The case for women in combat

Sorry, I can't make that case. You'll have to look somewhere else.

Here's why opening combat roles to our sisters and daughters is a horrible thing:

WOMEN ARE WEAKER. Really, I don't have to go any further. No doubt some will argue that some women are stronger than some men. Yes, that's right, but note the adjective used twice. "Some." Try this on: NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and PGA. Or find me an Olympic sport where men and women compete at the same level outside steeple chase or badminton. Even the military has discriminatory athletic standards for men and women. All well and good when your cranking and banking your F-22. A bit different when infantry personnel can't all tote their required packs.

HAMSTRINGING MEN. Forgive the chauvinist pig in me, but it is a natural response for a man to protect a woman. You are asking men to ignore that response when going into combat. The slightest hesitation in a firefight can be life and death. Can men be trained to treat women as men? Yes, probably, but is that really what we want of our men?

NOT ALL WOMEN WANT COMBAT ROLES. Many women have volunteered to serve but never had any desire to see combat. In the past, this was no issue. Political correctness has doomed all that. A man enlists, he's at the whim of the DoD. "But I don't want the front lines!" You're in the wrong line of work, Sonny. Not so our lasses. It used to be considered beyond the pale that we would send our women to the front lines, especially if any men were left standing. Now our women will have no choice. If they do, then we have further discrimination within the ranks.

NOT ALL MEN WANT THEIR DAUGHTERS ELIGIBLE FOR COMBAT. My sons have to sign up for the draft. Does this mean that my daughters will have to sign up also? Not on my watch.

IT WEAKENS OUR MILITARY. As has been stated, this has all come about in the name of political expedience. We are NOT doing this to strengthen our military. Why did the Broncos do the Cirque de Soleil to get Payton Manning? They wanted to win. Why do we have the tanks, planes and ships we have? We want to win any military conflict we face. So please explain to me why on God's little green acre if we have sufficient able-bodied men enlisting for military service would we then open combat positions to women? "Because Helen Reddy wants to" is a dumb reason.

The fundamental fabric of our flag is unraveling at a rate that makes my head spin. With nothing to lose, our president is in a full-court press to make every liberal talking point the law of the land with little regard for the consequences. Sticking our sisters and our daughters into foxholes is just the next step.

A mile in their moccasins

I have a dear friend who is serving a four-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.  He wasn't chosen to go.  His number didn't come up.  As a part-time reservist teaching Undergraduate Pilot Training, he never would have been selected to go.  He volunteered.

After serving more than two decades as an F-4 WSO, an F-16 pilot, and a T-37/T6 instructor pilot, Providence had kept him from seeing combat.  When the fires heated up, he was in training or his unit wasn't deploying.  When it came time for his unit to deploy, he had transfered.

He bleeds red, white and blue.  He loves our nation in ways that Hollywood will never understand.  He goes out of his way to introduce his kids to veterans, men and women who have served their nation in the blast furnace of battle.  Seeing men and women deploy and redeploy and redeploy again knowing full well that those same men and women face a multitude of redeployments in their future, he asked if he could take a tour in Afghanistan to perhaps give one soul a respite and to do what he has always ached to do, serve his nation from within the crucible.  His family, his bride and five children, supported him wholly.

I got an e-mail from Jeff this morning detailing life on the other side of the planet.  He then began to reflect on the service of our men and women in uniform that he has witnessed first hand.  Here is what he wrote:

As I ponder our mission here, I have continually been drawn to the sacrifice that is being made by our servicemen and women. I am only here for a mere four months, and though it seems like forever (especially for my family), it is a relatively short time compared to many of our Army soldiers and Marines. Most of them are over here for at least a year in much worse conditions than me, and they are tired and worn out.  

The pace of deployment operations since 9/11 is taking its toll on the lives of our brothers and sisters in arms. A guy I work with is a Marine major who will be going home this month after serving here for six months. He will be back here in September. In fact, when he comes back this Fall, it will be his fourth six-month deployment in three years (2 in Iraq, 2 in Afghanistan). I have also heard several stories of soldiers here that are deployed for a year and their wives have left them. This generation is often focused on obtaining happiness and there are many spouses who are not happy with their spouse being deployed over and over again; as a result, they are leaving them. I am blessed to have a wife and family who supports me wholeheartedly and I cannot imagine the heartache of serving long deployments over here knowing that it may result in the death of your marriage.

I know that most of you are already extremely supportive of our military, so I fully appreciate the fact that I am “preaching to the choir.” But whenever you see a military person in the airport please take the time to shake their hand and thank them for their sacrifice because you may have no idea the incredible gravity of their situation or what this deployment may cost them personally. Our military is stretched to the limit and the long, sustained conflicts in this region are clearly taking their toll on military personnel and their families... This deployment has opened my eyes to the sacrifices made by so many of my comrades far more than ever.

