[Vision2020] Other Reasons for Decline in Military Enlistment

[Paul Rumelhart]

When I attended the Naval Academy, the women there were some of the most 
impressive people I've ever met.  They had to be, the competition for a 
woman to get into the academy is far more cut-throat than it was for a 
male to get in.  They were some of the smartest, most determined, most 
capable, and most athletic of the Midshipmen in my class.  They stood 
toe-to-toe with the best of the men in everything except raw muscular 
strength.  They also went through a tougher time than most at Annapolis, 
because Annapolis is probably the most misogynistic of the US military 
academies (or at least it was at the time I attended). 

I did not read Ed Iverson's article, but I would like to see him hold 
his own in any reasonable contest of athleticism or intelligence with 
any random female Midshipmen currently attending the academy.  Then, if 
he is successful, maybe I'll read his diatribe about the evils of 
"feminization" of the military.

Paul


Tom Hansen wrote:
> During each and every day of my 20 years of military service I NEVER had
> reason to doubt the veracity, capability, dedication, or loyal camaraderie
> of those female soldiers with whom I was proud to serve.
>
> >From today's (July 9, 2007) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with a special thanks
> to Keely Emerine Mix -
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> HER VIEW: Other reasons for decline in military enlistment
> By Keely Emerine Mix
>
> Ed Iverson, in his recent column on the "feminization" of the U.S. military
> (Opinion, June 30 & July 1), has found another way liberals and feminists
> are harming the testosterone-drenched world he cherishes. 
>
> In noting the difficulty military recruiters have in fulfilling enlistment
> quotas and ever mindful of the social chaos caused by shifting gender roles,
> Iverson offers his cheerfully sexist reason for the declining numbers of
> young men signing up for combat. Not surprisingly, it involves uppity women,
> the evidence of a society run aground on the fluffy, quilted shores of
> egalitarianism.
>
> The decline in enlistment couldn't be because American youths see the war in
> Iraq is not a war of liberation or national security, simply a festival of
> carnage based on lies and a push for nothing more noble than American
> hegemony in the Middle East. It couldn't have anything to do with the
> apparent endlessness of the conflict, the reasonable certainty of injury on
> the battlefield and uncaring, inefficient service from the government once
> back home. No, it's that red-blooded American boys just don't want to take
> orders from women and are offended the gals don't stay in their place as
> "nurturers," not soldiers.
>
> Iverson's diagnosis and prescription? The military has become "feminized,"
> and the solution, before all is lost, is to stop the madness and restore the
> military as a place where only men do battle. No women needed, nor
> appreciated; our presence on the battlefield and in the barracks is
> destroying the very fabric of warfare as we know it, as evidenced by the
> horror of American soldiers playing soccer with Iraqi children as part of
> their tours of duty. 
>
> "Real" soldiers kick butt, Iverson would say. They don't engage in
> relationships with those they purportedly defend, and they certainly don't
> indulge in attempts to understand and engage the culture around them. 
>
> Of course, Iverson and his ilk believe that a nation defended by its women
> is a nation not worth defending, and so the United States already has cursed
> itself by allowing women near the frontlines. The unworthiness of the nation
> apparently is evidenced by the fact that our boys are so disheartened by the
> thought of working alongside, maybe even submitting to, the gals who fight
> with them that they're unwilling to sign up for a trip to Fallujah. To
> Iverson, that's not a truculence that would bring about a well-deserved
> rebuke in the world most of us know, but a defiance expressed by men who
> know their place, by God, and seek to occupy it without the interference of
> women. Iverson sees nobility in declining to fight for a country that would
> imperil both sons and daughters in battle, and he suggests that when women's
> presence in the military is sufficiently scaled back, their menfolk will
> flood the battlefield to defend a nation duly chastened and, cleansed of
> feminization, appropriately renewed. 
>
> His analysis is woefully ignorant and tragically callous. Iverson believes
> that Scripture informs his bigoted bloviations, while the Old Testament
> records the military heroism of Israel's divinely appointed judge, Deborah,
> and the strength of Jael in killing the invader Sisera. But however
> inconvenient these passages are in defending an ethic of military might
> through masculinity, it's the New Testament that causes his argument more
> problems. In his drive to root out all instances of creeping feminization,
> Iverson fails to see the real threat to all that's good and holy. Nations
> are imperiled by an unbridled masculinity exalting power over righteousness
> and exulting in a strength that comes from angry men and the weapons they
> fashion. The problem "over there" is not that women are fighting and dying
> instead of men, but that anyone is fighting and dying in this senseless war.
>
>
> Does Iverson protest the loss of Iraqi women and children who never chose
> the battlefield but became casualties anyway? Is it easier to lob another
> macho grenade at feminists, peaceniks and liberals than to engage in serious
> debate? 
>
> >From his perch of masculine privilege, Iverson is unwilling to address the
> sinfulness of a worldview that favors him and his fellow men of chest, and
> his views reflect no Gospel I'm familiar with, other than a gospel of hope
> in might and masculinity that really is no hope at all.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
> and steady dedication of a lifetime." 
>
> --Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
>
>
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