Introduction

       Reports have surfaced in our national mass media that Private Jessica Lynch had been subjected to unspecified torture by her Iraqi captors. The only detail reported was that she had been slapped in the face twice by her Fedayeen interrogators as she lay incapacitated by her wounds in the hospital from which she was rescued by U.S. Special Operations troops and Rangers. Those reports raised the specter of fear in the minds of 'experts' who knew of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen. They feared that Jessica may have been subjected to sexual assault and/or rape by her captors. Although medical evidence of such a circumstance has not surfaced from U.S. hospital reports, it is not at all clear what her physical condition is. Notwithstanding the possibility that Pvt. Lynch was sexually abused by the Iraqis, it is transparently clear that she is being personally violated by radical feminists in the United States.

       The violation of Jessica Lynch has and is being perpetrated on a daily basis. The sovereignty over her persona and her personhood is being taken without her cooperation and without her consent. It is being taken in an attempt to use her and her recent travails to advance the ideological agenda of radical feminism. She is being violated in this manner just as arrogantly and just as brutally as if the Fedayeen had, indeed, raped her physically. Only this is being done by American feminists, not the Fedayeen.

       The definition of rape has undergone drastic change over the past decade. The primary definition [1], "the crime of forcing a female to submit to sexual intercourse," has become degraded to the point where even consensual sex has been legally declared rape in a court of law [2]. The California Supreme Court has ruled that "...a woman who changes her mind during sexual intercourse qualifies as a rape victim...A 6-to-1 ruling changes the definition of rape so significantly that a man who doesn't withdraw immediately upon his partner's shift in attitude can go to prison. A 17-year-old - John Z. - served six months in a juvenile detention facility on a rape conviction following just such an encounter...He and Laura T. were having consensual sex when Laura decided she needed to get home. She didn't say, 'Stop,' She didn't cry out or struggle. She merely said, 'I should be going now' and 'I need to go home.' Because it reportedly took John Z. a full minute and a half to cease and desist...he was convicted of rape."

       The primary definition of rape has been further 'fuzzed' in mass media accounts to include incidents of 'sexual assault.' Reports lump together incidents of 'sexual assaults' with outright rape when the time is ripe for another sex 'scandal.' For example, the recent sex 'scandal' at the U.S. Air Force Academy claims to involve [3] "...54 cases of alleged rape or sexual assault." Of course, the latter term can include activities which range from 'unwanted attention,' to 'touching,' to 'lookism,' if one takes seriously the charges leveled at men across America at our premiere universities over the past decade. And the 'victim' is the arbiter of what constitutes such 'assault.' Of course, in the military, such charges stem directly from DoD Instruction 1320.4, which permits 'adverse information,' 'alleged adverse information,' or 'unsubstantiated allegations' to be reported to military authorities and acted upon [4]. This instruction is in full effect as written in all the armed services.  It is in direct contradiction of the age-old service regulations governing pre-promotion board procedures, (such as U.S. Navy Regulations, Article 1122), which require that all personnel must be informed of alleged adverse information inserted in their files, and allowed the opportunity to respond. These regulations mirror the right of 'due process' that all Americans enjoy under our Constitution.

       Radical feminists in the Clinton administration ramrodded this instruction through without public announcement. It is the basis for the stampede of DoD officials and senior military officers to do the bidding of the radical feminist agenda, even during the Bush administration. For example, Secretary of the Air Force, James G. Roche, exclaimed [without evidence] that "...many other [rape, sexual assault] cases may have occurred but were never reported...Whatever we see, whatever the number is - 25, 50 - there are probably a hundred more that we do not see [5]." This fuddy-duddy official went to great lengths in bowing to the frothing radical feminists. He asserted that [6] "...a dangerous minority of [air force cadets] has 'tarnished the reputation of the...entire Air Force." Indeed, as the fourth child and second son of Captain Von Trapp in the movie, 'Sound of Music,' was chided by his older sister of being afraid of women, presciently replied, 'No! Only grown men are afraid of women.' It appears that the same can be said of our nation's civilian service secretaries.

