Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.comment From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Of arms...and the woman Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 14:59:57 EST Message-ID: \SE E;COMMENTARY \HD Of arms...and the woman \BY Suzanne Fields \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES A famous Bill Mauldin cartoon from World War II puts Willie and Joe in their familiar foxhole, muddy, stinking, wet, cold and filthy. Willie turns to Joe and asks poignantly: "Why weren't you born a beautiful girl?" It isn't hilarious, but it's funny. Or it was way back then, reflecting the fundamental yearnings of men at war. But today this cartoon is not only sexist, but scary. Willie might get his wish. Last week the President's Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces recommended against women entering combat on land and in the air, but they recommended that female sailors serve on certain combat ships, such as aircraft carriers and destroyers. The fight over whether women should be allowed to enter military combat is about to move toward resolution. President Bush will receive the commission's report next week, and he has a month to send his recommendations to Congress. Both President Bush and President-elect Bill Clinton have said they would not express their own views until they see the report, but pressure on Congress to overrule the commission will be fierce. The commission vote was close, 8 to 7 opposing women flying combat planes, a prohibition that Congress repealed only last year. The votes against women in ground combat was by a larger margin. But the logic of the majority is irrefutable. Women in combat would interfere with male "bonding," undercut military readiness and cause sexual confusion on the battlefield, making men vulnerable to the ancient male instinct to protect women in danger. The commission heard testimony from prisoners of war that women taken prisoner could expect to be routinely abused and tortured in a way that a man would not, and that such torture would be used to break men who were forced to witness it. (The military now tries to "desensitize" men to female suffering.) "The idea that we would position women in the arena of being subjected to violence, death, depravity as prisoners is one I won't sign up to," said retired Army Gen. Maxwell Thurman, who commanded the U.S. assault on Panama and who was one of the eight commissioners voting against women as combat aviators. A Roper poll of 4,500 American fighting men found that 57 percent oppose women in combat. These men cited the many cases of sexual fun and games between male and female troops in Operation Desert Storm. (Surprise. Surprise.) Women are held to different (i.e., lower) physical standards in training and they aren't expected to do the same heavy lifting as men, because they can't. Women lack the upper body strength. Fighter pilots, soldiers and Marines who don't want women in combat deserve to be listened to closely because their lives will be the ones most affected by the change. The commission concluded that even the most physically fit women rarely exceed the physical fitness of merely average men. (At West Point, running groups are often determined by sex, so that women can run in slower units and not be outpaced or embarrassed by faster men.) While combat readiness is the major issue, the social and psychological consequences - the cultural consequences - of women in combat are equally important. Do we want to teach women to kill? Do we want to teach the mothers of our children to kill? Do we want to take mothers away from their children to kill? Do we want to densensitize our male soldiers to female suffering? Do wives back home want women in their husbands's foxhole? "I've seen men freeze, cry and go mad at the sight of war," one Marine combat veteran of Vietnam tells me. "Only women who have never seen its horror would ask to be entitled to kill. Why on earth do they want to?" Why on earth? Suzanne Fields, a columnist for The Washington Times, is nationally syndicated. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM