Yes, there is such a thing as a man’s job.
Being a soldier is one example of such.
For years, Vision Forum has written articles and launched entire Web sites and Web pages dedicated to the biblical defense of men as defenders of women and children and the cultural horror of sending girls and mothers into combat (see “Forum on Women in the Military” and the Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society).
Who will stand with us?
Where is the outcry from the church? Do you know of churches or organizations that will take a stand on this issue? If so, let us know who they are.
Today’s USA Today is yet another reminder of our slippery descent to a unisex, daughter-drafting, Isaiah 3 society of men who will not protect their women. The headline reads:
“Women share dangers of combat: Female Amputees Make Clear That All Troops Are On Front Lines: Reality in Iraq has overtaken long-running debate at home.”
The article by Dave Moniz includes some of the following segments:
On June 19, Lt. Dawn Halfaker and soldiers from her military police platoon were on a reconnaissance patrol in Baqouba, Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded inside their armored Humvee, grievously wounding two of the soldiers inside.
Dazed and covered in blood, Halfaker mustered the energy to give an order to her driver. “Get out of the kill zone!” she shouted. Halfaker’s right arm was loosely connected to her torso....
She is one of five American military women at Walter Reed who have lost limbs from combat injuries in Iraq, a war that marks the first time large numbers of female troops have faced prolonged exposure to daily combat.
A decade ago — in the midst of a heated national debate over which military jobs women should occupy — Halfaker’s story might have ignited a battle over whether women should experience the hazards of ground fighting. Today, she and other severely injured female soldiers say, reality has overtaken that debate.
Since the ambush that nearly took her life, Halfaker, 25, has done about 30 interviews and appearances, including segments on MSNBC and CNN, and has counseled cadets at West Point. She says she is sometimes asked, often by people her parents’ age, whether women should be so heavily involved in fighting.
“Women in combat is not really an issue,” she says. “It is happening.”
Although women are eligible to fill most jobs in the military, they are barred from some of the most hazardous positions, including infantry troops, special operations commandos, tank crews and others that would place them in front-line ground combat.
But they can fly most aircraft, including fighter jets, and serve as MPs and in other jobs that put them in harm’s way. Guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — where front-line and rear-echelon troops often share the same dangers — have rendered the military’s efforts to regulate risk difficult if not impossible.
“Everyone pretty much acknowledges there are no rear battle areas, no forward line of troops,” Halfaker says.
Since the Iraq war began two years ago, 35 U.S. women have died and 271 have been wounded. Although several hundred American women lost their lives in previous wars, the vast majority of them were nurses or auxiliary troops assigned to rear areas, many of whom died of disease and injuries unrelated to combat.
During Vietnam, the last prolonged ground war, a total of eight American women — all nurses — died. U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican who served as an Air Force officer in the 1980s, says the Iraq war seems to have largely answered questions about how Americans would react to seeing women return home in bandages and body bags.
“There have been casualties, men and women, and we grieve for them. But I think we have gotten beyond the point where losing a daughter is somehow worse than losing a son,” Wilson says....
Heather Wilson, the New Mexico congresswoman, says the military faced large hurdles in opening up jobs such as fighter pilot and military police to women. Within American culture, she says, there is a deeply rooted belief that women should be protected rather than be protectors....