Wow.

Where have you gone, Mrs. Miniver?

Names don't always tell the story.  Would Marion Morrison and Archibald Leach have gone on to cinematic excellence if they'd not changed their names to John Wayne and Cary Grant?  Would Alphonso d'Abruzzo have won the role of "Hawkeye Pierce"?  Alan Alda did.  For you ancients, remember Ted Knight of the Mary Tyler Moore Show?  Tadeus Wladyslaw Konopka.  Welcome to America.

Last night, my bride and I snuggled on the couch to watch "Mrs. Miniver."  The title alone sent my boys screaming.  Had I said we were watching "The Two Towers" for the bajillionth time, I'd have sons coming out of the woodwork.  In the minds of three-quarters of progeny, there is perhaps no greater testosterone neutralizer than to marry Netflix with "classic", black-and-white, and a title that smacks of "Little Women."  Son number three tagged along because I guilted him into it, I enticed him with with "It's a World War II movie," and perhaps most effective of all, he had nothing else to do.

Background for those who haven't seen it.  It is a World War II movie in the purest sense.  It takes place during WWII, but more than that, it was released during WWII (1942) and has a breath-taking, pro-WWII message.  Winston Churchill suggested it did more to aid the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.  The sermon/speech at the end of the movie (included at the end of this post) by the vicar so stirred the soul that Time and Look reprinted it, and FDR had it copied and air-dropped over Europe as propoganda.  Director William Wyler, born in Germany, admits that he hoped that his movie would motivate the United States to enter the war against his homeland.

Cutting to the credits:  It was a GREAT movie!

Hey, Hollywood!  What have you done for me lately? 

I have heard that "The Hurt Locker" was reasonably pro-Iraq War film, but with lavish profanity, how accessible is that to middle America?  The only qualifications "Mrs. Miniver" needs is that two scenes get intense during air raids and alcohol and tobacco use is the norm if that bothers you.  Beyond that, it could not be more pro-family (of the husband-wife-multiple kid kind), pro-religion, and pro-freedom/pro-country.  Where are the films that show the hellish face of terrorist Islam?  Where are the films that show the salt of the American church-going family?  Where are the films that laud personal sacrifice, understanding the weight thereof, and of personal responsibility?  Where are the films that I can enjoy with my wife and sons without enduring gratuitous violence, sex, or language?

Yeah, "Mrs. Miniver" has a lot to be desired as a title.  Compare that with "Gladiator" or "Braveheart."  But getting past the cover to plumb the depths of a quality story with an soul-stirring message--ah, now that's entertainment.  I guess that's why it's a classic.
-------------------------------

Take a moment to savor the vicar's speech at the end of Mrs. Miniver.  It occurs within his bombed-out church during a mass funeral of parishoners:

We, in this quiet corner of England, have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us - some close to this church: George West, choir boy; James Bellard, station master and bell ringer and a proud winner, only one hour before his death, of the Belding Cup for his beautiful Miniver rose; and our hearts go out in sympathy to the two families who share the cruel loss of a young girl who was married at this altar only two weeks ago.

The homes of many of us have been destroyed, and the lives of young and old have been taken. There is scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart. And why? Surely you must have asked yourself this question. Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness. Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?

I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all the people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield, but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home, and in the heart of every man, woman, and child who loves freedom!

Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves and those who come after us from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the people's war! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right.

I pledge allegiance

Much has been said, and we will say much more, about Major Malik Nadal Hasan's allegiance to Islam and how it conflicted with his allegiance to his uniform and to his nation (that's us).  It has opened a discussion that about which I have heard little.  What do we do when our relationship with God runs counter to what our government asks of us?

Houston, we have a problem.

More and more we find this clash amongst those who hold a strict Koranic view of Islam within non-Islamic societies.  Hence, Brits have kowtowed to Muslim immigrants and permitted Sharia within certain burroughs.  Hence, Muslim cabbies in Minneapolis needn't pick up passengers with seeing-eye dogs.  Hence, Muslim cashiers needn't check out patrons purchasing pork or Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Now we have soldiers who want to join the military but who want to take a sabbatical when they're fighting Muslims.

This God and country dilemma not only conflicts the hard-core Muslim, but it troubles (or should trouble) the Christian, too.

During the days of the Revolution, many Christian patriots loved England, but hated what the king was doing.  During the Civil War, many families were split north and south, with the north unable to abide slavery and the south unable to abide the erosion of state sovereignty.  During the World Wars, immigrants of most every Christian creed turned around to battle against their former homeland for the cause of freedom.