       Of course, the truth is that the Air Force Academy has disciplined at least 20 male cadets for sexual misconduct [7] since 1990. But this does not satisfy the radical feminists. For them, "...just one was court-martialed and convicted of rape," was an injustice. "In the civilian world, I don't think one conviction [for rape] in 13 years would get any district attorney elected," said Jennifer Bier, a rape counselor in Colorado Springs. The truth is that "...of the 20, four were convicted at court-martial for offenses ranging from indecent acts to sodomy and received prison terms of several months to two years. the one cadet court-martialed for rape, in 1998, received the stiffest sentence: four years. All five were expelled from the academy. Eight other cadets have been expelled for sexual misconduct without undergoing a court-martial since 1996, and at least seven more cadets received reprimands for offenses including indecent acts, indecent language, indecent assault and, in one case, forcible sodomy."

       The strange thing is that only recently, a female officer has been disciplined for having consensual sex with a male cadet. It appears the what the Secretary of the Air Force might have meant is that there is more genetic material being exchanged consensually at our nations service academies as well as in the 'barracks' and on the combat ships where women serve than in a third world country. In my book, 'From Trust to Terror: Radical Feminism is Destroying the U.S. Navy,' I document a case wherein, during 1997, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, "...sailors have been disciplined for holding hands.  Yet among the 5,500 men and fewer than 100 women aboard ship, sex has been a problem [8-16]. One couple was recently discovered fornicating inside the huge air-intake ducts of an F-14's [fighter aircraft] engine." But, even in the case of consensual sex engagements, the male is usually disciplined and the woman walks.

       Such a case occurred earlier at the U.S. Naval Academy, the male involved in consensual sex with a female midshipman in her room in Bancroft Hall was expelled and she was allowed to graduate and receive her commission. In spite of the fact that she had first tried to falsely charge him with rape, a charge of which he was acquitted, radical feminist 'justice' was done. See the Michael Pilson Case for details. In the situation at the Air Force Academy, the four most senior Academy military officials were replaced post haste - sacrificial lambs to the radical feminist agenda.

       The secondary definition [9] of rape is "the act of seizing and carrying off by force, abduction." A tertiary definition is, "Abusive or improper treatment; violation; profanation (e.g. a rape of justice)." These definitions are more applicable to the choice of title for this essay. I am not referring to the physical rape of a U.S. Army private, taken prisoner of war during the recent armed conflict with Iraq. Although rape is an act carried out on females by the enemy in every war ever fought and carried out on Captain Rhonda Cornum, a U.S. Army doctor, by her Iraqi captors during the first Gulf Storm War, there is no evidence as yet that Private Jessica Lynch was physically raped by her Iraqi captors.

       There is, however, ample and transparent evidence that Private Jessica Lynch has been and is being violated by radical feminists in the media, the military, and political figures in the sense of the second and third definitions. That is the meaning I wish to convey in the title of this essay. For example, the radical feminists have attempted to violate the privacy of the Lynch family by imposing their tactic of making Jessica Lynch into a 'Modern American War Hero' - which serves two vital purposes in their campaign to make further inroads into women-in-combat with no exclusions. First, it covers up their blame and their shame for using Private Lynch and the other POW and KIA females in the 507^th support unit as pawns in their grab for political power through the socialization of the U. S military. Second, it serves as a propaganda item to further their claim on ALL military positions so that they may crack the 'brass ceiling' that has heretofore thwarted their efforts to render all 'jobs' in the military open to women. They will not be satisfied until Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the Commander-in-Chief and a four-star female general or admiral is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And they are shamelessly violating Private Jessica Lynch and her family in the process.

The War in Iraq as Radical Feminist Propaganda
       At the link, War as Entertainment: War as Radical Feminist Propaganda, I document the radical feminist attempt to use the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists as a tool for promoting women-in-combat. The most flagrant event was their attempt to use of the death of a female Marine crewmember [a radio operator] of a C-130 tanker aircraft during a night landing in Pakistan (not even in the war zone of Afghanistan, mind you) to 'celebrate' the first 'combat' fatality of a female in that war. Her story made the front pages of all of the nation's major newspapers. Ambulance-chasing reporters interviewed members of her family to laud the achievements of the deceased and her implied 'heroism' in the war against Islamic terrorists. It turned out that the Mishap Incident Report (accident report) months later revealed that the cause of the accident was pilot error in attempting a night landing in mountainous terrain in Pakistan. Just being there garnered the female crewmember the status of 'fallen hero.'

