The following article was published in a comprehensive analysis of the issue “Women in the Military,” featured in the Nov. 13, 2009, edition of Congressional Quarterly Researcher (Vol. 19, Number 40, pp. 957-980).  The Center for Military Readiness and information provided by CMR appears on almost every one of the article’s 22 pages.  

In March 2003 infantry, armor, Special Operations Forces and Marines liberated Baghdad with an aggressive ground assault.  In November 2004 the same forces cleaned out Fallujah, an enemy stronghold.  These fierce battles involved brutal street-to-street, door-to-door fighting, demonstrating what “direct ground combat” is.  Despite assurances that today’s wars “have no front lines,” missions of close combat troops remain unchanged. All deployed personnel serve “in harms’ way,” but that experience is not the same as direct ground combat: closing with and destroying the enemy with deliberate offensive action under fire.

 For many good reasons, under current regulations battalion-level units in or near direct ground combat battalions are required to be all-male.  Infantrymen routinely carry on their backs weapons and ammunition, electronic equipment and protective/survival gear weighing more than 100 pounds.  All are prepared to lift and evacuate a fellow soldier injured in battle, in order to save his life.  Female soldiers and Marines face hazardous duty inspecting female civilians in war zones, but in direct ground combat, women do not have an “equal opportunity” to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive.  

Current law requires Defense Department notice to Congress well in advance of proposed changes in regulations affecting women.  Instead, Army officials have redefined regulations unilaterally, without authorization or prior notice.  Resulting “anything goes” policies, combined with misguided recruiting priorities that serve as a magnet for single mothers, create problems for women, men, and families left behind.

 Navy officials are pushing for women on submarines, despite irresolvable health risks identified by experts in undersea medicine.  Elevated trace elements in the constantly recycled atmosphere, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, are safe for adults but not for a developing  embryo receiving insufficient oxygen in the earliest weeks before a sailor knows she is pregnant.  Life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, which are not statistically rare, would require immediate, extremely hazardous mid-ocean evacuations that compromise undersea missions.  Submarine habitability standards are difficult enough, and 100% manning requirements are incompatible with enlisted pregnancy rates that jumped from 12 to 19 percent in only two years.

Pride in our courageous military women and their impressive accomplishments should not deter questions about flawed policies that encourage social problems affecting discipline, deployability, morale, and readiness.  Members of Congress should provide responsible oversight, holding Pentagon officials accountable under regulations and law.  Equal opportunity is important, but if there is a conflict, the needs of the military must come first.

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 Addenum: In April 2011 Navy Secretary Ray Mabus formally informed Congress that female officers would be assigned to some classes of submarines, pending alterations.  Implementation and training began in August 2011.  The Department of the Navy has not responded to inquiries about health risks to female sailors of child-bearing age, or produced documents showing that women in training have been fully informed of these risks.