Women in Combat

Warning Notice! What follows in this post is not politically correct and will offend any and all feminists and others who can’t see the forest for the trees….however it is how a lot of men feel.

Or, phrased another way:

Republicans in the US House of Representatives introduced an amendment which would would remove women from the army combat support units in which they currently serve, and would ban them from such units in the future. I support that sentiment and believe that for once, the elected representatives have gotten something right.

Call me old-fashioned, biased, a bigot, un-modern, pig, or out of touch. Whatever you makes you feel good. Knock yourself out, then :

Too bad, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of something like this passing, no matter how right the idea may be. The Congressmen who authored this add on to the defense bill know it; the feminists know it; the military knows it. Its a feel good measure for Republicans who can go home to their electorate’s next year and say they did their bit for standing up for family values. However, Republican or Democrat, there is not a mainstream Congressman that is going to expend precious political capital to stand in opposition to the powerful feminist Mafia, who have worked for years to advance the roles of women in the military, much to the overall detriment of the armed services and the US nation as a whole.

And just as predictably the feminist media machine has swung into action, spouting the feminist line and bashing the usual suspects, men who think that there are different roles envisioned for women and men in a normal and functional society. The Washington Post printed an article citing how women are “already in combat because the front lines are blurred”. As is typical in these sorts of articles, there are lots of women quoted criticizing the combat exclusion such as Lt. Col. Cheri Provancha, commander of a Stryker Brigade support battalion in Mosul, “The Army has to understand the regulation that says women can’t be placed in direct fire situations is archaic and not attainable”.

According to her, “This war has proven that we need to revisit the policy, because they are out there doing it. We are embedded with the enemy.” In the article not one person was interviewed or quoted who voiced an opposing view point. That’s not to say that such folks don’t exist, they do in sizeable numbers. It just means they have a hard time making their voices heard through the feminist noise machine. Never mind that their arguments may have every bit as much validity as those who argue in favor of social engineering, they simply are not allowed to heard, much less even expressed.

In truth, what the House’s action and the Army’s opposition to it really highlights the fact that the Army, as well as in the other services, recruiting of women has gone too far. Rather than scope their recruiting effort to the number of available billets that could be workably filled by females and remain with the spirit and intent of the law, recruiters, in an effort to make their quotas and keep the Army at its required end strength, admitted too many women and failed to access enough men. Aided and abetted by feminist advocacy groups who wanted high ranking positions for women NOW! rather than allow them to spend the requisite time “paying their dues” and earning positions of respect, added to the pressures to access more female service members. Accordingly, the Army in particular, but there rest of the services as well, ended up with a gender imbalance that they were ill equipped to address.

Mackubin Owens, who I once studied under, a long time ago and in a galaxy far away, is one of the voices who has argued stridently that the forces of social engineering have gone too far. He points out very eloquently that Congress is really not proposing any thing radical, he is simply suggesting that the House panel is merely telling the Army to abide by existing regulations. He ask’s them to remember the spirit and intent of then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin’s memo and abide by it. In his memo to the Services, Aspin said that :

” ‘women should be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground,’defined as engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile forces personnel. This prohibition extended to the support units that were collocated with direct ground combat forces as well. These regulations are still in effect. But the U.S. Army has violated these regulations without the notification required by current law, which requires the secretary of defense to provide formal advance notice to Congress of policy changes regarding female soldiers, accompanied by an analysis of proposed revisions on womens exemption from Selective Service obligations.”

Usually at this point, the feminist’s trot out the usual arguments to counter the Neanderthal opposition. That there is nothing about sex per se which ought to make it a disqualifying condition for combat duty. That women are just as capable than man to perform the jobs assigned, and in fact in some areas they perform better than men. That the integration of women has progressed to the point where you barely notice it anymore. Its a fact of life so just “get over it”. They have and will continue to miss the point. The issue is not about what men or women can or cannot do. Anyone can do anything they put their minds to. The only real question we should be asking ourselves is not whether women can serve in military units, rather we should be asking is the cost involved in letting them serve really worth it? And are the tradeoffs involved, and the excess baggage that mixed gender units bring to the table really contributing to an efficient military and military readiness?

