I don't always agree with
James Webb. I once went back and forth with him via email during the Iraq war
over an interview I wanted to do with him (he opposed the war and I supported it), and he finally
declined to be interviewed.
But I respect the highly
decorated U.S. Marine combat officer who served in Vietnam and went on to
become the Secretary of the Navy, a U.S. Senator and a presidential candidate. He is also a fine writer and
wrote one of the best novels about Vietnam, Fields of Fire, as well as another
fine novel about the U.S. military and American history, A Country Such As This.
So I thought that the protest
over this great American patriot receiving an award at the U.S. Naval Academy
was a disgrace.
Aaron MacLean at the Free
Beacon offers a piece on the controversy.
Imagine you are a young
midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy processing the news that Jim
Webb—Annapolis class of '68, recipient of the Navy Cross, former senator and
secretary of the Navy, former member of the Annapolis faculty, bestselling
novelist and acclaimed journalist—has been forced by political pressure to
decline an award for distinguished alumni at your school this week.
The most widely cited reason
for his political toxicity is an article he wrote in 1979 (side note: almost
forty years ago!) in Washingtonian Magazine entitled "Women Can't
Fight." Never mind that he has apologized for both the vivid language of
his youth and the ways in which the article made life difficult for women
already in the service. ("Clearly, if I had been a more mature individual,
there are things that I would not have said in that magazine article. To the
extent that this article subjected women at the Academy or the armed forces to
undue hardship, I remain profoundly sorry.") Never mind the fact that Webb
was channeling the beliefs of the vast majority of his fellow infantrymen, if
in somewhat impolitic language—or that even today, the vast majority of Marines
of all grades oppose the inclusion of women in combat units. Never mind that in
1987, as secretary of the Navy, Webb opened a tremendous number of new
positions in the service to women. Most of all, never mind that as of December
2015, combat units were all opened to women by order of then-Secretary of
Defense Carter, overriding the objections of the Marine Corps (though not of
the Army).
In other words, the
proponents of including women in combat units have won. But, as the case of
Webb shows, that's not enough. You have to salt the fields.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
What a bunch of insanity! When the PC cancer infected the military, I was glad to be on my way out the door before it became so advanced in its malignancy. Call me a dinosaur, but I agree with Webb's old position regarding women in combat. Thanks for sharing the Webb story.
ReplyDelete