Wednesday, May 18, 2005

From the Right Corner: Women in Combat - Support the restriction.

A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House that democrats tell us would expand the combat-exclusion rule for women an additional 21,000 duty positions. Republicans, on the other hand, tell us that the number of jobs effected are actually a “few dozen.” The truth? Maybe somewhere in between.

The democrats, continuing to misread the American public, seem to believe that the People actually support women in combat (wic) when there is no evidence to support such a conclusion.

Is that to say that I believe the blood shed by the women in Iraq or Afghanistan is any the less valuable than their male counterpart?

Nope. For the most part, this isn’t ABOUT the women in either location.

But let me bring up a couple of issues that you, the reader, may not be aware of.

Have you ever thought of the effect on the military of the issue of pregnancy? The Department of Defense never seems to talk about this issue.

Let me go over them… briefly.

First of all, if one is pregnant, one instantly becomes non-deployable. That means that the skills that we, the taxpayer, have paid tens of thousands to provide you for service in war… well, those skills will NOT be utilized as we intended.

This results in the following:

Reduced mission capability at the unit level.

Increased workload on the others actually deploying with the unit… because SOMEBODY has to pick up the slack of the pregnant, now absent, female.

Somebody ELSE is going to get screwed… not just the pregnant female. Who? Easy… the poor schlep that will have to replace her, should a replacement be available.

Second, if one IS deployed, the moment one BECOMES certifiably pregnant one is medically evacuated… resulting in the effects above.

Third, the taxpayer again gets screwed. We pay to have the female evacuated. We pay to have her replacement transported to her duty assignment. We pay for her housing, her medical care, and her base pay and allowances… even though she has voluntarily assumed a condition that get the pregnant female OUT of the situation we’re paying her to be IN.

The information provided here is not top secret. It IS out there… but we so fear the issue of political correctness that we fail to take the steps we NEED to take… the steps that will save lives… and the steps that will; save the taxpayers millions of dollars.

From a War College study done here:
https://research.maxwell.af.mil/papers/ay1999/acsc/99-016.pdf

Shows women in all branches of the military are between 3 and 4 times more likely to avoid deployment.

The Military does not appear to have a plan or a clue to deal with this conduct. This self-assumed disqualifying condition is no different then any other type of self-wound to avoid combat.

Does the Military do anything to discourage this kind of result?

Of course not. The military has decided to engage in THE most intrusive, expensive, anti-readiness plans available.

We can't get enough bullet-proof vests for our troops in Iraq, but we sure can support a "pregnancy-float," paying the over 10,000 military members pregnant at any one given time full pay, allowances and other benefits while the other members of the units do the dying... and the taxpayer gets screwed for paying for all that in addition to the cost of training... training that was SUPPOSED to be for war.

Expanding the exclusionary rule... reducing our reliance on women in the military... all of those things will have long-term advantages that we simply refuse to understand or execute.

And, in the end, I fear we will all pay dearly because of it.

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