Member-only story
Government by GI Jane?
These thoughts collide at the intersection of veterans serving in Congress and women serving in the military.
I favor both. When I was a youngster, I did not give veterans in Congress much thought. For an Indian kid in Oklahoma, pulling a hitch was what you did if you were male. Failure to pull a hitch made you the object of pity among some folks, because it meant you could not pass the Armed Forces Qualification Test or you failed the physical examination.
There were not quite the percentage of veterans in Congress as there were among my peers, but you expected to see a military record in a candidate bio. By the time I signed up, the custom had spread to women or, I should say, girls. I was 17, and sometimes I think the military recruiters took too much advantage from the belief we all had that we were bulletproof.
The boys were split on the idea of girls enlisting, but that cow left the barn in WWII, and the dispute had moved on to women serving in combat units. Two things seemed to me decisive. First, the enemy does not inquire whether a person in uniform is assigned to a combat unit. Second, it’s a fact of military life in wartime that promotions are tied to getting your ticket punched in a zone of combat operations.
