Women in combat? Yes, said the Pentagon and no later than 2016 as it moves ahead to establish sex-neutral physical standards.

But should women even be considered for front-line duty? This is a hot-button issue so this writer will try to answer that question with delicacy.

Good grief, no! They would be a danger to themselves, to others, and degrade the combat effectiveness of any unit in proportion to their number in that unit.

Women are too small, too weak, too delicate. In a word, they are supremely unfitted for fighting.

The average 18 year-old woman is about 6 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than the average 18 year-old man. Compared to her male counterpart, she has almost twice the natural body fat, 32 pounds less muscle mass, and is not half as strong.

At Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps training center, it was discovered that almost half the female Marines couldn't throw a hand grenade far enough to keep from blowing themselves up. One Marine commented, “If I was in a foxhole with a woman about to toss a hand grenade, I'd consider her the enemy.”

A woman's skeleton is less robust than a man's. An Army study found that women are more than twice as likely to suffer leg injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer stress fractures as men.

Women have 20 percent less oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Their hearts and lungs are about a third smaller than male recruits. This gives an 18 year-old woman the aerobic capacity---that is, the body's ability for high-intensity activities---of a 50 year-old man.

The physical gulf between the sexes is seldom realized. They rarely compete against each other physically. Most sports---soccer, football, basketball, baseball, golf---have separate divisions for men and women. So when women do contend with men on an equal footing in a physical activity it comes as a shock.

Catherine Aspy was a smart, tough-mined Harvard graduate. She believed she could hack it with the grunts. To prove it, she enlisted in the Army. “I was stunned,” she said. “I took training seriously and really tried to keep up with the men. I found I couldn't. It wasn't even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so huge.”

Katie Petronio took the baton from Aspy and got a similar jolt. Petronio is an extraordinarily strong woman able to bench press 145 pounds and squat with 200 pounds; she was no weak sister. She became Captain Petronio and gained experience as a Marine Corps combat officer. “I am here to tell you that we are not all created equal,” she said.

After five months in Afghanistan, Petronio said she was physically damaged, irreversibly changed, suffered extreme weight loss, muscle wasting, and infertility.

“I had muscle atrophy in my thighs. My legs buckled with the slightest grade change and my spine was compressed. [Her average daily combat load was 75 pounds.] My rate of deterioration was noticeably faster than that of male Marines and further compounded by gender-specific medical conditions,” wrote Petronio.

“I can say with 100 percent assurance,” concluded Petronio, “that there is no way I could endure the physical demands of the infantrymen.”

(After three months of fertility treatments, Mrs. Petronio, now retired from the military, is expecting her first child this month.)

In a pilot program to gauge the physical capacity of female recruits, ten women Marine Corps lieutenants were enrolled in the Combat Endurance Test. Nine failed the test, one on the first day of the 13-week course. Only one passed but was not able to complete the course because of a stress fracture.

Recently a group of 15 sergeants, lieutenants, and captains, at the Marine Corps Infantry School had a conference with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. They discussed the integration of women into front-line combat positions.

All, save one, agreed that if women could contribute anything to combat infantry units, they would have done so long ago.

All 15 were women.

But for those in the liberal establishment, zealous feminists, and Pentagon doctrinaires, giving women warriors the right to be killed, disfigured, maimed, and crippled, alongside of men is a great step forward. For these true believers it will always be doctrine over reason and creed over circumstance.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA