Women in the Military — is there a Problem?

by Robert Arvay, Contributing Writer

For thousands of years, soldiering has been an exclusively male profession. The instances of women bearing a weapon into combat are few and centuries between. Ancient Greek legend says that there was once an army of Amazon women, although history does not record them. Boudica was a warrior queen in Britain during the first century AD. Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431) led a French army. The remaining six thousand years of history, however, do not record any significant role for women in combat.

Modern myth includes the fictional character played by Demi Moore in the movie, GI Jane, which promotes the notion thatwomen can compete with men in the military special forces. In real life, Jessica Lynch (1983 - ) served in combat in Iraq, where while part of a convoy of supply trucks, her convoy was ambushed. She was wounded, captured by enemy forces, then rescued by US special forces troops. Lynch was at first reported to have fought ferociously, shooting and stabbing enemy soldiers. Later, it was found that she had been seriously wounded in the initial contact with the enemy, and had therefore been unable to resist the ambush, in which several of her comrades were killed.

Thousands of women have served heroically in the military forces of many nations. Most notably, the Kurds in Iraq employ women soldiers, in front line combat against terrorists, despite that their Moslem religion generally relegates women to the kitchen. In Israel, women also serve, although not as front line warriors.

The United States has a dual personality regarding women in combat. On the one hand, soldiering seems unladylike. On the other hand, from the Revolutionary war, to the settling of the Wild West, frontiers-women were rugged, brave, and good shots. Phoebe Ann Mosey (1860 – 1926), although not a soldier, became famous both as a skilled shooter and an advocate of women’s rights in the late 1800s to early 1900s. You might know her better as Annie Oakley.

In the modern era of computerized combat, most members of the armed forces do not have to be rugged frontiers types. A few do - and therein lies the problem. Political correctness makes no room, none at all, for even the most minor exception to its rigid dogma. If any woman anywhere at any time is denied an opportunity on the basis of her gender, then that is considered to be an outrage. Facts do not matter to ideologues. If no woman can be found who can carry a fifty-pound mortar base plate up a long hill at a sufficiently swift pace, then the requirement to do so should be voided, even if it costs lives. Everybody must be equal.

Then there are the pragmatists, who believe that while women cannot necessarily do everything, they can do a lot, and should. Lt. Col. Kate Germano, United States Marine Corps, is apparently one such woman. For about a year she was in charge of Marine Corps basic training (boot camp) for women at the 4thRecruit Training Battalion on Parris Island, SC.

According to information posted on the official US Marine Corps website at
http://www.mcrdpi.marines.mil/Leaders/LeadersView/tabid/18265/Article/517550/lt-col-kate-germano.aspx 

Ltc Germano has an impressive record of achievement. Judging from that and news reports, she fits the mold of the legendary hard-bitten, no-nonsense drill sergeant that so many military recruits have come to know, fear, and admire all at once.

So why did she get fired?

It seems that the answer is that she fits the mold of the legendary hard-bitten, no-nonsense drill sergeant that so many military recruits have come to know, fear, and admire all at once.

While most military training in the Unites States consists of both men and women in the same class, the Marines resisted the efforts at gender integration in boot camp, and persisted in training women separately from men. The effect has been to raise the standards for women while not lowering them for men, a lowering that in fact has harmed the other military services.

Germano went a bit farther. She exhorted her trainees to avoid alcohol, citing the well known fact that women who get drunk are more likely to suffer sexual predation than women who stay sober. She castigated them for relaxed physical fitness performance, stating that male Marines would never accept them as equals if they were soft. Germano’s tough, and often crude, leadership had results. One of them was that the performance of women on the rifle target range increased significantly.

The other was that Germano got fired.

One wonders, what happened? Marine Corps leadership had once stood out as unexcelled by any other service. Germano seemed to exemplify that standard. How could they fire her?

While I am not privy to the actual answers, it seems to me that political correctness, which has infected the officer corps in the Army, Navy and Air Force, has now seeped its way into Marine headquarters, which once upon a time fended it off.

My suspicion is that, somewhere along the line, one of Germano’s trainees felt offended. Feeling offended is a serious condition in the world of extremist liberalism. Accusations of hurting someone’s tender emotions has gotten more than one high ranking individual in hot water, both in the military and out. Even the very liberal former president of Harvard University, Larry Summers, felt its sting as he was shown the door for being not quite liberal enough.

America has struggled valiantly to cast off the chains of discrimination, but in America, once a problem has been largely solved, perfectionism sets in, and commonsense is discarded. This is why we are now facing manufactured social crises called by such names as “micro-aggression,” and “white privilege.” Give me a break. There are plenty of truly major problems that need to be solved, without bogging ourselves down in contrived crises.

Germano is appealing in Congress, and it will be interesting to see how that works out. Senator Joni Ernst (R), lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, are you listening?
Read more at: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/13/ouster-marine-officer-overseeing-female-boot-camp-training-sparks-controversy/

Never Let a Dead Fish Go to Waste ...

New Daily Newsletter for Conservatives

The *E-Blast* is a daily conservative newsletter by Bruce O'Hara. 

Scouring the Web and aggregating top stories and news of interest to conservatives,The E-Blast also features graphics, art and a healthy, much-needed dose of humor during these dark days of the Obama administration.

The E-Blast began as a simple email with a few tidbits that O'Hara sent to friends and social network pals (he's also the founder of AmericaWillSurvive - a private Ning network); as its popularity grew, O'Hara, an artist (he created The Bold Pursuit banner and the TBP Eagle), used his skills and knowledge of political issues to finesse the email into a compelling daily read and blogsite.

Subscriptions to The E-Blast are soaring - just like our TBP Eagle. Congrats, Bruce, on creating one of most informative and entertaining conservative daily newsletters on the Web!  

Get the Latest Campaign 2012 News

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/obamas-amnesia-about-his-first-year-president/599376

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/17/curl-obama-a-domestic-enemy-of-the-us-constitution/

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/dont-forget-how-hard-was/

http://www.dickmorris.com/how-to-counter-obamas-latino-gains-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/06/14/president-obama-the-biggest-government-spender-in-world-history/

When Things Seem At Their Worst

by Robert Arvay

 

Picture yourself as an informed citizen in the year 1938.

Every day you read of some new success by the German and Japanese
imperialists, some new horror emanating out of Stalinist Russia, a new
conquest by fascist Italy, and the increasing powers of a Chinese dictator.

The future seems grim, almost hopeless. Making matters worse, a
complacent American public is either ill-informed or unrealistically secure
in the belief that it can stay out of “foreign entanglements.”

As the Japanese violate every international treaty by annexing Manchuria
through subterfuge and brutality, by walking out of the League of Nations,
the world stands by, wringing its hands, but unwilling to meet force with
force. Vainly, we hope that matters can be resolved peacefully.

As the Germans forcefully annex the Rhineland, and, as Britain and France
submissively sacrifice Czechoslovakia to a mad dictator, the prime minister
waves aloft a scrap of paper bearing Hitler’s signature and happily
proclaims that this means “peace in our time.”

Day after day, the march of boots crushes the hopes of yet another small group of valiant people, and each day those who remain, yet untrampled, hope the fool’s hope – that the tyrant will be satisfied, that he will kill no more.

The next day yet another band of people are crushed – either imprisoned or massacred, to satisfy the never-ending gluttony for power by the madmen who know no mercy, and recognize no limits of cruelty.

To such a citizen in 1938, there seems little hope. The memory of a recent
world war haunts him, with its millions of deaths; a generation of young men slaughtered in the trenches, and millions more deformed as amputees and as gasping victims of poison gas… and the machines of war have grown only more terrible than before.

Yet, however fearsome the thought of war, even more terrible is the prospect
of slavery beneath the whip of barbaric savages who regard other people as
less than human.

Finally war does erupt, first against the Germans as they invade Poland, and
then later against Japan when it bombs Pearl Harbor. Millions will die in
this war also – some twenty million in Russia alone. More than three hundred
thousand US soldiers will die in combat – nearly a third of a million dead
men from the farms and cities of America.

In the end, the dictators are defeated, and democracy survives. It is not a clean victory. Josef Stalin continues as dictator, murdering thousands more, and threatening the world with nuclear holocaust. A new Chinese dictator emerges, similarly casting a pall of dread over a world that yearns for peace.

Today, we face a new threat, the specter of suicidal fanatics willing to kill any number of people, including their own, in order to achieve the mad dream of a world in which women are property, and in which no one dares utter a word of dissent against those in power.

Once again, the prospect of war seems distasteful. However, this time, America
responded, and is meeting force with force.

Despite all that, the enemy seems firmly entrenched, while other storm
clouds gather in the straits of Taiwan, in the oil fields of Venezuela, in
the sands of Israel, and even in our own streets.

The early going in World War II was a string of defeats for the allies. The fall of the Benelux countries, the defeat of France, the bombing of London, the death marches of Bataan and Corregidor, the loss of Wake Island, and the humiliation of the US army at Kasserine Pass, all seemed to presage a defeat of democracy, and the final descent of darkness upon a world that had fleetingly known freedom.

Today, we too find the going tough. Now, as then, we hear the forecasts of doom and gloom, and find ourselves confronted by those who snipe at our heels as we carry forward the struggle.

