All too often the media seem to go out of their way to find reluctant soldiers. But today the Washington Post had a front-page story on a particularly gung ho group of soldiers.


“[F]emale soldiers like [Jennifer Guay]–as well as Army officers who support them–are seizing opportunities amid Iraq’s indiscriminate violence to push back the barriers against women in combat,’ the article notes approvingly.


Got that? The military is now putting women in “indiscriminate violence” and using the situation to to change the official policy of trying to protect women from engaging in ground combat. (See The Other Charlotte’s post yesterday on the policy.)


Not a single female soldier was quoted saying something like, I didn’t sign up for combat, and I don’t want to do this. Does the press encounter only male soldiers who want to come home and avoid combat?


No doubt the women in the story are heroic. Jennifer Guay, a former bartender from Maine, for example, was the first woman to be assigned as a medic with an infantry unit going into combat. “Day after day, Guay has faced situations that would test the steel of any soldier,” the story notes.
 
But do we want a society that asks women to do this? Call me old fashioned, but I believe men should protect women from “indiscriminate violence” whenever possible. Has feminist ideology triumphed to the point that the military sees nothing wrong with sending women into battle?


Feminist ideology may have triumphed over chivalry and civilized ideals, but it has not triumphed over biology. You get just the merest hint of this buried far down in the Washington Post’s article:


“Most soldiers and officers interviewed also agreed that women need tougher physical fitness standards to perform well in infantry jobs, but that many could meet those standards. For some, the impact of pregnancy on readiness was a concern. Commanders of mixed-sex units in Iraq said that from 5 percent to 15 percent of their women became pregnant and did not deploy to Iraq, but one said health and family issues kept a similar percentage of men home.”


Of course, you could argue that women are needed to make up the numbers required in the Iraq war–remember, the really posh schools won’t even let recruiters on campus.


They’re rather our society send women into “indiscriminate violence” to fight our wars.