WOMEN IN COMBAT

The House of Representatives (The very house  which I hope to one day be a member of) is attempting to (once again) pass a resolution barring women from front line combat.  News flash honorable ladies and gentleman elected to high office to serve and execute the public trust.  There is no such thing as a front-line.  Not now, nor ever again.  Minding your own business here can see you killed by a snipers bullet.  Standing in line to get a drink in the DFAC (cafeteria) can get you blown up.  Driving in an armored HMMWV can get you killed.  PFC Sam Huff, was 18.  She was barely a woman, and barely old enough to vote.  She died in combat.  To say that women should not serve in combat is degrading, if a woman chooses to serve in the armed forces then the risk that is inherent to service should be shared and shouldered by all.  This profession is dangerous, make absolutely no mistake.  If you join the military for college money and find yourself in combat blame no one but yourself, only about 5% of the Army is infantry, so guess what the burden of combat is now being shared by all. 

The cost of wearing this uniform is tremendously high, often too high.  Yet I have shouldered this burden alongside some of the finest men and women America has to offer.  This is not flag waiving, this is simply truth from my heart as I feel it.  When I threw away a pair of my boots because I couldn't get the blood from the leather, I wasn't waiving a flag, when I see a flag draped coffin, carrying the body of someones husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, or sister, there is no flag waiving.  There is only Service, and duty.  If I fall tomorrow, there is only duty that remains, and before I am cold another will rise to shoulder my burden.  That is what it means to soldier.

I want someone in congress to tell PFC Huff's parents that women shouldn't be in combat.  That family lost their only child.  I am not a parent but I can only imagine the sheer agony of losing a child, even more so losing your only child.  To say that she didn't belong in combat diminishes her service, to say that women don't belong in combat is a step backwards in our no in "their" thinking.  To say women should be banned from frontline combat shows an elected body that is out of touch with its military.  Because  I have news for you Honorable ladies and gentleman elected to serve the public trust, there are women here serving each and ever day in around and on the front, middle, and rear lines of this war.  I have seen women bear the burden of being harassed by their male counterparts, I have seen tiny women changing tank tracks holding the track bar that weighed nearly as much as them.  I have seen their broken bodies in hospital along side their fellow soldiers.  They bleed as the men do when they are wounded, they feel pain just and the men do and just like their male comrades they die just the same and just as fast.   Few things offend me, very few.  This is one of them.

Comments

[Michael J. Beisch]

SAMANTHA HUFF'S LAST WORDS

If it were within our power
To give just one more breath,
one minute one hour--

The terrible force of the IED
That blew her leg away,

The carnage for all to see:
Her poor death this day

When dying becomes one man's whim,
This heinous, rootless sin,

The trajedy of war, therein,

"Tell my dad I love him."

--Michael John Beisch

Prescott, AZ

[Michael J. Beisch]

IN MEMORIAM - PFC. SAM HUFF

(July 12, 1986 - April 18, 2005)

You sparkled in your uniform so bold
With the gilded baton you did hold--

The high-step to the drummer's beat,
Nor did you from life retreat;

The first bright ray of youth is gone
With one last tearful farewell, so long,

Of all the wishes and dreams, portend,
You were a drum-major to the end;

And fell before the menacing foe
On this field of war and woe,

The drum-major from Mountain View High
Who never returned home again, but to die.

--Michael John Beisch

Tucson, AZ

[Michael J. Beisch]

THE JOURNEY HOME - PFC. SAM HUFF

(Arlington National Cemetary)

Lay no garland wreath
At her lifeless feet,
Nor sprig or brow
Upon her silent brow.

Her laurels are our tears;
We, too, shall pass this way--
Our lives are in arrears
When also we come home to stay.

She was a soldier to the end,
And to those she knew, a friend,

And to our last and final day
We'll remember when she came home to stay.

--Michael John Beisch

Tucson, AZ

[Desult]

What an incredibly powerful post!

[Maggie]

The picture of her family and her fiance attending her funeral were on the front page of the Arizona Star. She was from Tucson. The agony on their faces was almost unbearable to look at. Thank you for this post. I pray for all of you every day. I thank you and your family for your service to our country. I will be forever grateful. I go frequently to Sierra Vista, Az, the home of Fort Huachuca, and see the young soldiers around town all the time. I always make it a point to thank them, and their wives when I see them. We talk about the WWII generation being the greatest generation. I think these men and women are.

[AFSister]

We have had this discussion on several forums, Currie- but no one has ever been able to put into words what you just did.

We've had Marines, Sailors and Soldiers join the discussion along with the rest of us civilian folks, and the results have been varied. I'm with you- there isn't a "front line" anymore- just a job. And in this day's war, any "job" can get you injured or killed.

Banning women from certain MOS's is criminal- if they want to do the job- why not let them? Who cares... and who's to say that a man could do it any better- just because he's male?

Get 'em Currie....

[Rita]

A very touching and truthful commentary, and everything you stated is right on. Women are on the frontline so to speak, and the frontline is the entire country of Iraq and Afghanistan. Women get killed, and they deserve the honor and the same respect from our men and women in Congress. To fully understand the danger of being in a war zone, ask a few Congressmen (Congresswoman) to put on a uniform and visit any place in Iraq and ponder what stipulates "frontlines". Woman are in the combat zone, and to say they cannot serve in "combat positions" is totally idiotic. Well, we are talking about the people we elect in the House and Congress. We are fighting a new type of war, and that means there is no longer a "frontline" as you have stated.

Thanks for your service, and we support all of you 100%! Stay safe, and Godspeed. You guys and gals are the best!

[Beth]

That middle paragraph is wonderfully profound. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspective.

[membrain]

In Memory of PFC Sam Huff; May she rest in peace.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
An American Serving with No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941 at the age of 19