U Not Gonna Like This

The Vanishing “Man of War” from The Trumpet online:

Placing Women in Danger

One of the biggest lies foisted upon an American public—which, on the whole, opposes putting women into combat—is that the military is loaded with “non-combat” jobs.

The irrefutable fact is, the military is a combat organization. Its mission is war.

The designation of a position as “non-combat” serves essentially one purpose: to open up more jobs to women. The line separating combat from non-combat is arbitrary and in flux: The harder the lobbying to expand opportunities for women, the narrower the definition of “combat” becomes.

Current law, passed by the Bush Pentagon, allows women to serve virtually anywhere—even directly alongside combat units, as long as combat is not occurring at that moment. The bizarre promise is, they will be evacuated if combat starts. Once the enemy telephones and announces that it is ready for hostilities, the battlefield will have a time-out until the necessary cavalcade of combat and transport helicopters, armored personnel carriers and tanks reaches the scene and escorts the battleground’s lady guests away—or so the thinking seems to go. This policy would devote pilots and drivers, combat equipment and vehicles—during combat, when they would be most fiercely needed—to the idiotic chore of moving women who shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

But even the idea of fielding a select group of strong, efficient, disciplined, maximally effective “combat” troops, supported by weak, gender-normed “non-combat” troops, is inherently flawed. A war front can shift in a flash: If a supply line is attacked, or a bomb goes off in the “rear,” suddenly that is a new “front.” The fact that American women in uniform are being killed and captured is all the proof one needs that the military is not honoring—nor can it honor—the law restricting women from serving in combat. “Women in combat is not really an issue,” says Lt. Dawn Halfaker, who lost an arm in Iraq last year. “It is happening.”