Does It Make Sense for Women to Serve in Combat Units?

It depends. 

Without question, female pilots have proven to be proficient in combat zones.  So if the question is restricted to the aerial arena, the answer can be unqualified.

But what about as ground combat soldiers?  Doubtful indeed.

Of course, there are obvious general differences between the sexes.  Physically, men are usually bigger and stronger.  However, some women are bigger and stronger than some men.  Still physical differences aren’t the main problem with the idea. 

What do you think is going to happen when 18 year old men are serving as combat infantry men alongside equally young females?  With testosterone and estrogen flowing vigorously through their veins, the consequences are obvious. 

For a unit to fight effectively, cohesion is essential.  Isn’t it likely that sexual liaisons, both completed and resisted, will detract from that objective?

It is a pleasant sentiment to say such co-ed arrangements should be implemented because they’re fair.  But fair to what or whom?  In war, the primary goal is to win, not to be fair.  Is it fair that oil and water don’t readily combine?  Is it fair that a man’s sex drive, particularly young males, will cause him to lose focus on his unit’s objective if temptations are close at hand? 

That’s like saying that it’s not fair that men and women are different or that human nature is what it is.

Liberals surely wish that such facts were not so.  As if ignoring them makes them disappear.  The history of sexual misconduct at our co-ed military academies provides a window of what awaits our “sexually integrated” front line units.

Females were admitted into our national military academies in the mid 1970s.  Concurrently, strict policies were implemented to bar improper fraternization between the sexes. 

At the time, there was good reason to believe that such proscriptions would be followed.  After all, students at our academies are, almost by definition, highly motivated since they have volunteered for a rigorous and demanding course of study leading to military leadership and the very real possibility of dying for their country.  Discipline should be a given.

Things haven’t exactly worked out as hoped.  Simply put, sexual  misconduct is commonplace at each academy.  Google the subject and read it for yourself.  If these highly select young men and women can’t control their sexual urges, how likely is it that high school graduate recruits in the U.S. army, for instance, will be able to do so?