by Andy Weddington
Thursday, 19 April 2012
"History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security." Phyllis Schlafly
About a month ago commentary addressed rumor floating around the retired Marine community that women would soon undergo formal infantry training.
Following is link to that commentary:
http://acoloneloftruth.blogspot.com/2012/03/destroying-marine-corps-women-in-combat.html
Included in that commentary is link (YouTube) to compelling, powerful, testimony offered by General Robert H. Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1991, warning about the dire outcome of assigning women to ground combat roles. He said, reflecting on his 41 years of Marine Corps service, "It'll destroy the Marine Corps. Simple at that."
General Barrow died three and a half years ago. It's surely a blessing the highly decorated combat veteran of three wars is not around to bear witness to his worst fears, maybe nightmares, becoming real.
This morning a reader of this forum sent me the following link, confirming the rumor true, with the remark, "The end is near."
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2012/04/marine-corps-women-infantry-combat-dunford-amos-041812/
After reading and momentarily mulling over the article, I sent a short reply, "No, you're dead wrong. It's over!"
And that bothersome conclusion stems from service as a Marine infantryman and, moreover, respecting the wisdom of a remarkable Marine, a general officer and giant of our Corps, who knew exactly what he was talking about.
Want to read a riveting, sobering, account about the physical, and mental, demands of ground combat? 'With the Old Breed' by E. B. Sledge. Sledge's book is considered the best ever penned about ground combat. The author, an enlisted Marine infantryman who fought in the South Pacific during WWII, gave an inscribed signed copy to General Barrow while he was serving as Commandant. As fate would have it, I saw and handled that book, recently. It triggered a cold chill. And the mere thought of it still does. As does the very idea of women being assigned to ground combat training and units.
So to close with something to ponder on the grandest of scales, 'Should General Barrow prove correct in his prognostication, is the security of the United States of America degraded?'
Post Script
There's plenty to opine about but not now. Your thoughts welcome.
After reading and momentarily mulling over the article, I sent a short reply, "No, you're dead wrong. It's over!"
And that bothersome conclusion stems from service as a Marine infantryman and, moreover, respecting the wisdom of a remarkable Marine, a general officer and giant of our Corps, who knew exactly what he was talking about.
Want to read a riveting, sobering, account about the physical, and mental, demands of ground combat? 'With the Old Breed' by E. B. Sledge. Sledge's book is considered the best ever penned about ground combat. The author, an enlisted Marine infantryman who fought in the South Pacific during WWII, gave an inscribed signed copy to General Barrow while he was serving as Commandant. As fate would have it, I saw and handled that book, recently. It triggered a cold chill. And the mere thought of it still does. As does the very idea of women being assigned to ground combat training and units.
So to close with something to ponder on the grandest of scales, 'Should General Barrow prove correct in his prognostication, is the security of the United States of America degraded?'
Post Script
There's plenty to opine about but not now. Your thoughts welcome.
Posts
2 comments:
The key to this entire article is the LAST sentence: "Working in support roles, 144 women have been killed in action and 865 injured since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq..."
The problem with that sentence is the first four words: many of these females killed and injured were not in support roles - they were on patrol alongside their male counterparts to speak to female Iraqis and Afghanis.
Placing females directly into combat units is not a good idea, but they are used to augment our combat units. Training females to survive in the same combat environment as males is the only moral thing to do. We are not fighting WWII or even Vietnam on today's battlefield. We owe it to all our Marines to train them for the battles they WILL fight, not the battles we have fought.
I don't agree with the last comment. Anytime you have mixed gender units you have problems with sexual realtionships. Now i don't take issue with having female troops, for the sole purpose in dealing with the muslum women who are the possible enemy. But if you're saying female troops are just as good as male troops, then why don't you seperate them, in order to avoid these relationships, therefore the men concentrate better on tgheir jobs, and the same for the females.
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