Women in Combat

So now the bright minds who have taken it upon themselves to guide our society in the way in which it should go have decided to open the “combat arms” military specialties to women. This will place them directly in combat. “If you read any ancient history, you know that centuries ago it was commonplace for women to fight side by side with men on the battlefield. This is not the stuff of mythology. It is fact. Today, in Iraq women are on the front lines again fighting side by side with their male counterparts. On a mission just south of Baghdad over the winter, a young soldier jumped into the gunner's turret of an armored Humvee and took control of the menacing .50-caliber machine gun. She was 19 years old, weighed barely 100 pounds and had a blond ponytail hanging out from under her Kevlar helmet. "This is what is different about this war," Lt. Col. Richard Rael, commander of the 515th Corps Support Battalion, said of the scene at the time. "Women are fighting it. Women under my command have confirmed kills. These little wisps of things are stronger than anyone could ever imagine and taking on more than most Americans could ever know." (1) Well this author is right . In Roman times a Briton Queen an Icenae known as Boudica was raped along with her daughters and saw her husband killed by Roman troops. The Celtic women were all skilled in the use of weapons anyway so it was not much out of character for her to strike back. And she did. Queen Boudica led the Icenae and several other Briton tribes against the Romans and fought the local legion to a standstill almost destroying them. Eventually Roman tactics won out and she was killed with her army. Who can forget those brave ladies in Corregidor who served under fire for so long before having to surrender to the Japanese. Then there were the women of the Soviet Union who fought the Nazis and the brave ladies of the Palmach many not yet old enough to be called women who stood against appalling odds in the Israeli war of independence. All through the Korean and Vietnam wars our women were caught up in combat. Since combat just seems to go and find you if you are in the area. There are however certain problems that the modern armies have encountered with using women in combat alongside of men and especially quartering them with men. “Thirty-six crew members of the USS Acadia were pregnant and had to be transferred during the supply ship's deployment to the Persian Gulf, naval officials said. More than half became pregnant after the ship was underway, but Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Smallwood said there were no indications of improper fraternization between men and women on the ship.”(2) As this 1991 article says there was more than close quartering going on here. It is a problem that has always been there when women and men have been mixed into hazardous situations. In fact it is more than that. In a combat type situation privacy will necessarily go out the window. As a young Cavalry Scout I remember being able to take a break and placing my poncho on the ground and my steel helmet up on the side of my Armoured Personnel Carrier and filling it with water. I would strip naked and pull out my extra underclothes and socks and use the warm water in the helmet as an impromptu shower. I didn’t care that there were 7 or 8 other soldiers in the area in full view. Why should I we were all guys. We also shared latrine facilities and slept and did everything in close quarters. Privacy cannot be achieved or expected under such conditions. The fact is that after 4 or 5 days on patrol we would commonly return to the camp and hit the showers. What followed is very intimate. We checked every spot on our brothers bodies that they could not see to remove the ticks that got there. While I am sure that most male troopers would gladly offer to check the female ones somehow I just don’t see that as conducive to order. Sure separate facilities can be supplied and other female troops may be available but in many situations they just don’t exist and cannot be a concern. I got into a discussion with a gender feminist farmer once and of course she knew a farm wife who could work any man into the ground. They always do. But putting aside the 7’ tall 300lb farmwife who has six teats and four children on the teat. She never sleeps, can toss wet square cane bales all day and cook all night and feed a cutting crew and her 20 member family with one hand tied behind her back. It is just not her that will eventually be called to serve. It will be your little blue eyed Suzie cutie that will be called. Forget that argument about they will never draft. Yes they will and little 5’6” 120 lb Suzie will be training to try to kill 6’3” 210 lb men. She will be required to carry water supply and rations and ammo and weapon and all other gear in her pack that any male trooper will be required to carry. But she may not be ready for it. “Age may only be a number, especially in youth, but it has a major impact on physical capabilities, as does gender. Men are, generally speaking, stronger than women. In order to provide for all of the Army's needs for skilled personnel, the physical requirements are modified by age and gender, so as not to preclude skilled military personnel by unfair tests. At the same time, both men and women alike are pushed beyond their self-imposed limits while attending Army Basic Training.”