By Bill Fishburne

Let’s get two things straight.

First, I write this with some qualifications. When I was young, I had the privilege of serving as an Army Special Forces A-Team Leader.

Between March 1969 and September 1970, I was assigned to the best-trained A-Team in the 8th Special Forces Group. We were the High Altitude Low Opening military free-fall team, part of the Special Action Force for Latin American Nations.

There were 12 men on the team and we trained constantly.We learned to jump from aircraft flying at altitudes in excess of 30,000 feet, to land at night and move overland through difficult terrain to accomplish our objectives. It was hard, dangerous work. Many men tried to do it, many failed. We were the fortunate few.

Second, I have strong opinions on women serving in any type of military position where they could come under hostile fire while under difficult physical conditions. This means the combat arms and specifically, infantry.

This entire discussion should never have been necessary. Ten thousand years of history demonstrates that with rare exception, men do the fighting and women do the supporting. Now, all of a sudden, in the name of equal opportunity, some of our political leaders have determined that it is good to send women out to fight and possibly be captured, maimed or killed.

Is there a sudden shortage of men?

Presume for the moment that you are an infantry squad leader. You are male. Your squad (9 people) has you as the squad leader, two fire team leaders, two M249 machine gunners, two M203 grenadiers and two riflemen. The squad can be further split into two fire teams or other combinations as required.

You work together, you train together, you sleep and eat together. You know each other and you go off to combat together. There is nothing you, a typical male, would not do for your fire team buddies. If a soldier is wounded the medic is somewhere out there with the platoon leader. It’s up to his fire team buddy to tend to the wound and get him out.

So, the question: How will your fire teams be improved by replacing a man with a physically weaker woman? What is the direct benefit to the squad? Who carries out the wounded? And who gets the ticket home the very day she finds out she’s pregnant?

Uncomfortable yet? Has the rationalization begun? They have birth control, you say? Look at the example of political correctness in the Navy. On Oct. 30, 1990, the USS Acadia, a supply ship with a crew of 1,508 enlisted personnel and 87 officers deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm. Within three months 36 female members of the crew were determined to be pregnant and had to be transferred Stateside.

How did the Navy handle it? According to an Associated Press article published April 30, 1991, the most clueless man in the world, Lt. Commander Jeff Smallwood, a Navy spokesman, announced that even though more than half the pregnancies occurred after the ship was under way, “there were no indications of improper fraternization between men and women on the ship.

“These women have a right to get pregnant,” Commander Smallwood said. “The conclusion somebody is jumping to is that the Acadia is a love boat, and that’s not the case.”

That’s wrong on multiple levels. Arguably, female crew members, soldiers and airmen do not have the right to become pregnant during a tour of duty. Their duty is to fulfill their obligation to their unit and to their country. When they are pregnant they are sent home. When a soldier’s wife tells him she is pregnant back home, the male soldier sucks it in and wishes her well. There’s none of this PC “we’re pregnant” talk. She’s pregnant, he’s not. Together, they are expecting a child. She stays home and runs the family. He does his duty with the military.

As for, “there was no fraternization,” what does that mean? Did the female sailors go to the bars at their ports of call and behave like male sailors? Are there no moral standards left? To believe otherwise would involve miracles, and to my knowledge there has been only one such miracle. Thirty six pregnancies on one supply boat, 1 out of each 10 women on board, is too hard to believe.

A female veteran of the Iraqi war who asked that her name not be used had this to say about her experience. “I saw the male combat units when I was in Iraq. They go outside the wire for days at a time. They eat, sleep, urinate and defecate in front of each other and often while on the move. There’s no potty break on the side of the road outside the wire. They urinate into bottles and defecate into MRE bags.

I would like to hear a suggestion as to how a woman is going to urinate successfully into a bottle while cramped into a humvee wearing full body armor. And she gets to accomplish this feat with the male members of her combat unit twenty inches away. Volunteers to do that job? Do the men really want to see it? Should they be forced to?”

Finally, look at the equipment routinely carried by men in combat units. The basic combat load is what infantrymen carry when they go outside the wire. It varies by mission but at a minimum weighs about 48 lbs. It includes a nine-pound weapon, bayonet, ammunition (bullets are made out of lead and brass), body armor, web gear, water, Kevlar helmet, boots, medical kit and other essentials.

The Approach March Load is all the above but with more ammo, a small assault pack and a lightly loaded rucksack or poncho roll. The Army’s recommendation is not to exceed 72 lbs. This is roughly 40 percent of the body weight of the typical 20-year old infantryman.

 It is more than half the body weight of the typical 130-140 lb. female soldier.

It also is a big load in relation to her height and significantly restricts her movement. As the basketball coach says, “you can’t teach 6’-5””

Finally in this vein, circumstances often require soldiers to carry even heavier loads through difficult terrain where support vehicles cannot accompany them to carry resupply or relief items. Under these circumstances larger rucksacks can be carried. The Army allows for loads of up to 120 lbs. for several days over rough-terrain distances of up to 20 km per day. In reality, 20 km on a map is often equal to three or four times that distance up and down, round and round. Rough terrain, heat, altitude, cold and other environmental factors can make 20 km totally impossible. One of those factors, obviously, is contact with the enemy.

Emergency loads are also feasible up to 150 lbs., although the Army says the distances this can be carried are limited and that “contact with the enemy should be avoided.” Really. Then consider the airborne soldier who carries all the above plus 30 lbs. or more of parachutes. You quickly reach loads of over 200 lbs. and even the strongest of the males is barely able to waddle out to the airplane.

The physicality of the job cannot be overstated. I was 6’-2”, 175 lbs. during my time in the jungles of Central America. And there were many, many days and weeks when it took every bit of strength I had to do my job. Big frame, all muscle, stressed to the max and carrying incredible loads.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Infantrymen were doing much, much more day in and day out, in constant contact with the enemy. They went weeks without washing. They threw away their underwear because it was so filthy and eventually learned never to wear it in the field. After they crawled through a creek or forded a river they had to stop to burn off the leeches with the tips of their cigarettes.

Those who haven’t been in field in the infantry and think of the Army as just another equal opportunity employer are either naive or malicious. Former Colorado Representative Patricia Schroder, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was one of the first legislators to demand that women be given combat assignments. When the obvious physical differences between men and women were brought up, Schroder opined that the Army could develop “mechanical devices” to help women carry such loads in the field. None of the dim-bulbs in Congress thought to ask the obvious question: If such devices were available to increase strength, load-carrying and fighting abilities, why not give them to men?

Combat doesn’t make allowances. It finds weakness and kills it. If women want to be in the infantry they have to carry the loads, endure the unendurable and have the courage and strength to close with and kill the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. And if they do, they will die in disproportionate numbers, as will those male soldiers who go to their aid. Slots that should be filled will be empty. Male morale will plummet. Total disarray will result. All in the name of equal opportunity.

America’s politicians and military leadership should be dedicated to A) staying out of wars, and B) when that fails, winning the wars we do fight. If we can figure how to obtain the benefits of females in the military without being dumb about it then more power to us.

In this issue, common sense should prevail. Men have an ingrained y-chromosome-based need to protect women and God made us bigger, stronger and more aggressive so we could fulfill that role.

We should let nature take its course. The laws of man should not go counter to the laws of nature. There is no glory in getting a bunch of young people killed on the altar of political correctness.

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Bill Fishburne is a writer who lives in Hendersonville.