Women in Combat

It was an article I received on the Twitter feed from the NY Post Opinion column.  When I tweeted my opinion, I had no idea there were so many people radically opposed to Women in Combat, despite the fact that we already are.

[caption id="attachment_1017" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Daughters of the American Revolution"][/caption]

Why are we here again?  Why are we discussing this, again?  This discussion was closed over 20 years ago.  We won, or did you not get the memo?  The issue of Selective Service registration is just part of the clean up after the battle.  It's not our fault that Politicians keep dragging their feet on the issue, making it appear to the Main Stream Media and the public at large that the issue is new, is not settled, and is still open for debate.

At first I thought it was just another vehicle Politicians could use in the 2012 Election to battle Social Policies which provide Equality and equal Freedom for Women.  In case you haven't been paying attention, Women have become the battle ground for the next Presidential Election.  The issue specifically is to require young women to register for the Selective Service at age 18, follow the links on the Opinion piece for reference.  The only requirement that continues to separate a Woman in the Military from her Male peers - they, men, have a national mandate to register while our service is entirely voluntary.  The very last hurdle Women need to be recognized as equals & peers among their Male peers.  The trickledown effect of Women in the Military and Social Policies within the United States have already proven to be effective in the application of the US Constitution & Amendments fully to Women Citizens of the United States of America - Selective Service.  They showed America that when given the option to Serve, we do so Freely.  That last hurdle means Gender Neutrality.  That means identifying a process for which American Women Citizens may demonstrate their Loyalty to their Nation, including the defense of their Nation even on the Battle Field.  It requires Strategy.  It requires the Sons of the American Revolution to look across the White House Lawn to the Daughters of the American Revolution and Strategically review our Assets.

Here we are again discussing women’s role in the Military.  Quite frankly, some of the opinions I have seen are insulting to the US Military.  To suggest that the United States Military, the most powerful force on the globe, is somehow incapable of training women to serve in combat is nearly treasonous.  And what’s more insulting, is the fact that many of the opinions either intentionally omit or are truly uninformed that women have been serving combat roles since 1973.

Charlie Wilson taught our Military Intelligence that Women's Freedom was an illusion, despite his well earned reputation of loving Women to his demise.  Through his efforts, and his ultimate failure to earn the votes necessary to build schools in Afghanistan after the Mujahedeen defeated the Soviets, Charlie Wilson allowed the United States to ransom Women's Freedom and the application of the US Constitution of our Citizenry without racial or gender bias.  Charlie Wilson's Jail Bait opened the door to educated women, giving them the opportunity to compete in the Job Market alongside their Male Peers for equal pay.  Not all Jail Bait was assigned to Embassy Duty or Congressional Committees.  They were sent to the Front Lines to learn how to send Equipment into Battle.  We were pretty enough, smart enough, brave enough and reckless enough to do the job.  Just like our Male Peers.  Pretty enough to Protect, Tough enough to Respect.  Some reference: George Crile, CNN Article

In 1980, Congress and President Reagan facilitated the US Military's first real, demonstrable efforts to faze Women into Combat Roles in a meaningful sense.  The repeal of the draft in 1973 was nearly 10 years old when they began programs that would put women in Combat and Combat Support roles.  For nearly seven years, from the end of the draft in 1973 and the start of Selective Service, women had been taking the opportunities open to them and were given a glimmer of equality in the Military.  It was Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada 1983 that proved Women, after 10 years of training, could serve in Combat Support, inching up as close to the battle as possible and performing not only well but effectively.  Charlie Wilson had begun his “bare knuckle” approach to providing assistance to Afghanistan in order to defeat the Soviet Union.  What people don’t know or want to forget, is that Charlie Wilson loved women, and it was because of his belief that women could literally do anything they put their mind to, he helped put us prominently in the face of politicians.  He loved women so much he filled his staff with “Jail Bait”.  His motto, “You can teach them to type but you can’t teach them to grow tits” rang through the House & Senate, garnering him the respect and envy of every Politician around him.  Some noble Congressmen even went so far as to emulate him by bringing more and more women into their staff rosters and voting in Congress to allow women expanded roles in the Military, including combat.  It helped that women performed exceedingly well in Grenada as loadmasters, engineers and pilots.

