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Enlighten us, No-Clue -<BR>
<BR>
In which branch of the service did you serve? Or were you disqualified for reasons best left unexplained?<BR>
<BR>
Do you (much like that hat rack Iverson) simply stand on the sidelines casting stones?<BR>
<BR>
Tom Hansen<BR>
SFC (look it up on the Army rank charts), US Army (Retired)<BR>
Moscow, Idaho<BR>
<BR>
PS, No-Clue: To quote a line from one of my favorite movies, "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." Now quickly return the etch-a-sketch before Comb-Over realizes it's missing.<BR>
<BR>> To: thansen@moscow.com; kjajmix1@msn.com; godshatter@yahoo.com<BR>> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:20:41 -0400<BR>> From: heirdoug@netscape.net<BR>> CC: vision2020@moscow.com<BR>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Women in Authority and Leadership!<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Tom,<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Below is a very clear answer to your continued bombardment of pictures <BR>> and stories of women in uniform.<BR>> <BR>> I for one don't believe that real men want women to go to combat. You, <BR>> not being a real man, do! I have never said that women can't do the <BR>> job. I just say that they shouldn't. Now before you get all hot and <BR>> bothered about how you were under a lot of female officers I only have <BR>> one thing to say. Being a private for all of those many years of <BR>> military service you were bound to be passed over for advancement for <BR>> someone with greater talent and superior skills and intellect. And I'm <BR>> sure most of them were women!<BR>> <BR>> I'm also certain you could beat a women up if you were called upon to <BR>> do so, in combat of course. I'm sure it would have made your mother <BR>> proud to have you exercise your inner amazonian side!<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Doug!<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> ps The day job is going just fine!<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> What Kind Of Nation Sends Women Into Combat?<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> by R. Cort Kirkwood<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a <BR>> link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.com Email a link <BR>> to this articleEmail a link to this article Printer-friendly version <BR>> of this articlePrinter-friendly version of this article View a list of <BR>> the most popular articles on our siteView a list of the most popular <BR>> articles on our site<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The ridiculous spectacle of rescued POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the feisty, <BR>> ballyhooed warrior of the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company, which was <BR>> butchered early on in Iraq, occasioned the usual war whoops. Yet no one <BR>> asked a simple question: What in heaven's name was a hundred-pound <BR>> girl, barely out of pigtails and high school, doing in a combat zone?<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The more cosmic abstraction of woman in combat evokes little if any <BR>> debate these days, and what little debate we hear isn't loud enough. <BR>> Other women have been killed and captured, including at least one <BR>> single mother, and it's all just part of the modern military. As one <BR>> lady columnist for the Washington Post triumphantly pronounced, the <BR>> debate over women in combat "is over."<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> How many Americans knew that?<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Whatever the answer, a few days ago in this corner of cyberspace, this <BR>> writer suggested a fine way to stop American wars of conquest: <BR>> Conscript the sons of politicians and bureaucrats who start them. <BR>> Nearly three dozen letters came in, almost every one posing this <BR>> question with the corollary mandate: Why are you excluding the <BR>> daughters? Let Bush send his daughters to war.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> It's a passionate and in some ways understandable reaction.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> And most likely, it won't be long before women, along with young men, <BR>> are required to register for the draft; the explanation for that <BR>> observation appears below. But first, an answer for those <BR>> correspondents: The debate over women in combat turns on two questions: <BR>> whether women can do it (handle the rigors of combat) and whether they <BR>> should do it (is it morally acceptable and socially desirable).<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> In a word, no. It is un-American, un-Christian, and immoral.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The Practical Question<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> As a practical matter, 99 percent of women are unsuited for combat, and <BR>> that includes flying combat aircraft and serving on combatant ships. <BR>> That women do these things doesn't mean they should; it just means the <BR>> military has been feminized and civilianized, as any military man will <BR>> admit after a few shots of Jack Daniels at the Officers' Club, and of <BR>> course, after his commanding officer leaves.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> In the early 1990s, I was a staff member on the Presidential Commission <BR>> on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. The evidence the <BR>> commission gathered was clear on one thing: Women don't belong in <BR>> combat.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The evidence showed women lack the necessary physical prowess. The <BR>> strongest woman recruit, generally, is only as strong as the weakest <BR>> man. Given that the services try to weed out the weakest men, it's <BR>> counterproductive to recruit even the strongest women. And our <BR>> volunteer military, remember, doesn't get the strongest women; it gets <BR>> average women.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> As well, women suffer higher rates of bone fractures, and other factors <BR>> such as menstruation, pregnancy and aging militate against recruiting <BR>> women as combat soldiers. The 20-something woman, for instance, has <BR>> about the same lungpower as the 50-something man.