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Women@War

By The Armorer on May 26, 2007 | | Comments (7)

I've commanded a unit with women in it, albeit not in combat.

Chuck Simmins sent me an email griping about how NRO's military blog, The Tank, covered women in combat yesterday, specifically citing Elaine Donnelly's post, and the follow-up by W. Thomas Smith, who is the most prolific poster over there. Heh. Wonder how Matt, John Noonan, Greyhawk and I could get gigs there? Oh, maybe a sailor or two... Noonan is certainly sucking up and scoring propaganda, but I digress.

Chuck put up his response, which I generally support.

Donnelly would essentially have us turn back the clock to the Women's Army Corps. There are many men out there who would do the same.

There are certainly problems (lord, I know!) with putting young hormonal beings together in the environment they find themselves in.

And the original paradigm for service, when the opportunities were expanded back in the 70's was that of conventional war in Europe, with reasonably well-defined fronts, etc. In other words, WWII, updated for new weapons.

Turns out the first real shooting war which lasted more than a week wasn't that kind of war.

And guess what? To my eye, the paradigm still works. Yep, women are getting killed.

Tough noogies. They're doing some real killing, too.

Much of the commentary Smith provides covers the concern about putting Jane Average soldier into prolonged close-combat infantry units. I happen to disagree with his SOCOM concern - I'm guessing any woman who can pass all the barriers to get into SOCOM units is a woman who can pull her weight in a SOCOM unit - because if you can't fit in on the teams... you don't stay on the teams, one of the more ruthless meritocracies in the service.

The women who are getting killed are MPs, mechanics, truck drivers, etc - because this is a war of ambush and treachery, that more often targets the support elements than the combat elements - precisely because they are perceived as easier, safer targets. Unless it's an MP unit led by Sergeant Hester. Who fought pretty well, methinks. And they aren't getting killed all out of proportion to their numbers in the force. 77 so far, by Elaine's count. With roughly 85,000 women in the Army and Marines, who are doing the brunt of the dying in this war, that's a vanishingly small percentage.

And I've not heard substantive complaints about performance - that can't be met with similar complaints about individual male soldiers and their performance.

Strikes me, we've got it about right, thus far.

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7 Comments

By HomefrontSix on May 26, 2007 7:40 PM
G*d help the rest of the world if we truly start allowing women in combat roles. Being of the female persuasion, I KNOW how wicked and evil we can be when angry or when our den is threatened. It ain't purdy.
 
By Pogue on May 26, 2007 9:35 PM
This is one of those areas I'm really conflicted about. I'm currently in a combat arms outfit so we don't regularly work with women. Yes, there are a couple up in Brigade doing legal or something, but basically it's an all male environment. If the Army treated gender issues the same way they treated race issues I would have no problem at all with women in CA. But the fact is in the Army women are equal except they're special. They're equal, but they have different PT standards. Bull - that's what PT is for. They're equal but the have to be pulled out of the field every third day for "hygiene." Gee, how about we do a better job teaching field sanitation and hygeine - to everyone, not just women. And then there's the whole sexual harassment problem. (Why doesn't a soldier being harassed just kick the other soldiers a$$?) These problems aren't caused by women being in combat operations, they're caused by the regulations imposed on soldiers male and female that enforce different treatment and restrict womens opportunities on the one side and foster resentment on the other. If a woman can elevate the tube to 1200 mils for a three round mission (with help from the gunner of course, it's not like my AG doesn't get tired on high angles) and hump the projos off the ammo truck with the rest of the section, she's welcome on my gun. If she can't, she either needs to get with it on PT or get a job over at the FDC. I have no doubt that there are many women who would do just fine, just as there are many men who are non hackers. Personally I'm sick of men bellyaching about what women are being allowed to do and women whining about what they're not allowed to do. I say level the playing field and let it sort itself out. Switching to decaf...
 
By HomefrontSix on May 27, 2007 4:34 AM
Pogue ~ amen.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 27, 2007 7:10 AM
Well, hypocrisy in the application of standards is nothing new. AR600-9 being the prime example. We were told that being fat (or worse, looking fat, but hey, I digress) was inimical to combat readiness, and it was key that we maintain a certain look, er, I mean, level of fitness, er, no, um, percentage of body fat, or our combat performance would suffer, and therefore, careers must be ruined and good soldiers discharged as a result. To uphold the standard, for combat fitness, doncha know. IT WAS IMPERATIVE, AND IMPORTANT, AND WAS CRITICAL TO COMBAT READINESS!!! Leave aside the multiple panels of experts who told the Army, "Quit trying to fit all bodies into one mold - set your PT standards high enough, fat guys won't make it." Okay, we tried some experimentation with that... and, er, well, woulda hadda spend a *lot* more time on PT than we really wanted to dedicate to it (though the *old* Army did just that, via lots of road marching to training areas, and fun and innovative (but injury-producing) PT, but I digress) and, oh hell, the fat guys were hanging, but some of them skinny suckers who look good in the bus driver suit weren't hangin'. And it took a real toll on the women. So, we kept AR600-9 because, well, being a fatty was BAD! and it was IMPORTANT! to combat readiness (leave aside who goes hypoglycemic faster...). So, comes the war, and what do we do? We suspend the discharge part of AR600-9. Because, well, we don't want anyone getting fat to get out of the Army or something. Heh. But we kept the part about putting it in the efficiency reports, so that when the war is over, the promotion boards will still kill your career, of course. Because being fat is bad. All I know is - when the relight the discharge provisions of the reg, here's hoping the first guy through challenges it. Because the Army justified it based on the criticality of combat performance, then promptly suspended it when combat loomed. In other words, they don't really believe their own premise. It's simply prejudice. Truth is, if you're so fat you can't hang during PT, out you should go. Otherwise, it just.doesn't.matter. Except to pencil-necked, sunken chested geeks who assume that not looking like them must mean you're a slug. All I know is - fit fat people rarely flopped on a road march. Skinny suckers did. Even ones with 270 and better PT scores.
 
By Justthisguy on May 27, 2007 9:40 PM
Aye, Homefront. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a birthright Quaker gal, at the Atlanta Friends' Meeting, years ago. We were talking about integrating wimmin into the military, up to combat command levels, even. I said something like, "But if wimmin were in charge, I betcha they'd cut loose with the incandescent lithium deuteride sooner than the boys would, there wouldn't be truces to succor the wounded, or prisoner-exchange cartels, or stuff like that!" She answered, basically, "Yup!" I think a lot of guys still, at some atavistic level, somehow think of warfare in some kind of "sporting" way. Wimmin never have, I think. They usually prudently avoid physical fights, but when they do engage, Look Out! They can get into "die with teeth in your throat" mode right easily, in the wrong conditions.
 
By Justthisguy on May 27, 2007 10:13 PM
JoA is picking on "We slender nervous people"! (That's the way Barney Fife put it, anyway.) Hey, at least "I" can get shot through the body with a .223 round and have it not tumble or fragment inside me, not being thick enough for that. As long as I face the enemy squarely of course, which ain't very likely. Snork.
 
By Justthisguy on May 28, 2007 1:43 AM
I was just looking at something over at Dr. Helen's, about, well, "Aunt Flo." She referred to a post by that Nice Jewish Guy, Eugene Volokh. I am minded of the discussion we had here a couple or three years ago, about things like that among the troops. And the curious history of the "Sanitary Napkin", and why it is so similar to, if not identical with, the battle dressing.