If we are to succeed, the military cannot fall prey to the increasingly politically correct world around it…
The army reported on Monday that they have integrated females into infantry training. The army brass presented a good deal of happy talk about how they have competent female drill instructors, female barracks, and the same great infantry training program. But despite all of the feel-good rhetoric, the first classes had very few female recruits and even fewer who passed the rigorous training program. This continues to show the fundamental fallacy of making policy choices based on political ideas and not accurate information.
It’s true that we live in a great age when women can be doctors, presidents, and priests, and I teach my daughter that she can be anything she wants. But despite those goals, there remain fundamental differences between men and women that make things like warfare difficult to envision for her and other females. Biologically, the average man is physically stronger than the average female. They have more muscle mass and are less likely to suffer repetitive stress injuries; as a result, wars have historically been the domain of men.
To date, the Marine Corps has been the only branch to study the effect of integrated units. They set up male-only units and then integrated units who went through the same training exercises over the course of four months. With sensors in their backpacks carefully calculating the aim of their shots in activities such as movement under load, accuracy in a live-fire attack, combat vehicle maintenance, and employment of weapon systems and combat vehicles, they found that male-only units vastly outperformed the gender-integrated units. Thus it should have been unsurprising to the Army that almost 40% of the females in their first integrated units couldn’t complete training.
One of the major arguments on top of vague notions of equality is that women have already served in combat, so they should continue to be allowed to serve in combat roles. Most of the women who fought in combat did so because a chaotic insurgency erased front lines, not because it was a deliberate policy choice based on sound information.
For example, early in the invasion of Iraq, the 507th Maintenance Company took several wrong turns that resulted in a devastating ambush. Many members of the 507th company died, and many more were taken captive. Reports initially said that PFC Jessica Lynch was only captured after emptying her rifle into the approaching enemy. It turns out that her vehicle crashed during the fight and she suffered severe injuries. Variations of her story were repeated throughout the decade-long insurgency. But simply receiving fire doesn’t qualify women for combat roles.
It sounds nice to proclaim your support for equality. But the basic biological fact dictates that men and women are not equal when performing in combat. The first integrated combat units are being trained by the Army, and the drawbacks of the plan (such as the high rate of female attrition) are evident. These units will be less effective in combat with dangerous consequences.
General George Marshall had the option of making radical changes to the army during his leadership. He declined because he felt it was unwise to make radical social changes that could undermine unit morale and performance during a war. During the long war on terror, it would be wise to consider the same dangers to unit morale and performance.
