A Room of Her Own, III

--Brave (2012)

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake and morally straight
--Boy Scout Oath

 I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
 So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you'd have to get tough or die
And it's the name that helped to make you strong 
--A Boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash 

 I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman
 --I Am Woman, Helen Reddy
 ____________________

It seems sensible and modern to allow women in the combat arms -- after all, we haven't exactly been Johnny-on-the-spot about according women their rights. It was less than 100 years ago U.S. women were given the vote, and grudgingly, at that. So Ranger seems positively Paleolithic when we oppose placing women on the Forward Line of Own Troops (FLOT), or whatever the equivalent is today. As a society, we look at Beyonce and Hillary (not at once) and figure, women can do anything, right?

Moreover, some argue that such a placement would simply be a repatriation (pardon the phrase) to a long-lost status, since women were once warrior princesses, right? But the reality of our lives today is far removed from those often incomplete and sometimes apocryphal tales. We will address this archetype later.

Our reality is that on the fields of athletic competition, men and women are separated in recognition of their different potentials. Title IX guaranteed girls could compete in sports to the degree that boys could, but their teams are gender-specific. When the feminists fronted the "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973 -- Billie Jean King against Bobby Riggs, 26 years her senior -- it was a put up, as the age gap could not possibly be overcome. Such showmanship should not be confused with the reality as played out in the Olympic games, where each sports competition is gender-specific.

One may argue for the politically-correct social-construction view of gender, but there is no confusing the proclivities of children at play. Even boys from the most pacifist families usually demand their toy guns, and girls are all about networking, communication and keeping their fictional houses in order. There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about either proclivity (see Tannen's, You Just Don't Understand) -- it just is.

Girls join the Brownies and Girl Scouts; boys, the Boy Scouts. There are notions of honor and duty implicit in carrying on the sacred duty of these brotherhoods or sisterhoods. We will not argue about the effectiveness of such separation, but there is something in the sexes which enjoys the fraternity with its own, especially when conducting projects to which each group feels a certain affinity.

--even Samurai Girls are just girls, after all

The feminine warrior archetypes often include the martyr (Joan of Arc) or the helper, like Native Americans Pocahantas or Sacajawea. Their power is more at being faithful servants who facilitate communication. They may also be crusaders like Clara Barton or Carrie Nation - warriors for God and soul. The true strength vis-a-vis the male is held by the Siren-crone-witch archetype, but this is not a pretty face and it is often destructive, especially to the male. Hence, our glamorizing society doesn't have much use for them.

The female archetype we are most familiar with is the needy wench (Rapunzel, Snow White or Cinderella), or the religious "good woman" (unlike the "bad" ones who leads men astray, like our very own Eve.) In Christianity, Mary is revered for her long-suffering status and for abiding; she is not part of the Trinity (godhead), though she served as the vessel, midwifing Jesus into this world. The faithful sing hymns to her virginity, which implies she is good by virtue of not reveling in her true sex.

The feminine warriors we have access to in the media today are tarted-up Barbies overlaid with deltoids, worthy of Hans'n Franz's designation, "girly-men": Wonder Woman, Lara Croft -- Tomb Raider, Xena the Warrior Princess, Japanese Manga, or Brave (Pixar). They are either Eddie Bauer Women on steroids, or they could be carrying Hello Kitty! purses across their chest. Like "The Bride" in the film Kill Bill they are striking a pose, and are fashion set pieces moreso than gritty warriors. The BESM ("Big eyes, small mouth") fetish of Manga depicts the woman as the baby doll of so many men's dreams: big baby eyes, and a small mouth for ... whatever one would use a small mouth for.

It may smack of paternalism and Old Boy's club to suggest that women ought not be on the FLOT, but we would not be the only civilized nation to take this stance. We like being  first, but being first is not always a good.

If the military institution is incapable of erasing the sexual subjugation of its service members while they not facing dire life-or-death scenarios, why would we imagine their burden would be any less so while facing challenges that already tax the frontiers of their brother's physical and psychological limits? It seems cruel and inefficient, in the most pragmatic sense. 

We are a free society, but we do not necessarily have liberal minds that are free from their apetitive animal desires and sense of entitlement and resentment and the whole lot of malignancies which plague our interpersonal relations. Even the boxing ring has the Marquess of Queensbury rules to ensure a fair fight, yet have not demonstrated the attainment of any such set of intrinsic rules governing our congress between the sexes. We stumble through life haphazardly making decisions we hope will not be too detrimental, but it's mostly a crapshoot. At our best, respect is the watchword; all too often, we are sneaky animals looking for our best angle -- that goes for both men and women.

