LITTLE ROCK — IN ONE episode a few years back, Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss on the funnies page unveiled a new policy for the company’s employees: No violence against co-workers in the workplace. Dilbert’s response: What was the policy before this?
That’s funny. In the way that’s not so funny.
What’s not funny at all is when the United States military reminds you of a Dilbert cartoon.
Dispatches from the camo beat say the U.S. Army is testing body armor for soldiers of the female persuasion. Designers are making a few tucks here and a few changes there, to make sure our women in uniform, and in combat, can hold a rifle against their shoulder.
Our response: What’s taken so long?
How long have we been in this particular war? More than a decade? Now that one front in that war is closing and the current commander-in-chief is getting ready to wind down another, now is when the Army decides to begin testing body armor for woman soldiers? What was the policy before this?
Here was the policy before this: Female soldiers spent years fighting on the battlefield with armor designed for thicker necks and shoulders. The armor restricts women’s arm movements, which is to say interferes with operating M-16s. Which is kind of important, if we understand these things.
As an extra-added bonus, sometimes the front armor plates jab into smaller legs when sitting, cutting off circulation. Anybody who’s had to get up to move after a leg has fallen asleep knows it’s not much fun for a minute or so.
Women may not be allowed in what are designated as combat units, such as infantry and armor (aka tank) units. But when was the last time the United States fought a war with clear lines—with combat units always in the front and support people always in the rear? Was it the Second World War? Or maybe the First?
The enemy we now face would prefer not to line up on the battlefield and shoot it out with American forces. That way, he’s at a disadvantage. A fatal disadvantage.
No, what this enemy likes to do is to blow up our people as they travel from place to place. He targets vehicles, and doesn’t care what the patch on the side of the shoulder says. With 15 percent of the U.S. Army now made up of woman soldiers, they are targets along with everybody else wearing an American uniform. And like everybody in combat or near it, they need body armor. Body armor that fits, for crying out loud.
When a military vehicle is disabled—by an IED, accident or something else—and the engineers or mechanics or air traffic controllers or lawyers or MPs or truck drivers start pouring out of the thing, those people turn into some of the worst-armed infantry grunts the country has ever put into battle. They need all the protection the rest of us can give them. All of them—no matter their MOS, rank, branch . . . or sex.
Editorial, Pages 16 on 07/25/2012