to the Joint Chiefs concurrence.” The Obama administration uses these exceptions to push radical changes without actually breaking the law. Blame Congress, because they gave the executive branch too much wiggle room. For example, if you write a law that says the EPA can regulate pollution without spelling out exactly what counts as pollution, you’ll wind up with C02 being declared a pollutant.
The lawmakers probably didn’t think the chief executive would take advantage of these loopholes. They probably never counted on someone like Obama, and even if the president steps too far, who will impeach him? Harry Reid? Ha! The left LOVES a king so long as the king works for them!
People need to focus on the likely results of this. You are not going to see women qualifying as infantry enlisted or branch company grade officers or SOC operators; you aren’t going to see many even try.
This rule will allow women in those paygrades to seek armor and artillery billets which are less physically taxing, but even that will be small numbers.
The MAIN impact of this rule will be to permit women to switch to combat branches when they make O4 to pursue batallion and brigade staff and comand jobs, and permit non-combat-branch staff offficers (logistics, intelligence, etc.) to take specialist jobs in combat batallions and brigades.
Which is not to say that this is not going to be a bad thing — do you want to have an infantry batallion S3 who never put in time as a platoon leader or company commander and doesn’t have a Ranger tab — but if it is it will be a different bad thing.
In the end, if that is the society we want it is the one we will get. It will not be worth much nor be worth living in. In the end it will be bloodily swept away into the dustbin of history.
God and what He has created and for what purpose is not mocked successfully, for long.
Can’t handle 100 pound pack? Here, they now weigh 50.
Sorry, we’re shorting you in combat gear but we have to accommodate the women in your unit.
That’s how it works in Obamaland...lowering the standard.
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