Pentagon Wants Women In Combat

http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/12/9/133043.shtml

Pentagon Wants Women In Combat

Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Friday, Dec. 10, 2004

Elaine Donnelly: "yet more women will die – or be captured and possibly raped."


The Pentagon is implementing new military plans that will make the concept of women in combat a reality.

The Center for Military Readiness warned this week that the Pentagon is flouting policies mandated by Congress in an effort to implement politically correct policies that increase the number of uniformed women put into harm’s way.

Others suggest the Pentagon tinkering with rules forbidding women in combat is a clear effort to increase boots on the ground as the troop-strapped DoD faces manpower shortages in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe.

Seven female U.S. soldiers have thus far been killed in combat in Iraq and many more have been wounded. The question is, why? Aren't women supposed to be kept out of units that may see combat?

Female combat pilots and military police (patrolling the streets of Baghdad, for instance) are a recognized part of Congress’s loosening of the restriction on the roles females can play in combat operations, even though there remains fixed in the rule book a regulation that exempts women from direct ground combat units that engage in deliberate offensive action against the enemy.

Established by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin on Jan. 13, 1994, the so-called “Aspin Rules” exempt female soldiers from assignments in smaller direct ground combat (DGC) units that engage in deliberate offensive action against the enemy, and from units that collocate with them.

So far, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has not approved any change in the Aspin rules.

However, the DoD has already started to sidestep the exemption of female soldiers from the flagged assignments in smaller direct ground combat (DGC) units that engage in deliberate offensive action against the enemy, and from units that collocate with them.

The Pentagon's modus operandi to skirt the rules: attach Forward Support Companies (FSCs) and their inevitable contingent of female soldiers to bigger support brigades – a separation the Army contends does not violate the hard-and-fast policy.

What’s more, the Army is mulling the idea of imbedding mixed-sex FSCs into actual combat brigades.

But as to this percolating plan, DoD officials concede it would violate the Pentagon policy against collocating women-included units and would require notification to Congress.

What really brings the issue to a head is the inevitable military personnel numbers game.

According to a Washington Times report, last May the Army told Pentagon officials in a special report that if it was forced to keep the vital FSCs all-male, it would simply not have enough soldiers.

“Army manpower cannot support elimination of female soldiers from all units designated to be unit of action elements,” the Army report concluded.

Excluding women “creates an immediate personnel readiness impact: issue of insufficient male soldiers in inventory to fill forward support companies ... Creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force.”

"It doesn't seem to be a big deal," retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, who tracks military issues for the Women's Research and Education Institute, told the Associated Press.

"We could not do what needs to be done over there without women. If there needs to be a body search of an Iraqi woman, there's no way an American male could do that."

In a recent statement by the Army to The Washington Times, officials said further, “The Army takes seriously its obligations to develop planned force structure changes.


Unit of Action


"As such, the ongoing development of the new Army Brigade Combat Team, otherwise known as a Unit of Action, is taking place with the continued consultation of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the awareness of Congress.

"The Army will remain in compliance with public law and DOD policy regarding the assignment of women soldiers.”

Technically true.

However, writes Mackubin Thomas Owens, an associate dean of academics and professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., in the National Review, the "units of action" are not supposed to have women in them.

But they do anyway, almost surreptitiously.

"Army commanders," he writes, "have simply transferred forward-support companies from the maneuver battalions into "gender-integrated" brigade-support battalions, thereby avoiding the requirement to report the policy change to Congress.

"Of course, no matter where the FSCs appear on a table of organization, the fact is, they will live and work with the maneuver battalions all the time."

In other words, no matter what label the Army uses, units with women in them will be around combat constantly.

Another strong critic of all the DoD maneuvering, Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, says that if new DoD plans on the drawing boards go forward, yet more women will die – or be captured and possibly raped.

Donnelly's group has already publicized the fate of Private Jessica Lynch, who was captured by enemy combatants during the operation to liberate Iraq. Lynch's doctors claimed she was repeatedly sodomized by her Iraqi captors.

