Contributed by Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)
All,
Let me begin by arguing that I support opening combat arms to anyone, and I mean anyone, who can lead, win, and protect the Marines (as best possible given the mission) under their charge. Special Operations seems particularly inviting. One of their strengths is not playing by the rules. In many parts of the world, women as a threat are immediately dismissed as part of a cultural prejudice. Women in Special Operations could add an additional layer of complexity to confound and defeat the enemy.
Opening up the combat arms to women is an appropriate and positive decision. When I went through Marine Corps OCS the goal was to weed out those who could not handle the inseparable combination of physical and mental rigor demanded by those who are placed in the position of leading Marines in combat.
One test was to conduct a “fireman’s carry” at a sprint of a “wounded’ Marine fifty yards to safety. Being 5’10” and 150 lbs I was not quite a “Feather Merchant” but neither was I “Muscles McGurk.” My DI picked some 6’3’’ 200 lb candidate who played college ball in Georgia as my “wounded” fellow. The decision was not based on harassment but in driving home the reality that you cannot control who is “fit” and who is “hit” in combat.
Women candidates at that time did not have to meet male goals. It was dismaying to see a male candidate dismissed for failing to meet physical requirements that were waived for a female candidate. We knew there was two sets of sets of standards and males were held to higher level of performance.
I understood why when I applied for the infantry combat arm.
I can only write as a Marine infantry officer. That narrows but does not negate my argument. In the Marine infantry there was a common refrain, “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” Life in the infantry is harsh. The reason for this mentality is simple. In peacetime, infantry life is defined by:
Mission
Terrain
Weather
In combat, your life, for what it is worth, is defined by:
Enemy
Mission
Terrain
Weather
Those are the Leviathans that face an infantry commander day in and day out.
You either cut it or you do not. It is a Hobbesian existence. Either the “System” removes those who are incapable of leading Marines under those constraints or Darwin will. In combat, Darwin uses death and dismemberment as his primary tools.
Washington wonks, despite their attempts at ascendancy to omnipotence, can change neither the face of the earth nor the world’s weather to suit their domestic socio-political agenda or fantasies. They will never, through some muddled combination of legislative and/or judicial acumen, be able to alter the determined effort of an enemy to kill and maim on a battlefield. That is reality.
In the infantry, a leader has to thrive, not simply survive, under cruelly harsh physical and mental pressures. Even in the “Gung Ho” Marine Corps, the majority male officers opt out of a life in the “grunts.” There is no doubt that females will make the same choice.
Let me expand on the harsh life. Officers eat after everyone else. That can mean going without. Sometimes that is not missing much if the chow is served in subzero weather where everything hot is icy cold before it enters your mouth or in the rain where the food is tastelessly floating in water or where the insects are so thick that eating a few bugs during their migration from a nearby shit pile to your spoon is taken in stride.
Your home is on your back and, as you carry it with you, it seems to weigh a ton. If you are on the march and the machine gunner needs a rest then you pick the gun up off the shoulder and carry it for the next several miles. There is not a shred of privacy in the infantry in the field. If you want to change your clothes, you do so in the open. The same goes for washing, shitting and pissing.
Grunts develop a peculiarly odd sense of humor to deal with the harshness. Never having to had to experience a “menstrual” period” after a few weeks without bathing, I can only guess the outcome, but it must be nicely crusty. In Panama while undergoing jungle warfare training, I remember smelling the Marines a good ten yards before I could see them. What is that stench? It is I! I also recall getting the “running shits” in the desert and loosing my balance while squatting for the umpteenth time and falling ass first into a steaming pile of diarrhea and cutting my skivve shorts off to extract myself (not to mention having to use a badly needed canteen of water to wash with).
There is no need to go into the details of seeing wounded Marines. One lesson is important. A Marine infantry officer leads in combat. Corpsmen treat the wounded. There is also no need to go into the insect bites, stings, body lice, ticks, chiggers, rashes, puss-filled sores, etc. Life is a bitch and then you die. You get the point.
Women should be allowed to go into the infantry. Just enter with your eyes wide open. The enemy certainly does and will kill you if you expose the least weakness.
Semper Fi,
Mike