In the past, for those Christians who held to God as their highest allegiance, because of the Judeo-Christian bedrock upon which our nation was founded, they faced no conflict between God and country.  Serving one's country did not mean that one had to compromise in their service to God because the nation and its military stemmed from that firm foundation.  For those that examined the word of God, they did not find his principles nor his precepts violated as they took up arms against those America opposed even if they were Christians.  National conflict is a very different thing than personal conflict within the pages of the Bible.

But erosion has taken its toll.  Post-modern America has rejected its biblical underpinnings opting for a more secular function of government, culture, and international interactions.  As such, many Christians and many who serve in the military have begun to find themselves at odds with national policies.  Many find it repellent that we would allow our women to face the heat of combat.  Many grieve that the military is fast approaching the normalization of that which but a few decades ago was seen as deviance and contrary to good order and discipline.  Many wonder why we would kiss the ring of misogynist kings but would shun the only nation in the Middle East with a remotely free government.  Many cannot abide the legal killing of a child not yet born.

So like Major Hasan, many Christians find themselves at odds with God or country.

But there's a diametrical difference.  Christians do not turn their arms treacherously against their own.  They may have had to refuse their assigned duties.  They may have had to claim conscientious objector status.  Many face punitive action for not carrying out commands and orders, but to turn their weapons against their own is a repugnant and unbiblical idea.

As often as Islam is lauded as a religion of peace, there is much within a plain contextual reading of the Koran that would lead one not only to a position of conflict with one's nation but also to take up arms against that nation (slides 33, 34, 43, and 44 in Maj Hasan's PowerPoint presentation here exemplify this militant response).  You'll not find such militancy commanded of the Christian believer within a contextual reading of the Bible.

As our nation races faster and faster toward banishing any vestige of God from the public sector, the Christian will find himself more and more in conflict with the nation they have loved.  When those times come, the Christian would do well to follow the examples of Daniel's friends (Daniel 3, esp. vv. 16-18) and Peter and John (Acts 4:1-20, 5:29) by obeying God and submitting themselves to whatever consequence comes at the hand of the appointed governor (Romans 13:1-7). 

It has been in the persecution of the saints and the blood of the martyrs that the Church has flourished and God has been honored, not in the butchering of innocents or in the murder of comrades in arms.

QotD: Knee-slapping hi-larity

When I was a wee lad, back in the day when as a six-year old you could leave the house at 8 a.m. and not return until 6 p.m. and mom's heart wouldn't skip beat one, I hung out with Guy Loushin (loo-sheen'). I think we were a bit more mature, probably going on eight, when we strode into Target's food nook in Crystal, Minnesota. Guy was one of the funniest kids I've ever known. Sometimes it was intentional, other times not.

The latter: My family took him on a camping trip one weekend. En route, my dad, hearing us talk of our father's military exploits, asked Guy what outfit his dad was in. Guy thought for a moment and shrugged, "I don't know. A green one I guess."

The former, the intentional humor, often cost him. I wish I could remember what he said. We had gotten our goodies and sat down when he cracked his comedy. Problem was I was in the middle of chugging my milk. You know the line about shooting milk out your nose? Yeah, well it came out the nose and out the mouth in a fine spray that would make Estee Lauder proud...all over Guy. I wish you could see the look etched in my mind. He just stared at me, head slightly atilt, eyes screaming, "You are the biggest moron." I just laughed harder.

I thought of that episode as I came across the following quote on Breitbart last night (here).

"I don't see any threat to the United States coming from Iran anytime soon."

What made the quote so charming was that it came from Sergei Kislyak. You likely gathered from the first name that he's not from Tucson. No, Sergei is the Russian Ambassador to the United States.

Those crazy Russkies! I'm sure glad I wasn't drinking milk when I read that one.

Thanksgiving tragedies: India

In his seminal work, America Alone, Mark Steyn records a quip he made after 9-11 "...that these days whenever something goofy turns up on the news chances are it involves some fellow named Mohammed." He intended it to be simply a throw-away line, a bit of humor, but there's truth in jest, he realized. He then goes on to list a dozen major terrorist attacks beginning with 9-11 and marching to the present where one of the chief terrorists was, you guessed it, named Mohammed.

It's not the name he's indicting. It's the motivation behind the name. That motivation is Islam and it's hostility toward the civilized world.

Call up any news web-site today and the headline will be about the concerted acts of brutality in India. One of CNN's linked articles had as its title "Who is to blame for the Mumbai attacks?" Wouldn't it have been nice if CNN had maintained this distanced sense of objectivity during the presidential election? I'll give them a hint. I bet one of the dudes' names begins with an M.

