After years of "study" and debate Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered all branches of the military to open all combat jobs to women. This was not a surprise; many observers told us this was coming.The announcement removed the final barriers that kept women from serving in certain combat positions, including the most dangerous and elite special forces jobs. It opens the final 10 percent of military positions to women - a total of 220,000 jobs. It follows a couple of relevant and newsworthy events this year. The first was the celebrated completion of the highly rigorous Ranger school by two women. The second was the reporting of findings by the Marines of a controlled experiment they ran with units made up of men and women.
The Marines found the integrated units were less efficient in operations and in completing their mission than the standard unit of men only. The Marines had recommended continuing the ban on women in their infantry units due to concerns about the efficiency of these units. Skeptics, including the Secretary of Defense, claimed the experiment was flawed and there was plenty of (anecdotal) evidence and history to show women could fight just as well as men in these units. There was also the suggestion that the Marines' bias meant their experiment was inevitably going to be self-fulfilling.
Secretary Carter said in his announcement that "at the end of the day this will make us a better and stronger force..." He also said that we can no longer afford to exclude half the population from high-risk military posts.
I have to ask in what way will the armed forces be better and stronger? I have to guess he means we will feel better about it. Perhaps by stronger he means to equate a more diverse or gender balanced force with moral or social strength? He can't possibly be telling us by having more women in combat units that these units are going to be better and stronger at defeating the enemy. Can he? (And isn't defeating the enemy their purpose?)
It is not arguable that women are the weaker sex. I don't mean to offend women and if you are offended, well, you're looking to be offended. I am just stating a biological, material fact and this is how God created humans. The average man is much stronger and more capable of killing the enemy than the average woman. Yeah, I know there are exceptions. You can find some exceptionally strong and tough women who can "cut it" in the most rigorous training the Army can dish out. And you can find some weak men who can't pass Army basic training.
However, do we want to set our military standards and the expectations of our fighting forces based on exceptions or do we want to have the toughest and most capable force in the world?
When I trained in Army ROTC in the 1970's and served in the Army in the 1980's we were just beginning to open up some fields for women soldiers. This included opening up ROTC and West Point to women for officer training. I trained with and served with men and women of diverse backgrounds and abilities. There were many accommodations made to allow for women to succeed during our transition to being more "inclusive" in those days. (For example, and to this day, men and women have different standards to meet in the physical fitness test. Of course the reason is self-evident: men are stronger and faster, so you can't expect women to meet the men's standards.)
I also served, in my Army Aviation units, with some very capable women. One could argue that once they strapped on a helicopter they didn't need to be fast and strong, just smart and skilled at maneuvering the machine and navigation, etc. Probably true, but there was/is always the danger of a hydraulic failure in the controls (which I had the experience with) and had to muscle it down. Or what if you are shot down and need more physicality to evade the enemy or even withstand a capture and what follows.
Unfortunately in today's military environment we have had women pilots and other women soldiers captured by the enemy. Sadly, their testimonies are that the worst did happen in captivity. I point this out to bring home what we have created with these inclusive policies. People, we have women killed in combat and raped as prisoners. Is this really what we want for our American women so we can claim there is equality?Yes, men are killed and tortured in war. It always has been an awful tragedy. War has famously been described as hell. Every human being is precious and we wish no human had to endure war. The simple truth is that men are more suited to the horror of war. If we must have war for our national security we should want to limit the damage done to our humanity, not expose the fairer sex to hell.
Am I suggesting this bygone, chauvinistic concept: that men should protect women? Yes I am; without apology. We should limit women's role in the armed forces because they diminish the effectiveness of our war fighting capability and because it is men's role to protect them.
My fellow Americans, do we not want the most effective fighting force we can have? Or is political correctness, including a totally misplaced emphasis on equal opportunity by gender for our fighters, more important than our national security?