Recent scandals show putting women in the military is like putting Tweety bird in front of Sylvester the Cat with no cage door. The documentary "Invisible War" confronts the culture of sexual assault in the military: "A female U.S. soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire." This is not some quaint relic of a Neanderthal past but your Army, today. Feminists say, don't cage us in or out, but it might just be an enlightened move of self interest to choose not to enter the boxing ring with the men when the gloves are off, and no holds barred.

Child psychologist Piaget argued for the necessity of the phase in which children would touch a hot stove and react to the pain, thereby learning an action not to repeat. Unfortunately, when it comes to the relations between men and women, we demonstrate no such ability to learn. Putting the sexes into perhaps the most fraught situation a civilized society sanctions should not be a social experiment, and it is bound to not turn out well.

If placing women in the combat arms were a situational necessity (as in a young Israel, Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany) Ranger would support it. But we have a society of X-Box playing slobs just ripe for the picking (the draft) if we need to flesh out our military ranks.

We can barely face the returning caskets of our male soldier's bodies, and their presentation in the media is still fraught with indecision.  Bad enough we accept our men may come on their shield -- will adding women into the fray reduce our anxiety and discomfort?

A woman, regardless of her designation on the masculinity index (she could be the most thoroughgoing XXY in the book), still holds the staff for her sex. In her we see our mothers and every other woman who has nurtured us, as well as those for whom men hold (subliminal) destructive impulses. When she will be killed in action, we believe it will unleash a flurry of repressed responses.

Until such time as the sexes gain true parity, why would we add insult to injury, using women both as vessels for self-gratification and sending them off to be killed? Would we think it a good if women in Afghanistan went from being a handmaid to being fodder on the battlefield, before achieving full personhood?

Mind you, we are not nearly that bad, but we are not that evolved on this topic, either.


[Final installment: A Room of Her Own, Finis.]

A Room of Her Own II

 --Princess Kitana,  
Mortal Kombat video game 

Every day I wake up, then I start to break up
Lonely is a man without love
Every day I start out, then I cry my heart out
Lonely is a man without love 
--Lonely is a Man Without Love, 
Englebert Humperdinck 

Sometimes I feel I've got to
Run away I've got to
Get away 
--Tainted Love, Soft Cell 

 Under my thumb
Her eyes are just kept to herself 
Under my thumb, well I
I can still look at someone else 
--Under My Thumb, Rolling Stones
__________________

[Pt. II of series ...]

 

The disconnect in our original piece (Sex and Violence) came in the concluding paragraph:

"The same people who would criticize porn (overtly) are the same [sic] who would argue for (someone else's) women to kill, fight and die in the depravity and degradation of war. How is having sex with strangers and pretending to enjoy the encounter less socially acceptable than fighting?"

In fact, the truth is neither so neat nor so partisan. Both liberals and conservatives avail themselves of porn, usually on the sly. Additionally, both would also claim to champion women's rights. Conservatives are no longer all of the Phyllis Schlafley stripe, and presumably accept women in both "Houses" now (though their numbers are still pathetically small.) Liberals give lip-service to women's participation in all walks of life, though neither political party has yet  managed to achieve economic equality for women.

Our main point was, it is hypocritical to argue against the objectification of women in porn, while also arguing for their objectification in the guise of an Infantry soldier. Just as in the identity-less world of porn, so a fighting woman would be separated from her personhood (save on her dog tag.) Just as most men enjoy porn, but would not want their wives or daughters to make a career of spreading her legs before the camera, so, too, would their views of women's roles on the battlefield be conflicted. 

Just as on Ranger's workshop floor, where the Union accord said "no" to helping women, but for the real live woman on the bench next to you, the rules get broken.

If true equality were to be granted, fighting women would become fighting personnel and expected to fully carry their own weight (literally). They would become sexual eunichs and alter their physiology accordingly, a physical impossibility.

Here are the things Ranger knows:

--Men and women are different, and possessed of different strengths

--Like many of his fellows, he has viewed porn and so can state that he feels it to be an objectification versus a glorification of women; it is, however, something men do

--In male's compartmentalized brains, there is also a place for "his" women -- actual women. These women elicit a different response

--There are some spaces and subjects which are the chosen domain of men (see, Fight Club for the idea.) In his life, the Army's Combat Arms was such an area -- their real-world "Outward Bound" in which men tested their limits against their fellows and the enemy, and lived the Jungian warrior archetype.

