Women in Military Combat
Read the following two articles and make a T Chart with reasons to have women in combat and reasons
not to have women in combat. When you are finished, help a neighbor. When the class is finished, start
the film, “The Invisible War.”
When the Bullets Flew, ‘They Didn’t Care That I Was a Woman’
By James Dao The New York Times January 24, 2013
During her second deployment to Iraq, Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall of the Air Force found herself attached to
an Army ground unit that was clearing roadside bombs. They had just found their 26th device of the day
when one of their armored personnel carriers exploded. An ambush was on.
The chaos that unfolded over the next few hours was not a typical day for Sergeant Pearsall. But under
the Pentagon’s decision to allow women into front-line combat units, officially announced Thursday, it
could become much closer to the norm for women in American uniforms.
As Sergeant Pearsall tells the story, her vehicle came under intense fire that day in 2007, near the city of
Baquba. The male soldiers in her carrier had already dashed out to join the fight, so she jumped onto the
machine gun and began returning fire.
Outside a soldier lay unconscious. Sergeant Pearsall opened the rear door and crawled to the man, who
was 6-foot-2 and more than 200 pounds, twice her weight. From behind him, she clasped him in a bear
hug and dragged him toward the vehicle. She fell once, then again. Somehow, she hauled him into the
armored safety of the carrier.
After tearing off his protective vest, she realized his carotid artery had been torn by shrapnel. As blood
spurted all over, she closed her eyes, stuck her fingers into his neck and squeezed. He screamed, and she
thanked the heavens. He was still kicking.
What happened next seemed almost cinematic. Emerging from a purplish haze outside, a medic jumped
into the carrier and set his kit beside her. “Are you a medic?” he asked.
Heck no, Sergeant Pearsall replied. “I’m the photographer.”
The question that now looms over the Pentagon as it moves toward full gender integration is whether
female service members like Sergeant Pearsall, for all their bravery under fire, can perform the same
dangerous and physically demanding tasks day in and day out, for weeks at a time, as permanent
members of ground combat units like the infantry or armored cavalry.
Since 1994, women have technically been barred from serving in those front-line units. But throughout the
post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, women — working as medics, intelligence officers,
photographers, military police officers and in a host of other jobs — have been routinely “attached” to
all-male ground combat units, where they have come under fire, returned fire, been wounded and been
killed.
To supporters of Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta’s decision to rescind the prohibition on women in
combat, the experiences of those women proved that the distinction between being “attached” to a
combat unit and actually serving in one was outdated, and pointless.
“When the military goes to full integration, it allows commanders to put the best person in the job, not just
the best man,” said Greg Jacob, a former Marine Corps officer who is now policy director for the Service
Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group for women in the military. “If the best shot in the platoon is
a woman, I can make her a sniper. But until now, I couldn’t do that.”
But to skeptics of the policy change, it is one thing for women to perform well when they come under fire
while temporarily attached to all-male combat units. It is a far different thing, they argue, to carry out the
daily mission of hunting down and engaging enemy forces as an infantry soldier or tank commander.
Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California and a Marine Corps veteran with combat tours
in Iraq and Afghanistan, defines it as a difference between “incidental combat,” as women have faced
in convoys or attacks on bases, and “the direct combat duties of our advanced and most elite ground
operators.”
Representative Hunter said in a statement, “The question here is whether this change will actually make
our military better at operating in combat, specifically finding and targeting the enemy.”
Ask Sergeant Pearsall, who was decorated for her actions in Baquba and received a medical retirement
from the Air Force in 2008, and the answer is simple: Yes, women can do it, and I already have.
During her four-month Iraq tour in 2007 — cut short by injuries — she went on patrols almost daily, wearing
the same heavy body armor and Kevlar helmet as the men, while lugging camera equipment. She, too,
came under fire. She, too, fired back. She, too, saw friends die.
“I didn’t sit around thinking: ‘I’m a woman, I don’t think I can carry this gun,’ ” she said. “And I can’t
speak for the men, but I feel that when the bullets were flying, they didn’t care that I was a woman, as
long as I was pulling the trigger.” She added: “I contributed to the team effort. If I can do that, that’s all
that matters.”
The armed services are now developing gender-neutral standards for all of their jobs, and the Pentagon
has vowed that those standards will not be lowered to make it easier for women to join combat units. At
present, the Army, for instance, allows women to pass their physical fitness tests with fewer push-ups and
a slower two-mile run, than men.
Will women be able to meet a new, single standard? Kristen Rouse, a first lieutenant in the New York Army
National Guard who just returned from her third deployment to Afghanistan, said that she was confident
they could. “In my fitness test, I always pass by the standards of a male of my equivalent age,” she said.
“And I’m not an athlete. The physical demands are not insurmountable.”
Mr. Jacob, who was a training company commander for both male and female Marine recruits, said the
key would be to make women systematically train to the higher standards. When the Corps has done
that — by requiring women to do more pull-ups or longer ruck marches — they consistently succeeded,
he said. And at the same time, better training has reduced weight-bearing injuries to backs and hips —
major concern among female troops, he said.
