by Derek Farwell
Columnist

Within the last couple of months there have been some pretty big changes in the military. More specifically, the changes made to allow women to sign up for combat roles. I’ve heard a lot of varying opinions on this; some see it as a big step forward for women, while people who disagree see it as a big step backwards for the infantry. I personally don’t have a problem with it provided the military goes about making these changes in the right way.

In the past, women have been allowed in certain jobs such as military police and medics but never before were they allowed in the infantry. Women and men in the military are held to different height and weight standards, as well as different physical fitness standards. I think that in order for this transition to be successful there must be one set of standards for soldiers going into the infantry whether they be male or female. Not as a means of weeding out women who are naturally smaller than and not as strong as men, but to ensure that each and every soldier in the infantry possesses the physical attributes necessary to perform the job. During 6-18 hour foot patrols in Iraq I carried with me a 30 pound machine gun, 30 pounds of body armor, a back pack that contained no less than 700 rounds of ammunition which is another 50+ pounds, a couple days’ worth of Chef Boyardee’s Beeferoni cans, night vision equipment, and about 3 gallons of water. So long as the people patrolling the city or palm groves with me could do the same then I don’t really care which bathroom they use.

I do have two examples of times that I had dealings with female soldiers in combat situations. One was very good, and the other was not so flattering, but I’ll tell you of both. One night my platoon was tasked with securing and holding a road that was going to be used as an entry point for a large-scale operation that was going to start the next day. Before we got there we’d been told the road had been cleared of all bombs so all we had to do was occupy the road and make sure nothing mischievous happened during the night. Well someone failed, because in the middle of the night a patrol of Humvee’s came driving down the road and their lead vehicle was hit by an IED that was missed earlier. There were 4 occupants in the vehicle, two were ejected from the vehicle and injured, while two were trapped inside which was immediately engulfed in flames. We were only a block away so we drove there to help out. Some of the guys in my platoon were trying to get to the two soldiers trapped in the burning vehicle, which very unfortunately was impossible with the amount of fire. One of the soldiers that was ejected was brought inside of my vehicle and the other soldier was brought to another vehicle. The soldier in my vehicle had a lot of burns as well as some shrapnel wounds to his legs and some other issues. One of my friends and I started helping him out. We were cutting off his pants and starting to bandage him up when we noticed a random female soldier standing right outside the back door of our vehicle crying. She was a medic from the other unit, and as she cried she asked, “What should we do?” To which we replied, “You’re the (expletive) medic, get in here and help us,” which she did not do.

During my deployment we also had a female combat photographer with us much of the time. It wasn’t her job to pick up a rifle and start shooting at bad guys, she took pictures for military publications and news reports. She carried a rifle but whenever we got into a fight she was there with her camera, right in the middle of the fighting with us. I have no doubt that she had the mental and physical faculties that are required of soldiers to face, fight and kill the enemy which would lead me to believe that many other women possess those same abilities.

The only thing that I would disagree with is if the military put in place a separate set of physical standards for women in the infantry. If they can pick me up and carry me to safety if I get shot then great, if not, I surely don’t want to be standing next to you. Especially since I make for a larger target to begin with. The front lines of wars are not the place to be concerned with fairness and equality. And I’m quite certain Al-Qaida fighters won’t extend the courtesy of those same relaxed standards while trying to kill us.

drfarwell@hotmail.com