IMAGINE IF in addition to smallpox, inadequate supplies, and a numerically superior enemy, the American Revolutionary forces had to deal with hundreds of sexual assault cases filed by soldiers against other soldiers. Imagine Washington’s officers sifting through accounts of who touched whom. The Queen would be drinking tea in D.C. right now.

But that’s the situation our modern military finds itself in. In the past year alone, there have been more than 3,000 reported sexual assaults against service men and women, according to a newly-released Defense Department report. The majority of these reported assaults – 53 percent – are by service members against other service members. An assault by definition involves rape, sodomy, or the touching of private body parts.

A Defense Department spokeswoman told the New York Times that sexual assault must be eradicated altogether in the military and the department now actively encourages women to come forward with reports. Sexual assault “destroys the human spirit,” the spokeswoman said. That can indeed be true in the case of violent rape by a stranger, but few of these assaults fit into that category. Most involve young service men in situations which involve alcohol. It is unclear from this account how many cases involve alcohol imbibed by both victim and assailant. Also, with regard to her statement, the unwelcome touching of a private body part may be offensive but it is unlikely to destroy the human spirit of a woman trained for battle.

Of course false reports of sexual assault can destroy the human spirit too. And the utopian transformation of natural distinctions between men and women destroys the spirit of an entire people. As for men and women soldiers side by side, that ultimately inhibits, if not destroys, the fighting spirit of a nation.

                        — Comments —

Elizabeth Wright writes:

How long is this fantasy going to prevail?  I am so angry about women intruding themselves into those parts of the military where they don’t belong, that when I hear about a “rape,” I often think, Well, that’s what you’re there for, isn’t it?  I think of the sly comment made by a WWII veteran some years ago after he learned that women were serving onboard ships. “Wow,” he said, “I’m sorry I served in the Navy too early. They sure didn’t provide us with that kind of fun back in those days.”  As far as he was concerned, the Navy was delivering women to sex-hungry sailors on a silver platter.

These women deserve no respect. First of all, many of the “straight” women will tell you right out that they’re scouting for husbands in a less competitive venue. So, the military is treated as a meat market from which they hope they can pick and choose. Dating is really the name of the game for these women, not military service.  And, you don’t think the men are aware of this?  If these women can use the military in this fashion, why shouldn’t the men feel that they can make use of the women
as they please?

To be outnumbered by young, testosterone-driven men, who often have been in places where they had to practice the utmost restraint is a situation in which few women have to find themselves. We have now given the military another burden to cope with, a totally unnecessary one.

Van Wijk writes:

If the modern dating culture is a vast wasteland, the military subculture resembles Verdun in 1916.

Here’s a brief story, which I posted at Barely a Blog:

When I arrived at my first unit following training (Jan ‘03), the word was that we would be deploying soon. There were approx. 90 soldiers in the battery, 80 male and 10 female. One of the female soldiers was pregnant (due, as she later told me, to a drunken rendezvous with a male soldier at a house party) and as a result she got to sit out the deployment. Marriage wasn’t even a consideration for her. When we returned another female soldier quickly became pregnant, this time by a (married) NCO with whom she’d been having an affair during the deployment. Another female was transferred to us because she’d been carrying on an affair in her old battery with a man 10 years and 3 ranks her senior.

In the barracks (where the single soldiers must live) females are situated two to a room, but not on different floors or in different parts of the building. Virtually no effort is made to separate males from females. It was not uncommon for a “Barracks Queen” to start at one end of the barracks and work her way to the other end. I later heard (from the girl herself) that one of these creatures came for me in a drunken stupor one night (and I’m not what you would call a good-looking guy), but luckily I was on a 4-day pass out of town. And on and on and on…

Van Wijk writes:

What struck me in the Times story most was this:

The Department of Defense released an annual report on Tuesday showing an 11 percent increase in reports of sexual assault in the military over the past year, including a 16 percent increase in reported assaults occurring in combat areas, principally Iraq and Afghanistan.

So DoD has ceased even pretending that it’s not sending women into warzones. The absence of any fixed front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan has given the DoD an end-run around its own “no women in combat” policy. Women in combat is now de facto policy.

This is from Wiki’s article on women in the Israeli Defense Forces:

Soon after the establishment of the IDF, the removal of all women from front-line positions was decreed. Decisive for this decision was the very real possibility of falling into enemy hands as prisoners of war. It was fair and equitable, it was argued, to demand from women equal sacrifice and risk; but the risk for women prisoners of rape and sexual molestation was infinitely greater than the same risk for men.

So apart from the total immorality of having women at the front, their presence there has a profoundly negative impact on male soldiers. Whenever you put men and women together, relationships will be formed, with all the usual baggage. You like a girl in your unit but she prefers your buddy, and you become jealous; a gorgeous newly-assigned Private begins sleeping with the First Sergeant, and at least appears to be exempt from less pleasant duties; you and a female soldier you’ve had your eye on drunkenly fumble with each other during an all-night barracks party, and the next day she decides the contact was unwanted and your military career is effectively over; you fall in love with and become engaged to one of your squadmates, but during the chaos of a firefight she is captured by the mujaheddin, and you know she’s out there somewhere, being held in some shanty, if only you could get to her…

The intentions or abilities of women in the military are irrelevant when their very presence destroys morale, unit cohesion, and combat effectiveness.

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