The liberal media is all for women in combat (and other communist ideas). 
Posted on 02/28/2005 5:42:56 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
WASHINGTON – Women have been allowed to serve on Navy warships and combat aircraft since 1994. But now, the Army is under fire. It is accused of violating its own ban on putting females near the frontlines.
The Army's Third Infantry Division that led the assault on Baghdad is the first to re-deploy under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the military.
Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker is converting the Third Infantry's large brigades into smaller, more lethal "Units of Action.” These mobile fighting units depend on 13 forward support companies, called FSCs.
Retired Army Colonel Bill Taylor said, "The key is, when the infantrymen are deployed into combat, they can be separate from the forward support company, which would stay in base camp for certain periods of time. But they have to be fed, equipment maintained, and there comes the problem."
The problem, says Elaine Donnelly with the Center for Military Readiness, is that the Army is placing female soldiers in formerly all-male forward support companies. For the first time, she says, women would serve side-by-side with forces fighting on the frontlines. And that, she says, “violates DOD policy on co-location."
Donnelly said, "Sleep, eat, train, fight -- co-located units that are with the infantry and the armor are right there, very close. You have other support units that also support infantry and the armor, but co-location is the difference between 20 feet and 20 miles. "
An inquiry by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter has found women may already be in the war, right on the front lines. He said, "... in positions like loaders for tanks, ammunition loaders, people who put fuel in the tanks and other combat vehicles." And he added, "Attention has been drawn to that by the guys in the field who said, “Wait a minute, this is in violation of policy."
The Commander-in-Chief stated his policy in January, telling reporters he is opposed to women in combat. The Army's new Secretary, Francis Harvey, then wrote Congress, insisting that the Army is not changing its policy.
Harvey wrote in the new Units of Action that women will not be "routinely co-located with units assigned a direct combat mission."
Army spokesmen confirm that the 30 women now in the Third Infantry Division's 13 FSCs, are in authorized positions, serving as mechanics or in other support roles.
They say women can and do drive trucks, deliver fuel and munitions to front-line soldiers. But because females do not remain round-the-clock with combat forces, or provide support to units "currently engaged" in action, the Army is complying with federal law.
Chairman Hunter said, "Although we think there may be cases where women have mistakenly been put in those roles, the assurance I've received from the Secretary of the Army is that policy is not going to change, and those people up front with the combat battalions doing those type of jobs -- ammo loaders, the fuel loaders, people like that, are going to continue to be male only."
But Donnelly insists there is no mistake, and says the Army is circumventing policy and misleading Congress. She said, "You can do things on paper, but in reality, you can end up hurting people. You can make a job more difficult and more dangerous than it already is."
Internal Army documents show that last year the Army acknowledged it might be playing with fire. Documents from an internal Army briefing on Combat Exclusion Options, dated May 2004, states that the assignment of females to infantry and armor units does require a change in policy and notification to Congress. The recommended Course of Action includes a coding change to allow females in FSCs. And it predicts repercussions.
In a later document on female assignments, Army Human Resources director Colonel Robert Woods suggests that the course of action may be to "re-write or eliminate the Army collocation policy" altogether.
CBN News asked the Army if these documents contradict Army denials of a policy change. An Army spokesman declined to comment on a pre-decisional document, stating, "For the Army, the issue is closed."
For others, the issue has just opened, further confused by changes in modern warfare, where battle lines are blurred and women are increasingly in the line of fire.
Taylor said, "There are no such things as fixed battle lines in the kind of war we're fighting now, in war against terrorism, against insurgents. Insurgents attack 360 degrees day and night, and they can hit forward support companies with women as easily as they can hit infantry combat units."
In fact, Army officers say support companies are more vulnerable to attack than combat units, because they are less likely to fight back. And women, who comprise 15 percent of the Army's ranks, though still banned from combat, are dying in record numbers -- 27 fallen in Iraq alone.
Others have been wounded or captured, like Army privates Jessica Lynch and Shoshona Johnson, ambushed during a supply convoy.
Taylor remarked, "We can't get enough males in the military who have the capability or who want to be in these support units. That's the basic problem. There are a lot of women who do want to be in these positions of forward support companies."
Opponents to gender integration cite a serious threat to troop morale and to the mission. They say mixing the sexes leads to romantic involvements, sexual harassment, pregnancies, male protectiveness -- all dangerous distractions on the front line.
Some say physical strength differences could mean life or death. The military has different training standards for men and women. Marines are trained to evacuate wounded soldiers on their back, with up to 80 pounds of gear. Could a women with half the upper body strength as a man be called upon to do the same?
Some say these questions demand a public debate before assigning women in combat support positions becomes the next step to placing women in combat.
