Yesterday there were great debates on TV regarding whether the army is living in the past in its regard to equal opportunites for the physically challenged.
Disability support groups think it is unfair that their clients are not allowed to join the armed forces, and think they should be allowed ‘baby hugging’ roles, such as giving comfort to war stricken civilians.
I think this is a good idea in as much as they can offer great comfort, but my fear is, if all hell breaks loose, such as in Bosnia or Kosovo not so long ago, it is hard enough getting peace keeping forces into safe territory, without the added problems of evacuating wheelchair bound or disabled people.
I would love to hear other views or opinions on this matter.
This seemed to be the view of General Somebody-or-other on the radio yesterday - that all troops need to be combat-ready and as such this wasn’t really approriate for those with disabilities.
So the question kind of resolves itself into an issue as to whether all troops do need to be ready for combat and whether there is or should be such a thing as a “safe” role in the military.
The trouble with being a peacekeeper somewhere like Serbia or Kosovo is, as melchizedek said, that all hell could break loose. If your platoon is ambushed by a squad of guerillas then people who are partially sighted, people with prosthetic limbs etc… are going to be at a disadvantage. To serve in that sort of capacity you need to be prepared for that sort of worst case scenario at all times and if you can’t compete with the strongest of your enemies then it’s a risk for you to be out there, not only to yourself but to those who depend on you to watch their back.
I would be very surprised if the millitary does not have need of support staff who will never get anywhere near a conflict, unless the home country is invaded in which case they would be just as vulnerable as if they were civilians. Isn’t this the role given to women in WWII - before they realized you don’t need testosterone to point a rifle?
The problem with this is that at some stage, those people who are supporting may well be needed to move closer, if not to, the frontline to replace the fallen. This is the whole point of ensuring that everyone in the army, be they infantryman or cook, has the basic training in battle skills-they may well have to fight. And as for civilians doing jobs in the military, if civilians can fulfil the requirements of the job, exactly why would military personel be doing it in the first place? Civilian roles should be filled in the same way as any other non-military position, with regard to equal opportunities.
In WWII the British armed services employed many women in roles that could be carried out by people with disabilities. As an example, the code breaking centre at Bletchley Park was predominantly staffed by women. I am pretty sure that those women did not recieve battle training as this is a modern idea which in part came about due to sex discrimination legislation in the 70’s. I am also pretty sure that such moves were resisted by the same sort of General who is making the news now.
In modern warfare there really is no such thing as a safe place. Just ask the people living in the barracks, way behind the lines, in Saudi that got hit by the scud. Even those of us who were in the Air Force and theoretically way behind the front lines, had to learn how to fire an M-16 before going overseas.
There’s also the question of morale. When you have people serving side by side doing the same job, some have to be combat ready and some don’t. This has a negitive effect on morale.
Admitteldy, Nelosn, Douglass Bader and others were physically challenged, but they recieved their wounds AFTER joining service.
One argument is, that all military personnel must go through rigourous training to get that far. When I was in navy many many years back, if I had to struggle through the assault course and boy did I suffer, It would have a very detrimental effect if there was some Joe sitting by in a wheel chair not doing squat. I’m not saying they are any less than me, but that course bloody hurts!!! You don’t think PC when you have an NCO shouting you down like a dog and you’re soaked to the skin, exhausted and still have to climb a massive cargo net at 6 AM on a very icey wintery morning.
Yeah, I’m sure your M-16s could have stopped those Scuds. Face it, infantrymen have six months of basic combat training, while you had, what - three weeks? Good enough to stand in a guard tower, but don’t get carried away. If the war depends on the fighting ability of drivers, mechanics and cooks, then we’ve already lost (Not that I have a problem with mechanics and drivers - most of them are decent guys. Cooks, though, I can’t stand. Bunch of greaseballs).
About 30% of any military sits behind a desk and shuffles papers, far away from any front line, working 8 to 6 in an office building. The work is a lot like that in any other major corporation, except for the lousy pay and severe dress-code. Don’t get me wrong - men and women like these are crucial for the function of the military. Still, for them, combat is something they see on TV.
And BTW, combat troops will always despise REMFs (I believe that’s the correct American term). That’s good for morale.
As for the OP - the reason the Army doesn’t want to recuit the handicapped is that they don’t want to pay their medical bills, and don’t want to pay invest in making bases wheelchair-friendly. It’s not about combat, it’s about money.