By 1987, Charlie Wilson and his covert War, was well under way.  The issue of Women in Combat was under review with “statutory limitations” applied to "eligible" Combat Support Roles, and the USAF was infusing women into Combat Flight Lines.  We had covertly entered the fight in the Middle East by supporting Afghanistan.  Then in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was attacked by terrorists with ties to Lybia, and by 1990, Iraq marched into Kuwait.  I think that it was the backing down the first time we tried to engage Iraq in 1991 that Women lost footing in the US Military.  By the time we went into Afghanistan to chase bin Laden in 2001, then Iraq again in 2003, women had made significant inroads to serving in combat alongside their male peers, but made absolutely no in roads to reconcile the UCMJ and Sharia Law in regards to women.  We were an excellently trained Force with nowhere to go and our Country at War.  Now we are talking about Lybia again in 2011, the issue of women in combat is coming up for political review, and it only serves one purpose:  limit women’s role in combat and the US Military engages the Middle East with a significant reduction in troops – women can’t serve “on the ground” in Islamic Nations.

It was in between the backing down in Iraq and that time in 2003 when we returned with the force of 10,000 Orcs, when women in combat disappeared from the main stream media.  It was during this time that the US gave into Sharia Law, that the need for Air Space outweighed the UCMJ, and we, as a Nation, made our first demonstration of “backing down” to the Islamic Nations, and by extension, the Islamic Terrorist Groups.  We needed air fields and flight lines, to put our F-16’s and A-10’s so they could support the Ground Troops just in case we decided to ever invade someone in the region.  Saudi Arabia loved it; they had the most powerful Military in the world hosted on their Nation’s soil.  They became the big kid in the Sand Box with a baseball bat.  The US ransomed Women’s Freedom, something only Women living within the United States have an expectation.  We kept our women out of the Middle East, and in return Kuwait was set free from Saddam Hussein, or so the story goes.  In the years between 1991 and 2001, the US Military acquiesced time after time to every Islamic Nation on the Rules for Women.  Rules which stifle Freedom.  Rules which promote abuse and hint at slavery.  Saudi Arabia has been the biggest and most vocal opponents to US Military Women, with Lybia right on their heels.  While giving into the Terrorist demands, all the US Military could muster were a few strategically placed women in uniform, just to remind everyone that yes; the remaining 20% of our Troops are at home.

While Women’s Freedoms in the US flourished in both personal choices and career options in the 80's and early 90's, the image of the Free Woman became the dominant theme in US foreign relations with the Middle East.  All because of Charlie Wilson, John Murtha, and a little blind girl in prison, on death row, because she was raped.  They could not tolerate a Woman, their beautiful little Jail Bait being treated the same way.  This is the GOP who raised me.  I am a grown up Jail Bait.

It was Bush who sent women into combat on the Supply Chain in 2003; 20 years after Reagan drew on military women to prevail in Grenada.  For the first time, 20 years after they first entered the combat arena, women became part of the Ground Assault, delivering food and fuel and supplies to the units.  Just like Mad Maxx. Not just pilots and loadmasters, not safely ensconced behind the walls of a deployed command, but actually on the ground in enemy territory.  Twenty years after we began training, we lost our first true casualties of war.  Not just one woman in a single engagement, but multiple women in multiple skirmishes and some of them were even taken Prisoner.  In service to their country, in defense of their nation, in pursuit of their national freedom, they entered combat.  The psychological effect on the Islamic Nations was poignant.  In the nearly 10 years since our first female prisoners were taken in Iraq, the image of the Female Soldier continues to instill fear in the Islamic heart.  We have proven through our dedication to our Nation that we won't be taken without a fight and our military peers will retrieve us while dealing to our enemies a devastating death blow.  Imagine the philosophical conundrum of the Islamic mind - as a Muslim Man fighting Jihad, killed by a US Woman in a US Military Uniform.  So much for the promise of a Warrior's Death and those 40 virgins.  You can thank Gust for that little close combat psychological knife twist.