None of us can predict the final outcome. Nevertheless, we can be sure that God has a plan, and that if we give it our all, the world may continue to be illuminated by freedom.

So it is that in our war against the terrorists, we are likely to suffer many setbacks, and even some defeats along the way. But we have been down that road before, and triumphed.  Faith and perseverance, along with the grace of God, saw us through.

But our struggle for freedom is not only on the foreign battlefield. It is also here at home. You may not wield a rifle, nor sharpen a bayonet, on the domestic front line. But you do wield the vote. It is the instrument, not of destruction, but of building up where our misguided opponents would destroy.

The election of 2008 was a sort of Pearl Harbor for the cause of freedom. Since then, we have seen our share of disastrous policies, just as in 1942 when we suffered defeat after defeat overseas.

But 2010 can be the turnaround, the beginning of a great awakening, and the clear signal to those who value more government over more freedom, that in the end, free men and women will always prevail.

Why Politics As Usual Will Sink America … Part Four

by John Wayne Tucker
 

Much is wrong with American Politics, as we have already seen in this series. The circumstances about to be described can be argued as something good or bad, but it seems that anyone can see the potential for bad.

We are now in the final month before the election and things have begun to get rather exciting in most political camps as they begin to receive the huge donations from PACs (Political Action Committees). An election is incredibly expensive, as we have already discussed. When I went to D.C. to talk to the RNCC (Republican National Congressional Committee), I was told that I would need about two million dollars to run a campaign for my district. I was told that I was lucky because some races can cost upwards to twenty million dollars. When we stop to realize that this is for a job that pays about $163,000 per year, it seems mind boggling that so much money would be put forward to win an election. While it is only a recent development that millions can be raised overnight from individuals, it is still the big corporations, lobbies and labor unions that provide massive amounts of money.

My Fellow Grass Roots Americans

by Bruce Brown, candidate for U.S. Congress, California (35)

We often hear that the left runs on emotion and the right runs on logic – and I want to make it perfectly clear that I am passionately emotional about my logic because my logic includes love of God, love of country and love of family – the most powerful emotions people have and its all on the line this November – we must tap into these emotions and use that force to bend our government to our will.

Thirty years ago, we elected Ronald Reagan president after the disastrous Jimmy carter did irreparable harm to our country and we spoke of America as the “Shining City on The Hill” – America defeated the Soviet Union, tax cuts exploded government revenue, natural gas was de-regulated with great results and we spoke of a new concept called the “peace dividend.” Clearly, we had the world figured out and under control.

This Town Is Not My Home ...

by Jeanette Ward, Contributing Staff Writer

I was in Washington DC a few weeks ago and was invited by Sharron Angle to observe her interview with Fox News’ Brett Baier in the studio.  She did a great job articulating conservative principles in the interview, especially defending returning to LOCAL control the functions of the EPA, Department of Education, Department of Energy, etc.  Because, according to the tenth Amendment, only the enumerated powers listed in the Constitution are reserved for the Federal Government.  The rest are reserved for the states or other local authority. She is right on. 

But I was particularly struck by something she said in passing off-camera. Someone on the Fox team remarked to her that she would possibly be moving to Washington DC. She said, “No, I’m not moving here; I’m just a visitor here.  My responsibility is to the people of Nevada.” She also remarked to me that to guard against becoming out-of-touch with Nevada, it was very important to her that she NOT live in DC.

Sharron once wrote on a related topic, incumbency, in a book draft she was considering publishing (quoted with permission):

“One of the reasons our nation is in such great trouble is that the legislative branches of state and national governments have been populated by professional, career politicians. This was never intended by our founders, and the problem is very simple. The interests of career politicians are never aligned with the interests of the folks back home. To have a career and job security, the politician must first bow to the demands of those powerful forces that can get him or her re-elected.

“The first priority of the career politician is protecting the incumbency. The ideal to serve for a few years to share the burden of representation on behalf of their communities as the Founders intended has long been abandoned. It has been replaced be those wanting full-time employment in government and having a desire to change our culture and governance along the leftist lines prevalent in most educational institutions. Since the sixties, schools have been teaching that government is too complex for amateurs and should be entrusted only to professionals who have absorbed the faddish teachings of this era.  

“Protecting incumbency requires extensive fund raising, political alliances, competent image makers and campaign managers. None of these things are consistent with representing the genuine interests of the folks back home. On the other hand, the paybacks to that coalition often require selling out the interests of the folks back home in favor of such lobbyists and power brokers. Also disgracefully, politicians have subsequently rigged a self-serving system of enormous rewards and benefits, travel both foreign and domestic, gold-plated health care coverage, generous salaries and allowances, pensions representing full salaries for life after short periods of service, and power and prestige which rivals that of royalty - all motivations to hold on to their “careers” at any cost.”

Sharron Angle is not interested in becoming one of the Washington elite. She is interested in serving “We the People." God-speed, Sharron Angle.

Jeanette Ward is the author of moveonreid.com, as well as a certified doula and owner of www.sbndoula.com. Jeanette also publishes www.theconsequencesofideas.blogspot.com

www.christianconservativeresistance.blogspot.com

Sharron Angle Entrapped by Fake Tea Party Candidate

Sharron Angle is a candidate for U.S. Senate, Nevada, facing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the mid-term elections this November. The Bold Pursuit sm   offers a Patriotic Perspective about Candidate Angle from guest blogger, Jeanette Ward.


From the Las Vegas Sun:

“Angle: ‘I’m not sure I can win’ if Ashjian’s in, nat’l GOPers ‘have lost their principles,’ need to ‘leave me alone"

“That’s just some of what GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle said during a meeting Wednesday evening with Tea Party of Nevada candidate Scott Ashjian and Tea Party of Nevada Chairman Sid James at the home of Richard Ziser, who lost to Harry Reid in 1994 and now is an adviser to the Angle campaign and also participated in the conversation.

“A tape of the 38-minute meeting that I have obtained provides a rare window into the kinds of discussions that take place during campaigns behind closed doors, redolent of the authenticity that disappears in public or in TV ads.”

Ah, yes, that would be a tape you (Jon Ralston, no friend of Sharron Angle), obtained from Scott Ashjian himself, who taped the whole conversation with Sharron Angle without her knowledge. In the interest of full disclosure, you might have revealed that in the article, Jon Ralston.

Continuing from the Las Vegas Sun:

“Angle expresses disdain for the national GOP, which she says she now has ‘in a box’ because she won the primary, which caused the DC types after her June 8 victory to still be ‘moaning and groaning and weeping and gnashing teeth over Sue Lowden.’ Later, she tries to persuade Ashjian to endorse her because she will have ‘juice’ he can tap into to get access to Sens. Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn and Mitch McConnell.

“I can just hear it now: The woman who calls the majority leader ‘Let’s Make a Deal Harry Reid’ becomes ‘Let’s Make a Deal Sharron Angle’”.

Excuse me? Access to meetings with political figures is not the same as the thuggery and bribery that Harry Reid employed to ram Obamacare through the Senate against the will of the American people, and you know it, Jon Ralston. She is promised Ashjian nothing.
And, she DID win IN SPITE OF the Republican establishment, the same Republican establishment who initially refused to endorse Christine O’Donnell. Umm, is this a shock to anyone?
Interestingly, the Tea Party Express had a message  for Scott Ashjian back in March:

"We at the Tea Party Express have a message for Scott Ashjian, who has been trying to pretend that he's part of the Tea Party movement - get lost!" says Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express, in the video. "None of us have ever heard of you or seen you at a Tea Party rally. Nothing. We think you are a fraud who's trying to split the vote and help re-elect Harry Reid."

Gateway Pundit sums it up nicely:

“This fraud [Ashjian] sure seems to be helping out the Reid Campaign for some odd reason.

“Fake Nevada Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian was sued by the Independent American Party in March. The suit challenged Ashjian’s membership in the Tea Party of Nevada. He was also charged with felony theft for passing a bad check in Las Vegas this spring.

“…This afternoon Ashjian lashed out at the “racist” Tea Party Express and the Republican Party saying he would not endorse Angle or Reid in the election.

“Unfortunately, this fake tea party candidate is trying to pull votes from Sharron Angle.

…How convenient for Harry Reid.”

For more commentary on Sharron Angle, please see http://www.moveonreid.com.

Why Politics as Usual Will Sink America ... Part Three

JWT'S Journal: It’s All About Winning

by John Wayne Tucker

The people have the belief that there is an important difference between the two parties. While it is true that each party stands for different ideologies, they are exactly alike in one very important respect. Everything they do is about winning. Both sides will say and or do whatever it takes to win the elections. That means, unfortunately, that they are willing to sacrifice the best people for the people that they believe have the best chance to win.

Once again, it is important to site the issue of Christine O’Donnell. The party says they will not financially support or will not fully support the duly elected candidate because they do not believe she has the same chance to win that the party choice would have had. The only real concern is that the party wins as many seats as possible so that they can control the direction of the nation. That is a good thing, right? After all, we vote for a particular party because we support the issues of that party. Well, yes, we do support those platforms; however, it has become clear lately that the parties do not adhere to their own platforms. One of the reasons that people are so upset with the Republican Party is that they have failed to live up to their conservative agenda. And why do they fail to do that? They do that because, if you remember from the previous article, this is about making whatever deals and policies are necessary to appease everyone.