Normally, sex discrimination in the workplace is illegal. That general rule, however, does not apply to the U.S. military, which continues to discriminate against women by prohibiting them from working in combat operations.
Except that female soldiers do work in combat. And by all accounts they do it well. Monica Brown, an 18-year-old medic stationed in Afghanistan, recently received a Silver Star for running through gunfire to treat and shield wounded fellow soldiers when her convey was struck by Taliban fighters. She may now have the military's third-highest combat medal, but still critically lacks the ability to write her name in the snow from a stationary postion. So days after risking her life to treat her commrades, she was removed from her unit and restationed to a more lady-like position where she wouldn't have to worry her pretty little girl-head about fighting.
President Bush has forcefully backed the Army's restrictions, asserting in a January 2005 interview with the Washington Times that there should be "no women in combat." Since her heroic actions, however, Brown was promoted to specialist and has been congratulated by Cheney in Afghanistan, praised in a meeting with Bush at a NATO summit in Romania, and offered a job on the White House staff.
Military officers in the field and independent experts have said it is both infeasible and contrary to the Army's own warfighting doctrine to prevent women from serving in proximity to -- or together with -- all-male combat units in today's war zones. They contend that if the goal of the policy is to protect women from capture or bodily harm, it cannot be done in the scramble of conflicts such as those in the Middle East.
Across Afghanistan, female medics such as Brown are regularly sent to serve with combat units. "The real catch was to have a female medic out there because of the cultural sensitivities and the flexibility that gave commanders," said Maj. Paul Narowski, the executive officer of Brown's battalion. "It is absolutely not about gender in terms of how well they will do," he said, adding that he does not know why Brown was pulled out.
The only other female Silver Star recipient in the past 60 years was Sgt. Lee Ann Hester, a military policewoman in Iraq who the Army said had responded to a 2005 insurgent attack on a convoy by firing grenades.
"I didn't want to leave," Brown said, after being pulled from the platoon. Robbins said he and his men, who called Brown "Doc," also wanted to keep her as their medic.
"I've seen a lot of grown men who didn't have the courage and weren't able to handle themselves under fire like she did," said Staff Sgt. Aaron Best of Canton, N.C., Robbins's gunner that day. "She never missed a beat."
Army personnel largely agree that the military's ban on women in combat is crap, says a survey conducted last year by Rand Corporation. It certainly goes against common sense. And moreover, it's utterly sexist. Of course, the military has one of the worst track records of any large employer in the U.S. when it comes to
fair treatment of women. But it doesn't really matter that I don't have the foggiest idea why a woman (or a man) would want to enlist in the military. They do, and they deserve to be treated fairly.
