Count me from the old school, but I can’t see women serving in front line ground infantry units.

According to recent polling, a substantial majority of Americans are in favor of placing women in trenches on the front lines. However as for me, chivalry is not dead, and the thought of women being exposed to something as horrible as ground combat war is unthinkable.

There are too many reasons against it to explore here, but for starters, women by nature are givers of life, not takers. They bring life into the world and nurture it to fruition. Men on the other hand are hunters and gatherers, more adept at taking life. War and front line ground forces are about killing the enemy in the most expeditious manner possible. It is about death, dying and brutality under every imaginable condition known to man according to former Commandant of the Marine Corps the late General Robert H. Barrow.

Everyone favoring women taking on the role of ground combat soldiers should be required to listen to the testimony of General Barrow, veteran of WW II, Korea and Vietnam, before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee in 1991 concerning women in combat. See link at http://youtu.be/fy–whDNNKk

Is the liberal ideology of equality so strong as to impede rational common sense? Are you fathers and grandfathers prepared to see your daughters and granddaughters brought back maimed from ground combat or worse — in body bags?

I cannot believe we as a society are ready for the consequences of placing our young women in ground combat. Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C. S., renowned English novelist and poet among other things said, “battles are ugly when women fight. But societies that send their women off to war are even uglier.”

I happen to agree with Mr. Lewis. I do not want my daughter or granddaughter exposed to the cruelty, brutality, blood and gore of front line ground combat. It is being sold by Panetta as a choice now, but secretaries come and go and so do policies. The desk jockeys at DoD and the Pentagon do not have to implement these drastic changes except on paper. The burden for making it work falls on those in the field where they are occupied with life and death decisions.

Granted, women have been serving in combat areas of Iraq and Afghanistan where front lines are blurred. Some have been killed (139 combat & non-combat related) while others dreadfully injured by road side bombs, ambushes and other enemy assaults. They have performed very courageously and at a very high degree of competence. But, serving in a dangerous environment is not the same as being in a ground combat infantry unit on a search and destroy mission as pointed out by General Barrow.

Are the standards now in place for infantry units going to be watered down to accommodate women? If so, that is going to weaken and lessen the chance of success for the units. Are young women going to register for the draft as do young men? If things are about being equal, then there shouldn’t be any difference.

I have spoken with many combat veterans and I know of none who think this is a good idea. My friend Col. Kenneth Seymour, USA (Ret.) made this observation about placing women in ground combat: “What it will do for them is raise their mortality rate and put them under intense physical and mental stress.”