Noted historian, Martin Van Creveld in his book Men, Women, and War has done an excellent job of spelling out all of this “excess baggage” that the services have as a result of repeal of combat exclusion laws. He also punches through a whole lot of the historical myths usually used to justify the feminist argument, particularly exposing the myth of women in the Israeli Defense Force. ( He has a whole chapter devoted to it and the problems they exprerienced and continue to have). He sums up the book in nicely by pointing out that:

” a woman who is neither a feminist nor a moderate might conclude that members of her sex neither can nor should try beat men at their own game; that there are certain fields, of which war is far and away the most important, that had better be left off to men to run. After all to do so constitutes sound strategy: given a choice, and as some feminists belonging to a previous generation saw clearly enough, deliberately playing into the opponents court is little short of madness.”

Not only because of the violence it brought upon the women, but what the effect of it had to on society as a whole. Whatever happened to the noble idea of women as a civilizing force in our world?

Support
ers, both male and female, gloss over the baggage: violence against women both in and out of the service, the problems created by dual service couples and the attendant issues with assignments and child care arrangements, dating among service members, sex between service members, fraternization, reduced standards and favoritism for women, pregnancy, and all the rest of the “issues” that military commanders at the unit level deal with day in and day out. Feminists and so called “progressive men” dismiss them as the cost of doing business. Trust me, I know from my time in active service ( not so long ago and not so far away) that all of these issues are real. And that they do distract from the real business of a military unit which is to train and prepare to then execute violent operations against an enemy that will give him a beating he will remember for generations.

Now that is the only reason to have a military in the first place. In a perfect world we would not have these types of organizations and we would utilize the resources involved for the better of mankind, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower pointed out. However we don’t live in a perfect world and so we need ” rough men standing ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Which leads me to the bottom line, placing myself in the all male supporters column: Women are simply different than men. As a result, sex will always get in the way. Men treat women differently than they treat other men. It undermines the comradeship upon which the unit cohesion necessary to success on the battlefield depends. The presence of women also leads to double standards that have a serious impact on morale and performance. The feminists would have you believe that, this not in anyway true, that men and women can get along as friends and they can have the same camaraderie. There is only one correct response to that: bullshit.

To quote from When Harry met Sally:

Harry: No man can be friends with a woman that he finds
attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.

Sally: So you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman
he finds unattractive.

Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail them, too.

Sally: What if they don’t want to have sex with you?

Harry: Doesn’t matter, because the sex thing is already out
there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story.

The proof is out there and it gets added to every year. People ignore it, for a whole host of reasons, mostly what Herman Wouk called , “the will not to believe”: Pregnancy statistics that are suppressed, since they reveal issues that services do not which to admit; renewed campaigns against sexual assault like that being seen at the US Air Force Academy. ( Never mind that this was not an issue when it was all male); gender norming and preferred assignment policies for women, not actually based on meeting the required selection criteria; and finally the very real problems created for a a whole generation of children who are denied proper parenting because they are shunted off to temporary caregivers, because “Mommy is off to war”. Never mind that the mother is and will always be the irreplaceable parent.

The service academies also provide an great example of what happens as the process of assimilating women progresses. After having stated that they only want to be treated ” just like the men” as soon as they are , they complain about it. And soon they start demanding changes to system to make it more “sensitive”. There are great examples of this here, here, and also here. You see it in the policies the services enact, and they way the react to incidents that happen with the infamous Tailhook scandal being the worst of this over reaction. Now its 10 years later and we see the same type of thing being played out at the USAF Air Force Academy. Folks in the know will tell you, that the real situation there is far different than what the media tells you. Just goes to show that the feminist actors may change, but the play remains the same. Same cycle of self flagellation.

“You’re crazy”, you say, ” The military cannot function with out women today”.

To which I have only response, its a problem of their own making that is easily fixable with the right movement towards a real culture of national service. This among many other reasons is why I support a draft. Men should be made to understand their obligations as men, and national service is one of those. The nation should always have first command of it’s manpower.

So I hope the Congress pulls off the impossible and passes this bill. The realist in me doubts it though. After all, truth, it seems, is the first casualty of social engineering.

Skippy-san

Update, 20 May 2005: True to form the committee members folded like a cheap suit, passing a watered down version of the bill. The Senate omitted any mention in its version. Never sell the little feminist B***hes short, they do know how to divide and conquer.