The Family Research Council offers important commentary, some sentences of which I have highlighted.
In
another triumph of political correctness over common sense, the
Pentagon is lifting its ban on women in combat and direct combat units.
Senior officials leaked the news yesterday during the House's Benghazi
hearings, making the timing even more suspect. If Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta was hoping to distract the country from Hillary Clinton's
Libyan testimony, he succeeded. According to leaders, even Congress
wasn't warned. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the many politicians
taken by surprise, was stunned by the policy's lack of vetting.
"Congress should be consulted about that," he said.
"I think that's a historic policy of the Department of Defense. There
are physical differences of the sexes... It's a major decision and I'd
like to see how they came to it, what their recommendations are, and who
makes it."
No one is suggesting that women are not capable or have not served
their country with distinction. They are and have. But much like the
plan to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the risks of this integration (physical stamina and injury, emotional stress, sexual assault, pregnancy, adultery, unit readiness, family breakdown)
seem secondary to the administration's liberal agenda. How much
national security is our President willing to forgo to promote this kind
of progressive feminism? While liberals celebrate the decision--and the
military's desk workers advise it--some active-duty women insist the
change wasn't something they asked for. "Who is driving this agenda?"
asked Marine Captain and combat-tested Katie Petronio. "I am not
personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the
doors of Congress claiming their inability to serve in the infantry
violates their right to equality. Shockingly this isn't even a
congressional agenda." In fact, she said, "it's very surprising to see
that none of the [decision-makers] are on active duty or have any recent
combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they
are attempting to change."
In an incredibly compelling article for the Marine Corps Gazette, Capt. Petronio says that while she was extremely successful during both combat tours, she is a shell of her former self. (And based on the nightmarish conditions Ryan Smith shares in the Wall Street Journal,
it's no wonder.) "Five years later, I am physically not the woman I
once was," (including a diagnosis of deployment-induced polycystic
ovarian syndrome), "and my views have greatly changed on the possibility
of women having successful long careers while serving in the infantry. I
can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just
emotion... that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate
women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a
colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for
females." Like us, she appreciates what the Pentagon is trying to do but
believes that diversity is not a military necessity. "Let's embrace our
differences to further hone in on the Corps' success instead of
dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda," she pleads.
Senior officials said
yesterday the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral
playing field." But as America's defense, shouldn't the goal be to have
the most lethal fighting force in the world? The military isn't--and
should never be--the great societal equalizer. Under this
administration, Pentagon bureaucrats have engaged in social experiments
with our troops on a massive scale--and risked the lives of countless
soldiers in the process. And what of the young girls who don't want to
go to war? Will they have a choice? Joe Carter, a Marine veteran and
former FRC employee, lamented this on First Things.
"Of course when the government begins to draft our daughters for
combat roles--and that day will certainly come--the children and
grandchildren of the egalitarian elite will be the ones to get
deferrals. Most of the men and women championing a woman's right to
choose combat have never served in the military and would certainly not
want their own daughters to join the infantry. They are concerned only
with choice and equality in the pristine abstract, rather than in the
bloody, concrete world of warfare... Men were created to be
self-sacrificial protectors of the family, and by extension, of the
nation. Forcing women into that role will not lead to more freedom but
rather to less equality, more violence toward women, and a general
degradation of humanity. As C.S. Lewis said, battles are ugly when women
fight. But societies that send their women off to war are even uglier.
In the last thirty years, we have watched as the world has
desperately tried to redefine the genders, gender roles, and even
marriage. But in the end, nothing humanity does--through medicine or
policy--can alter that fundamental truth: "male and female He created
them."