Sometimes the decision one makes sounds worse than its
actual effect. For example, gay marriage is not the end of civilization as we
know it; in time most people who oppose it will hardly give it another thought,
because ultimately it has no impact on their own lives. On the other hand, the
policies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush may have had some political cachet
with the right-wingers at the time, but their long-term effects have been a
disaster for this country; if anyone “benefited” it was the rich elite, the
financial industry and the military-industrial complex—while the vast majority
of Americans saw their standard of living decline markedly and a future still
under threat by Republicans with chainsaws.
Still other decisions made for political reasons are ones
that no one really knows what the consequences will be. Take for example the
announcement by outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lifting the ban on
women in combat positions in the military. I doubt that it was “coincidence” that Republican
Robert Gates suddenly stepped aside for not fully-explained reasons in 2011—and
within months his replacement, Panetta, set aside the “don’t ask, don’t tell”
policy on gays in the military. The decisions coming down the pike were ones Gates was likely not comfortable in being responsible for, but his replacement was. Panetta has a longer history of support for civil rights
than he does in military experience; the former Republican has only two years
of service in in the Army, but he took seriously
his responsibilities in civil rights enforcement in the Nixon administration, which
aroused the anger among its more committed right-wingers. Panetta
would eventually leave his post as well as switching parties. One may wonder why President
Obama selected him as CIA director when he had so little experience in intelligence
matters, let alone military; but he seems to have shared the president’s
social agenda. After the “don’t ask, don’t tell” decision, Panetta set the
groundwork for the latest policy change in February of 2012, opening-up new
jobs for women that were “closer” to the front lines.
But simply being a “boot” in Afghanistan or Iraq and
potentially being subject to enemy fire by irregular forces—rather than
actively seeking it and suppressing it—doesn’t necessarily qualify as “combat”
experience, which is being used to justify the policy change. Only the tiniest
fraction of fatalities on the American side are women, and according to the
Department of Defense breakdowns, most of them were caused by “accidents” or
otherwise noncombat related. And this during a “real” war. During the Gulf War, the ground “fighting” only lasted all of four days with a handful of
American casualties, but there was great effort to manufacture phony "heroes"--even by Hollywood in the 1996 film "Courage Under Fire." "Jarhead"--about the failed search by Marines to find an enemy to shoot at--was at least closer to the truth. Someone who was there told me all enlisted soldiers were
awarded Army Commendation Medals—apparently for the hardship of spending six months
cleaning sand out of their weapons every day while camped out in the Saudi desert. I was also told
that Bronze Stars were being passed out to officers—male and female—as if it
was a prize in a box of Cracker Jacks (and according to some reports, it still
is). Back in the day, it was awarded for heroism in combat; now, it can be
awarded for sitting at a desk as a database administrator.
Some may say all of this is part of a strategy to cheapen
the hardship of actual combat. In our highly technological world, physical and
psychological standards have been “modified” in the belief that combat is an
eight-hour day at the office and then you come home at night. With the wars
coming to an end, life will return to “normal.” What is that? In military posts
stateside or kasernes in Germany, that means waking up early, doing PT, standing
in formation, on some days training and bullshitting, other days cleaning
equipment and bullshitting, or going to the motor pool and doing yet another
preventive maintenance check on your vehicle—and bullshitting—and then go to
lunch, returning do more (or less) of the same as before, and standing in
formation one more time and going back to the billets or apartment. If there
was an inspection the next day, you would spend all night with the floor wax or
shoe and brass polish.
Twice a year you would go on a month-long field exercise,
which was mostly putting things up and taking them down, practicing radio
communications and SOI decoding, and going through the motions of what you
would actually do in a combat situation. Sometimes your squad was tasked to
conduct a “sneak” attack on another one from a different unit; after “contact,”
if they were dumb enough to hang around soldiers would argue about who shot or
captured who to avoid embarrassment. I remember helping guard some “prisoners”
when one of them tried to be a smartass and wrestle my M-16 away from me; he
was taken away to see the medics after I wacked him on the kneecap with the butt
of my rifle. And then you would return to post and it would almost seem like
you were on vacation, until the monotony of the old routine set in. When I was
in the Army, there was this old saying: The best place to be was between the
place you were leaving, and the place you were going.
Between Vietnam and the current wars, this is the life that “combat”
soldiers experience during the vast majority of their time in service. This is the
environment in which it is proposed that women will be integrated into ground
combat units; with the wars winding down, it is a suspiciously convenient time
for Panetta to make his decision now, since we won’t have to know the practical
effect of it for years to come. There are of course multiple issues to be
resolved. For example, there is the physical fitness requirements. Will female
soldiers be required to meet the minimum physical standards of male soldiers,
given the fact that they will (or should) be required to carry their own load? In
the “prime” age group, for a score of 100 the time required for female soldiers
to complete the 2-mile run is 15:36 (13 minutes for male soldiers), while the number
of push-ups is 46 (80 for males); these numbers are barely above the minimum
requirement of male soldiers, and the minimum numbers for females soldiers—19:36
in the run and 17 push-ups—would get a male soldier booted out of the service
as being physically unfit. That minimum time in the run is barely a fast
walking pace, and if you can’t do 17 legitimate (not phony) push-ups in 30
seconds at the ages 18-26, that testifies to an extreme lack of upper body
strength.
These numbers didn’t come out of thin air; they are based on
years of statistical analysis. Now some people will say big deal, or the PT
requirements are “sexist,” that upper body strength is overrated. But there are
other issues to consider. Camaraderie and trust is an important factor in
morale and unit cohesion, especially in the ground combat environment. How is
this to be gained if women are seen to require “special treatment” because of their
strange hygiene requirements, syndromes and sensitivities? There is also the
matter of this idea that modern warfare doesn’t require face-to-face contact
with the enemy, that if it isn’t just pushing a button against an enemy miles
away, it is just a mop-up operation after some target is bombed to hell; but fighting
irregular forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has turned out be only marginally
differentiated from that encountered in Vietnam. It is interesting to note also
that much of this policy change seems to be driven by female pilots who do
little but the “glamorous” duties, mostly against non-existent opposition. Officers
and career enlisted female soldiers also chafe about the previous ban, although
much of this has to do with the level of “respect” they may or may not feel
they are given.
Nevertheless, if a “change” is coming, with soldiers
returning to a peacetime environment this is the time figure out how this new
policy will be integrated into reality; the result might only be fool’s gold,
perhaps even a degradation in combat efficiency that is not immediately
apparent. And make no mistake—not all recruits want to be in combat units; when
I was in the Army, people actually knew the difference between having a real job
and being a “grunt.” The only college “credit” I received for my seven years in
the service was for “physical education.” It was glory-seeking officers who
didn’t mind seeing the pawns paying the price for the decisions they made on
the battlefield. It was fortunate people—and females particularly benefited by
default—who got to “choose” to go into an MOS that might actually have some
value in the civilian world, which is why some soldiers can find good jobs
after they leave the service, and others cannot.
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