Published in The Wall Street Journal (print edition), November 19, 2014, under the heading “The Face of Battle: Can Women Endure Its Horrors” – Letters to the Editor (WSJ http://online.wsj.
The question not being asked or meaningfully addressed in the rush to place females in front-line infantry units is whether their presence will enhance, maintain or degrade the combat lethality of those units.
In what to date has been more political polemic than substantive debate, this fundamental question is either assiduously avoided or purposely ignored. The phrases gender neutrality, gender equality in combat, lifting of gender barriers and universal equality of advancement reflect Aesopian language whiffing more of Orwellian egalitarianism than enhancing combat lethality.
Col. John C. McKay, USMC (Ret.)
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