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Like any employer, the U.S. military wants the best and brightest in its ranks.
That means it must ensure everyone who serves has an opportunity to advance on merit. And that means it can no longer bar women from combat.
Earlier this year, the armed forces seemed to be moving toward ending policies that categorically prevent women from serving in units that engage in direct ground combat. A panel created by Congress recommended that the Department of Defense allow qualified women onto the front lines. Since then, the Pentagon has missed two deadlines to report on the subject, the latest in October.
A group at the University of Virginia called the Molly Pitcher Project is prepared to do battle to lift the ban. Women already serve as fighter pilots and on submarines. They already serve in combat support units. But the ban on assigning women to direct ground combat units shuts the door to about 30 percent of jobs in the Army. That closed door has career-long implications: About 80 percent of general officers come from the career fields now closed to women.
Those in the Molly Pitcher Project argue that women who meet the military's standards should be able to serve in any job. The project's members hope that other means of overturning the ban prevail but said they will go to court to argue the ban is unconstitutional.
Removing the ban would make the military's rule closer to its reality. Women serve in combat now, "attached" to fighting units as support staff rather than "assigned" to them. More than 100 women have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, many killed by hostile fire and IEDs. Warfare no longer involves a "front line" in which parallel rows of soldiers shoot at each other across a battlefield. Soldiers, including women, in rear supply and support units have also died in combat.
Objections to women serving in combat ring false. Those who argue that women would be a distraction echo the rationale that openly homosexual military members would be a distraction in combat. The lifting of that ban passed as a "non-event."
An argument that women lack the physical or mental toughness for such assignments also fails. Women who serve in combat would be required to meet the same standards as their male counterparts, as argued by the Molly Pitcher Project. Again, such women are serving now. A 23-year-old female sergeant won a Silver Star in 2005 for leading her team through a kill zone and using grenades to attack a group of insurgents.
Women's desire to serve in combat is not new. Throughout the history of warfare, women have clamored to fight. Joan of Arc became a patron saint of her country in part for her exploits on the battlefield. The Molly Pitcher Project was named for the Revolutionary War heroine who took over loading and firing a cannon after her husband fell ill. Some women have posed as men for the opportunity to join the fray.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno believes that the ban on women in combat hurts more than female soldiers' chances to advance their careers. It also hurts fighting units.
"We need them there. We need their talent," Odierno told the Army Times about women in some combat positions. "This is about managing talent. We have incredibly talented females who should be in those positions. We have work to do within the [Defense Department] to get them to recognize and change."
That recognition and change needs to happen now, for all the women who serve our country.
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Equality without paying for it
It would be one thing if the majority of women were asking for equal treatment with all the negatives that go with it (being treated like guys (ie everyone else), meeting male standards, etc) but most of us know that's not the case. It's a select few women who want access to the stars without meeting the same standards or being subject to the same restrictions that their male counterparts will have to meet to get there.
An ill-conceived idea based naive idealism
Most of the fighting in the past decade has been oriented towards counter-insurgency (COIN) and yes, in a COIN environment, the battle lines are blurred. Women who have seen combat during this time have generally done well, but many of those actions were accidental and limited in duration. None of them were on par with the sustained levels of combat seen in the battles of the Thermopylae, the Somme, Okinawa, Chosin Reservoir, Hue City et al. To presume those days are over is naive at best and reckless at worst. Also, there are true biological differences between the sexes - on average, men are stronger, faster and more aggressive than women. They are less likely to be raped or sexually harassed, can't get pregnant and don't have monthly hygiene issues which can be problematic in unsanitary, SUSTAINED combat environments. Those inconvenient truths may be irrelevant in the lecture halls of UVA or the local coffee house, but not when carrying an 80 lb pack while out on a 5-day jungle patrol. Sex-based standards for our warriors are not oppressive - they're prudent. They certainly aren't unconstitutional.
Women in combat
Is a bad idea. I served with a field artillery unit during the Vietnam war and there was no light work. The labor needed to serve the weapon was very hard and heavy lifting was required. I have never met a women capably of doing the sustained heavy labor required. Can a woman carry the same number of rounds as a man? This matters in combat. When "Charlie" breaks thru the perimeter at 2am and the engagement becomes hand to hand, the bad guys are not going to be politically correct, they will just kill you. When I see a women maintain continuous fire on an M110 I will consider changing their role in combat. I also understand the military reduced their PT standards to accommodate women, Lets go back to the PT standards we used in 1965!
If anything
the ban should be extended to anyone under 40 of all genders except in the event of a physical invasion of our country. We've squandered and destroyed the lives of too many for cynical political reaons.