Ryan Smith, a Marine who served in Iraq as an infantryman and is now a lawyer, weighs in on the administration's decision to place women on the frontlines:
America has been creeping closer and closer to allowing women in combat, so Wednesday's news that
the decision has now been made is not a surprise. It appears that female soldiers will be allowed on the battlefield but not in the infantry. Yet it is a distinction without much difference: Infantry units serve side-by-side in combat with artillery, engineers, drivers, medics and others who will likely now include women. The Pentagon would do well to consider realities of life in combat as it pushes to mix men and women on the battlefield.
Many articles have been written regarding the relative strength of women and the possible effects on morale of introducing women into all-male units. Less attention has been paid to another aspect: the absolutely dreadful conditions under which grunts live during war.
Most people seem to believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have merely involved driving out of a forward operating base, patrolling the streets, maybe getting in a quick firefight, and then returning to the forward operating base and its separate shower facilities and chow hall. The reality of modern infantry combat, at least the portion I saw, bore little resemblance to this sanitized view.
I served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a Marine infantry squad leader. We rode into war crammed in the back of amphibious assault vehicles. They are designed to hold roughly 15 Marines snugly; due to maintenance issues, by the end of the invasion we had as many as 25 men stuffed into the back. Marines were forced to sit, in full gear, on each other's laps and in contorted positions for hours on end. That was the least of our problems.
The invasion was a blitzkrieg. The goal was to move as fast to Baghdad as possible. The column would not stop for a lance corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, or even a company commander to go to the restroom. Sometimes we spent over 48 hours on the move without exiting the vehicles. We were forced to urinate in empty water bottles inches from our comrades.
Many Marines developed dysentery from the complete lack of sanitary conditions. When an uncontrollable urge hit a Marine, he would be forced to stand, as best he could, hold an MRE bag up to his rear, and defecate inches from his seated comrade's face.
You should read the rest.
The forces of 'progress' are advancing and the distinctions between men and women are continuing to blur. Many will shrug in apathy, seduced by the shallowness that is gender egalitarianism but there will be a price to pay.
I'm reminded, and I'll assume this will be a stretch for most, of the feminist's drive to cross the barriers in place preventing women from becoming Catholic priests. Those barriers, according to Catholic teaching, were placed there by God.
Mary Rousseau explains:
We have not lost the principle that all roles and actions which women are physically and psychologically capable of performing should be open to us. But that principle has to be coupled with the sacramental nature of human sexuality. For the priest, as “another Christ”, must be able to re-present, in what he is as a person, the initiating love of the Son of God who is also the son of Mary. He must, in other words, be a “he”, not a “she”. His body must have a masculine nuptial meaning. He must have male perceptions and judgments, male love, male personal identity. A woman cannot, by reason of her physical and psychological makeup, stand in the place of the Bridegroom in the Eucharist, any more than a wife can exchange roles with her husband in the act of making love. The question of women’s ordination is not, then, a question of equality, of justice or rights, or of roles in a social organization. It is a question of what is and what is not ontologically possible, given the sacramental symbolism of human lovemaking and of the Eucharist. Were a woman to play the role of the priest in the Eucharist — and role-playing is all that she could do — the effective power of the sacramental symbols would fail. Words would be spoken, gestures performed, but nothing real would happen. [24]
Jesus’ selection of male apostles to be his priests was not, then, a culture-bound, sexist act but a fully enlightened choice that suited his sacramental purpose (DVW, pp. 87-90). His establishment of a male priesthood was no denigration of women. We are still the religious equals of men, equally dignified, equally beloved as persons, equally capable, with our feminine primacy in loving, of the holiness to which all of us, men and women, are called. In fact, holy married women are models for priests in their search for holiness as celibate men.
The analogy between religiously equal male and female per sons casts light on other feminist demands for equality with men in social, economic, and political life as well as in ecclesial roles other than the ordained priesthood. For religion, in the Holy Father’s thought, is not just one area of human life among others; it is the basis of economic, political, social, and ecclesial life. All of human life, all of human action, is meant to bring us into communion with each other so that we might thereby enjoy communion with the Blessed Trinity. Thus all of human life is religious and must be governed by the laws of love. There is no room for the slightest sexist discrimination anywhere in human life. But the equality of men and women is an analogous one, so that the differentiation of the sexes must not be lost, not in any of our behavior, any of our laws, any of our customs and traditions.
I highly recommend reading the entire piece.
We are losing the differentiation of the sexes. This can no longer be denied nor should it be ignored. Yet another barrier has fallen and society will pay the price.
Society is paying the price.
All I can think to do is pray.
