Posted on 04/10/2003 3:19:09 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Pfc. Jessica Lynch will be flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., soon. She has been isolated from media coverage of her rescue and has no idea what awaits her when she regains her health.
Private Lynch survived the ambush in Iraq of the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, but can she survive the ambush of the feminine forces of political correctness that placed her in harm's way.
These people want to use her to promote their theory that men and women soldiers are the same. This thesis is, of course, unprovable. While women may be just as smart, brave and mentally tough as men, physically they are shorter, lighter and weaker. No amount of physical training can make up for these differences. Therefore, the feminist goal of a genderless society must be achieved by manipulation, intimidation and indoctrination.
The feminists found willing accomplices in Democrat presidents Jimmy Carter – who viewed war as unnecessary – and Bill Clinton, who wasn't above hiding behind the skirts he was unable to lift.
In 1979, Carter attempted to repeal the restriction that prevents women from serving in combat units. When Congress said, "No," he had his secretary of the army, Clifford Alexander, redefine "combat." When Alexander was finished, women were shielded from only 22 percent of the jobs in the services.
In 1993, Clinton's secretary of defense, Les Aspin, also went to work on the combat definition. Aspin eliminated the "no risk" rule, which had prevented women from being assigned to units in close proximity with hostile forces, where there is a high risk of enemy gunfire or capture. As a result, the combat definition now is meaningless and unsuspecting women like Lynch have been sent into battle zones.
Congress also played a pro-active role in this debacle. In April of 1991, during debate on the 1992 defense authorization bill, Rep. Pat Schroeder, D. Colo., persuaded members of the House Armed Services Committee to strike the language in the U.S. Code that barred women from flying combat missions in the Air Force and the Navy "as a reward" for their service in Desert Storm.
This hearing was not open to the public and there was no roll-call vote. However, there were veterans on that committee who should have known better – like "B-1 Bob" Dornan, R. Calif., and Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R. Calif., the first fighter ace of the Vietnam War.
When the bill went to the Senate, members hedged their bets. They passed it with the Schroeder amendment while adding another amendment calling for a presidential commission to study the issue. This was tantamount to a doctor deciding to run a test on the reflexes of a patient's knee after the leg had been removed.
The bill was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush, who also knew better! The Joint Chiefs of Staff had testified that lifting the combat exclusion for female aviators ultimately would force the armed forces to assign women to all combat units.
Unfortunately, all these changes in law and regulations were made with little fanfare, little mention in the press. Also, a myth was perpetrated that once combat positions were open to women, they simply would be allowed to decide if they wished to accept these dangerous assignments.
That myth was shattered on March 23, 2003, when the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company was ambushed after being lost, resulting in the capture of Pfc. Lynch, who is one of the more fortunate members of her unit. Nine are confirmed dead, including her former roommate, Pfc. Lori Piestewa. Five others are POWs, including Spec. Shoshana Johnson.
Make no mistake, the death and capture of any soldier – male or female – is equally tragic but a policy that does not take into consideration the profound differences between women and men is not only wrong, it is immoral.
Gender norming, the lowering of physical fitness standards and the combining of male and female recruits in entry-level training in all the services – except the Marines – is an attempt to gloss over these differences. This not only reduces individual readiness, it subjects our male soldiers, sailors and airmen to greater stresses and increases their risk of capture and casualty.
The combat-exclusion rule must be reinstated and the definition of combat redrawn before we face another war and a stronger enemy.
No one doubts the bravery of the women of the 507th. Let's just hope that Pfc. Lynch is as brave in confronting the feminists, when it comes time to address these truths, as she was in standing up to the paramilitary in Iraq.
Will she become a soldier of truth – or remain a prisoner of political correctness?
In 1994 Secretary of Defense Les Aspin redefined Direct Ground Combat, and eliminated “inherent risk of capture” as a factor to consider in exempting women from serving in units previously defined as close combat. To open up even more “career opportunities” for women, Aspin also eliminated the Defense Department’s (DoD) Risk Rule—a regulation intended to exempt women in non-combat positions from being assigned close to the front lines.
None of this would have ever happened if not for Bill Clinton.