I served the US Military from 1987 to 1991, in the US Air Force as an F-16 Crew Chief.  I was on a flight line every day, loading jets with fuel tanks, bombs, missiles, gun ammo, and most importantly, a pilot.  My job was to get the plane off the ground at all costs.  Protect the asset, get it airborne – a jet on the tarmac is a sitting duck, but in the air it is a deadly force.  Get it up!  What I did not know, because I was too young and there was no Internet in 1986, was that the Graham Rudman Hollings Act of 1986-1989 a deficit reduction bill, affected Women in the Military and would by design of ending or significantly reducing the statutory limits on Women's Combat Training Programs, be a signal to the Islamic World that the US also treats it's women differently and we do have restrictions on Women's Freedom.  We promise not to send the Amazon's after you if you settle down share the oil and stop killing each other.

When I arrived at Tech school in Wichita Falls Texas, the male to female ratio was 3-1.  We were all crew chiefs in training.  It was easy - dangerously so.  The systems came to me so perfectly, the operational goals were so clear that when I received less than 100% on my exams, I demanded retraining until I reached a perfect score.  I received my orders 2 weeks before graduation – F-16, Shaw Air Force Base South Carolina.  Every day as I began the transition the male to female ratio began to change.  As my female peers were sent to Strategic Air Command, I was sent to Tactical Air Command.  They were preparing for large airplanes, large runways, and large facilities.  I was focused on small fast dangerous fighters, Falcons, capable of taking out a tank on the ground or a MIG in the air.  They were as dangerous on the ground to flight line personnel as they were in the air to enemy craft.  They were combat weapons and I was training to throw them up in the air to destroy enemies.

Prior to leaving for my final destination unit, the male to female ratio drastically changed to 5-1.  More times than not, I found myself the only female in a 10 man formation.  The Instructors from Tech School were replaced with Unit Personnel rotating through new recruit Training, preparing Airmen like us for the Operational Flight Line.  It got harder.  No longer was there an opportunity to demand re-training, it was Production Time, we were Live.  Then I reached the Flight Line.  There were 3 of us in the entire 300 man unit and only 2 of us were female crew chiefs.  For the first 30 days, every variation of the term Jail Bait was used, sometimes as a compliment, sometimes as an epithet. Within 6 months the only other female crew chief in my unit got pregnant and left both the unit and the flight line.  Then there was me.

For nearly 18 months, I was the only woman.  Crew chiefs, weapons, every specialty sub unit servicing the F-16’s – just me, the lone woman.  At one point I reflected back to Tech School and wondered where the hell all my peers went.  In less than 2 years I went from being just one of the crowd to the single woman in a sea of men, and not just any men, Crew Dawgs.  These men were hard, grizzled in only the way a United States Air Force Fighter Squadron Crew could be, at the tender age of 23.  They went to the gym daily, they went to the shooting range weekly, their jets came home Code 1 each and every time.  Anything less than a code 1 resulted in brutal fist fights between the various Specialties – pointing blame for not doing your job, for accepting less than 100% mission success.  It got harder.  This was a Fighter Flight Line.  This was Combat training Air Force style.

These seasoned Dawgs were our mentors, our leaders.  They directed the flow of the Flight Line process, prioritizing the fixes, ordering the crews, preparing for the next set of sorties.  Every mistake, every error was caught, questioned and examined by these men.  If they didn’t like the fasteners on an engine panel, they stood there yelling at you while you replaced it.  If they questioned your landing gear, they hovered over your shoulder berating you until the safety wire was replaced on every fastener.  They keep the jets in the air.  During the quiet times, this excessive hovering and barking seemed ridiculous, until we started War Week.  Following process is the only way to successfully completing the Mission.

In the Military, a week is officially 7 days, however, the definition is fluid.  A week could be 10 days.  It seems an insignificant observation, however, in the field, that 3 day differential can be excruciating.  It was during my first War Week that I discovered the horror of the Gas Mask.  Somewhere I got the notion I would never be in a situation where Gas Masks would be required, that was for Ground Troops.  I got “tagged” early in the War and spent 5 days filling body bags, also known as The Morgue.  We weren’t really dead; we were just out of play.

