What Kind Of Nation Sends Women Into Combat?

LewRockWell ^ | April 11, 2003 | R. Cort Kirkwood

[electron1]

What Kind Of Nation Sends Women Into Combat? by R. Cort Kirkwood

The ridiculous spectacle of rescued POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the feisty, ballyhooed warrior of the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company, which was butchered early on in Iraq, occasioned the usual war whoops. Yet no one asked a simple question: What in heaven's name was a hundred-pound girl, barely out of pigtails and high school, doing in a combat zone?

The more cosmic abstraction of woman in combat evokes little if any debate these days, and what little debate we hear isn't loud enough. Other women have been killed and captured, including at least one single mother, and it's all just part of the modern military. As one lady columnist for the Washington Post triumphantly pronounced, the debate over women in combat "is over."

How many Americans knew that?

Whatever the answer, a few days ago in this corner of cyberspace, this writer suggested a fine way to stop American wars of conquest: Conscript the sons of politicians and bureaucrats who start them. Nearly three dozen letters came in, almost every one posing this question with the corollary mandate: Why are you excluding the daughters? Let Bush send his daughters to war.

It's a passionate and in some ways understandable reaction.

And most likely, it won't be long before women, along with young men, are required to register for the draft; the explanation for that observation appears below. But first, an answer for those correspondents: The debate over women in combat turns on two questions: whether women can do it (handle the rigors of combat) and whether they should do it (is it morally acceptable and socially desirable).

In a word, no. It is un-American, un-Christian, and immoral.

The Practical Question

As a practical matter, 99 percent of women are unsuited for combat, and that includes flying combat aircraft and serving on combatant ships. That women do these things doesn't mean they should; it just means the military has been feminized and civilianized, as any military man will admit after a few shots of Jack Daniels at the Officers' Club, and of course, after his commanding officer leaves.

In the early 1990s, I was a staff member on the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. The evidence the commission gathered was clear on one thing: Women don't belong in combat.

The evidence showed women lack the necessary physical prowess. The strongest woman recruit, generally, is only as strong as the weakest man. Given that the services try to weed out the weakest men, it's counterproductive to recruit even the strongest women. And our volunteer military, remember, doesn't get the strongest women; it gets average women.

As well, women suffer higher rates of bone fractures, and other factors such as menstruation, pregnancy and aging militate against recruiting women as combat soldiers. The 20-something woman, for instance, has about the same lungpower as the 50-something man.

Well, that might be true for ground combat, the feminists insist, but surely they can fly jets and bombers. It's all just a Nintendo game up there. Again, untrue. Flying high-performance jets requires incredible conditioning and strength, particularly in the neck. Top Gun fighter pilots told the commission (and news reports later confirmed) that unqualified lady pilots routinely passed Naval flight training. At that time at least, officers were rated on the number of women they promoted. The result in one case? Kara Hultgreen, the first woman to "qualify" flying an F-14, was killed when her jet crashed because she couldn't land it on the carrier Abraham Lincoln.

But let's suppose women fly jets as well as men. What happens when one is shot down? The safety of the high-tech cockpit is gone, and she is alone on the ground, trying to survive. She is another Jessica Lynch.

As for the ships, consider the obvious: You don't send a few nubile sailorettes aboard Navy ships with 1,500 horny sailors, no matter what the Navy says about its "leadership" correcting carnal temptations. As well, the strength deficit surfaces again in many shipboard tasks too numerous to mention here.

Military training is another area where the women fall flat; they cannot survive the same basic training as men, so it is "gender-normed." That means the services (and military academies) have different standards for women than for men, and not just for hair length. If women were held to the same standards as men, more than 14 percent of our armed forces would not be women; they could not attend the academies. Oddly enough, the feminists aver that scrapping the double standard would be discriminatory! So much for judging someone on her true merit.

In the decade since the commission heard tons of testimony on these points, nothing has changed unless women have evolved markedly improved muscle and bone.

In reply to these unassailable facts, some suggest some women can meet the same standards with the proper weight training and physical-fitness regimen. That's a stretch, but let's say a few can. That takes us back to the weakest man vs. the strongest woman. What standard would these few meet? The lowest among the men? Even if they fell among men of medium strength, consider the prohibitive cost of selecting these Amazonian anomalies from among general population. And finding them assumes they want to be found.

