While few are headlining it, I don't believe anyone of any true military
experience believes this latest move by SecDef Panetta and Gen. Dempsey -- excising the ban on females in combat -- is
anyone less than a continuing attempt to de-militarized the most effective
military on the planet, the military with the most experienced and most
recently blooded troops. The goal is surely a benign group of peaceful
men and women on whom you need not spend much money.
The
U.S. Marine Corps, I submit, will forever be the problem in accomplishing that
end. Everything about Marine Corps training is aimed at producing
warriors who break things and kill people. Unless things have radically
changed, even cooks and law clerks are taught hands-on tactics and how to call
in an air and artillery strikes. Individual leadership will forever chafe
against the socialists' commune military.
While both Panetta and Dempsey may feel this is a paradigm-breaking
decision, it merely shows how out of touch they actually are with the American
military and the U.S. Marine Corps in particular.
There were several occasions when I was in Iraq 2003-2004 as a federal
civilian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when we were under the
protection of uniformed U.S. Army, several times including and often led by
female soldiers. We usually traveled with contracted protection, but because
our group included an Army one-star, it was often active duty Army.
On
one occasion a convoy got hit in weather which meant no air support. The senior
soldier was a female Sergeant who took charge, deployed her troops,
counter-attacked and drove them off.
The
one that sticks in my mind is riding in the back seat of a Humvee accompanying
the one-star, with a female infantry in the front seat by the driver, she had
an M-4. I'm talking with her about her home life, husband, kids, she's softened
a bit and talking about home when suddenly a sedan of all males swung up close
on her side. Without missing a beat she hung halfway out the window, stuck that
M-4 up the driver's nose and in language a Marine would have understood told
him where the bear did it in the woods. He swung off and stopped, she sat
back down in her seat and picked right back up talking about home, hubby and
kids.
Point being, if you're well-trained, your training kicks in when you need
it, no matter the gender.
But
it goes back further than that. I wish I
could remember which Marine Corps Commandant was involved, but at some point
the Commandant was "reminded" by the Secretary of Defense that women
were not to be assigned to the battlefield. Seems to me it was either
Gen. Louis H. Wilson, Jr., or Gen. Paul X. Kelley. But their response was
to "remind" the Secretary of Defense that at no time had any women
Marines been assigned duty beyond the Final Protective Line, but that it was
CMC's prerogative to decide exactly where that FPL was located. I don't
see this latest SecDef decision usurping anymore of the Marine Commandant's
authority now than it did then.
As
much as the current crop of social experimenters are concerned, they would like
to see a kinder, gentler military; Marine Corps in particular. But I
submit that the rear rank Private's opinion remains golden. That is that
when the discussion is about anything beyond the Marine's mission, Marines
really don't give a sh*t.
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