The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Women In Combat?

Here's what Army Researcher's say:

Army researchers came up with a new study that concludes that, when a woman is correctly. trained, she can be as tough as any man. The report by the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Natick, MA was led by senior analyst Everett Harman. "You don't need testosterone to get strong," Harman concluded. Through a regimen of regular jogging, weight training, and other rigorous exercise, more that 75 percent of the 41 women studied were able to prepare themselves to successfully perform duties traditionally performed by males in the military. Before training, less than 25 percent of the women were capable of performing the tasks. All but one of the females were civilian volunteers, and none had previously adopted a routine of strenuous physical activity. The women included lawyers, mothers, students, and bartenders. Several had recently had children and thought the training would put them back in shape. They were unaware that their performance might eventually be used to topple one of the last citadels of bias against women in both the military and society. The 24-week training study began in May 1995 with women spending 90 minutes a day, five days a week, building themselves up for endurance tests. They ran a two-mile wooded course wearing a 75-pound rucksack and performed squats holding a 100-pound barbell on their shoulders. Nationally certified trainers oversaw the conditioning. Improvement of over 33 percent was noted by the scientists who wrote the report.Nearly concurrently with this test, the Ministry of Defence in Great Britain conducted the same kind of study. The Sunday Times of London reported that "by using new methods of physical training, women can be built up to the same levels of physical fitness as men of the same size and build." The British article also notes that "contrary to the view of many traditionalists, the operational performance of groups improve greatly if both sexes are involved."

Are We America's Mothers?

The nurturers and civilizing influence on our children's lives, especially our boys. The necessary complement to aggressive men in a civilization which prides itself in the balancing of individual freedom with equality. A civilization founded by Christian men and women who, together, raised it to a state of prosperity beyond any civilization in the history of man. A civilization based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the complementarity of man and woman as the basis for a stable, solid and enduring family unit.

Are We America's Warriors?

Trained to kill another human being in an extremely hostile environment that does not grant privilege or leniency to those who do not 'measure up.' No society has ever survived which depended upon its female members to defend it. Nor will our American experiment with a special form of democracy -- our unique and fragile Constitutional Republic. Will our willingness to experiment with equality where none exists imperil our nation's ability to survive the threat of a determined and resourceful enemy?

Your wives, your children and your livestock may stay in the land that Moses gave you east of the Jordan, but all your fighting men, ready for battle, must cross over ahead of the other Israelites." (Joshua 1:14)

If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married. (Deuteronomy 24:5)

The LORD spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said: "Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army". (Numbers 1:1-3)

She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. (Judges 4:6)

The most powerful argument against it to me is that if girls wrestled boys, they would be touched in ways that would be considered sexual assault outside of the game.

Not to mention a few things that are better left unsaid.

M.L. Chancey writes:

If we want to call a halt to women’s participation in the military, we must first acknowledge our own faults in denying God’s Word. Instead of blaming the feminists or faulting the legislators we’ve elected, we need to take a searching look into our own hearts and ask if we have bought into the lie that women are no different from men. We need to take a hard look at the way the Church instructs its daughters. Are we preparing a generation of capable, intelligent, and wise mothers and sisters, or are we lining our girls up to march in lockstep with a culture that does not cherish women or their unique role? The issue is not women in the military — the issue is our lack of faithfulness to God’s decrees for men, women, and children. Until we return to the “old paths” of Scripture in the way we honor our husbands, bring up our children, and protect our families, we do not have a leg to stand upon when it comes to rebutting the feminists on this issue. We’ve already sold our birthright for a mess of pottage. And the deepest grief of all is that, unlike Esau, we do not have the sense to weep over what we have lost.