A friend of mine, a former Green Beret, suggests an experiment: Let's train two squads, one all women, the other all men, to peak physical and combat-ready condition. Then drop them in the woods for a war game and see who wins.

Point is, women get by in the military only because of men. As one Internet wag observed, the equipment one man carries into combat is nearly as heavy, perhaps heavier, than Jessica Lynch. Lynch and women her size do not have the strength to carry a fallen 200-pound comrade out of harm's way. Forgetting about combat, some women aircraft mechanics need men to lift their toolboxes. Without men, the armed forces would collapse, and the more women the military enlists, the weaker it becomes.

As one commissioner remarked in exasperation: "Women are not little men, and men are not big women."

The Moral Question

That leaves the moral and social questions, which commission member and Vietnam War hero Ron Ray addressed with this remark: "The question isn't whether women can do, it's whether they should do it."

Women should only be used in combat, Ray argued, if national survival demands it; i.e., when the Indians are circling the ranch and the men are dead and wounded. Even then, using women would be a last resort. It would not become a policy. Such an emergency isn't likely to happen here unless Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guards make a spectacular comeback and march into Jonah Goldberg's and Sean Hannity's neighborhoods. In that case, we know all the women will be fighting.

The kidding aside, the moral and social argument is one of "rights" vs. what is right. The feminists claim combat service is a "right." Nonsense.

A battlefield is not a boardroom, a courtroom or an operating room, and the contrary notion is hyperegalitarianism rooted in feminist fantasies that women "will have made it" when they have commanded troops in battle. Women do not have a "right" to serve. Military service for volunteers is a privilege; for draftees, it is a duty. No one has a "right" to serve, a civilian idea equivalent to having the "right" to be a doctor or lawyer that has no place in the military, whose principal purpose is to kill the enemy and destroy his capacity to fight.

In "Crimson Tide," Gene Hackman's submarine skipper explained the point: The armed forces defend democracy, they do not practice it.

So much for "rights." Now, as to whether women in combat is right:

At one commission hearing, Col. John Ripley, one of the most famous Marines who fought in Vietnam, explained combat for the largely civilian audience. A good picture of real combat, he said, is walking down a path to find your best friend nailed to a tree, or his private parts in his mouth. The feminists and military women in the audience gnashed their teeth.

Then again, they don't understand that until Bill Clinton's war minister Les Aspin changed it, the law excluding women from combat was always considered a privileged exemption, not sex discrimination. It was the thoughtful recognition that women should be spared the carnage and cruelty of war.

Why?

Because turning a woman into the kind of person who views such gore without blinking an eye, or who participates in the wanton killing war requires, is a step down to pagan barbarism and cultural suicide. In some sense, given what we've seen in the Gulf, we've already taken that step. But the feminists won't quit until they get women into ground combat units. As recent events prove, no one seems to care what all this means not only culturally but also psychologically.

It will require training men and women to regard the brutalization of women, and a woman's brutalization of others, as normal and acceptable. To train the men properly, a woman commissioner observed, we must erase everything their mothers taught them about chivalry; i.e., that a real man protects a woman from harm. Instead, they must be trained to brain a woman with a pugil stick in training. This truth raises two paradoxes.

On one hand, to completely desensitize the men, such training would be required. But the feminists don't want that because women can't meet the same standards as men; they won't survive it. Yet how are these women to survive combat if they cannot survive real, not gender-normed, basic training? The men would have to protect them. Successfully integrating women in combat means this: A soldier must ignore the screams of a woman POW being tortured and raped.

On the other hand, while the feminists never stop the finger-wagging about "domestic abuse," they importune us to inure men to the wartime abuse of women. Again, to some degree, we're already there. The capture and torture of Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson, the single mother, was just another day in the war. But then again, the society that sent these young women to war is the same one that has steroidally-fortified men and women bashing each other senseless in television's faux wrestling, which presents the illusion that women really can fight against men, as well as preposterous movies about women Navy SEALS, or women who receive the Medal of Honor while the men cower in fear.