Reuters image

Once again terrorist motivated by their Koranic convictions are unleashing their genocidal wrath on things western, things Christian, things Jewish. Early reports had the gunmen checking passports looking for westerners. As of this typing, the butchers have slaughtered 125 people.

A religion of peace?

Ever the expert of international intricacies, Deepak Chopra gagged up his thoughts to Larry King.

The situation is complex, Larry, because it could inflame to proportions that we cannot even imagine. It has to be contained. We now recognize that this is a global problem, with only a global effort can solve this."

(Okay, so far. I am a bit surprised that the Deep-one is only now recognizing it as a global problem. Sorry for interrupting...)

"And you know, one of the things that I think is happening is that these militant terrorist groups are actually terrified that Obama's gestures to the rest of the Muslim world may actually overturn the tables on them by alienating them from the rest of the Muslim world, so they're reacting to this."

(Um, the Muslim terrorists (the adjective and noun seem to be side-by-side quite a lot these days) don't like overtures of peace and cooperation? I think he's right but he has no clue why. Back to the countdown...)

"You know, there's 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. That's 25 percent of the population of the world. It's the fastest-growing religion in the world."

(Oominous and true statistics)

We cannot, if we do not appease and actually recruit the help of this Muslim world, we're going to have a problem on our hands."

Whoa, Nelly! (apologies to Keith Jackson). Look up appeasement in the encyclopedia (dating myself...Wikipedia) and you'll find a picture of Neville Chamberlain or a map of France.

Chopra's recent work on Jesus Christ has further muddied the man's mind. He, like many folks, took Christ's words, especially His Sermon on the Mount,* and conformed them to his own thinking, his own philosophies thereby distorting them beyond any biblical recognition. Chopra's painted a Strawberry Fields Forever Jesus who would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. That's not Him.

And so the world peers in on more murder perpetrated in the name of Allah and wonders "What's goin' on?" The average Joe recognizes the threat and wonders how long it will be before the rapidly growing virus within our own shores erupts into an incurable plague.

Could you pass me a drumstick?

*For an exceptional audio treatment of the Sermon on the Mount, follow this link. The messages that begin "SotM" deal with the Sermon on the Mount. Pastor Counterman is currently one-third the way through Chapter 5 of Matthew (the SotM) going through chapter 7.

Just another day: Gustav

Photo from Intellicast.com

• Gustav: Coming around the clubhouse turn and entering the homestretch is Gustav, the next in a series of devastating hurricanes to cross the Gulf of Mexico and smash into New Orleans. And like a thoroughbred hungry for the finish line, it appears that Gustav is only going to get stronger and more fierce the closer to land it gets.
• Hanna: If Gustav wasn't enough, Hanna sits 1000 miles due east making the duo look like a demonic barbell. At least there is no tornadic activity forecast for the plains today.
• Hurricane Vladimir: Georgia and Russia are still in the news. Rather than recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, the Kremlin has decided to absorb them into Mother Russia. Out of the goodness of their heart. Georgia has cut ties with the bear. What's left of it.
• Iran/Israel: They both start with "I" but that's where their similarities end. News stories note that Israel has determined not to let Iran go nuclear. No matter the cost. Iran's response? No surprise, really. "We'll kick of WWIII." Kumbaya.
• Rock and Roll: FoxNews is reporting another 6.1 earthquake in China where the 7.2 brought devastation earlier this year. I went to the US Geological Service's web-site and found that China has had two other earthquakes on top of the one today that topped 6.0. Almost seems like the earth is trying to tell us something. Anybody speak seismonese?
• Bananas: I read this week where former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards' fee for speaking has been raised to $65,000 per engagement. Am I missing something? Wasn't he just exposed as an adulterous fraud and liar? Astonishing to think how close he came to the White House.
• Kickoff: The NFL season starts this next week. My blogging may tail off a bit for the next six months... Go Vikings!!
  

Who's on first? A question of trusting the news

We judge the credibility of what we hear based upon how what we hear corresponds with the reality around us and based upon the tested truthfulness of the herald. If you are unfamiliar with the person, you will be more skeptical of their story.

So it goes with the news. Truthfulness does not generally prove itself the moment a story breaks. Over time as we glean more and more about the event, we learn whether or not the particular media component has handled has handled it in an honest and unbiased manner. That's a good reason to try and collect your ideas about what's going on in the world from a number of typically reputable sources.

When the crisis in Georgia broke, I didn't know to whom I should listen or who would paint the clearest canvas? Did Georgia provoke Russia's wrath? Were horrors against humanity being perpetrated against the South Ossetians?