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Well, that might be true for ground combat, the feminists insist, but <BR>> surely they can fly jets and bombers. It's all just a Nintendo game up <BR>> there. Again, untrue. Flying high-performance jets requires incredible <BR>> conditioning and strength, particularly in the neck. Top Gun fighter <BR>> pilots told the commission (and news reports later confirmed) that <BR>> unqualified lady pilots routinely passed Naval flight training. At that <BR>> time at least, officers were rated on the number of women they <BR>> promoted. The result in one case? Kara Hultgreen, the first woman to <BR>> "qualify" flying an F-14, was killed when her jet crashed because she <BR>> couldn't land it on the carrier Abraham Lincoln.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> But let's suppose women fly jets as well as men. What happens when one <BR>> is shot down? The safety of the high-tech cockpit is gone, and she is <BR>> alone on the ground, trying to survive. She is another Jessica Lynch.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> As for the ships, consider the obvious: You don't send a few nubile <BR>> sailorettes aboard Navy ships with 1,500 horny sailors, no matter what <BR>> the Navy says about its "leadership" correcting carnal temptations. As <BR>> well, the strength deficit surfaces again in many shipboard tasks too <BR>> numerous to mention here.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Military training is another area where the women fall flat; they <BR>> cannot survive the same basic training as men, so it is <BR>> "gender-normed." That means the services (and military academies) have <BR>> different standards for women than for men, and not just for hair <BR>> length. If women were held to the same standards as men, more than 14 <BR>> percent of our armed forces would not be women; they could not attend <BR>> the academies. Oddly enough, the feminists aver that scrapping the <BR>> double standard would be discriminatory! So much for judging someone on <BR>> her true merit.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> In the decade since the commission heard tons of testimony on these <BR>> points, nothing has changed unless women have evolved markedly improved <BR>> muscle and bone.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> In reply to these unassailable facts, some suggest some women can meet <BR>> the same standards with the proper weight training and physical-fitness <BR>> regimen. That's a stretch, but let's say a few can. That takes us back <BR>> to the weakest man vs. the strongest woman. What standard would these <BR>> few meet? The lowest among the men? Even if they fell among men of <BR>> medium strength, consider the prohibitive cost of selecting these <BR>> Amazonian anomalies from among general population. And finding them <BR>> assumes they want to be found.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> A friend of mine, a former Green Beret, suggests an experiment: Let's <BR>> train two squads, one all women, the other all men, to peak physical <BR>> and combat-ready condition. Then drop them in the woods for a war game <BR>> and see who wins.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Point is, women get by in the military only because of men. As one <BR>> Internet wag observed, the equipment one man carries into combat is <BR>> nearly as heavy, perhaps heavier, than Jessica Lynch. Lynch and women <BR>> her size do not have the strength to carry a fallen 200-pound comrade <BR>> out of harm's way. Forgetting about combat, some women aircraft <BR>> mechanics need men to lift their toolboxes. Without men, the armed <BR>> forces would collapse, and the more women the military enlists, the <BR>> weaker it becomes.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> As one commissioner remarked in exasperation: "Women are not little <BR>> men, and men are not big women."<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The Moral Question<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> That leaves the moral and social questions, which commission member and <BR>> Vietnam War hero Ron Ray addressed with this remark: "The question <BR>> isn't whether women can do, it's whether they should do it."<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Women should only be used in combat, Ray argued, if national survival <BR>> demands it; i.e., when the Indians are circling the ranch and the men <BR>> are dead and wounded. Even then, using women would be a last resort. It <BR>> would not become a policy. Such an emergency isn't likely to happen <BR>> here unless Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guards make a <BR>> spectacular comeback and march into Jonah Goldberg's and Sean Hannity's <BR>> neighborhoods. In that case, we know all the women will be fighting.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The kidding aside, the moral and social argument is one of "rights" vs. <BR>> what is right. The feminists claim combat service is a "right." <BR>> Nonsense.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> A battlefield is not a boardroom, a courtroom or an operating room, and <BR>> the contrary notion is hyperegalitarianism rooted in feminist fantasies <BR>> that women "will have made it" when they have commanded troops in <BR>> battle. Women do not have a "right" to serve. Military service for <BR>> volunteers is a privilege; for draftees, it is a duty. No one has a <BR>> "right" to serve, a civilian idea equivalent to having the "right" to <BR>> be a doctor or lawyer that has no place in the military, whose <BR>> principal purpose is to kill the enemy and destroy his capacity to <BR>> fight.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> In "Crimson Tide," Gene Hackman's submarine skipper explained the <BR>> point: The armed forces defend democracy, they do not practice it.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> So much for "rights." Now, as to whether women in combat is right:<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> At one commission hearing, Col. John Ripley, one of the most famous <BR>> Marines who fought in Vietnam, explained combat for the largely <BR>> civilian audience. A good picture of real combat, he said, is walking <BR>> down a path to find your best friend nailed to a tree, or his private <BR>> parts in his mouth. The feminists and military women in the audience <BR>> gnashed their teeth.