Armed forces are ultimately there to fight or to project the image of being able to. Armed combat is an extremely serious situation, where any number of factors can kill you.
Letting go of any edge you can (legally) get over the enemy is a serious blow to morale. And, to continue stating the obvious, morale is friggin’ important. At the risk of sounding callous, spending money on wheelchair ramps and skimping on, say, night-vision equipment, is simply not fair to the guys risking their butt out in the mud. Some misspending is inevitable, but this would make the schism between REMFs and combat troops deeper yet.
Right. The military should hire the disabled. And symphonies should have to hire the deaf. We need blind proofreaders, cops on crutches, carpenters with no hands, and ballerinas in wheelchairs. After all, it’s not FAIR that they should be excluded!
Bah, humbug! Every person in the military must be ready to fight. If you’re not ready to fight, you retire. Period. I don’t care if your regular job is a clerk, you have to be able to fight. Even if you are a clerk, you still have to meet the physical requirements. Even if you are a clerk, you still have to be able to do the job of the military, which is to kill people and blow stuff up.
If you can’t do it, you have to retire. If there are jobs that can be done by disabled people, then disabled people can do them…as civilians. Why should we have soldiers doing something that civilians can do? Do you really want a “get out of combat free” class in the military? If you think resentment of REMFs is bad now, imagine how bad it would be if there was NEVER a chance that a REMF would find himself on the front line?
The proposition that the armed forces should not hire “the disabled” is based on a pretty simplistic notion of what it is to be “disabled” and stereotyped assumptions about what disabled people are and aren’t capable of.
A man with no legs can be a courageous fighter pilot and a man with one eye and one arm can be a great naval commander, just as a deaf man can write a brilliant symphony and a deaf woman can play in a symphony orchestra.
It’s not only about fairness, it’s about selecting the best person for the job and recognising what each individual can do rather than simply excluding “the disabled” as a group.
I do not believe that the disabled should be allowed in the military. Yet.
We still have enough able-bodied recruits. When that number drops off, either because of a serious conflict or just the increasing lack of interest in joining the military, then we’ll have to expand our horizons–just as we and every other nation have always done. Once the 18-24-year-olds are all used up, you start accepting the 25-30-year-olds. Someone has flat feet? Who the hell cares, once all the good arches are already at the front.
For now, I don’t believe it’s an issue. The armed services are not the only form of civil service available to American citizens, should they want to help their country.
Barring security reasons, why pay for basic training when you can hire them as civilians? There may be cases where the military needs to hold military law over whoever holds a position that doesn’t potentially involve combat, physical work or specialized training, but I assume that these positions are rare.
For example, a soldier may be assigned to push papers at an embassy, but that soldier will be called upon to defend the embassy in the event of an attack.
IIRC, women nurses were among the first American POWs of WWII. At the very least, they were close to the line during the months before Bataan fell. They had to do a lot of the hauling of medical supplies and suffered alongside the soldiers.
I assume that the military is hesitant to enlist the disabled out of a fear of what might happen when order is lost. If a disabled soldier can pack, move and reestablish a hospital, supply depot or other station on command (and defend it as well) then I’d say by definition that he or she isn’t disabled. If they can’t follow an order because the lieutenant that rounds them up can’t sign, then that might be a problem.
toadspittle, minor physical defects (such as flat feet) will probably not keep someone out of the military. You could probably lie your way in if you had such a defect.
Fred Franks, the general in charge of the VII Corps left-hook in Desert Storm was “disabled.” It didn’t seem to make him less able to do the job. It would depend on the manner in which a person was disabled, but it’s a myth that everyone in the Amry has to be able to run ten miles and hurl themselves over barricades and slog through mud for hours at a time.
On December 16th, 1944 the Germans launched a major offensive that caught the allies completely by surprise.
The Battle of the Bulge lasted from Dec. 16th through Jan. 28th and was the largest land battle of WWII. 81,000 American casualties with 19,000 of those being deaths.
During the course of the battle mechanics, cooks, clerks, and other typical non combantants were given rifles and told to fight.
An army shouldn’t depend on cooks and mechanics for combat duties to win a war. But if things go bad you might need their help to win a battle.
That’s probably one factor. However in the modern Marine Corps everyone is supposed to be trained as a rifleman. Obviously a lot of handicapped folks can’t do that.