       The most ludicrous attempt to make the case for women-in-combat as a result of that accident came as NEWSWEEK Magazine quoted, Linda Grand dePauw as an 'expert on women-in-combat, who said, "They're 'not an experiment anymore. Ground combat is not allowed, but women warriors play an essential part in military endeavors." The article paints the picture that women are essentially winning the war against terrorism - all by themselves. "...they are in nearly every other unit that supports combat troops: intelligence analysts, fuel handlers, bomber and fighter pilots, supply officers, psychological operations soldiers, gunship crewmembers, even members of honor guards for the fallen. Two Navy ships sent to the region have women commanders. Overall, an estimated 10% of the forces involved in the war in Afghanistan are women."

       Ms. DePauw, of course, is the self-professed sorceress (that's right, a witch) who is described in detail (in her own words on her Web Sites which is hot-linked to this Web Site) in the essay on Women-in-Combat after 9-11.

       Then there is the case of LT Ashley, a Navy carrier aviator. The radical feminist promotion of LT Ashley as described at the link, W-I-C after 9-11 is summarized below. That essay tells the story of Navy LT Ashley that surfaced in the British press and was amplified in the U.S. media. A NEWSWEEK magazine article quotes the female naval aviator [it is not clear whether or not she is a pilot or a back-seater]. "What you see on television is what I see for real." The article breathtakingly gushes that "Once her F-14 Tomcat takes off, concentration edges out fear. On her first combat mission this month, she flew over northern Afghanistan at 15,000 feet, looking for her assigned targets. The article depicts her dropping bombs on enemy targets and returning to land on the aircraft carrier. It also lauds the fact that LT Ashley's mother is trying to sign her up with a literary agent for a future book and movie deal. Presumably, everyone wants to tell her life story. Ah yes, war as radical feminist propaganda. It reads as if LT Ashley is winning the war on her own - our heroine extraordinaire!

       It is clear that the radical feminist propagandists, including those in our modern liberal news media, needed a heroine so badly since the 9-11 wakeup call concerning women-in-combat that they will go to extraordinary lengths to find 'heroines' even among the ordinary. Their propaganda campaign to cement their gains in the 1990s for women to be assigned to ALL 'jobs' in today's military, including land combat, had to have female 'heroes' to make their case. They went to extraordinary lengths to make that case on the back of the war in Afghanistan.

       For example, LT Melony Lynch was touted as another heroine of the Afghanistan war. The U.S. Navy set up a 'chat room' in which one can converse with her. In an e-mail dated 29 January 2002, the Navy announced "Imagine taking off from the flight deck of a U.S. super carrier in your F/A-18 Hornet at speeds of 165 mph and experiencing two 'Gs'. Then imagine flying a six-hour mission in which you must locate your target and launch weapons with total precision. It sounds like an action/adventure story. But it's real life for naval aviator, Lieutenant Melony Lynch. She recently returned from Afghanistan where she served as a fighter pilot on the USS Enterprise. Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, January 29, 2002 at 9:00 PM EST, during our live Webcast, you'll have thirty minutes to ask Melony questions and get live answers while she reveals her story about life as an aviator in the Navy." This radical feminist propaganda is not only condoned by the U.S. Navy, it is promoted by it.

The Making of the Mythical Modern American War Hero
       More recently, in the war against Iraq we found radical feminists in the media and in the military again working together to assert heroic acts for women 'warriors,' fighting alongside men. A young wisp of a girl, a petite 5 ft. 4 inch 105 pound supply clerk, Jessica Lynch who was captured in an ambush of the 507^th Maintenance Company in the Iraq town of Nasiriyah on 23 March 2003 and rescued ten days later in a daring raid on an Iraqi hospital, was their choice to cement their agenda. She would be made a Modern American War hero. She would be mythologized in song, poetry, and prose. She would cement into place the radical feminist agenda for our nation's military via a position of honor in the pantheon of American heroes. She would be used to assure that some woman, someday, would break the 'brass ceiling' and become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - even better, maybe even the Commander-in-Chief. [For an essay on Who Chooses America's War Heroes, click this link.]

       It all started with an article in The Washington Post by Susan Schmidt, the resident feminist columnist (along with a male colleague). She quoted an unidentified U.S. official and reported that [10] "Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army's 507^th Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition...Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting  March 23, one official said...'She was fighting to the death,' the official said. 'She did not want to be taken alive.' Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the official said, noting that initial intelligence reports indicated that she had been stabbed to death. No official gave any indication …, however, that Lynch's wounds had been life-threatening."

