The current argument over women in combat units is gonna be a long and lively scrap, so strap in. Deebow led off nicely noting the simple fact that the law of tonnage applies in combat. Women are not as big and strong as men, nor can they withstand the rigors of living completely off the grid for the extended stretches combat can require. Before we go a step further I want to take my hat off to every woman who has honorably served our country, many of them in combat theaters. But we are now contemplating placing women directly into combat units and that is dumb as dirt.
We just changed the rule banning gays from serving openly and I supported that for quite a few years prior to this. But I cannot get more vehemently into opposition of this bit of diversity nonsense. Many of those who fought against repealing DADT said that it was simply a pandering to political correctness and they have a point but there really were losses to our readiness from booting some of these people. My quote about this said.
“If I am lying by the road bleeding, I don’t care if the medic coming to save me is gay. I just hope he is one of those buff gay guys who are always in the gym so he can throw me over his shoulder and get me out of there.”
That implicitly assumes that the gay dude is an asset to his unit and the overall combat capability. The same went for Arab linguists and other vital skills; removing them hurt us. Where is the vital gap in our combat repertoire that requires a feminine touch? I agree that some of the female outreach teams in Iraq and Afghanistan have done tremendous work, but that doesn’t mean we assign them to 2nd Ranger Batt as squad leaders FFS! As Deebow points out, there are very few women who could actually do the physical tasks and the need for monthly maintenance is another show stopper. Adding women to combat units would provide zero improvements and would actually degrade their fighting power.
So from a purely physical perspective this is a no go. But let’s dig a bit deeper and blow this abominable bit of social engineering back to its component idiocies. It is undeniable that the closer to the tip of the spear you get, the more testosterone and aggressive males you encounter. These men are a combination of a brotherhood sworn to face enemies side by side, and a collection of sheepdogs protecting the flock, their mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, girlfriends etc. And yeah as you noticed, those are all women. It’s not that we don’t care about our fathers, sons and brothers, but we figger they are part of our pack. They are just tending the home fires, while we hunt wolves in the mountains. We protect liberal males out of pity.
Combat soldiers adhere to a warrior ethos, but also to a code of chivalry. We don’t find it condescending to assume that most females need and even welcome that protection. In the civilian world, and even in the military, there are plenty of female sheepdogs and they do amazing things. But they work in completely different conditions than combat troops; female cops and firefighters go home when their shift is done. They don’t spoon together behind a couple of rocks on top of a mountain in GoatRopeistan trying not to freeze to death.
If you introduce females into a combat patrol, you just changed the whole dynamic and not for the better. All of the men are now, in some way, more concerned for her safety than they should be. Some of that may be cultural, but it is hard-wired as well and in the end it doesn’t matter why. It will happen and it will cost lives. In addition you just threw a healthy, breeding age, female into a pack of dogs with an established, yet always evolving hierarchy. General Order 1 says no drinking and no boinking, how has that worked out Fobbits? Any illicit booze or shagging going on? Of course there is, lots of it and it is a constant problem. Someone want to explain to me why this won’t be considerably worse when this happens to a group of largely alpha males? If there is one thing that can turn men who were brothers against each other, it is the imperative to procreate. You can’t ignore it and you can’t train it away and you can’t feed ’em saltpeter to make ’em forget. These are the same guys who walk into a bar together and instantly make a F**k or Fight decision based on the number of available women.
So there is no advantage to the military in doing this and so many red flags you’d think we were in Moscow on May Day. What could be driving this, the foul winds of diversity and political pandering? Yer damn skippy and that cannot be allowed. The only reason I supported repeal of DADT is that I didn’t think it would degrade readiness and it cost us talented people we needed. This grotesquerie has no such upsides and truly could tear the heart out of our warrior class.