Opportunitists of all kinds will try to make her into something that that supports their agenda. The one fact that remains above all is that Jessica Lynch is a Private First Class in the Army of the United States of America.
The question is: are the folks who are making the most noise about PFC Lynch willing to enlist and do her job in her stead?
G_d help us. The only thing worse than a communist society would be a gender free society. I'd rather be dead.
Fair enough.
I'd like to suggest that some of the emotionalism that come from the no women in combat crowd is a symptom of their justification - that most men become irrationally hot headed when they see a pretty little teenage girl get gang raped to death (or almost to death as I assume was the case with Jessica). I think it's something ingrained into their nature and I don't think they're prepared to work to get rid of it. Therefore, it's risk on the battlefield, and a burden to try to minimize.
I don't think that I'd agree. Do you know how rare it would be to take prisoner from a US Division or Corps HQ Btn? I don't, but it must be very small.
You're thinking of good old-fashioned mass army slugfests from 1943, not the irregular battlefied of 2003. This wouldn't have happened in 1943.
Corps and Division HQs would be prime targets--take one of them down, and you pretty much reduce its formation to a loose collection of brigades without long-haul comms, theater and national intel access, et cetera.
I thought that is was a tank maintenance unit. Therefore, its assets (Jessica) would be expected to travel into dangerous areas to service equipment. I think that puts it at significant combat risk and on some level, "a combat unit".
How about hand-to-hand or close-in combat? I've been on forced marches of 20+ miles with full combat load and their are some men that can barely handle it, let alone women. How about changing the tire on a 5ton truck? Humping the base plate for an 81mm mortar, or tearing apart and putting together a Mk19 and placing rounds on target? I have nothing against women, in fact I love mine to death and would gladly die for them, but placing women in combat is the height of cowardice and is an indication of the feminization of our society. We should be ashamed of the fact that we ever allowed our women folks to be placed in harms way. Real men would never allow for it.
Yeah, Anny, me too. And I would argue that even doctors and nurses are too valuable a military asset to be in the direct line of fire. Beyond that, I have nothing more to add.
I'm not sure of your position. Are you saying that in today's battlefield, with enemies that we're most likely to face, Corps level personnel are as likely to be captured as those in units closer to the front? No.
Maybe killed if we face an enemy like China,… maybe. But any force that could do that's much more likely to actually honor the Geneva Convention prisoner of war rules and not gang rape our women. We don't fight civilized nations. (Now you're thinking of WWII) We're at real risk of fighting barbaric POSs like Iraq, Iran, Syria or NK, and they won't likely be capturing people at the Cops HQ level.
Actually, this question is a completely irrelevant ad hominem.
As the term "front line" becomes increasingly irrelevant, yes.
That maintenance company WAS a corps asset, by the way.
Maybe killed if we face an enemy like China
Actually, that's the war least likely to be danger
But any force that could do that's much more likely to actually honor the Geneva Convention prisoner of war rules and not gang rape our women.
Our Corps-level units do not have invisibility shields, or mystical talismans that make the enemy unable to capture them.
They are flesh and blood. And the enemy is not likely to "play fair" to get their opportunity to capture Americans. They are likely to use ruses, wait around in civilians clothes until the frontline troops go past, et cetera.
We don't fight civilized nations. (Now you're thinking of WWII)
The good folk murdered by Kampfgruppe Peiper at Malmedy would disagree with your assessment of the WW2 Germans being of a civilized nation.
And, BTW, they were mostly divisional and corps-level personnel, not frontline grunts.
We're at real risk of fighting barbaric POSs like Iraq, Iran, Syria or NK, and they won't likely be capturing people at the Cops HQ level.
They've already done just that, thank you very much.
No, it isn't.
It's painfully relevant.
We have women in supply clerk positions because men aren't enlisting in sufficient numbers to ensure that there aren't any women in supply clerk positions.
I don't see a mass movement to solve this problem, either.
the infowarrior
Notice that I didn't propose keeping women at the corps level. I specifically said at the Corps HQ btn level.
That maintenance asset, as I understand it, was forward deployed, like lots of units at risk of combat hanging under Corps administration. HQ btn level assets stay at the Corps HQ (more or less). Any exceptions would be an exception both ways.
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