       Although not identifying her sources by name, Schmidt wrote that, "Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence [the officials] said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard 'rumors' of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation." But such cautions did not stop the radical feminist propaganda mill onslaught in the nation's mass newspapers. They simply had to invent a hero image for the tiny soldier in the face of the embarrassing accounts that three females in the 507^th had either been captured or killed. Two of these women were single mothers with toddler dependent children. How could America face the fact that the feminists, purely for career and political considerations, were responsible for orphaning these little children by sending their mothers into combat zones where death and capture were their constant companions? How, indeed. The simple defense was to override the dark side of women-in-combat by beating the media drums for the heroic little 'warrior,' Pvt. Jessica Lynch.

       Even conservative news media repeated the Schmidt story and some called for the Congressional Medal of Honor for Pvt. Lynch. For example, the National Review Online stated [11], "Americans are overjoyed by the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, as well we should be. The 19-year-old army supply clerk has been labeled one of America's 'heroes' by CENTCOM spokesman Jim Wilkinson. The Washington Post, in a front-pager today, offers some details to support Wilkinson's claim: 'Lynch...continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die...Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position.' There are calls for her to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor."

       Even the Washington Times, ordinarily a very conservative newspaper, parroted this line of heroism. Dan K. Thomasonn wrote that "[In a previous column, I] dealt with Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the rescued prisoner of war who reportedly had put up quite a fight before being severely and perhaps permanently injured before her capture by the Iraqis. I opined that should the reports of her heroism...be proven accurate, [she deserves] some special recognition beyond just the thank you of a grateful nation, perhaps even the top honor for valor, the Medal of Honor.

       The Washington Post started the liberal-left radical feminist onslaught only three days after the ambush of the 507^th with an opinion piece by Anne Applebaum that stated "The argument about women in combat is over. In fact, it was over three years ago, when two female sailors were among the victims of the bombing of the USS Cole. Women have been serving aboard U.S. combat ships only since 1994, yet these deaths - the first time any female sailor had been killed in hostile action onboard - did not lead to a reversal of policy. [Heck no. The military was firmly in the hands of the radical feminist Clinton Administration at the time.] No special outrage accompanied the sight of 'women in body bags' being brought home for burial, as many had predicted, either then or during  the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Now, as we fight a new Gulf war, women constitute nearly a sixth of the armed forces. More than 90 percent of service positions, including most combat positions, are open to women." Applebaum then makes a pitch that single mothers in the military should be given special consideration - be kept out of harms way. "...it is only when the armed forces are comfortable enough with women to treat them differently, and only when military mothers are comfortable enough to be treated differently, that we will know they have truly arrived."

       Robin Gerber, a radical feminist and 'scholar' at the University of Maryland, wrote a piece for USA TODAY, the Gannett liberal-left newspaper entitled, 'Finally equalize sexes in combat.' She begins her feminist rant for women in combat by quoting Pvt. Jessica Lynch [12]. "During the daring rescue of prisoner of war Jessica Lynch...the first commando to reach Lynch identified himself as a United States soldier. The 19-year-old Army private replied, 'I'm an American soldier too.' Lynch is a soldier - one who reportedly fought her abusive captors with heroism and courage - but she's a symbol, too. Her experience shows that the time is right to blast through the armored ceiling that keeps women second-class citizens in the military."

       The Washington Post repeated the unsubstantiated account of Pvt. Lynch as a combat 'warrior' in a following piece [13]. "With Americans eager for more details about her daring exploits...former prisoner of war, Pfc. Jessica Lynch returned to U.S. soil late yesterday...Lynch was part of an Army convoy that...was ambushed by paramilitary fighters. Saddam's Fedayeen...killed several [U.S.] soldiers in the attack, and Lynch fired back until she ran out of ammunition, according to an account by U.S. officials."

       The New York Times reports on the first TV documentary shown on A&E , 'Saving Private Lynch.'  It begins to get anxious about the truth of Pvt. Lynch's 'combat heroics.' It reports that [14] "...what is striking about tonight's special presentation...is how little it has to say about Jessica Lynch. Two weeks after her rescue, there are still few details about her capture or her treatment in captivity. Tonight's documentary reveals far more about American culture than it does about the celebrity under its lens...nothing moves faster than television's power to create instant legends. At a discouraging moment two weeks into the campaign, Private Lynch provided the nation with a made-for-television catharsis...Private Lynch's as-yet-untold story instantly hardened into a Hollywood-style fable of heroism. But her youth, delicate good looks and blond hair also evoked older, more disturbing myths. In the hands of Saddam Hussein's troops, this fragile 19-year-old supply clerk who joined the military to get an education turned instantly into a Fay Wray struggling in the paws of King Kong."