Lastly, assigning women to combat, or even combat support units like the 507th, purposely subjects them to trials and tribulations for which nature has not prepared them. Such assignments endanger not only the women but also the men around them, who will redirect their attention from fighting toward protecting or helping the women. Men will do that because they are men, because regardless of feminist propaganda, good parents teach their sons about chivalry and honor. The Steinem brigade doesn't like it, but it's true nonetheless. Thus, men will die unnecessarily. That is immoral and unjust, as is ordering married men and women to live in close quarters where they are tempted to adultery. Some observers even question the legality of orders sending women into combat. But that is a debate for another day.

Ray's point? Civilized Christians don't send women and mothers to fight the wars. Chronicles editor Tom Fleming has observed that our nation has become anti-Christian. The saga of Pfc. Lynch and other military women proves him right.

The Final Answer

Back to that draft.

Don't be surprised if women are required to register. Legally speaking, the draft exemption for women is tied to their exemption from combat. Now women serve in aerial and naval action. And given the proximity to combat of women in "maintenance" and other units, it won't be long before the politicians, and bemedaled generals in the Army and Marines, hoist the white flag and put women in ground combat. Then, some young man will file the inevitable "equal protection" lawsuit and the exemption will fall, its legal rationale having been dropped.

Oddly enough, the silly clamor for women in combat assumes most military women want combat assignments. The commission found that they don't. Only a few aging feminists do, and of course, they won't be subject to the combat assignments or the draft. When you join the military, you join voluntarily, but you go where they need you. When women get their "right" to fight, they won't have the "right" to refuse. And why would they? After that, again, comes the draft for women.

The answer to the many folks who suggest conscripting women is this: Real Americans don't send women to war. Neither do real men. A genuine Christian wouldn't contemplate it. The story of Jessica Lynch reveals an awful truth: All three are in short supply, particularly among American political and military leaders.

April 11, 2003

Syndicated columnist R. Cort Kirkwood [send him mail] served on the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces.

[Kenno]

Well, like the old statement about a stopped clock...

Hell, they even managed to avoid cheap shots at Pfc. Lynch. I'm impressed.

[Support Free Republic]

PLEASE SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC

Donate Here By Secure Server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
or you can use
PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com

Become A Monthly Donor
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD-
It is in the breaking news sidebar!

[Spruce]

My daughter's 16th birthday was 09/11/2001. She will be reporting to boot camp 1 week after she graduates high school this summer. Wild horses couldn't stop this young woman from doing what she thinks is right. God bless her!

[electron1]

This is also what a friend of mine wrote on the subject,

Biologically, emotionally and physically men were made to fight other men. Women simply don’t have this make-up. If I were under enemy fire for a prolonged period of time I certainly wouldn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of women, who would probably end up shrieking and crying. I saw a tv program a while back on women going through basic training in the British army and it seemed like every ten minutes one woman or another would break down crying. It was ridiculous.

I don’t think I need to say much about the physical strength differences between men and women, but if I were lying out in a battlefield injured and had to be dragged off, I certainly wouldn’t be able to rely on a woman to do that.

You don’t have to look much further than a man’s eyes to realize that it’s in his biological nature to fight. Men’s eyes are sunken into their head to protect them during fights, while women’s eyes bulge out more.

Violence and killing simply comes much easier to men. Look at chimpanzees – something like 98% the same genetic make-up as man. And when one chimp troop begins to harass another chimp troop the males get together and silently sneak into the other camp and let loose with some chimpanzee whoop-ass. It's something to read about - it almost reads like a special forces assault.

Interestingly, I saw a report not more than a couple weeks ago that found that having men who’ve been through battle and have post traumatic stress syndrome sit around and talk about it in a therapy-like atmosphere aggravates the situation to no end. That’s the female way to do things – sit around and talk. The normal male response of simply shutting your mouth, sticking the memories in the back of your mind, and getting on with life is the best recourse for men.

I would also doubt that many soldiers would take orders from women in the midst of a firefight. I imagine that most grunts on the ground would have absolutely no confidence in a woman’s ability to conduct a battle. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. The perception exists. I very much doubt that a high pitched voice would carry much authority during a pitched battle. Homosexuals are kicked out of the military, to a large degree, because men in battle will not listen to someone who is not truly a man.

