Posted by Nicholas Stix
[See, previously, at WEJB/NSU:
“This Woman’s Army: Obama to Complete Gleichschaltung of the American Military into the World’s Most Expensive, Non-Fighting Force by Forcing Combat Units to Accept Coeds.”]
The Corruption That Began in the 1970s, When Coeds were Permitted into the Service Academies, Has Snowballed Ever Since
(From “The Ultimate Victory of Feminism”)
By Henry McCulloch
Lawrence Auster’s View from the Right
I have had many years to think about what role women should have in the armed forces.
I was a Marine infantry officer and Air Force Reserve fighter pilot in an active capacity for over 16 years. Now, mercifully, I am completely separated from the U.S. armed forces.
During my active service and in the years since it ended, I have seen women over-preferred and over-promoted at every step. Inevitably their presence in any numbers is burdensome to the force and detrimental to combat readiness—even when serving only in support units. No matter what promises about high standards Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey may make, standards will be lowered until enough women qualify that this great social experiment can be declared a success. But the truth will be otherwise and, should the U.S. armed forces have to fight a serious adversary that does not engage in this nonsense, very quickly obvious. Men, and some of these ladies, will pay for this social engineering with their lives.
In the 1970s, I saw the service academies thrown open to women, and male cadets and midshipmen at all three academies ordered not to tell the press anything about the blatant dual standards that prevailed thenceforth—despite command assurances to the public that no standards were being relaxed to accommodate women. So much for the Honor Code. It is not surprising that Air Force Academy graduates of the Class of ‘80 (the first to include women) are among the most cynical men I have ever known.
I saw women offered more chances to overcome physical unfitness and injuries in Marine officer training than any man—even a Naval Academy graduate—would be given. That was in 1980. At least in 1980 an unqualified Marine officerette was never in danger of having to attempt to lead Marines in combat. After 2013, however, all bets may be off.
I saw women offered several chances to repeat flunked check rides in Air Force flight training, when one flunked check ride was almost always enough to wash out a man, even an Air Force Academy graduate. That was in 1984. And at least in 1984, there was not yet any danger that an underqualified Air Force pilotess would have to attempt to fly a tactical aircraft in combat. After 1994, however, all bets were off.
In the late 1980s, I watched uniformed women officers lobbying openly in the Capitol and on national television for the removal of any restrictions on their assignability—engaging in political activity while in uniform that would have earned (deservedly) any male officer a court-martial. These ladies were not lobbying because they wished to fight, but because they wanted more chances at promotion. No senior officer disciplined any of them, and no elected or appointed federal official that I am aware of, either Republican or Democrat, protested their gross breaches of military decorum.
In 1991 and 1992, I watched the careers of many male naval aviators ruined because one woman Navy helicopter pilot, Paula Coughlin, complained about their behavior at Tailhook ‘91 in Las Vegas, where they were celebrating victory in Desert Storm. The high-jinks Lieutenant Coughlin and other naval aviatrixes present engaged in were overlooked, while the Chief of Naval Operations stood by and allowed good men’s careers to be destroyed rather than question the very questionable account of one junior, but female, officer.
In 1994 and 1995, I watched as the failed attempt to qualify Captain (“inexplicably” speed-promoted to Major) Jacqueline “Jackie” Parker in the F-16 effectively ruined the 174th Fighter Wing—a unit that had recently distinguished itself in Desert Storm.
Parker destroyed several careers along her erratic flight path, including those of the 174 FW’s Wing Commander, Vice Commander and Deputy Commander for Operations—with whom she had an affair—all the while firing off accusations of sexual harassment to cover her dangerous deficiencies as a “fighter pilot.” (I put that in quotes because a woman can no more truly be a fighter pilot than two homosexuals can truly be married to each other.) Once it became too obvious that the vaunted Parker would kill herself or someone else if she continued attempting to fly the F-16 operationally, she was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to a non-flying job in California. Search the internet: it’s easy to find propaganda lauding Parker as a Pioneer of Aviation. She never paid the slightest price for the devastation she left in her wake.
After 1995, I stopped flying actively because of the demands of my civilian career.
While I regretted leaving the F-16 and my fighter squadron, I had no regrets about leaving what the armed forces had already become. In the years since, the armed forces have only become worse—much worse.
And eventually, after considerable reflection, the conclusion I reached is that women should not, for moral and readiness reasons both, serve in the armed forces in any capacity. I might allow a strictly limited exception for nurses in rear-area hospitals; even in that case I’m not convinced that role would not be filled just as well or better by uniformed men or civilians.
As for the other social revolutions liberalism has force-fed into the armed forces, I do not believe homosexuals should serve in the armed forces, period. The same goes for foreign nationals; nobody should be able to buy U.S. citizenship simply by enlisting in the U.S. armed forces.
Whatever the current commander-in-chief and the generals and admirals who advise him may be serious about, they clearly are not serious about America’s having armed forces capable of fighting and winning wars. So while I am disgusted by the decision to eliminate the combat exclusion altogether, I am not in the least surprised by it.
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