Iraq war redefines role of women in US military
May these brave woman prove just how capable woman can be in war and destroy one more sexist prejudice.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070306...jTqWm2aGis0NUE
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The war in Iraq, which has killed or wounded more US women in combat than any other conflict, has redefined their role in the military and triggered a rethink of their place on the front line.
Women in the US military are barred from belonging to ground combat units under rules drawn up by the Pentagon more than a decade ago and are limited to serving on surface warships and in attack aircraft.
But Afghanistan and Iraq, where the lack of any clear front lines as such has drawn many US military women directly into the line of fire, have become proving grounds for female soldiers in battle.
"The Iraq war marks a turning point for women in the military," Lori Manning, a retired Navy captain who heads the Women in the Military Project at the Women's Research and Education Institute near Washington, told AFP.
"These two wars, if they've done nothing else, they have shown that women can be quite effective in ground combat," she added.
"In Iraq, women are certainly engaging in defensive ground combat, if not more, and they are doing it very well.
"So all the horrors that people used to predict about men going to pieces if women were injured, or the American public not being able to bear it if women were killed, those things haven't happened."
There are about 150,000 women currently enrolled in the US Army. Eighty-three have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and more than 500 have been wounded, according to Pentagon figures. About 70 of those killed were in Iraq, as were the majority of those wounded.
While the Army maintains it has honored its combat policy concerning female soldiers, the guerrilla war taking place in Iraq, along with a shortage of trained troops and an increasing number of women in senior military positions, have blurred the traditional lines between combat and support functions.
"We now have real-life experience, current experience, that we can drawn on when we look at the question of women in combat again," Manning said. "In the past we just sort of had to guess."
An attempt by some members of Congress in May 2005 to translate into law Pentagon regulations concerning women in combat was quickly shelved under pressure by the Bush administration which realized the pitfalls of such a move.
"They realized that if women couldn't fight, they would have to pull everyone out," said Manning. "I think our experience in Iraq will result in us abolishing the (Pentagon) policy ... but the whole question is tabled and it will stay tabled until the end of the war unless something dramatic happens."
Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, a Pentagon spokesman, said though female soldiers are not "assigned to units whose primary mission is to engage enemy forces in direct ground combat, (...) all soldiers are warriors, and all soldiers are trained and ready to fight when necessary."
Opponents to putting women in ground combat maintain that their presence on the front line would hinder the effectiveness and cohesion of fighting units and accuse the Army of toying with semantics and sophistry in order to send women to battle.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, charged that female soldiers were being assigned to jobs which on paper appear to be out of the line of fire.
In reality, however, she said, they are placed in units that engage in direct ground combat.
She said that by circumventing regulations, the Army was placing its soldiers in harm's way because of the physical disadvantage of women in combat situations, and because romantic liaisons could harm unit cohesion.
"The only rule they (the Army) have these days is anything goes," Donnelly told AFP. "The army is inviting trouble."
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Originally Posted by LiberalNation