For much the same reasons, when you get on a plane, you know as well as I, that both men and women want to hear a man’s voice coming over that intercom when the captain comes on to speak. Rightly or wrongly, I think a majority of people would feel less comfortable and confident if they knew a woman was flying the plane. When I’m driving a car and somebody in front of me does something stupid, I naturally assume it’s a woman and 9 times out of 10 I’m right. There has to be a confidence level between the people in a combat unit and throwing women in there will lessen that level greatly.

So putting women in combat is stupid. Women were never meant to fight in battle. There is nothing about women that would ever indicate they have any sort of inherent inclination towards fighting and war. And because having women in combat roles is simply wrong for so many reasons, and because combat is such an important and grave matter, I would say that having women in combat is, in fact, morally wrong.

I appreciate women to no end, but I'm not about to subscribe to things that I consider fundamentaly erroneous simply because of political correctness.

Personal experience has repeatedly demonstrated to me that men are better drivers than women. It's a scientific fact that men have reflexes way above and beyond that of women. They are better able to react to fluid situation than are women. Men are generally right-brained creatures while women are left-brained. People with more devleoped right-brain functionality are better at operating machinery.

Men also have much better spatial abilities than women, i.e. men are much better able to quickly judge and react to unfolding traffic situations. Hence, men are better drivers than women. But we all knew that anyway. (well, at least I did)

It's a scientific fact that women are far more emotional than men.

[The Westerner]

Thank you for posting this article. I liked the point that even though men will have to be desensitized to the women among them, that will never happen, as long as good parents raise children. Though I am not Christian, nor even religious, I agree with this author. It is somehow a decline of Western Civilization to send women to be soldiers among men.

The only exception I can think of is tiny Israel, but I have not heard of women in battle there either. With apologies to that exceptional woman pilot who brought in the shot-up A-10 Warthog (?) this week, I still think, in principle, that women do not belong in combat or on ships.

[steelmagnolia2]

Wow, you must have been around a bunch of "hot house roses," or spoiled little brats that cried when they broke a fingernail. In the real world--not some imaginary version of a macho wannabe's fantasy land--men talk about stuff. Things that happen in their life get talked about, and they gossip, and they whine, and they whimper. I have always thought women were really the tough ones, especially after working as the only woman in my department at a steel mill. I have always heard that women make better welders, crane operators, and heavy equipment operators because we have better eye-to-hand co-ordination. I probably run a backhoe better than 90% of most men who 'think' they can run one.

It's a scientific fact that men are more "emotional" than women. Men's emotions that come from Testosterone are far more apt to be out of control. Rage, revenge, jealousy, and fear are all emotions that are acted out with irrational aggression. Women, on the other hand, can be trained in the military to use a more rational aggression, the type more useful for military combat.

By the way, I am a normal, married hetero female, of athletic build and have no tatoos and all my teeth! Also, I do not dip!

[electron1]

As the guy said, the statistics he gave are "known facts". Even by the opposing side.

[dcwusmc]

Post-conflict BUMP.

As a retired Marine and Vietnam vet, I tend to strongly agree with this article... for all the reasons given. Plus the simple biological fact that after a war which decimates a country's male population, that population can ONLY be restored by women who are of an age to bear children... the very age group that would be sent off to fight in this very PC nation. As insensitive as it may seem, one rooster is all it takes for a flock of hens, one bull to a herd of cows, one male lion to a pride of females... not that one man should service multiple women... perhaps guys who are about to head off to combat should make donations to sperm banks or something. But if we kill off the womenfolks, just exactly HOW would the nation reproduce and refill the lost population? THAT, IMO, is the ultimate argument against putting women in combat. And has been since time began. Women are the NURTURERS and the child BEARERS... as designed by Nature's God... Men are the protectors and providers... by design. In some areas, it doesn't MATTER that the lines blur. In war, it matters greatly.

[RealEstateEntrepreneur]

Good God, man, are you completely out of touch with the reality?

Your argument is wholly based on our country losing a substantial portion of our male population.

Are you living in the 1940's?

[dcwusmc]

And your point is???

