Combat Shift Ignores Gender Realities

Retired Lt General William G. Boykin offers a dissenting voice regarding allowing women into combat in USA Today.

 

Unlike Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, President Obama, and the editors of USA Today, General Boykin, a former Delta Special Operations Commander, has actually been in combat. 

 

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's decision to open virtually all positions in the military to women, including those in infantry and front-line combat units, is the wrong policy, adopted for the wrong reasons and implemented the wrong way.

It was adopted in the wrong way because such a significant change in longstanding military personnel policy, with potentially serious implication for the effectiveness of the fighting force, should not be made without holding congressional hearings in advance to explore all the issues involved.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/24/women-in-combat-jerry-boykin/1863049/ 

I interviewed General Boykin a while back for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the interview via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LTGBoykin1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LTGBoykin2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LTGBoykin3.jpg