       The Times continued. "Perhaps because of that subliminal imagery, the news media quickly seized an unconfirmed report by an anonymous source in an article in The Washington Post that portrayed Private Lynch, wounded but unbowed, fiercely firing her rifle at the Iraqi enemy. Tabloids and television quickly recast her as a teenage Rambo. But that more dashing scenario was not confirmed and reporters and Pentagon officials quietly let it drop, switching their focus to the heroics of Mohammad, the Iraqi lawyer who led United States troops to her hospital bed...it was Private Lynch's femininity that seemed to move even former P.O.W.s to see her nine days in captivity as worse than their own ordeals."

       " 'I have to take my hat off to that young Jessica Lynch because she went through hell,' a World War II veteran, John Cook told an A&E interviewer. 'A lot more hell than I did in 34 months." Mr. Cook, captured at Bataan, was among 513 P.O.W.s rescued from a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines by American Rangers in 1945."

       "Even Senator John McCain,...who spent five and a half years as a P.O.W. in Vietnam - three of them in solitary confinement - was undone by Private Lynch's suffering. 'Her story is the story of the bravest Americans,' Senator McCain told A&E."

       The NYT article goes on to explain, "Overreaction is an understandable response to the still-shocking sight of women being killed or captured in combat. It could also be a symptom of pain inflation, a wartime version of grade inflation in a culture that views its own suffering as commensurate with that of previous generations...Not surprisingly, perhaps, Jessica Lynch became Audie Murphy. Yesterday, an Internet search of the Dow Jones online publications library turned up 3,888 mentions of her since her rescue on April 1. Gen. Tommy Franks received 2,999."

       The NYT then makes a surprising observation. "...some of the most affecting material in 'Saving Private Lynch,' is not about the would-be-kindergarten teacher from Palestine, W. Va., but the two other women in her unit who were also captured. Both Pfc. Lori Piewstewa, an American Indian who was killed either during or after her capture, and the unit's cook, Shoshana Johnson, an African-American who was found with six other P.O.W.s last Sunday, had left small children behind. The biographical material, as well as the testimony of their families and friends, proved richer than the scant details about Private Lynch."

       But the NYT's observation was lost on the radical feminists in the media. Deborah Simmons of the Washington Times comments on an article in the New York Times which states [15], "The [women's] libbers are raising the 'V' for victory sign for another of their causes - female combat soldiers. In a March 24 opinion piece of feminist fatuity, the New York Times characterizes the capture of Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson as a victory for women's rights. The article, 'The Pinking of the Armed Forces,' says the fact that Operation Iraqi Freedom can claim the first-ever female prisoner of war 'serves as a reminder of how the American military has evolved...'"

       Only one week after the ambush of the 507^th, Rhonda Cornum, an Army flight surgeon during the first Gulf War who was captured when the helicopter in which she was riding was shot down, retold her story for the Washington Post. Cornum, with whom I once appeared on MSNBC on the subject of women-in-combat, was her same arrogant, women-can-do-anything  [except tell the truth] self [16]. The Post stated, "Ask...Rhonda Cornum...who was held for eight days in 1991 after her helicopter was shot down...the days after she'd been sexually assaulted in the back of a truck while a fellow American POW sat nearby, helpless." [She was actually raped both anally and vaginally with a broomstick..]

       The Post provides some detail of her encounter. "Cornum was part of a combat search-and-rescue mission when the Blackhawk helicopter she was riding in was shot down. Five people died immediately. Three were taken prisoner. She was loaded along with a 20-year-old sergeant onto the back of a truck...one of the Iraqi soldiers [tried] to remove her flight suit. She screamed, which got the attention of the truck drivers. And the soldier stopped. Then he unzipped her pants. Cornum couldn't believe he could sexually assault anyone so broken [arms, smashed knee and a bullet in her shoulder]. But she didn't dwell on it. She waited for it to pass." [Cornum had in times past, nonchalantly described her rape as 'nothing more disturbing than a gynecology examination.]