--We have no warrior princesses today, no Boudiccas, outside of Hollywood or cartoon versions of Zena the Warrior Princess and ilk. For most girls today, that image has been superseded by Snow White or Cinderella. For most women, their reality lies somewhere in between (They can bring home the bacon, serve it up to a man, all the while retaining their ineffable femininity.)

What we wonder is, what of the male-female dynamic? Are men suffering a la feminist Faludi's anthem to men in the age of feminism, "Stiffed"? If women walk onto the battlefield shoulder-to-shoulder, will they fall into line as genderless automatons, one-each? Teams will not be gender-separated -- there will be no women's Field Artillery Unit.

They will fight on a biologically unequal playing field, and to whose benefit?


[more to follow ...] 


p.s. -- Here is a little debate on the topic @ debate.org.

Got Some Brutality?

--Is this the measure of a well-adjusted person? 

I'm every woman
It's all in me
Anything you want done baby
I'll do it naturally 
--I'm Every Woman, Chaka Khan 

_______________________

Your mother's radical feminism, this ain't.

Where are the rigorous arguments for the move to open combat slots to women in the military? The "XX Factor: What Women Really Think" blog at Slate typifies the non-cohesion of the argument (War Isn't a Male Value.)  [I've always wished the XX Factor could be better, but it rarely is.]

First, the writer says men are "bullied" into participating in war, but then says they "want to keep their power." The question is then posed, "(why) does male dominance lead to so much violence, from war to rape to child abuse?", the writer predictably laying the fault at the androgynous foot of "power", versus testosterone. The implication is that women would be rapacious, ravaging beasts of the same order, if only they had the power.

The conclusion seems to imply this, while also dismissing the impulse at the same time, in a grand, final non-sequitur:

Hopefully the greater inclusion of women into the military will help us all see that violence and war is learned behavior—it's not inevitable. Women entering combat roles isn't feminism acquiescing to male values, and women don't have a unique duty to overturn the glorification of violence and power that leads to war. That's a job for everyone.

Hmmm, so overturning the glorification of violence is a "job for everyone", eh?  And the way for women to play a part in this noble project is to begin killing people, too?

No one said women entering combat has anything to do with 'feminism acquiescing to male values."  Women wanting to fight and kill is them showing a destructive, life extinguishing, bent; no one has a corner on that market. Entering the combat arms is not "not" acquiescing to male values, rather, it is choosing for a life project, destruction; that hardly seems to be an act of trumping the masculine, or even of achieving equality.  An individual who is dedicated to equality is dedicated to the life of all; one does not get there by being a rifle-toting grunt for one's government.

The writer is correct that many men who have entered such a deadly business have been conscripted or drafted; females who choose to become combat arms are simply opting to obliterate their humanity, and become a one-each unit, too.  The bottom line for those women who wish to fight in the combat arms IS power -- they wish to climb the ladder of military rank, and they see the way to do that is to get a little combat under their belt.  But let's not pretend this impulse to get in on the killing has a more noble aspect.

War-fighting is not the radical posture; fighting and killing is as old as the hills.  The radical pose is to reject it.  Feminists are famous for transvaluing values: They claim (aside from Andrea Dworkin) their use in pornography is actually financial dominance; passivity in BDSM is really the power position (yes, the Marquis de Sade thought of it first, that tricky devil); sexual freedom (= free sex + cooking and cleaning and baby-rearing) is really liberation. Feminism promised a bill of goods it hasn't delivered. 

Feminists have not completed their project.  The singer Beyonce Knowles demonstrates the untraversed ground: in her song, "Independent", her refrain is, I bought it ("I've bought it / I depend on me.")  Her anthematic "Single Ladies" declares (wistfully), "If you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it", and a later lyric contradicts her "Independent" with, "Don't treat me to the things of the world / I'm not that kind of girl."  

Beyonce speaks to the women who work and can buy things, but they are not at peace.  They want things and they want a relationship; they have been willing to work for the first, but feminism did not equip them to obtain the second.  Fostering better relationships was not the goal of feminism; equality was, and equality is a straw dog.

Equal pay for equal work should be a given, but that does not equate to doing every single job available. As social critic Susan Faludi points out in her book "Stiffed", men are left unmoored after coming through the feminist battlefield.  Since we are social animals, our interactions go wanting as we fight the archetypes.