But Donnelly, the former member (1984-86) of the Pentagon’s Defense advisory Committee on Women in the Services and the 1992 Presidential Commission on the assignment of Women in the Armed Services, has been monitoring what she perceives as a steady and dangerous blurring of the already vague guidelines for keeping female soldiers from the thick of battle, and agrees with Owens' analysis.

Attaching Forward Support Companies (FSCs) and their inevitable contingent of female soldiers to bigger support brigades is a ruse to skirt the rules, Donnelly charges. “They are eliminating the collocation rule.”

In a letter of complaint sent to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, Donnelly states: “The Army’s most recent plans ... would force female soldiers into support units that are organic to and collocated with combined [unit of action] infantry/armor battalions. These plans, which are already in progress, constitute violation of current Defense Department regulation.”

Furthermore, Donnelly has already collected 20,000 signatures on a petition protesting the DoD initiatives.

“If we are opposed to violence against women at the Air Force and other service academies, why all of a sudden if violence happens at the hands of the enemy, we say it doesn’t matter?” Donnelly said.

“Female soldiers are not eligible for assignment to infantry and armor maneuver battalions, or to organic, collocated sub-units of the maneuver battalions. The Army has no power or authorization to change DoD rules unilaterally, without the approval of the Secretary of Defense,” she added.

The Army submitted lists of positions to be opened or closed under the Aspin rules, and they were approved with a memo signed on July 28, 1994, by Aspin’s successor, William J. Perry.

Since that time career fields below the brigade level in the infantry and armor have been designated under the direct combat probability coding (DCPC) system to be “P1,” meaning all male.

Military occupational specialties (MOSs) coded “P2” (military police, for instance) remain open to both male and female soldiers.

Meanwhile, those intrepid women of the “P2” variety carry on with little thought other than getting their jobs done.

One, Sgt. Erin Edwards, 23, often travels in armed convoys as part of her work as an aide to a commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit.

Sgt. Edwards left her 3-year-old son and infant daughter with her in-laws to serve in Iraq because her husband serves in the Army in South Korea.

"I would love to be at home with my kids, but I'm doing this for them. I wouldn't want to do anything else," Sgt. Edwards told the AP.

Another, Marine Lance Cpl. Kay Barnes, is a 30-year-old reservist originally from Richmond Hill, Ga., and a crew chief on a UH-1N Iroquois “Huey” gunship serving in Afghanistan:

“They told me when I checked into my squadron they didn’t care if I were male or female, as long as I could carry a 50-caliber,” said Barnes. The GAU-16 50-caliber machine gun weighs approximately 65 pounds.

“I didn’t expect a vacation out here. I expect to perform as part of a team and accomplish missions as they arrive,” Barnes recently explained in an official “DoD Defend America” press release. “I didn’t see (myself) sitting around while my country was going to war without me.”

In choosing to join the marines, she said she wanted combat. “As far as I’m concerned, the bad guys have it coming,” she said. “If it’s in the best interests of America, then it’s in my best interests.”

This is the sort of sentiment expressed by many of the military’s women who will be around the combat zone; they feel they are as “tough as nails” and “bad as the boys.” But does America want its women in combat situations? It seems we’re saying no publicly and through Congress, but actions currently speak louder than words.

 

If they perform as well as the men, I see no reason they should be exempt from combat...

 

Think about what this is going to do for the American society when these soldiers start returning home. We're gonna have a bunch of freaked out PTST women as well as men. This hasn't ever really occured before, so the long term effects will be very interesting to see.

 

shouldn't we be complaining about putting people in harm's way? about unjustified war? it shouldn't be about gender. women can perform as well as men and there are studies that suggest that women have a higher pain-threshold than many men.

protect people for being people, not for their gender or their sex.

