Jessica Lynch
Posted on 09/26/2003 9:49:03 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
As the death toll of American soldiers continues to rise in Iraq, one civilian woman on the sidelines here at home continues her battle to strengthen the military by taking her case to the commander in chief, and she's launched a petition drive to catch his attention.
Question: Why was a 7-pound baby boy born aboard a warship in the Gulf war zone near Kuwait in May?
Question: Why was his mother, a 33 year-old Marine, deployed while pregnant or how did she get pregnant after deployment?
Question: What happened to POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch after she was captured by Iraqi fighters?
Question: What happened to Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a single mother of two pre-schoolers, during the ambush of the Army's 507th Maintenance Company and how did she die?
Jessica Lynch |
Question: How did 26-year-old Sgt. Melissa Valles and 27-year-old Spc. Alyssa Peterson – the second and third female soldiers killed in Iraq – come to sustain non-combat shots to the head and abdomen, respectively?
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public-policy organization that specializes in military personnel issues, and a member of WND's Speakers Bureau, told WorldNetDaily she has submitted these and a host of other questions to the Pentagon, but has not received any answers.
"There's something very odd about it," said Donnelly. "Here we have a new paradigm of women in the military and there's no information available about how it's going."
The paradigm Donnelly speaks of is females serving in combat roles, gender quotas, co-ed basic training, the deployment of single mothers and pregnant servicewomen and "overly generous pregnancy policies that subsidize and therefore increase single parenthood."
Donnelly calls it the result of "social engineering" policies instituted in the military over the last decade by "Pentagon feminists" seeking to advance the careers of servicewomen at the cost, she says, of military morale, efficiency and readiness.
"The three women [in the 507th Maintenance Company] were ambushed because of policies put in place in 1994 to improve 'career opportunities' for women," said Donnelly. "They wouldn't have been there otherwise."
Donnelly is referring to the elimination in 1994 of the Department of Defense "Risk Rule," which held that women could not be placed in combat support units that had "significant risk of capture."
The theory of the interchangeability of men and women is central to the ideology of feminism. The ultimate test of this theory is the military. Donnelly says that's where the demand to have women in combat comes from.
"These women are being used in a great social experiment. What about the women themselves? Don't their opinions count?" Donnelly asked, noting that numerous studies show only 10 percent of women in the military want to serve in combat roles, even as policymakers have increasingly opened the doors to them.
"There is no demographic or military need to have women in these positions in such numbers. The Pentagon needs to find a way for women to serve without risking being captured," Donnelly continued.
A longtime military advocate, Donnelly served on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, or DACOWITS, in the 1980s and was appointed in 1992 by former President George H. W. Bush to the presidential commission that studied what the ramifications of women in combat would be. After ten months of exhaustive interviews with hundreds of soldiers, the commission voted against women in combat aviation, land combat with the Special Forces and on combat ships such as submarines and amphibious vessels.
Then-President Clinton dismissed the recommendation when he took office shortly afterward.
 366th Fighter Wing, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho wait out a ground attack scenario during an Operational Readiness Exercise on Aug. 27. |
The Iraq conflict, with its still-undefined female POW experience and three fallen female soldiers, provide additional data for Donnelly's cause.
On May 23, an unnamed Marine staff sergeant assigned to a ground unit gave birth aboard the USS Boxer, an amphibious vessel deployed in a war zone near Kuwait. A Pentagon official told the Washington Times the Marine did not tell anyone she was pregnant because she did not know that she was.
Donnelly thinks the incident demands review of liberal pregnancy policies imposed on the Navy and Marine Corps in 1995 by then- Secretary of the Navy John Dalton. Under the Dalton policy:
The Dalton policy also forbids "downgrading marks or adverse comments related to medical limitations, assignment restrictions, and/or periods of absence due to pregnancy."
The non-combat fatal shootings of Valles and Peterson also raise questions. The Arizona Republic reported Peterson, of Flagstaff, Ariz., was shot in the head due to the non-combat discharge of a gun Sept. 15. The circumstances surrounding the incident have not been disclosed. The San Antonio Express-News reported Valles, of Eagle Pass, Texas, similarly died due to a non-combat gunshot wound to the abdomen in July.
Donnelly questions why the only news, however limited, of these deaths comes from the women's hometown papers, and why her questions about the deaths filed with the Pentagon go unanswered: Did the soldiers shoot themselves or was it someone else's gun? Was the soldiers' training deficient or was someone else's training deficient?
"The whole issue seems to be politicized," she told WND. "When these tragedies occur it seems everyone closes ranks and smothers the news."
Donnelly thinks the commander in chief needs to step in before the next mobilization begins.
"The president needs to provide direction to the Pentagon and make it clear that efficiency and strength in the military is the primary objective and not social engineering," she said.
Donnelly's CMR has launched a petition drive to gather electronic signatures of like-minded supporters. More than 10,000 people have signed so far. Donnelly hopes to present the petition in a personal meeting with President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. No meeting is yet scheduled.
"The nation is proud of the men and women who are serving their country well in the war on terrorism, and the commander in chief who leads them," reads the petition. "[But] some activists are trying to use the capture, serious injury, and/or death of female enlisted soldiers in a support unit ambushed in Iraq as an excuse to promote radical feminist objectives, such as the inclusion of uniformed women in Special Forces helicopters, submarines, and many land combat units."
The "Americans for the Military" petition asks Bush to direct Pentagon officials to "objectively review and revise social policies that undermine readiness, discipline and morale."
The policies cited include:
Several influential organizations, such as Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, the American Conservative Union, Accuracy in Media, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, are on board with the campaign and are working to promote the petition.
A call for comment from the Department of Defense was not returned.
Col. Denise Dailey, the military director of DACOWITS, the civilian committee appointed by Rumsfeld to provide advice and recommendations on policies pertaining to female servicewomen, told WND she would not comment on the petition until she had seen it and declined to address general criticism about the policies CMR criticizes.
"There are advocates and people against just about every policy instituted in the military," said Dailey.
WND provided a copy of the petition to Dailey. A follow-up call and e-mail seeking comments were not returned.
Not true. Suppose DOD instituted the mandatory draft again, and it included women. I guarantee you that young women would be very vocal about their reluctance to serve involuntarily, and young men would come to their defense.
This problem will take moral courage from women like Elaine Donnelly, plus a precipitating event. We will win. It just needs time.
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