(3) I will never malign a woman’s ability with a weapon or her capability in unarmed combat if properly trained but reality is reality. Sure when we shot Modified Combat matches in the Army we dreaded shooting against the WAC that would occasionally show up at those matches. Women never came out of these things on a whim. They were always skilled and they had biological advantage. Yes they did! Find your favourite woman and lead her to the wall, have her face the wall a few feet from it. Place a chair sidewise against the wall. Have her walk up to the chair until she touches it. Then have her Bend at the waist and put her head against the wall. She needs to reach down now and pick up the chair. Yes she really will do it. Now you big brute, you do it. You probably can’t. She’s made for carrying babies she is built for balance and power in positions that you aren’t. But despite her ability to easily shoot the pants off of most men, like my wife does with me, and her innate ability to excel at Tae Kwon Do and Tai Chi and some other martial arts and her ability to double time till a man drops and some other built in specialties, she is still smaller and lighter. All things being equal a man of 6’ and 200 lbs will use her for a wet mop if he so pleases. The military has known this from the start. This reality has it’s problems. “Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be considered an epidemic. In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime. Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect. Department of Defense reports show that nearly 90 percent of rape victims in the Army are junior-ranking women, whose average age is 21, while most of the assailants are non-commissioned officers or junior men, whose average age is 28. This sexual violence persists in spite of strict laws against rape in the military and a concerted Pentagon effort in 2005 to reform procedures for reporting the crime. Unfortunately, neither the press nor the many teams of psychologists and sociologists who study veterans ever seem to ask why. The answer appears to lie in a confluence of military culture, the psychology of the assailants and the nature of war“.(4) When it comes to the dubious talent of killing other people it just helps allot if you have a certain mentality and an extra “Y” chromosome would help too. Soldiers do not take to sensitivity training well. They will sit politely and listen and parrot back what was told to them if necessary but it is in their nature to hunt and hurt and kill. Hopefully this nature is tempered by a code of etiquette and is brought under control to be used only against ones enemies. The man who is highly motivated in this end and is highly skilled in whatever his specialty is and can be directed by his superiors will do well as a military man. Unfortunately it is also connected to the sex drive which is made doubly hard to control when you dangle a tasty snack in front of the wolf. No excuses it should not happen and must not be tolerated but there should be no shock when the situation is rigged so as to encourage such behaviour. Bad, intolerable but reality. It is and has always been my opinion and many others that the female psyche is best suited to and should be used for the nurture of children. Now this is generally speaking. I realize that today’s woman has been through a concentrated education designed to eradicate so far as possible the mother instinct. Yet we have to admit that we still need it. I also believe that intentionally injecting a woman into the daily stress of combat and exposing her to the blood and gore of that worst of men’s pursuits is debilitating to the female psyche in ways that a man cannot understand. As a believer in God and his design in creation I believe that the woman is and has always been intended to be the bearer of life and man if need be has the duty to hunt and kill and to protect that bringer of life that he so loves. But what if this being that was designed to give birth and bring forth and nurture life is exposed to horror beyond what she is intended to behold? “we are starting see the effects women fighting on the front lines and studies are indicating that more women are suffering from more debilitating forms of PTSD. According to Paula Schnurr, a lead researcher for a 6 million dollar study on the effects of PTSD in women, “data indicate that female military personnel are far more likely than their male counterparts to have been exposed to some kind of trauma or multiple traumas before joining the military or being deployed in combat. That may include physical assault, sexual abuse or rape.” (5) Yes the fact is supported by the VA Hospitals that women are more affected by the things that tend to warp men. And I know it is popular for the social engineers to spout off with “Well men can be sodomized too”. The fact is that in modern times yes some male prisoners of war have been sodomized but it is far more common for women to be raped by their captors who tend to be men. Yes we fight men. And no they don’t all go to sensitivity meetings and concentrate on how to be caring and thoughtful toward their female captives. They don’t give a damn. Yes that little pony tailed M2B princess jumped right in there and pushed the thumb lever down on that machine gun and drove off the bad guys. I could train a spider monkey to do that. Heck I trained new troops to do it. But in a fight it’s different. Someday that pony tailed barely 100lb darling that the Col. Spoke off will be alone and advancing on a stairwell looking to gain an advantage to see if she can spot her unit so as to rejoin them if possible. She comes around a corner and meets Mustafa a 6’ 195 lb Taliban tribesman who grabs her by the shirt and takes the M4 out of her hands and throws it aside. She is barely 100 lbs right well Mustafa’s lunch weighs more than that. Poor little gal gets stomped and raped and thrown off of the rooftop. Then I and a bunch of old veterans have to go and burry her because she just plain was not suited to the job. It happens and when it does we have to bury the evidence. The big media doesn’t tell you. Sure Women can do all sorts of things but just because they can why in God’ name should they? The mission of the Military is to break things and kill people not to achieve new social restructuring no matter how progressive it seems. (1)Democratic underground.com (2)Washington Post, April 30 1991 (3)Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3193862 Christine A. Harman (4)Helen Benedict “In These Times” (5)Women in Combat, More Prone to PTSD 21 March 2005