By Sloan Oliver, retired Army officer
Weekly Column Reporter, Monroe County Reporter
During my military career, I was in infantry, airborne, intelligence, and ranger units. I parachuted from planes at “zero-dark-thirty”, rappelled from helicopters, trudged through desserts and jungles, and flew on Air Force spy planes.
Infantry and ranger units are “combat arms” and were restricted to males. Intelligence and some airborne units are “combat support” and were open to male and female.
Women have critical roles in the military. They are vital to mission success in units for which they physically qualify. I had female bosses and females who worked for me.
Less physically demanding jobs, such as intelligence analyst, interrogator, counterintelligence agent, crew member on surveillance aircraft, and similar combat support jobs, women are as capable as men, sometimes better, sometimes not.
Nobody has issues with women in combat, provided the position isn’t too physically demanding.
For example, a female AH-64 attack helicopter or F-16 fighter pilot is just as good as a male because those positions require quick and critical thinking, coordination, agility and flexibility, determination, and stamina to sustain the flight for hours.
The same reasoning can be used for any combat support positions that engage in combat. Provided the physical demands don’t require repetitive strength movements, women are just as qualified as men.
However, infantry, ranger, most artillery, most combat engineer, and most special ops positions require individuals who must meet rigorous physical demands of repetitive strength for hours on end.
For example, very few physically fit men can jump from a plane, at 0200hrs with an 80-pound rucksack (or heavier), hit the ground like a sack-of-bricks, and hump (walk) 12-miles (or more) to the objective while wearing the ruck. Then, carry out the mission of violently attacking a compound to rescue POWs or hostages.
A 155mm artillery round weighs 95-pounds, and the fire mission might go on for hours; digging foxholes; hand-to-hand combat; evacuating (firemen’s carry) a 180-pound, wounded buddy to the extraction point; another long ruck march, and on and on with the training and missions that demand physical strength. Such training beats down the fittest of men.
Beginning with Obama, then under Biden, the military became the Left’s social experiment and a showcase to implement broader leftist policies.
Obama abandoned Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” and allowed gays and lesbians to serve and flaunt their lifestyle. Nobody was allowed to ask them to “tone-down” their hedonism for fear of being labeled as hateful.
Obama forced combat arms units (infantry, artillery, and special operations units) to integrate women to serve alongside men, saying what men can do, so can women.
Next, Biden allowed transgenders to proudly display their lifestyles, even paying for sex-change surgeries. The military became a joke with a gay colonel flaunting his bondage “pups.
” A male claiming to be a woman (and dressing in skirts) was promoted to admiral and was named one of USA Today’s 2022 “Women of the Year.”
The Navy hired Harpy Daniels, a drag-queen for recruiting videos. The Army made a “lesbian wedding” recruiting video, and celebrated a transgender major (man who claimed to be a woman) for his courage.
Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines were forced to sit through hours of Power Point indoctrination training and labelled a bigot if you disagreed that “a man, with his penis exposed, who identifies as a woman can use open locker-rooms alongside your wife.”
Even more disturbing were senior leaders, the ones we trust to make wise combat decisions, gave zero pushback to any of it.
They simply nodded agreement and even tried to justify the stupidity of men in dresses serving alongside alpha male, special-ops soldiers, calling it normal.
Pride month, women’s month, battling climate change, critical race theory, battling white rage, and implementing other leftist nonsense became more important than defeating our adversaries.
No surprise, recruitment plummeted, reaching a “crisis point” in the Army which fell 60,000 recruits short in FY2023.
Virile, young men want no part of such woke lunacy.
That all changed when President Trump was elected and with his appointment of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.
The first thing they (Trump and Hegseth) did was to end the Pentagon’s wokeocracy. Gone were the transgenders, critical race and DEI teachings and hirings, and trying to force women into positions they’re unable to meet the physical demands.
Trump even changed the name to War Department (what it was known by for its first 158 years.)
The military is being restored to a warfighting ethos.
Last week, in a 45-minute, motivational address to hundreds of active-duty generals, admirals, and senior enlisted personnel, Secretary Hegseth made the administration’s new standards and policy perfectly clear – woke is dead and no more “war on warriors.”
He said, “From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war, and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit.”
He re-emphasized earlier announcements of ending DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) biases, re-establishing higher standards, and “earning peace by preparing for war.” The higher standards particularly apply to physical fitness from the most ranking generals to new privates.
Given Trump’s guidance, Hegseth is changing the War Department’s mindset, attitude, and culture to focus on the military’s primary purpose – kill people and break things. Specifically, the armed forces must be prepared to defeat any potential adversary which will deter them from attacking. Should deterrence fail, violently defeat them on the battlefield.
Hegseth summed up the cultural shift, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distractions, or gender delusions, we are done with that “s.h.*.t.””
He then declared the War Department’s “Golden Rule test: do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops, alongside people who can’t meet basic standards, or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders promoted for reasons other than merit, performance, and warfighting.”
Absolutely not. We all want our child to serve in units with others who are physically fit, morally straight, technically proficient, and who are motivated to drive-on and complete the mission.
Final Thought: Secretary Hegseth’s speech was so motivating, I thought about re-enlisting. However, I cannot meet the fitness standards demanded of our soldiers. (I wish I still could.)
We yesteryear soldiers had our days. Now, it’s the turn of our young men and women to defend this great nation. RLTW! (Rangers lead the way.)
First published in the Monroe County Reporter
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