Pentagon review calls for reforms to reverse spike in sexual misconduct at military academies
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military academies must improve their leadership, stop toxic practices such as hazing and shift behavior training into...
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The late Rush Limbaugh used to aggravate soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians alike with his fundamental observation about the Armed Forces. Essentially, what he said was, The purpose of the Armed Forces is to kill people and break stuff (on the orders of the Commander in Chief). Any new initiative for the Armed Forces should be evaluated on whether it makes "us" better at killing people and/or breaking stuff. If not, the initiative should be dropped.
As you may have guessed, I agree with Mr. Limbaugh's hypothesis.
One such initiative that has caused countless difficulties in the service academies, and at the same time compromised their role in training the future Officer Corps to kill people and break stuff as efficaciously as possible, was the admission of women into the ranks of students. Now we have Congress fretting over the statistical phenomenon of increasing numbers of service academy co-eds complaining of mistreatment at the hands of their fellow students. I say it's a statistical phenomenon because such reporting is invariably and sometimes dramatically impacted by what actually constitutes the phenomenon in question. "Unwanted sexual contact" can mean anything from a sexual remark in poor taste to rape. It would be remarkable indeed if the service academy co-eds were not being influenced by the so-called, "Me too" phenomenon, hence expanding the behaviors that are elevated from boorish to quasi-criminal, and hence increasing the number of reported, "sexual assaults."
But that is not my point. Surely, it is a problem and it must be addressed seriously.
The real solution would be to reverse the stupid decision to admit girls to the service academies. Make them male-only, as they were created and intended to be. Adding women does nothing to improve those institutions (although that statement is not as manifestly true for the Air Force Academy).
I have no doubt that there are excellent woman-officers, and far be it from me to suggest that women in high ranks got there primarily because of their gonads, and the desire of generals to placate the mandate to be Social Justice Warriors. I would never suggest such a thing. But they need not be trained in the service academies, and I submit that the service academies could do a much better job of training military officers in the absence of wimmin in their midst. War is a nasty business, and it is conducted by MEN. No wounded soldier wants to be rescued from his foxhole by a 125-pound female buck sergeant, or have his pack scaled down so that women can handle it.
I would even support a separate service academy for women, with its graduates opting for the branch they want to serve. I'm sure that academy could work better in a one-sex environment as well.
Men and women are different. It is not sex discrimination that results in 95% of prison populations being men; men are intrinsically more violent than women, and that tendency to violence is one thing that makes them better on the battlefield. If the objective is to kill people and break stuff, why in the world would you invite women to the party?
In short, you wouldn't.
