In 1989, I attended the U.S. Army Primary Leadership Development Course at Fort Hood, Texas, a requirement for newly-promoted sergeants. PLDC equipped new E-5’s with the knowledge and skills needed to function at the squad leader level, like drill and ceremony (handling and marching a squad formation), inspections, uniform regulations, counseling and discipline and things like that, and the course included a one-week field training exercise that complemented and reinforced the classroom training. One of the things I remember about the FTX (as it was called) was how I was ordered to carry the squad’s M60 machine gun on the last day of the exercise because one of the females whose turn it was complained that it was too heavy. I can’t remember her name but I remember that she was a short young woman, perhaps 5’2”, and carrying a 23 lb. machine gun and 300 rounds of ammunition in the dusty Texas heat was undoubtedly a physical challenge for her, so ordering me to carry the weapon in her stead was on its face a wise decision. But she was neither sick nor injured and in the post-modern military, women were supposed to be equal with men; gallantry and discretion were anachronisms, even insulting. Yet there in May 1989, reality cast the deciding vote – a short woman didn’t want to carry a heavy load, and so she didn’t.
Women in the military has always been a touchy subject. Women are indeed loyal, intelligent, dedicated, patriotic and brave (CPT Linda Bray of the 988th MP Company led an assault on enemy forces during Operation Just Cause, probably the first woman to lead U.S. troops in combat, and CPL Leigh Ann Hester was awarded the Silver Star for her actions in Iraq in 2005, the first woman ever cited for valor in close quarters combat). They have suffered indignity and abuse – even now, Congress is investigating a wide-ranging scandal at Lackland AFB in which dozens of Air Force instructors were sexually abusing their female trainees – yet they have also prostituted themselves, used their femininity to gain preferential treatment, joined the military to look for a husband and splintered unit morale. Case in point: While I was a platoon sergeant in Korea, I had the unpleasant duty of escorting one of my female NCO’s to her apartment in Anjong-ni, the ville outside Camp Humphreys, to retrieve some of her belongings and to visit her son. She had lived at the apartment with her husband and child until said husband, an NCO in another company on the base, had filed for divorce out of sheer audacity – he was engaged in a torrid affair with a female lieutenant in my own company and rather than wait to be divorced, he decided to file first, and for sole custody, to boot. The respective company commanders, instead of busting a fellow officer for fraternizing with a married enlisted man and precipitating a divorce, ordered my female NCO to move into the barracks and to avoid the downtown apartment unless I escorted her on prearranged visits. Unjust hardly captures this situation; a marriage was ruined and company morale disappeared because some little homewrecker couldn’t control herself.
Priest-King’s decision to allow women to serve in combat units is consistent with his goal of radically transforming America. Having already overturned the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military in 2011, having gutted the Pentagon budget by half a trillion dollars in 2012, having nominated an anti-military Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, he now lifts the restriction on women in combat such that by the end of his Presidency, the American military will be unrecognizable. No longer the enclave of cigar-chomping, bemedalled he-men, bristling with bombers, aircraft carriers and tanks, the American military will be smaller, weaker and poorer, a military in which homosexuality is protected and women can serve in the artillery whether or not they’re qualified. Yes, I said it: “whether or not they’re qualified.” As an honorably discharged veteran with twenty years under my belt, as a former Master Instructor at the U.S. Army Intelligence School, I can tell you that if push comes to shove, the fighting services will lower their standards in order to recruit enough women in the combat arms. It won’t matter that doing so will be dangerous, even disastrous to our national security. The only thing that will matter is upholding Priest-King’s policy, and if you think I’m crazy, then explain what happened in Benghazi, or in Fast and Furious.
There are women who can run like the wind, who can jump clear over my head and who can lift a car. There are men who are overweight, who can’t do one push-up and who wheeze walking up the stairs. My guess is, though, that our military is going to suffer for Priest-King’s hubris, and then our country, and then it will be too late: I’m not carrying a machine gun for anyone, anymore.
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