Discussion of what feminist theology has gained is for another post.  But if "what women really think"  is as scattered as XX's argument, then perhaps they would do better than to plan war strategy.

The Big Lie

 Why this feeling? Why this glow?
Why the thrill when you say Hello?
It's a strange and tender magic you do
Mister Wonderful, that's you 
--Mr. Wonderful, Peggy Lee 

'Cause it makes me that much stronger 
 Makes me work a little bit harder
Makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter 
--Fighter, Christina Aguilera

--Lieutenant, why are you doing this?
 --Do you ask the men the same question? 
--As a matter of fact: yes, I do ask them.
--And what do they say?
 --"Cause I get to blow shit up." 
--Well, there you go
--G. I Jane (1997)
_____________________

Ranger would rather sandpaper his ass and soak in Epsom salts rather than entertain the decision that will open combat MOS's to female soldiers.

The Global War on Terror, The Long War, gun control and the decision to allow women into the combat arms all share a lowest common denominator of being based upon a lie posing as a valid hypothesis.  The lie justifying women in the combat arms is that they will be required to meet the same standards as do male service members; they will not, and it is this inequality which fuels Rangers opposition to their admittance.

Beginning with what seems a superficial difference between gender standards, but a difference nonetheless, consider haircuts.  The high and tight is required of male recruits to maintain standards of cleanliness, neatness and uniformity of appearance; it keeps lice and other vermin from setting up scalp residence, is necessary for getting a good seal on the protective mask and it makes treating head wounds easier (these comments are aimed at the Army, as the other services have their own criteria.)  Women may wear their hair longer than men.

So we say we have one standard, but this most basic difference in regulations shows the difference, the accommodation.  If short hair is correct for men, why not for women? Clearly standards will be different, but is this desirable in the most dire of military operations when less exceptions and more codification equals more simplicity and focus on the operation?

Surely gender integration into the combat arms can be done but as with our criticisms of the endeavors in the opening paragraph, we always discuss the "hows" versus the "why's".  Why do we accept that pushing the boundary is a good and necessary thing?  Nuclear bombs might be a more elegant -- less bloody -- way of killing than all the others, but is killing an art form we wish to maximize, sanitize and perfect to the point of utter dehumanization?

William Saletan at Slate -- who routinely warps the facts to forward his social agenda -- wrote in the falsely titled, "Putting women in combat isn’t a dangerous 'experiment' anymore. It’s a success":

Members of the House of Representatives now serve with Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, who lost her legs as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. They also know Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, another Iraq veteran. And many lawmakers have visited war zones. “I’ve seen firsthand service men and women working together in a range of dangerous operations to achieve our military objectives,” says Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire. “Today’s announcement reflects the increasing role that female service members play in securing our country.” McCain agrees: “American women are already serving in harm’s way today all over the world and in every branch of our armed forces. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice."

But "men and women working together" and being in harm's way does not constitute fighting in an Infantry unit; that, no woman has (openly) done.  Think of any battle in which the United States has participated -- Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Bataan, Iwo Jima, The Bulge, Khe Sanh, ad infinitum.  Can anyone say how adding women to these battles would have enhanced them?  Over 100 women have died in the last decade's War on Terror, but these have come predominantly from roadside IEDs or artillery attacks, not as a consequence of their participation in a planned combat operation.

This is a dire statement, but the U.S. will pay in blood for this ill-advised transformation of the combat arms, for one day the U.S. will fight a real theatre level war again with a forward line of troops (FLOT) and a forward edge of the battle area (FEBA), rather than fighting largely irregular non-state insurgents.  A war of maneuver is much different than an "inside/outside of the wire" paradigm.

A real war is a nightmare, and it is Ranger's experience that keeping women out of nightmares is a good thing.

Next: The emotional challenge of placing women in combat MOS's

Memorial Day Reflections, 2011

--Corregidor

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You snug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go
--Suicide in the Trenches, Sigfried Sassoon

I woke up this morning,
and I just hated everything!
--Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
__________________

Another Memorial Day and another big picnic and day of shopping. But everyone -- both those who carried the burden and those who didn't -- should humbly and reverentially consider what underlies the day of leisure for so many.

It is difficult to discuss Memorial Day without discussing living veterans. Veterans Day and Memorial day are two sides of the same coin; the continuum is brief, and we the living march to death much too quickly. It is but one breath or one bullet that separates the two.