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Then again, they don't understand that until Bill Clinton's war <BR>> minister Les Aspin changed it, the law excluding women from combat was <BR>> always considered a privileged exemption, not sex discrimination. It <BR>> was the thoughtful recognition that women should be spared the carnage <BR>> and cruelty of war.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Why?<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Because turning a woman into the kind of person who views such gore <BR>> without blinking an eye, or who participates in the wanton killing war <BR>> requires, is a step down to pagan barbarism and cultural suicide. In <BR>> some sense, given what we've seen in the Gulf, we've already taken that <BR>> step. But the feminists won't quit until they get women into ground <BR>> combat units. As recent events prove, no one seems to care what all <BR>> this means not only culturally but also psychologically.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> It will require training men and women to regard the brutalization of <BR>> women, and a woman's brutalization of others, as normal and acceptable. <BR>> To train the men properly, a woman commissioner observed, we must erase <BR>> everything their mothers taught them about chivalry; i.e., that a real <BR>> man protects a woman from harm. Instead, they must be trained to brain <BR>> a woman with a pugil stick in training. This truth raises two paradoxes.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> On one hand, to completely desensitize the men, such training would be <BR>> required. But the feminists don't want that because women can't meet <BR>> the same standards as men; they won't survive it. Yet how are these <BR>> women to survive combat if they cannot survive real, not gender-normed, <BR>> basic training? The men would have to protect them. Successfully <BR>> integrating women in combat means this: A soldier must ignore the <BR>> screams of a woman POW being tortured and raped.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> On the other hand, while the feminists never stop the finger-wagging <BR>> about "domestic abuse," they importune us to inure men to the wartime <BR>> abuse of women. Again, to some degree, we're already there. The capture <BR>> and torture of Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson, the single mother, <BR>> was just another day in the war. But then again, the society that sent <BR>> these young women to war is the same one that has steroidally-fortified <BR>> men and women bashing each other senseless in television's faux <BR>> wrestling, which presents the illusion that women really can fight <BR>> against men, as well as preposterous movies about women Navy SEALS, or <BR>> women who receive the Medal of Honor while the men cower in fear.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Lastly, assigning women to combat, or even combat support units like <BR>> the 507th, purposely subjects them to trials and tribulations for which <BR>> nature has not prepared them. Such assignments endanger not only the <BR>> women but also the men around them, who will redirect their attention <BR>> from fighting toward protecting or helping the women. Men will do that <BR>> because they are men, because regardless of feminist propaganda, good <BR>> parents teach their sons about chivalry and honor. The Steinem brigade <BR>> doesn't like it, but it's true nonetheless. Thus, men will die <BR>> unnecessarily. That is immoral and unjust, as is ordering married men <BR>> and women to live in close quarters where they are tempted to adultery. <BR>> Some observers even question the legality of orders sending women into <BR>> combat. But that is a debate for another day.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Ray's point? Civilized Christians don't send women and mothers to fight <BR>> the wars. Chronicles editor Tom Fleming has observed that our nation <BR>> has become anti-Christian. The saga of Pfc. Lynch and other military <BR>> women proves him right.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The Final Answer<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Back to that draft.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Don't be surprised if women are required to register. Legally speaking, <BR>> the draft exemption for women is tied to their exemption from combat. <BR>> Now women serve in aerial and naval action. And given the proximity to <BR>> combat of women in "maintenance" and other units, it won't be long <BR>> before the politicians, and bemedaled generals in the Army and Marines, <BR>> hoist the white flag and put women in ground combat. Then, some young <BR>> man will file the inevitable "equal protection" lawsuit and the <BR>> exemption will fall, its legal rationale having been dropped.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Oddly enough, the silly clamor for women in combat assumes most <BR>> military women want combat assignments. The commission found that they <BR>> don't. Only a few aging feminists do, and of course, they won't be <BR>> subject to the combat assignments or the draft. When you join the <BR>> military, you join voluntarily, but you go where they need you. When <BR>> women get their "right" to fight, they won't have the "right" to <BR>> refuse. And why would they? After that, again, comes the draft for <BR>> women.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> The answer to the many folks who suggest conscripting women is this: <BR>> Real Americans don't send women to war. Neither do real men. A genuine <BR>> Christian wouldn't contemplate it. The story of Jessica Lynch reveals <BR>> an awful truth: All three are in short supply, particularly among <BR>> American political and military leaders.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> April 11, 2007<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> ________________________________________________________________________<BR>> Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- Unlimited storage and <BR>> industry-leading spam and email virus protection.<BR>> =0<BR>> <BR>> =======================================================<BR>> List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>> http://www.fsr.net <BR>> mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>> =======================================================<BR><BR></body>
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