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Females in Infantry Line-Units? A Need for Reflection


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ongressional and DoD efforts continue to integrate female servicemembers into the combat arms, specifically, to put junior women officers and mid-level female senior noncommissioned officers into infantry units. This ac- tion raises several questions, not the least of which is to what degree is the American public aware of this ongoing action and whether or not that public has been given the opportunity to debate the merits of the issue. Or is the fact that the all-volunteer force, composed of less than 1 percent of the national population, has become for the vast majority of Americans a distant abstraction, thus engendering little or no cause to en- gage in a much needed debate? Curiously, most of those advocating this action have not, nor are they likely to have, served in the nation’s military. Is the unrepre- sented institution of the military, a minor constituency of no political clout, to be further burdened with a force composition questionable at best in the serious business of conducting war? Is it conceivable that the proposed actions carry with them the seeds of ignomi- ny on some future battlefield, say on the Pacific Rim? There are well-founded arguments, reflected in


demonstrable truths like enhanced capabilities, social justice and equality, and overarching benefits to the whole of society, that were and are compellingly made, and rightfully so, for the racial integration of the armed forces, the introduction of women into the general military population, and the recent repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Do these same arguments hold true in any meaningful way for introducing and utilizing female servicemembers in front-line infantry units? What problem is thus resolved? What is the problem? In other words, is an infantry unit’s capability to execute its unequivocal mission to close with, engage, and kill the enemy, ofttimes in hand-to-hand combat, substan- tively enhanced through mix-genderizing? A country goes to war with the sole intent of winning. Does the


68 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2012


lethality of the infantry unit increase through the pres- ence of female servicemembers? Herein, too, lies a moral dilemma. Is the United States, a country that prides itself on its Christian-Judaic moral underpinnings, prepared, absent any credible much less compelling threat to its national survival, to com- mit over the givers of life to the purpose of deliberately taking, and losing, of life? War is a messy business. It is particularly messy and brutal at the infantryman’s level. The anguished and shocked reaction of the nation to the dragging of the mangled, nude corpse of a U.S. soldier through the dusty, filthy streets of Mogadishu [Somalia] in October 1993, forced a hasty retreat and a presiden- tial credibility gap. What if 20 percent of the casualties that dark day had been women and one or more of their naked, bruised, lifeless bodies, genitals fully exposed, were similarly treated for all the world to view? Advocates for these actions have been lulled by a false sense of what war is by the last 10-plus years of conflict. Be clear, there is a marked distinction between going to war and engaging in sustained ground combat. History must be examined to determine what it shows not for what one wants it to show, and the last 10 years of con- flict comprise a distorted, minute spot on the history map of human conflict.


An equally pernicious effect at work here is “the ro- manticization and sentimentalization of war” by those who know no better. War is no longer a cultural concern within the American conscience as the all-volunteer force has made it the province of so few citizens. When shall we as a nation disinter the absolute horribleness of war? There should be nothing but abhorrence and disdain for anyone who would cavalierly approach com- posing the armed forces for anything less than maximum fighting effectiveness, especially the infantry; preparing for anything less baffles in its ignorance. Gender equality, or gender neutrality as some would have it, and “equal” promotion opportunities are not, and cannot be, metrics of ground combat effectiveness. Is not the ultimate irony, melodramatic and melancholy at once, insisting that inclusion of females in ground combat promotes gender equality and promotion opportunities rather than vic- tory? The one given in ground combat is that one has as much chance of being killed, physically and mentally disfigured, and scarred for life as the next person, and yet we are witnessing a misguided, blissfully ignorant, and ill-informed effort to place women into this horror, this phantasmagoria of gore. To what end? — Col. John C. McKay, USMC-Ret., is a twice-wounded Ma- rine Corps infantry officer who has been on the front lines in three major conflicts and a few skirmishes, commencing with the Vietnam War. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval


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