Like many female service members, Ms. Rouse, who always wanted to serve in a tank unit, said she
believed lifting the prohibition would help women climb higher on the military career ladder. “There is
prestige there, when you can say, ‘I got to work with the Afghan Army,’ or ‘I was with a unit in multiple
firefights,’ ” she said. “There is a lot more prestige there than if you say, ‘Hey I spent the last nine months
shipping equipment from Bagram.’ ”
But Stacy Pearsall, 33, who now owns a photography school in Charleston, S.C., said she hoped the policy
change would do something else as well: Give women more credibility with their commanders and
health care providers when they return from war with physical injuries or mental health problems.
She says she had trouble convincing people that she had sustained brain and neck injuries in Iraq
because of combat. “People just assumed I was not injured in combat, because I had not been in a
combat unit,” she said.
Women in Combat Okay with Obama
By Jenna Ashley Robinson November 07, 2008 Pope Center for Higher Education Policy
The female college students who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama for president might not know
that he wants women to register with the Selective Service at age 18, just as men do. Or that he wants
the military to officially open combat positions to women.
Although the topic was drowned out by campaign rhetoric and statements on policies that college
students find more congenial, his position on registration of women is clear. And Obama’s national
security spokeswoman stated before the election that Obama intended to change current policies on
women in combat. Women are “already” serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Wendy Morigi,
Mr. Obama's national security spokeswoman. If elected president, she said, Obama will “consult with
military commanders to review the constraints that remain."
In other words, he wants to eliminate gender discrimination from the armed services. No doubt presidentelect Obama views both of these stances as leveling the playing field for women, an extension of the
equal opportunity he wants to create for all Americans.
And maybe this is a plank that today’s 18-year-old females think is cool.
I don’t. Senator Obama’s two positions threaten women’s liberty and safety.
I can agree with the Senator, and feminists, to a point. No one should be disqualified from a position
based solely on sex. However, there is at least one big problem with opening combat positions to women
– currently, women do not have to meet the same physical fitness standards as men. The military’s tests
for strength, speed and stamina are scaled according to age and gender. In direct combat, having
women who are weaker and slower than men could be disastrous.
According to the 1992 report of a presidential commission on women in the armed forces, most women
fall far below most men in meeting such standards. “In terms of physical capability, the upper five
percent of women are at the level of the male median,” the report said. “The average 20-to-30 year-old
woman has the same aerobic capacity as a 50 year-old man.”
Current Department of Defense restrictions on women in combat units – including tank, field artillery and
Special Forces – exist for good reasons. Most women don't have the upper-body strength to haul heavy
weapons or wounded team members. Under field conditions, they lack the stamina of most men. In
general, women are shorter, lighter, and slower than their male counterparts.
And the field of combat is not designed for affirmative action. The desert is not more forgiving to women
than to men. Gunfire will not slow down for a woman who can’t run as fast as a man. Individuals who
cannot meet the standards set for the most able soldiers will not perform as well. Holding women to lower
standards than men puts them at a disadvantage on the battlefield, particularly in the offensive
operations or “direct ground combat” from which they are currently barred.
But no woman (or man) exists as a generality. Many experts agree that some women have the physical
strength and endurance to be combat soldiers. Women who are strong enough and fast enough,
physically and mentally, for participation on the front lines shouldn’t be barred based on gender.
Department of Defense tests should be objective measures based on the requirements of the job.
Women who cannot meet those standards would be safer and more effective elsewhere. And for those
women who can meet objective standards, lowering the bar is merely insulting.
Opponents of women in combat insist that challenges would arise from having women in combat units,
but the preponderance of military divisions have already met those challenges. The US military is still the
most effective in the world.
A real step forward for women would be to remove both the current restrictions on combat and the
affirmative action that endangers them on the battlefield.
Opening the door to the draft would not accomplish much for women, either. Although Obama does not
explicitly favor a draft, his proposal to register women as well as men moves us further in that direction. I
oppose registration for both men and women.
Conscription is bad policy for a number of reasons. Branches of the armed services, having tried it both
ways, strongly prefer an all-volunteer force, according to the Army Times. Many high-ranking officers in
the military explain that motivated volunteers perform much better than indifferent draftees. Moreover,
morale is far better when all involved feel strongly that they are engaged in a noble and chosen pursuit
than when they are forced to participate in an activity they would not choose.
Most importantly, the draft is involuntary servitude – regardless of gender. The very concept of
conscription, or even registration with the Selective Service, is incompatible with the principle of liberty.
Years ago, economist Milton Friedman famously campaigned against the draft in his Newsweek column.
He argued that it was not only uneconomical but that it violates the Constitution. Requiring women to
register for selective service would simply make more people susceptible to the injustice it inflicts on those
who are drafted.
So, in answer to Senator Obama’s offer, I have one reply: “no deal.”