New Model Army

I was a participant (victim?) in an experiment the Marine Corps conducted in 1988. Several classes of the Combat Squad Leader Course -- a divisional school for infantry corporals and sergeants -- had girls in them. There were three in my class. These WMs (women Marines) were hand-picked, as it were, from the entire division, having been deemed the most capable of passing the course. It is a brutal school, six weeks of both intensive classroom learning and field ops. The latter was conducted over two consecutive weeks in NTA -- the Northern Training Area in Okinawa. It's a "cold jungle": triple canopy, wet, night temps in the 40s, extremely rugged terrain cut up by deep ravines and gorges. It's not a fun place. Just mention "NTA" to Fundy or Curmudgeon and they'll glare at you in a very unfriendly manner.

Anyway, twenty minutes into the ingress hump to the operational area, the wimmin-folk were falling back. Forty minutes into it, the rest of us were carrying their gear. Three days later, two of them had developed "feminine problems" from constant immersion in jungle streams and foxholes and were shipped back to base. The third made it another two days before succumbing to a rather spectacular emotional breakdown.

The experiment was deemed a failure (duh) and the Corps discontinued the practice that year, filing it under the Bad-Ideas-From-Stupid-Politicians category. So naturally Obama and his cabinet of girly-men (and manly girls) have decided to just go ahead and stick girls in combat arms units without so much as a by-your-leave.

This will end badly.

Infantry life is no joke, folks. It's ugly, nasty, dangerous, and exhausting to a degree very few people ever experience in their entire lives. You're not sitting on the couch rooting for an actor to whoop up on the bad guys. You can fool yourself into thinking "I could do that" when you are warm, dry, and well-rested with a full belly. The reality is much, much different. You must be in near-Olympic level physical condition and maintain an emotional suit of armor which allows you to kill instantly and without compunction. You must sacrifice a portion of your humanity and forego many of the simple pleasures of civilian life in order to be an effective and efficient killer. Anyone who tells you they like being an infantryman is a fucking liar. What you "like" -- and more to the point, what you take great pride in -- is the incomparable sense of accomplishment derived from proving yourself adequate to such a grueling and thankless task.

I know for a fact that at least three of the Marines I served with were gay. Two were excellent Marines. Take from that what you will. The point is that they were physically and emotionally capable of the job. Women are not. Combat is not for women, FULL STOP. They are physically and emotionally unsuited to the job, and no amount of legislation or wishful thinking is ever going to change that simple fact. If you think this is an antiquated viewpoint and it angers you, just remember that it's the view of someone who has really done it, not a soft-skinned liberal activist or a fat-cat politician. You don't have to like the truth, but it will eventually and inevitably remind you that it IS the truth -- usually at a steep price. In this case, the price will be paid in the blood of soldiers and Marines. I only wish we could exchange it pint-for-pint for the blood of the people in Washington who consider the defense of our country fertile ground for yet another of their moronic social experiments.


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Hat-tip to Gary S. for the pic