All who served, whether volunteer or inductee, made the conscious decision to go forward and do what was required. Some of us were hurt or wounded, but all dedicated precious days in our young lives to a cause larger than ourselves. All of us relinquished our individual concerns to the greater good, which we believed was our duty as responsible citizens. We recognized that the rights of a free society were insured by the obligations of harsh duties.

Soldiers were not all born in the U.S.A. When speaking of immigrants today we forget that it was they who often carried America's wars. These immigrants, tempered by war, earned their rights to be called Americans, as was the case in Ranger's family.

As 1st and 2nd generation Americans, both Ranger's father and he served in wartime uniformed service, as did several of his cousins. (Ditto for male members of Lisa's maternal family.) However, the present generation has seen fit not to serve, as the draft has not compelled them to do so. Neither of my nephews wore a uniform, though both of their fathers did. This is a common pattern now since we are content to say we have a professional class of warriors and service can be passed by as something someone else will do.

It is our national shame that we men have also passed this obligation onto a female class of warriorettes, calling it business as usual. Contrary to the official p.c. version, combat is no place for a woman since they are incapable of the extreme hardships of the physical reality of ground combat. We accept women because we have not fought a real war since Vietnam, and what we now call combat is naught but a shadow of the reality.

Can anyone envision women in the defense of Corregidor, or on the Bataan Death March? What about the Battle of the Bulge or storming the heights of Pointe du Hoc? How about the retrograde from the Chosin Reservoir? So why do we persist in the fiction that we can function as a combat entity? This is nothing but an official snow job. It's Ranger-simple: Defending the U.S. in combat is a man's job, despite any Lara Croftian hype to the contrary.

Ranger is thankful his fate never took him on a death march, before a wave of human attacks or to combat in frozen countries. The courage of those that carried those actions was so daunting that it is difficult to even weigh one's more recent service against the gravity of their campaigns.

It is unimaginable the indignities and sacrifices of our former POW's or the desperation of their service in far-flung battlefields. Whether opposed to or favorable towards our present wars, we must humbly bow our heads for those that have passed before in the inexorable march of history.

The survival of the U.S. has been carried on the backs of Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors. Hopefully some day war will be a memory of a fighterly species evolved.

Hopefully.

[cross-posted @ milpub]

Disparity

Con Thien Air Strike

It never made sense to think of the fight
against terrorism as a "war" because
it's not possible to defeat a technique
or an idea by force of arms
--Down the Wrong Path, Eugene Robinson
_________________

If you believe women should be in the armed services, you need read no further.

Continuing from yesterday's post, Feel the Love, CSM King was also quoted as saying women should be allowed into front line combat units:

"Asked if women should be allowed into frontline combat units, [CSM King] said yes, but only if they meet the same standards as men (Drill Sergeant at Heart Ascends to army's Top Spot)."

CSM King is being disingenuous, as women in the military meet a lower physical training standard than men. On the Physical Proficiency Test, a male may max the 2-mile run at 13 minutes, whereas females have 15 minutes. Men must perform 71 push ups; women, 42. How are these "the same standards"?

Ranger has never accepted female service in deployable units. There is no place for them in my world view of combat. Do we want women participating in combat -- are we so desperate? Women can serve in phony wars, but a real shoot 'em up would be another story entirely. Eventually, we will fight a real war, and having women in combat roles would degrade our capabilities.

After watching a recent t.v. special on the Chosin Reservoir retreat (or, breakout from encirclement), Ranger considered the hypothetical role of women in such a scenario -- combat at its worst. If 13% of those at Chosin had been women, that could have been the formula for disaster.

Consider a woman on the foot march out of the frozen Chosin Reservoir -- could she carry a 24-pound machine gun, with needed equipment and ammunition? Or, will she get a free taxi ride? The fact is, real soldiering is beyond a woman's physical capabilities, and at times, even exceeds that of a man.

Woman simply cannot serve at the same levels as men as either troopers, combat- or combat support troops. They lack the physicality to withstand the brutality of extended ground combat. All that would be achieved by the inclusion of women into such scenarios would be to increase the mission load onto the male service members.

Imagine female soldiers supporting Task force Smith in 1950. Or fighting with Dean at Seoul. Or at Corregidor, or the Bataan Death March, or Normandy, or The Bulge. Or Khe Sanh, Con Thien or Hue. No, if women are to be in the military, their specialties should be Post-level, and they should remain non-deployable assets.

Look at the current war in Afghanistan: Do you see women on patrol or in the Combat Outposts, or any position overrun by the Taliban?

It is unfair for the Army or society to propagandize us to believe it could routinely be otherwise.

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