Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has announced that all positions in the military are henceforth open to women. But the AP reports that some very knowledgeable men who are closer to the ground (literally) that a Cabinet member are pushing back:

The men in the U.S. military's most dangerous jobs care little about political correctness or gender equality. And they have a message for their political leadership.

When they are fighting in the shadows or bleeding on the battlefield, women have no place on their teams.

In blunt and, at times, profanity-laced answers to a voluntary survey conducted by the Rand Corp., more than 7,600 of America's special operations forces spoke with nearly one voice. Allowing women to serve in Navy SEAL, Army Delta or other commando units could hurt their effectiveness and lower the standards, and it may drive men away from the dangerous posts.

An overwhelming majority of those who agreed to respond to the RAND survey said they believe women don't have the physical strength or mental toughness to do the grueling jobs.

. . .

"I weigh 225 pounds, and 280 pounds in full kit, as did most of the members of my ODA (a 12-man Army Green Beret unit)," one respondent said. "I expect every person on my team to be able to drag any member of my team out of a firefight. A 130 pound female could not do it, I don't care how much time she spends in the gym. Do we expect wounded men to bleed out because a female soldier could not drag him to cover?"

Another [respondent] said politicians don't win the covert wars.

"Gender equality is not an option when the bullets are flying," he said. "Most males in the area of the world I work in would rather back hand a female than listen to her speak. There is a reason we send men to do these jobs."

The idea of a woman in special ops couold be captured and beheaded would have a profoundly bad effect on military morale.

I predicted last week that, if the presence of soldiers who aren't as strong as they should be makes serving even more dangerous, some people will think twice before joining the military. The responses from these special ops men convince me that this is true.

No doubt there are women out there who will be furious at the remark about "mental toughness," but this is how special ops men view the situation, and they do dangerous things and we should listen to what they say about their jobs. The point of the military is to be a lethal force to protect our country. It should not be used for social engineering, ever how passionately we may feel about the goals of such engineering.

Women have always been able to make careers in the military. This has benefited individual women and the military as a whole. But the move to put women on the front lines, and even in special ops, is based more on ideology than reality. I'm also predicting that there will be women who otherwise would have joined the military who'll now prefer not to. Feminists may want to send women to the front lines, but actual women may have some reservations.