Politico: The Military Has a Man Problem
Stop whining about women in combat. It’s the guys who need to change—and fast.
Army Specialist Laura Naylor, a Wisconsin native, spent a year in Baghdad with the 32nd Military Police Company in 2003 and 2004. During that time, she—like all of the more than quarter-million women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan—was officially banned from ground combat. That technicality didn’t slow down Naylor when an IED hit her convoy and it began to take fire from a nearby building. “We had to search this house nearby, thinking they were the ones doing the shooting, and I was the lead person the whole way. I had a flashlight in one hand, a pistol in the other, and I’d kick the door open with my foot, look both ways, give the all clear, go to the next room, do the same thing,” she recounted to me a few years later. “We were interchangeable with the infantry.”
WNU Editor: In my book this debate is over .... it is now accepted that women will serve in combat ... the question that remains to be answered is .... in what capacity and in what units (i.e. will they eventually be able to serve in special forces units).
3 comments:
Even the best laid military plans seldom survive first contact. I suppose it will render true once again in this situation. There are modern examples of successful integration of women into some combat units; North Vietnam, Soviet Russia during WWII and Israel too some extent. But, the caveat being they were all serving on their home territory in order to supplement limited manpower. Also, these militaries discontinued the practice in-mass once the conflicts were settled.
Integrating women by choice into expeditionary forces will most likely result in unnecessary operational and political complications and will not continue after a major US engagement against a first world adversary. This and open homosexual integration remind me of the Stalinist political purges of the Soviet military prior to WWII and the resulting major military defeats at the beginning of the war.
Most Americans, their politicians and media have not served in the military. Therefore, I think Americans and Westerners, in general, believe the socialist propaganda that they see in the media as opposed to the real world. In addition, US politicians love to fix what is not broken. Unfortunately, their countrymen and women (now) will pay a heavy price as a result.
You are right anon. The current policies will receive their grades on the battlefield, which is a harsh unforgiving exam.
Anon .... you summed up this issue very clearly. When this blog first started I got into this debate (I was against integrating women in combat units) .... and we lost. We are now at the stage on how to best handle and implement this new policy .... and I am not going to understate it .... I am definitely not pleased on what I am seeing.
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