Women in Combat
A Resolution From CBMW

WHEREAS, President Bill Clinton, supported by the United States Congress, has succeeded in moving leaders of the military services to abandon their historic policy of limiting combat military service to males, and has opened military combat categories to females as well as males; and

WHEREAS, The military services of the United States are now recruiting and training women for combat, are assigning women to combat billets, and are planning for and deploying women into combat situations; and

WHEREAS, God created male and female with specific and complementary characteristics (Gen. 1:27), declaring them "good" (Gen. 1:31) so that male and female in relationship constitute a complete expression of the divine order for humanity, yet without blurring or denying the meaning or significance of gender-based distinctions established by God in the created order; and

WHEREAS, The equality of male and female as to dignity and worth, following from their creation in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), is fully consistent with and is in no way contrary to gender-based distinctions as to roles and responsibilities which are also established in the created order; and

WHEREAS, God, by creating Adam first (Gen. 2:18; 1 Cor. 11:8) and also by creating woman for man (Gen. 2:18,20,22; 1 Cor. 11:9), has set the gender-based role and responsibility of males in the most basic unit of society (the family) to be that of leader, provider and self-sacrificial protector (also cf. Eph. 5:25; 1 Peter 3:7), and likewise has set the gender-based role and responsibility of females to be that of help and nurture (Gen. 2:18) and life-giving (Gen. 3:20) under male leadership and protection (cf. 1 Peter 3:7); and

WHEREAS, The purpose of "combat" is to inflict deadly harm upon an enemy, and the essence of "combat" is to engage an enemy in order to kill, slay and destroy--a purpose and essence aligned with the gender-based role and responsibilities of males but opposed to the gender-based role and responsibilities of females; and

WHEREAS, The moral justification for military combat service is the duty to protect vital national interests, of which the most vital and most essential is the welfare, security and good order of families; and so moral justification for combat service is derived from, and is thus essentially linked to, the divinely assigned role and responsibilities of self-sacrificial male headship of the family (Eph. 5:23-24); and

WHEREAS, Intentional rejection of the connection between male headship in the family and the male protective role that defines and justifies service as a soldier in military combat necessarily strikes at the complementary nature of male and female relationships established in the order of creation, and unavoidably undermines the order, structure, strength and stability of families within any society that determines to ignore, deny or erase this gender-based distinction; and

WHEREAS, The pattern established by God throughout the Bible is that men, not women, bear responsibility to serve in combat if war is necessary (Gen. 14:14; Num. 31:3,21,49; Deut. 20:5-9,13-14; Josh. 1:14-18; 6:3,7,9; 8:3; 10:7; 1 Sam. 16:18; 18:5; 2 Sam. 11:1; 17:8; 23:8-39; Ps. 45:3-5; Song of Sol. 3:7-8; Isa. 42:13); and

WHEREAS, Biblical examples that record women serving in combat (Jud. 4:4-23) are presented as contrary to proper and normal gender-based distinctions between male and female roles and responsibilities, and as caused by a failure of male leadership that is worthy of shame (Jud. 4:9-10); and

WHEREAS, Willful rejection of the propriety, value and practice of a gender-based role distinction that limits combat military service to males is a foolish social experiment that: (1) threatens good military order and discipline by unnecessarily escalating sexual tensions among combat warriors, (2) weakens unit cohesion by adding the stress of sexual competition between troops under fire, (3) generates the certitude of female warriors taken as P.O.W.s and subjected to the special trauma of rape and sexual abuse, (4) places a major new strain on the marital fidelity of male warriors separated from their wives by ensuring they are kept in intimate isolation for long periods with females who are not their wives, and (5) risks the nation's military security on a scrambling of the moral framework defining male/female relationships among combat forces that has never before proven successful, and has never before been tried by a world military power that expects to maintain its security responsibilities.

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, that we do, with loyal respect and deep concern, warn against and oppose the opening of military combat service to females: because it rejects gender-based distinctions established by God in the order of creation; because it undermines male headship in the family by failing to recognize the unique gender-based responsibility of men to protect women and children; and because it subordinates the combat readiness of American troops, and the national security of the United States, to the unbiblical, utopian, social agenda of ideological feminism; and

Be it finally RESOLVED, that we call upon the President of the United States, each Senator and Representative of the United States Congress, and all military leaders to reverse the present policy and to reinstate the historic limitation of military combat service to males only.

I noticed you quoted from the TNIV which has been labeled by some the "gender neutral" version.

Can and should we (the church) first acknowledge our own faults in denying God’s Word for not being more clear on this issue?

Certainly we must ask ourselves the questions about "how we are raising our daughters?"

But are we failing to show them God's plan for men and women which is complementary or are they being taught to compete with men for the roles men play in the home, church, and society?

If we are letting our godless society teach them a different choice who's to blame?

Since there seems to be a lot of material out there, what should be the response of the organized church? Should this be a matter we insist our legislators address or should we remain silent?