Up in Arms

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with
--Woman is the Nigger of the World, John Lennon

War is not won by victory
--A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway

_________

Woman is being used to justify a lot of things she need not be. Anna Quindlen recently penned a piece (Not Semi-Soldiers) arguing for the acceptance of women into combat elements of the U.S. Army based on the awarding of the Silver Star to Sgt. Leigh Anne Hester for her performance during an ambush March 2005.

This strikes us as yet another brilliant, unpaid for propaganda screed for this absurd Iraq/Afghanistan conflict. First, we were liberating the poor, subjugated burqua-clad women of Afghanistan. A Time photo proudly showed a presumably subversive bit of heel and ankle peering out from such a get-up early in the invasion. We were there to spring human rights, don't ya know. (Forget the routine honor-killings of women that occur in our friendly Pakistan and the fact that woman may not drive in Saudi Arabia, another erstwhile friend.)

Then it was brave-cum-cowering Jessica Lynch, the blonde, blue-eyed ingenue from West Virginia who was sprung from her care at a hospital by a Rambo-like all-forces rescue unit, much to the shock of the medical personnel who were giving her orange juice and trying to get her back to where she belonged.

Now, on the basis of another blonde, fair-haired Kentucky National Guard woman's 25 minute experience with fire and cover, Ms. Quindlen is arguing for the lifting of the "concrete ceiling" which keeps women from rising in the military ranks as they are denied valor awards by virtue of not being attached to the combat arms. It certainly serves as a great recruitment tool for the heartland.

But Ranger has a bone to pick. He does not think women should be fighting in close quarters combat, as was the case with recent Silver Star winner Sgt. Hester. While there is no doubt she performed well, and her squad leader SSG Nein, who also won the Silver Star (which was later upgraded), had prepared his unit fastidiously for just such an eventuality, still Quindlen's assertions don't convince.

We like Quindlen, but her contention that women belong in combat based on Hester's performance is wrong. She claims for a new "intergender teamwork most younger Americans experience, not just on the battlefield, but at work and at home. Because of that kind of progress the age of silly ephemera and mythology is past."

First, Ms. Quindlen, "the age of silly ephemera and mythology" is most certainly NOT past. Witness the wars themselves, nothing but a cobbled together collection of ephemera to manufacture a story worthy of war. As for humans of any stripe being beyond mythology, good luck.

Daily life is rife with examples too numerous to delineate. Let it suffice to say science strives to distinguish itself from mythology, and scientifically-speaking, women are not men. Their minds are not interchangeable, nor are their bodies. This is not a romantic notion, as Ranger does not do romance.

Aside from being a namby-pamby statement, I'd volunteer that the ability to maneuver between the genders is still as fraught as it ever was. Still, Quindlen offers hopefully that "We now know that women can manage to urinate in cups and go months without showers."

Micturation aim and tolerance for filth does not a good soldier make. That is the description of a Hell's Angels initiation month. Ranger does not remember utilizing the skill of peeing in cups in the field, let alone in a combat environment.

Quindlen and those like her are falling prey to the propaganda that swirls around and creates the very foundation of the Iraq enterprise. She says, "[women are] essential at checkpoints, since their male colleagues cannot comfortably search Iraqi women. . ."

Why is the combat-powerful U.S. military stuck searching women's underclothing? When is it legitimate to be body searching local indigenous? Isn't this why the Iraqis have a police force? The U.S. military is not a body-searching machine. And of course, Quindlen's label of these people freely flows from "insurgent" to "terrorist," showing the usual confusion shared by most people.

Quindlen says women are "still curtailed by murky regulations that reflect a way of looking at warfare and the world that is outmoded, if not obsolete." No -- the regulations are not outmoded, nor is the view of warfare superannuated. Sgt. Hester's fight with the adversary of the day was a half-hour affair, having no resemblance to extended combat operations.

Iraq and Afghanistan are not battlefields. They are battlegrounds on which fire-fight scenarios occur, but this is not protracted ground combat, of the sort Quindlen implies women are prepared for.

There may be the Billy Jean Kings of the world who wish to take on a Bobby Riggs in a "Battle of the Sexes," but remember that Mr. Riggs was past his prime, and 20 years Ms. King's senior. That makes a difference in the world of competitive sports. As does gender, for that matter.

There is segregation in athletic competition, recognizing the strength and endurance differences between the sexes. Ranger was a Company Commander in Jump School when the 1st female soldiers came through jump school, and he saw the physical standards modified to allow the women to navigate the course.

In addition, Ranger saw ROTC advanced camps where female shower points were required to have hair dryers for the females. Somehow, Ranger doubts there were any hair dryers at the Battle of Khe Sanh.

Women have correctly been employed as law-and-order MPs, which differ from tactical MP units attached or assigned to combat elements. This is appropriate as post functions never deploy, and Ranger does not believe women should deploy. That tenet is still a stated part of our ideology. However, it seems like war-on-the-cheap is now attempting an end-run around these long-held beliefs.

War has not changed; the U.S. idea of war has changed. War is a daily grind, filled with fear, deprivation and toped off with tremendous physical duress. Think Battle of the Bulge, Chosin Reservoir, Hue, Khe Sanh. That is war.

The shift which is exposing more women to IED and ambush scenarios is that Army Combat Support/Combat Service Support (CS/CSS) no longer functions to the rear of the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT) of the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA). These functions are supposedly contracted out, and there is no FLOT or FEBA. CS/CSS are operating in selective secure areas, and the Combat Arms now come to their support, vs. the previous way.

There is no longer a shoveling of support forward because there is no forward. Everybody lives in semi-secure enclaves similar to Bien Hoa and Long Binh in RVN. The infantry has become the support of the support. But using infantry for anything but combat operations is a misuse of a combat element. When combat power is bled off to secure rear areas, then it is no longer an asset, but simply another support unit.

"Women are fighting in Iraq in what looks like combat, feels like combat—and kills like combat." They are fighting because the Army has lost all concept of combat. Jessica Lynch would never have been exposed to enemy action if the assault into Iraq had been executed in depth with proper flank security. Corps/Division MP's should have used a classic combat traffic control function and provided guidance and support for the follow-on support elements.

Quindlen cites a RAND institute report which states that the removal of women from participating in Army operations in Iraq due to its being a war zone "would preclude the Army from completing its mission." All the more argument for initiating a draft if you are going to undertake a serious war, rather than juggling the takers you have.

The U.S. may now believe mucking about in Iraq and Afghanistan is warfare, but it is not. It is a misapplication of assets and has no correlation to the realities of actual ground combat. Rest assured, there is a real war out there looking for a place and time to happen. No need to create elective ones. And when that day comes, I doubt America has the stomach to have women shot down shoulder-to-shoulder with men in line units.

Since the U.S. military has become road guards and nation builders, this is not a cheery thought.

--Jim and Lisa