During my third War Week, I made it to day 6 before I got tagged.  This time however, I was tagged by my own unit as I was on my way to triggering a booby trap, so I was still in play.  Sadly, my mistake was not the only one – another group of our Dawgs also made a mistake and cumulatively the mistakes cost us a further day.  The penalty was an additional gassing with the loss of our physical buildings – we had to do everything from our makeshift bunkers scattered around the flight line.

At my fourth War Week, I found my niche – a dual role of Throw & Catch.  I spent the Launch at End of Runway, throwing the Falcons into the air, and then hauled ass across the flight line back to the unit command to catch them when they came down.  It was the first time I did not get tagged in an assault, as I was always on the move.  My little niche allowed a stronger male Crew Chief to remain at the Command manning the jets.  End of Runway was a role done in specific windows of time and can be defended far better than the actual flight line.  Therefore, the stronger Crew Dawgs were needed to remain with the earth bound predators.  Since I was capturing the operational data directly from the pilots, I was able to identify problem birds on the very last check point.  Because I was trained by intimidating Dawgs, I had the backbone to challenge Pilots on bogus maintenance issues and provide a full debrief to the Unit.  Often times, simply remembering that the light bulb in the clipboard map-mount is intermittent and the part is on back order resulted in a code 1 sortie.  It was my fourth War Week in 3 years that my unit won the Daedalion Award which kept us in the Training Competition.  The points which put us over the top were our accurate maintenance operations data.  My briefing of the EOR Crew assisted in a higher rate of Code 1 Birds during the training.  The strategic nature of our win was the placement of seasoned Dawgs manning the operational command, and the younger Apprentices in true support roles, keeping our unit in a constant state of movement - our Birds flew flawlessly 24/7 to exceed the Mission Goals.

The training we went through was specific, it was strategic, and it was combat.  To suggest that the training has become stagnant in the 20 years since I served is insulting.  What is difficult to deal with is this same disrespect to the Military’s training program feeds into the lack of women rising to the ranks necessary to hold a voice on the War Council.  The council from a battle seasoned multi-star General is taken far more seriously than that of a well trained Colonel who has never been allowed to join combat.  A Male President wants a Male War Council, never mind the fact that in order to attain the necessary rank & experience, women are prohibited from even trying.  It is a double edged sword of discrimination, both procedurally and psychologically.  Those women who are in leadership roles are buried behind bureaucracy and their efforts are intentionally kept silent by the main stream media.

Women have proven themselves in combat first in 1991 (Army Captain Karen Emma Walden) then in 2003 in Iraq (Jessica Dawn Lynch) and they continue to serve in Afghanistan.  The US Military has proven they are capable of training excellent female combat soldiers in every branch.  The only real reason to bring the long closed debate of Women in Combat is to re-address Sharia Law in the Middle East.  If we engage Lybia and we honor the treasonous agreements we made to keep US Women in Uniform out of the region, we go in with only 80% of our troops.  Women will be left at home, far from the battle.  Bringing the topic to the table and politicizing Women Soldiers only serves to provide our enemy with the information on our overall strength while deployed away from home.

There is a plus side to the suggestion of women registering for Selective Service, and that is opportunity.  The requirement would open doors within US Social Programs to young women graduating high school that they otherwise would not be exposed.  The very idea of serving 4 years in exchange for education has the potential to change that woman’s life forever.

Women registering for Selective Service will only lead to future generations preserving the freedoms of the US Constitution and instill the pride of Military Service.  After more than 200 years, our nation has an unspoken pride “My son is in the Army”.  The sentiment evokes “because only American Women raise American Soldiers”.  But what happens when those same American Women raise female soldiers?  Soldiers who then raise more American Soldiers, a Woman who understands the importance of Hunting for sport to train her daughter how to take down a 12-point buck.  A woman who understands how sacred American Freedom truly is and the importance of the discipline needed to defend that freedom at all costs.

Take a moment and reflect on how deadly Jessica Lynch’s sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters will be.  They will have been raised by a Woman who served her Nation in Combat, a Warrior and a Soldier.  There are thousands of women in the Military who are dedicated to protecting Freedom, defending the US Constitution, and have given up their rights as US Citizens to live and work under the UCMJ for the sole purpose of demonstrating their Loyalty to their Nation.  What force can overcome the loyalty of Hearth and Home?

http://www.womensmemorial.org/Education/timeline.html