 

exactly..... is this a gender specified issue?? are the people complaining about women getting killed in combat just women, or is it men?? if its women complaining, then how hypocritical. they want equality, but when it comes to combat, then they think the men should only be used as soldiers. if its men complaining, then how fuckin sexist... they all should be equal. and it shouldnt be based on gender, period.

 

I have no real opinion on women serving. If they want to serve, then they should be allowed to. I don't think they should be made to serve, however.

Really, I don't think anyone should serve.

But that doesn't have to do with why I posted this....

The real reason I posted this is to illustrate how desperate they are for troops, that they are even considering this. First they enact a backdoor draft through Stop-Loss. Now they are talking about women serving in combat. What will it be next?

I don't need to be given the third-degree. The reason I posted this is to see what other people have to say. I never expressed any feelings about this article when I posted it, so don't make it out to be that way.

I am against everything about the war in Iraq, but people need to be aware of how grim the situation is. I keep hearing people say they'll never bring back the draft. Well, these people don't know what they are talking about. These are the warning signs.

 

I think this is a gender issue because men aren't raped (for the most part) when they're taken hostage...

 

men are raped

 

Yes, yes we are

 

I don't think it is as much about preformance as it is about the way women POW's are likely to be treated. I am not so opposed to women in combat, as long as these women were well aware of what they were signing up for. If they went into the army being told they will not be put in combat situations the military needs to honor that.

 

I see no reason why an active duty member of the military shouldn't be sent before say pulling in retired or even drafting someone else. I completely disagree with this war as well as many other things to do with our government. But, the way I figure it, they joined up and if they're standing on the sidelines as an active duty person spouting all the usual rather than standing up against it, then they should be afforded the opportunity to back it up regardless of whether they're male or female. Personally I wish there was no war, I wish we lived in a much more enlightened world, but until that day I'm tired of the hippocrisy. If you can stand there and support it, then by all means you should be the ones on the frontlines. Just my two cents.

 

I don't mind women in combat as long as they have elected to do so. Maybe that would force people to rethink this and other wars. People do seem to have more difficulty with women involved in violence. Perhaps children should also be allowed in combat. J/K.
I'm thoroughly against this and all wars so I also don't think anyone should fight. I won't.

 

First woman to be sent if any to the front lines should be Condi Rice. Now THAT might get Washington to reconsider its wars!

 

I think women should be allowed to serve, if they want to...but if they are captured and repeatedly raped, don't come crying to me, because I'll just say I told you so. Everyone knows it'll eventually happen.

 

Yes, if women want to serve, let them. By all means, give people what they want, even if what they want is going to hurt them. Sometimes, you can't help people's stupidity and ignorance. And, you want to tell me that America is innocent? While it's government murders thousands of people in the middle east, and the average america is still out their consuming like a pig, not giving a damn in the slightest about the world in general. AND YOU DARE TO TELL ME THAT WE ARE INNOCENT? Wake the fuck up. Lose your naivity, and your pity, too.

 

Yes! Absolutely. What a way to lead by example ... or for that matter, the twins.

 

Starbucks AND 7-Eleven coffee is all shit. DO NOT DRINK IT! THERE'S POISEN IN THE COFFEE!

 

Weren't Woman already in combat? What about jessica lynch?

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

Women are definitely in combat zones, but they have always served in non-combat capacities (e.g. supply and support). This is not to say that women do not see combat, it is just that their units are non-combat units.

 

I agree with Sera Michele and soalrebel51 on this, it's a given certainty that women will not be treated as men are if taken as POW's, take a lesson from history in which female POW's taken by Japanese shoulders in WWII were often used as sex slaves both inside the internment camps and secondered to outposts. There are still Chinese women alive in China who will bare testament. But I digress. One thing I think we need to be careful of is assuming women can't do as men. But if this is the pattern we should expect, then I'm glad I'm not in the US, I'd hate to see a return to the draft, like you lot had to suffer during the Vietnam fiasco. A war that unfortunately provides comparison between the Kissinger, Nixons ideologically and politically motivated agressiveness and the Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush triumverat.