The recent repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" restriction on military service is an important advance both for national security and for civil rights. As President Obama said in heralding repeal, "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed."
But wait. In the military, the exercise of these values is still officially limited by gender. It's time to lift the remaining gender restrictions on military service, too.
In little-noticed action in December, both the Military Leadership Diversity Commission established by Congress in 2008 and the nearly 60-year-old Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services recommended just that. Both panels based their recommendations on findings that the current restrictions on women's military service are both difficult to apply and outmoded, given the nature of warfare today and the positive performance of military women in a variety of vital combat roles.
In the early 1990s, Congress lifted the last remaining statutory restrictions on women's military service, opening up combat aircraft and combat ships to women. In addition to complying with the new law, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin in 1994 expanded military policy even further, opening up tens of thousands of positions previously closed to women and ordering that only "direct ground combat" positions remain closed. He defined "direct ground combat" as "engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force's personnel... [It] takes place well forward on the battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by fire, maneuver, or shock effect."
Under the 1994 directive, the services are permitted to keep certain positions closed to women in limited circumstances beyond "direct ground combat." In the intervening years, however, the services have opened some of these positions to women as well, including submarine service in 2010. Moreover, although the 1994 directive does not permit women to be "assigned" to direct ground combat units, commanders in the field have discretion to "attach" women to such units. As several press reports have confirmed, many commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are executing such attachments in order to best use their available talent. The media have reported that women have been included in field artillery units patrolling an extremely dangerous section of Baghdad, although they could not officially be assigned to those units. However, these "attachments" may not be noted in a service woman's record, making it hard for her to get proper credit for her combat-related service or to later get treatment for combat-related conditions such as PTSD.
Whatever may have been the basis for the direct ground combat rule, it is no longer warranted. As the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate, defined fields of battle in which certain troops are "well forward" no longer exist. Every service member in these theaters is exposed to "hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force's personnel." Moreover, as women have moved into combat positions, including through their "attachment" to ground combat units, they have repeatedly proved their mettle. As Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November, "no matter how many doors we have opened for women in the military... there are still too many others yet closed... Today, women are... serving magnificently all over the world in all sorts of ways. More critically, in these wars of ours, they've served and sacrificed and led every bit as much and every bit as capably as any man out there. Well over 200,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, demonstrating tremendous resilience, adaptability and capacity for innovation."
In 2006, rejecting efforts to enshrine in statute a limited combat role for women, Congress required only that the secretary of defense provide 30 days notice of any change in current policy to both the House and Senate. As a matter of national security and civil rights, it's time for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to give that notice, eliminating all restrictions on women's military service. Only then will, in President Obama's words, the "sacrifice, valor and integrity" of military service not be defined by gender.
Nancy Duff Campbell is Co-President of the National Women's Law Center and Vice-Chair of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
Women can do fine in combat as long as the physical standards are kept. Yes, that means combat arms units will always tend to be more skewed towards males, since females will not, in general, be as hardy, but for those that can, then let them do.
And, yes-- I am an Iraq vet, Combat Engineer for the curious, and yes I worked with female soldiers over there and they did fine. It isn't fair that they aren't allowed to get combat time accredited for their work.
I talked with a former naval aviator who had deployed with women fighter pilots, and he stated that many of the women pilots got pregnant on a cruise, and had to be shipped out off of his carrier. That put an additional strain on his unit, and made a male pilot have to deploy to take the place of the woman. That meant that the male pilot got less time at home, and disrupted the unit. The Navy refuses to keep such stats since it will reflect poorly on the idea of women combat pilots.
The military MUST discriminate to field the best fighting force. Those who are too tall, too short, too fat, disabled, are supposed to be discriminated against. The RAF had one of its leading aces who had NO LEGS at all in WWII. Does that mean that we should let those with no legs be a fighter pilot now? The RAF was so desperate that they allowed this.
Now, there's some controversy about women 'on the battlefield'. But, in times past, women have had to be proficient in handling firearms. In the past, women had to know how to handle a gun or rifle, to defend home and hearth while the man of the house was away. There was the odd squirrel or jackrabbit that had to land in the stewpot to feed the family, and taking game takes steady hands.
Women are very good at some things, including detail, and to be a good sharpshooter takes those kinds of skills. Theoretically, if you had more women with good visual acuity and reflexes on the battlefield, maybe those battles would be a lot shorter. Women also tend to be shorter on bluster and bravado and heroics, good at planning, also good managers of both people, and resources. Maybe a good asset, near/at the front lines, after all.
War is war, and if we ever have a REAL one, we'll need everybody that doesn't have a bona-fide medical excuse. So, it's better maybe if all this gets sorted out NOW, because there's really no telling what the future will bring. Interesting times we live in, 21st century's a brand-new ballgame.
Then there is the question of male vs female attraction and modesty questions. That will not be conducive to unit cohesion when the inevitable happens and some troops couple up. I hope that the women who are assigned to combat units won't mind when they get stripped naked in front of the rest of the unit if they are wounded. The one nice thing is that giving mouth to mouth rescusitation will sure be nicer with a woman than another guy.
I'd replace push-ups, sit-ups, etc with something like a timed full gear obstacle course.
The field doesn't care. about men and women having different builds. The standards exist to measure their ability do the job they're in. If the standards women have is all that's required for everyone to do that job, then men should be held to the same standard or vice versa. Carving out exceptions or doing the PC route as you stated is simpling ignoring the reality of what the job requires.
Pick one of the following:
The job dictates what fitness standards everyone is held to.
Fitness standards are relative and only show that the person is "fit", but doesn't have relevance regarding the job the individual is assigned.
The enemy can and already has taken females prisoners and with threats like suicide bombers, missile attacks and the targeting of rear echelon soldirers there is no real safe haven in the service for women anyways.
I think in 2011 we are mature enough as a society to have men and women serve together equally and take the same risks together as long as they both volunteer knowing the risks. The thought that it is somehow more heinous for a woman to be tortured or killed than a man is actually quite ridiculous and sexist. Women are not sacred and either they have EQUAL rights or they dont. Women should be free to perform ANY job they have the physical and mental qualifications for.
I do however feel that women that get preganant and choose to give birth in their first 6 years of service should be discharged. Its military service not a breeding support center and its not right that women that havent really even earned their training are allowed to take months out of their first term to raise families. I knew one woman that had 3 kids and never acually learned her job because of it, that too is simply unfair to men because they get no time off when their wives are having children.