News,  Politics

Are you ready for your teenage daughter to be drafted into a combat role?

I said that this could happen, and now it has. The Army and Marine Corps chiefs are calling for women to register for the draft. The Washington Post reports:

The top officers in the Army and Marine Corps testified on Tuesday that they believe it is time for women to register for future military drafts, following the Pentagon’s recent decision to open all jobs in combat units to female service members.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the Army, and Gen. Robert B. Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, both said they were in favor of the change during an occasionally contentious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the forthcoming full integration of women in the military. They offered their opinions in response to a question from Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who said that she also is in favor of the change.

“Senator, it’s my personal view that, based on this lifting of restrictions… every American who’s physically qualified should register for the draft,” Neller said.

The main reason that we ought to oppose this is because men and women are different. I know it’s not popular to say so, but that doesn’t make it any less true. This used to be obvious to everyone, but now it’s not. We would do well to remind ourselves what our grandparents and generations before them have always known.

Not only are men and women different dispositionally, but they also have fairly profound physical differences. On average, women are weaker than men. And you don’t have to be a bible-believing conservative to acknowledge this (e.g., 1 Pet. 3:7). It’s an empirical fact observeable by anyone with eyes to see. This puts women at a distinct disadvantage in combat.

One recent item that illustrates the point. MMA fighter Tamika Brents describes what it was like to face a man in the ring:

I’ve never felt so overpowered in my life. I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night… I can only say I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female.

What happened to Tamika during her fight with this man?

What Brents reportedly experienced at Fox’s hands was a concussion and a broken orbital bone that required staples. In other words, this woman was savaged by an opponent that was genetically advantaged with a thicker bone structure, longer reach, and denser musculature—or, put more simply, was a man. Fox was able to do this despite hormone treatments that made him more feminine in certain aspects.

Can you imagine this experience played out countless times on distant battlefields in places where women are treated as little more than chattel?  You need to imagine it because it may be your daughter or mother or niece called up. Can you imagine sending your daughter or mother into the maw of deadly conflict with men who will do much worse to them than what happened to Tamika Brents in the MMA ring?

In a widely circulated letter, a female Marine named “Sentry” puts a fine point on it:

This country and our military are NOT prepared to see what the enemy will do to female POWs… How is our 24/7 news cycle going to cover a captured, raped, mutilated woman? After the first one, how are the men in the military going to treat their female comrades?… Men in the military will move heaven and earth to protect women, never mind what it does to the mission. I present you with Exhibit A: Jessica Lynch. Male lives will be lost trying to protect their female comrades. And the people of the US are NOT, based on the Jessica Lynch episode, prepared to treat a female POW the same way they do a man.

I know that many women have served admirably in our military. And there are certainly some who are physically exceptional and who may show some aptitude and interest in combat. But that’s just it. They tend to be exceptional. They are not the norm. And opening the draft to all women and potentially exposing all women to combat service is treating the exception as if it’s the norm. This is absurd and dangerous.

In addition to these issues, there is the very real possibility that physical requirements will have to be lowered in order to achieve the egalitarian ideal of women in combat units. If this happens (and many believe that it certainly will), our force will be weakened as a result. This too is absurd and dangerous.

At the end of the day, this issue is irreducibly moral. It goes to the heart of what kind of people we want to be. Are we really so beholden to feminist propaganda that we are willing to send our daughters and mothers to be ground up by the rigors of a combat unit? I hope not.

Men ought to bear the burdens of combat. We are all diminished by foisting this burden on our mothers and daughters and nieces. We can do better. We must do better.

11 Comments

  • Jay Miller

    The real concern I have is that the military cannot guarantee the safety of the women it already has in place. If I had daughters, the last place I would want them to be is in harms way both from the enemy and from some superior on her own side using his authority to get what he wants and to silence her if she reports it. If any private corporation were to allow sexual harassment and abuse like the military does, that company would be drowning in lawsuits. So let’s just say NO to this crazy idea.

  • buddyglass

    So much to unpack here:

    “The main reason that we ought to oppose this is because men and women are different. I know it’s not popular to say so, but that doesn’t make it any less true. This used to be obvious to everyone, but now it’s not.”

    Yes, men and women are different. Nobody disputes that. Moreover, it is not unpopular to say that men and women are different. What is unpopular is to argue that because men and women are different that women should be categorically excluded from certain arenas on the basis of their being women and not some practical set of criteria (such as, for instance, a given woman not meeting physical requirements).

    I would absolutely support my daughter being required to register for the draft. That’s because I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t meet the physical requirements for combat deployment and, as such, she would be extremely unlikely to be drafted. Or, if she were, she would be asked to serve in some capacity other than combat.

  • Andrew Alladin

    Once again we see conservatives and Christians coming to rescue liberals from the consequences of their bad ideas. This policy was designed with no regards to military realities but instead as part of the stupid War on Women meme. The Democrat party gets all the credit for this bold victory over the Last Bastion of Male Privilege while opponents (Republicans) look like Old, Out-of-Touch, Fuddy-Duddies from the Leave It To Beaver 1950s.

    The proponents of these ideas deserve to have them fail in practice because they refused to heed both ancient wisdom and biological evidence about sex differences.

    Conservatives opposing the role of women in combat would reap all of the bad publicity while Democrats suffer none of the consequences of bad policy. That’s how things usually work in matters like these. Sorry to be political but I see a setup waiting to happen.

    • Ian Shaw

      So conservatives should state the obvious objection, then be quiet and wait for liberals to fall on their sword (this idea), don’t rescue them and the ridicule how horrible of an idea this is when it blows up in their face?

      I’d be ok with that.

    • Jay R. Walker

      I thought so, too. Until the Republican debate. None of the Republicans opposed the mandate for young women to register for the draft!!!
      Now, we’re in a situation where Hillary Clinton can swoop in and make the most sane statement on women in combat (voluntarily) vs. drafting all of them (mandatory). If Hillary was smart, that’s exactly what she would do, and shame the Republican men (unless Carly beats her to it).

  • Christiane Smith

    I am for the draft without the unfair exceptions for the wealthy and the privileged which we have seen used in the past. I am not for using the threat of a universal draft politically. You can look at our military and know that they ARE the best in the world, ten times over (my son says ‘a thousand times over’) and you can know that women play a part in the strength of our military. The education and training involves interviewing and testing to find out the strengths of service people.

    Our American women are NOT to be taken for granted. My niece, who is a Lt. Cmdr. in the Navy can wear a formal evening gown and diamond clips in her blond hair and play a piano sonata with grace;
    and then she can also intubate a dying soldier in Afghanistan and save his life.

    We are to celebrate God’s gifts. My talented niece who was raised in the Church has done this. With grace all things are possible. Let your daughters know that they too are the beneficiaries of God’s gifts and that they have an obligation to Him to develop these talents and to use them to His glory. They deserve the dignity of your respect.

  • crosshugger

    Doubt if you would see this if obama wasn’t running a not so great social experiment on the military. He is doing everything he can to destabilize the military.Thanks to all who voted for him and those that stayed home. You got what you wanted, another king.
    How does Israel do it? They are surrounded by nasty enemies but their woman serve. They carry weapons just like their male peers.

  • ian Shaw

    This country is already ok with murdering unborn humans. They’ll yield nothing to woman being slaughtered on the battlefield.

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