My argument is made based on history, biology and human nature. The fact is that such thinking as yours appears to be is so myopic as to make massive conflict inevitable. You are too used to low-casualty, quick live-fire exercises against ill-trained, unmotivated troops. Thus, you accept them happening as often as the president might desire. It's too video gamish. However, if such things continue to happen, we will soon run up against an opponent who IS well trained and motivated... and then what? Would we just give up? Or do we fight to the finish? If we posit that conflict and war are inevitable and prepare properly, part of that includes looking at "worst case" scenarios, including massive casualties among our MEN. And looking at women as being the only ones capable of helping to restore the population in such a case. THAT is reality. Wishful thinking is insanity... and that is what your post implies about you... you are engaged in wishful thinking without considering the consequences of it. So women have NO PLACE in combat. Period, end of story.

Not to mention that putting women in such units exacts a price from the spouses of those who have to deploy with them. Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your spouse is aboard a ship with a mixed crew? Where they are at sea for months at a time? Where fraternization is INEVITABLE? What do you suppose YOU'D think in such a situation? Such things have no place in our armed forces. No matter HOW un-PC or 1940's thinking it is. THAT is reality. YOU are dreaming, if your post was not sarcasm.

[RealEstateEntrepreneur]

Modern warfare also includes nuclear weapons. No scenario ever has us sending tens of millions of men into conventional combat.

Also, the RLC is about respecting individual choice. The women in the military choose it, and you don't hear them complaining. They love it and defend their position in it--as do their families.

But you'd rather impose your authoritarian moral thinking on them.

[dcwusmc]

Did you actually READ the article? If not, try reading it and THEN comment.

[RealityShot]

Ive lived in Va Beach, Va for 20 years. I come from a military family where all men served in either the marines or Army and many saw combat. Living in the Norfolk area, i am surrounded daily by military personnel and military families. Most are Navy. Not to say that they dont exist, but I dont know a single woman, who hasnt complained about serving and strongly states they will put in their 4 years and get out. When Lynch was rescued, they did not send in a team of women to rescue her. It was men. And I guarentee, it was on their mind that this POW was a young Girl.

[dark_lord]

This again.

Yeah, women are lousy combat infantryman. Truth. Tell it to the air farce. Basically every land based US mainland air force role can be filled by women. And big surprise -- there are tons of rear echelon positions in the US army in the US that aren't ever going overseas. Mainly pick, pack, ship, and paperwork.

[poet]

"there are tons of rear echelon positions"

The post is about women, not gays in the military 8>)

[Voice in your head]

I would be suprised if the author of this piece, or your friend whom you quoted in post #5, were in the military. The reason that I say that is that the author(s) seem to have the common, but incorrect, belief that the military is a bunch of infantry, armor, artillery, and special forces units. The Army has many units that do not have combat functions. They are combat support or combat service support units, such as quartermasters, adjutants, medical personnel, finance personnel, lawyers, etc. Women do not belong in the ranks of the special forces, infantry, armor, field artillery, combat engineers, or combat medics and they do not serve in those positions. Women are welcome to serve in other positions. What is the problem?

[GigaDittos]

During WWII women served in certain non-combat positions in the military. That's as far as it should go. I don't give a d@mn what the feminists think about the military. Their only concern is politics, not the security of our nation. In GENERAL, women are more emotionally sensitive and physically weaker than men, and THAT'S part of what makes them so attractive. If you're a real man, then you know the protective instinct you feel toward women. Imagine you're in a foxhole with Michelle Pfeifer with bullets flying. If you're a real man, I don't have to say another word to you. Another thing, a fighter needs to be physically strong and have an ass-kicking mentality....so the feminists and intellectually dishonest people need to stop BSing themselves and get the hell out of the way.

I'll tell you what kind of nation sends women into combat, one that surrenders to bullsh$t!

[Indie]

I'll tell you what kind of nation sends women into combat, one that surrenders to bullsh$t!

Good post.
It's also the same kind of country that allows its courts to pass laws (I know I said "pass laws" /sarcasm) and shred the Constitution unimpeded, by allowing the deaths of 40 million people by abortionists.
That is forty million..and growing. What's wrong with this picture?

[Centennial]

Well if you think this idea was /is bad just wait until Hillary makes it to the White House. Things will get really strange. She is the single person most responsible for this stupid idea of women in combat. Generations from now when sanity has returned people are going to wonder "what were they thinking?"