Replies

Below is a response to a 4 star General’s piece in Army Times addressing why women should be in combat. The response was written by my brother a retired Army 0-6, an Air Assault Ranger who taught infantry tactics at the Army War College. I could not find better words to address this issue:

In General Dunwoody’s article “Equal Opportunities for Army Women?” she makes the case for allowing females to compete for ranger slots, Special Forces slots, and infantrymen slots. These positions require a soldier to “Close With and Destroy” the enemies of the United States. They are by far the most physically demanding slots the US Army has. Soldiers are expected to walk, run, jump, and assault with all their equipment and then win the fight when they get to the objective. They are to do this in rain, sleet, snow, heat, cold and in any type of terrain until the mission is over. In my letter, I would like to bring up some points that I believe General Dunwoody missed in her article.

First, women were allowed into West Point in 1976 and the Women Army Corps was disbanded in 1978. Yet you have to look no further than the US Army PT test standards and the indoor obstacle course standards at West Point to see that the US Army acknowledges that women are not able to perform at the same physical pace as men. In the Army, a 17 year old female has to do 42 pushups to achieve a maximum pushup score while a 62(+) year old male 4-Star general or CSM has to do 50. A seventeen year old man has to do 71 pushups for maximum score. In the run, a 17 year old female has to do 15:36 for two-miles to earn 100 points while a 62(+) male has to run it at 15:42. The 17 year old male has to run it in 13:00.

At West Point the Indoor Obstacle Course is famous or infamous for its difficulty. For a male cadet, you must run a 2:26 time for an A+. For female cadets, it is 3:14. If you run a 3:35 time for a female you get an A- while the same score gets an F for a male. West Point admitted women 39 years ago yet despite all the physical fitness programs and training over the last 39 years women are still “cut slack” on the standards for the obstacle course. West Point recognizes the differences in capabilities between men and women and grades accordingly. Why the disparity and “oppressiveness”? The US Army has in its infinite wisdom decided that there are physical differences between men and women and that these standards for “male” and “female” reflect reality. In General Dunwoody’s article, I see no push to change the PT standards for women either in the general Army or at West Point.

Second, there is a reason why there are no women in Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL, or NBA. There is a reason why the fastest, strongest, highest leaping persons in the world are all men. The reason has nothing to do with sex but with capability. Women do not have the same physical capabilities as men. In sports, if you lose you go home and drink a beer. If you lose in combat, there is no going home. In May of 2015, there was a news story about a Delta Force raid into Syria that required “Hand to Hand” combat. This means (I assume) GI Joe was killing Jihadi John with his hands or knife or whatever weapon was available. In our mind’s eye, do we REALLY expect GI Jane to do that? If not, then why would we put her at risk?

Thirdly, Congress has decided that women will not be required to register for Selective Service. There are over 150,000,000 women in the United States yet none are obligated to register. The rationale is that in a time where conscription is needed (i.e. a large scale world war) men will be required to serve and women will not be required to do so. I see no clarion call from anyone (including General Dunwoody) advocating that women at 18 years of age be required to register for Selective Service. Nor do I see a rationale either why a country (USA) with 150,000,000 males can not provide for 30,000 knuckle-dragging infantrymen for its defense.

Lastly, fighting on the infantry battlefield is “Darwinian” in nature where the slowest and weakest are mostly likely not to make it. Why should our daughters/sisters/mothers be expected to do the nastiest, most brutish, and physically taxing killing jobs when they are inherently at a disadvantage because of their physical capabilities? What type of society puts its least physically capable in to do its most demanding tasks? General Dunwoody stated that 150 U.S. Servicewomen have been killed since 9/11. This means that over 6,000 servicemen have been killed since 9/11. I don’t see the necessity or sanity of making the ratios equal.