The fog lifted when I read Pravda and other Russian news outlets accuse the New York Times and the LA Times of being tools of Western propaganda. An example from Pravda today:

"The opinion piece in the online version of the Los Angeles Times (2008.08.12) is a clear and classic example of the type of material western readers are being bombarded with in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign of disinformation to shape public opinion against Russia."

After I'd picked myself off the floor and wiped the remnant tears of one of the best laughs I have had all summer, my continued reading of the neo-Soviet opinion led me to believe they were completely serious.

Over time, I have come to learn that the Times of either coast, LA or NY, paints in a brush that richly favors liberal ideology, socialist even. Statistical analysis bears that out. So when the Stalinists began asserting that their greatest allies in the west were churning out right-wing-pro-West propaganda, it was like trying to deny the cookie heist while chomping down the evidence.

Go Georgia!

The brink

(**Sweeping generality warning**) Assassination is never a good thing. It makes for interesting cinema, but in real life, it's glorified murder perpetrated by a) thugs or b) cowards, sometimes both. When the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated on June 28, 1914, I suspect most Americans wondered, "Who?"

Likewise, when the scrawny leader of Germany started stretching his arms around a sliver of ground called Sudetenland in 1938, most folks between Bangor and Burbank shrugged, "So?"

Ah, the early machinations of global chaos. It's kind of like that pain and tingling in the left arm. Discomfort. A little annoying. Then--click--out go the lights. What happened?

For those of you who regularly scan these ramblings, you've likely plussed yourself up on where Georgia is. Frankly, a week ago, had you spun a globe in front of me, it's unlikely that my finger would have landed within 1000 miles of where I believed the former Soviet Socialist Republic to be. Now I know.

Today's news indicates that the country is split in two, the Russo-friendly territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia within the protective, iron grasp of Vladimir Putin and the southern half of the country (oddly South Ossetia is in northern Georgia. North Ossetia is in Russia) is ducking for cover.

"Who? So?"

I've got to say, the situation gives me a gnarly foreboding. Here's why:

1. Road Block. That wedge of land, slightly larger than West Virginia serves as a western friendly buffer between the Russian Bear and the Middle East. Should Russian have designs toward any country in the Southwest Asia, only the desolate mass of western Turkey stands between it Iraq, Syria (Russian ally), Iran (Russian ally), and Israel (not so much a Russian ally).

2. Timing is everything. Does it strike anyone else as odd that this boil ruptured during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Is the world sufficiently distracted? How's the chai?

3. Who's the Boss? It's not Tony Danza. It doesn't look like it's the recently elected president of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, either. Seems the old president, the new "prime minister," Vladimir Putin's calling the shots on Russia's southern border.

4. Playing "Chicken." Somebody's got to flinch. If not, the crash (clash?) will hospitalize many at best and most likely kill the participants. Georgia is an ally of the West, an ally of the United States. Russia's suggesting this conflict has been provoked by the White House (Obama fodder? WMD revisited?). Putin's already peeved that America transported Georgian troops out of Iraq and back to Tblisi to support their homeland. So here's the Scylla and Charybdis we find ourselves between. If we flinch, we let Russia have its way in Georgia, and we essentially cede all of the former Soviet states back to the Bear's paws. America will show itself too weakened to stand against its Cold War foe. If we hold the wheel steady and we intervene on behalf of Georgia, the bounds of escalation are unimaginable.

And so, Georgia burns and Vlad fiddles. Somebody pass the Tums.

Photo by Reuters

Georgia on my mind

Kumbaya...

We are the world...

I love you, you love me...

I'd like to teach the world to sing...

Yes, indeed, the Olympics are kicking off again. If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium.

During the opening ceremonies Beijing's Olympics, NBC had an interesting shot of President Bush leaning back and chatting with Czar Vladimir Putin of Russia who was sitting just behind him and to his right. Do presidents and emperors just chat?

It seemed odd to me that Mr. Putin would be sharing a quiet evening at the Olympiad while his nation's fighter jets were waylaying Georgia, a territory that was formerly a Soviet Socialist Republic. Tanks and MiGs are not intended to win friends but to influence people. And Mr. Putin sips his chai.

When we think Georgia, we think peaches, the Braves, and the Masters. When Mr. Putin thinks Georgia, he thinks buffer zone and access to the Middle East. Georgia (not ours) sits just the east of the Black Sea with Russia to the north and Turkey to the south. What else is within 100 miles? Iran. Hmmm...

Georgia, Georgia
No peace, no peace I find
Just this old, sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.

Ray Charles