Donnelly says, "If you violate the co-location rules with regard to units of action, these new units the Army is putting out, then you violate it for all of them. She added, “Then we're talking about special forces, like the ones that fought in Fallujah, the Marine Corps. We're talking about a really radical change."
Should current policy be changed to reflect the realities of today's battlefield? Or should U.S. laws be strengthened that restrict women in war? It is a politically sensitive debate confronting the President, the Pentagon, and Congress, even as American troops are at war.
IMHO, women have no place at all in combat, and very few places at all in the military.
War is a mans game, and has been all through history with very few exceptions. Todays PC bullsqueeze cannot change human nature.
Women have no business in combat...these 'social engineering'
experiments to the detriment of our troops is imo criminal..
If the Army insists on this crap...
Train up your sons to be US Marines
former Army grunt/combat medic RVN
IMO
If we are going to let women into the military, it should be "lesbians only".
Straight men and Lesbians would be a fighting force.. especially if you could organize the lesbians on the basis of their periods.
You could have 28 regiments of the PMS brigade.
We should let gay men and heterosexual women stay home and take care of the laundry.
Agree 100%
Injecting gender into a fighting unit is a poison pill that will, over time, destroy unit cohesion.
The Russians tried integrated units in WWII, the Israelis in the late '60s.
Both quietly withdrew the female "troops" when they found that more problems were created than solved.
You disappoint me Joe.
Let's see if our congress has the gonads (or the female equivalent) to do anything about it.
If you are receiving the same or more pay than me, get your butt into the lines and face the same risk or go back stateside.
There was no time to pay attention. The military has been too busy investigating incidences/reports of rape, assault and harassment.
The Army does not start out with the intention of putting females into the midst of fighting. Sometimes, though, the fighting comes to where the females are.
The females are not assigned front-line duties, not even as field medics, and certainly not as Special Ops or assault troops. In the uncertain terrain of this new kind of war, against small squads or individuals who make hit-and-run strikes, there is no defined or even visible "line of war".
Admittedly, placing females in situations where the action could get deadly was an experiment. We have enough information to make some conclusions as to the wisdom and efficacity of that strategy.
Don't do it. No matter how you cut it, and in spite of all the action movies and video games out there, females are physically smaller and have distinct vulnerabilities as compared to males. There are individual females who, by training and innate capabilities, have technical superiorities over many males, and in hand to hand combat, would be successful 70% of the time. The other 30% gets you dead.
The whole idea of putting females in combat roles was the same as re-instituting the draft - cause so much revulsion and resistance to the deployment of military force that our nation is forced to give up its distinct advantages over every other foreign nation in a confrontation. The objective is to undermine the morale of the fighting forces, then the playing field is "leveled". But no nation wants a level playing field in wartime, the goal is to destroy the enemy by overwhelming force if necessary, or bluff them into a surrender by demoralizing raids on their capabilities.
The liberal media is all for women in combat (and other communist ideas).
The average woman has never been good in direct combat situations, except in the rear support areas. That fact is supported by history and biology.
Women can fly planes and sail on ships, but pitting a 110 pound woman against a 200 pound man in ground combat is absurd.
Unfortunately the politically correct crowd will never be convinced of that "natural fact" until more and more women come home in body bags.
Like all liberal ideas the obvious is clouded by the illogical.
So, I say let women into direct combat situations, and watch the results carefully.
More women will be killed because that is the reality of war. Men, who will try to protect them, will also be killed in greater numbers, because men, by design, are protectors of women. Women will have to die, in great numbers, before rules are changed and denials of culpability are heard from the PC crowd.
The last thing we need is to feminize our military. Look what women have done to the larger society. It's amplified in an intense society like the military. Doesn't matter if the gal is the roughest, toughest Butch in the world - still a woman with "feelings".
Just precisely what good is a soldier that doesn't help the war effort in some way?
If their job cannot be a combat multiplier in some way, then their job needs to be cut. The Army is not a jobs program.
In modern American warfare with its emphasis on the offensive, there is no longer such a thing as "being to the rear" in the Army. Everyone is always pressing forward and pressing supplies and assistance to those who are most forward.
If women don't fit that, then recreate the WAC and let them be placed in carefully selected slots that cannot go below theater level units.
The harsh reality is that there are not enough males to fill the support MOS in the FSC.
It would be criminal to send an understrength FSC to provide inadequate support to an engaged maneuver element.
I don't know squat about the Israelis, however I do know that in regards to the 'Russians' (more aptly - the Soviets), during WWII some of their best Snipers were women. The down side was most were killed in battle, i.e.; by German Snipers.
Unfortunately I think that the femi-naizs are using the Soviets as an example of women in front line units. And using anything that came out of Communism is a bad example to follow (IMHO).
Sen. Pat Schroeder said that the integration of women into combat roles would be a positive deterent to our deploying troops in the first place. There is a word for this, it's called "losing".
Define "Women in Combat."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.