       The Post provides her mental description of such abuse. "All POW treatment is 'them doing something that you don't want them to do. It's like starvation or being cold or being made to stay awake,' Cornum says. 'It's like them hitting you with a shovel. None of that is consensual. Sexual assault is just another bad thing they can do to you.' If the sergeant had tried to help, he probably would have been killed, she says. So he sat there. And lived...The sergeant helped her use the water closet in their cell. They both looked at the ceiling until it was over. 'There is no humiliation,' Cornum says, 'You don't internalize this.'"

       Cornum told the Post that "There's a woman in the current group of Iraqi POWs, but...[she] says she just sees seven people [presumably meaning, 'women are simply interchangeable with men'], seven soldiers who have had prisoner-of-war training." Of course, this last statement is patently a lie. Support troops in the 507th were NOT given SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) training. They may be given perfunctory classroom lectures on what is expected of a POW, but they are NOT given 'combat' training per the rigorous ten-day physically demanding SERE program given to combat troops. These POWs, remember, were cooks, clerks, and maintenance personnel.

       But Cornum, one of the most avid radical feminist activists in the U.S. military, did not stop there with her deceit in describing her POW experience at the hands of the Iraqis. She appeared in Army uniform on CNN's Larry King talk show [17] to discuss the current set of POWs just one day after they were captured. On that program, Rhonda Cornum misinformed, obfuscated, and outright lied concerning her experiences in the first war with Iraq.] After repeated questions from the host and callers-in about whether or not she was mistreated by her Iraqi captors, she lied by saying, 'No.' This, in spite of the fact that she was raped both vaginally and anally by an Iraqi with a broom handle. She said that she was not treated more or less harshly than any male POW. That was obviously an outright lie. Not one male POW was raped by the Iraqis. In fact, Rhonda Cornum kept the her rape to herself for four years after her release and then only grudgingly admitted it in public [18]. She misinformed the American people again then on CNN on 24 March 2003. It simply would not do for the radical feminists, in and out of uniform, to admit [by her personnel experience] even the possibility of Iraqi rape of the women in the 507^th who were taken prisoner on 23 March 2003.

       The making of a Modern American War Hero of Pvt. Jessica Lynch stormed to a crescendo of media attention on the subject. Melani McAlister, an associate professor of American studies at George Washington University, wrote in The New York Times, that [19] "Private Lynch's story resonates because it is the latest iteration of a classic American war fantasy: the captivity narrative. Since the Indian wars of the mid-1600s, tales about the capture and rescue of hostages have been told and told again - in novels, autobiographies and, later, in movies and TV. In these stories, the captive (an ordinary, innocent individual, often a woman) embodied a people threatened from outside. The captive confronted dangers and upheld her faith; in so doing, she became a symbol, representing the nation's virtuous identity to itself..."

       "In the news media's telling, Private Lynch is both [a victim and a hero] - in a way a man never could have been. She is tough, a soldier seized in the line of duty. Like Hannah Dunston [a hostage who killed 10 of her captors and fled with their scalps], she was 'fighting to the death.' But she is also young, white and pretty. The focus on her injuries points up her vulnerability. Even her bravery is feminized. 'Talk about spunk!' Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas said, using language we didn't hear when [males were taken captive]. Accounts of the Lynch rescue have depicted it, implicitly or explicitly, as the classic happy ending of a classic American captivity story. After all, Americans were primed to expect a story of rescue...because for more than two centuries our culture has made the liberation of captives into a trope for American righteousness."

       On and on went the drumbeat of the nation's press about our Modern American War Hero. Private Jessica Lynch, whose family wanted only her safe return to Wirt County West Virginia, was being violated by the aggressive, hungry, nay rabid radical feminists, who would deify her in their agenda of 'feminizing' America's combat arms. Articles proliferated, "The lieutenant colonel's daughters answers the call [20]," "A wife, a mother and a soldier [21]," "Mommies marching off to war [22]," "When it comes to combat, women give 'crucial support' [23]," "Women in the field deserve recognition [24]," "A Diverse Crew Reflects the Nation's Social Changes [25]," and as a final nod to 'diversity, "Grueling Work and Risk, and a Test of Flexibility [26]." The clincher in this series of fantasy articles on women-in-combat is from columnist, Ann McFeathers, entitled, "Remove the prohibition on women as combatants." She writes [26-2], "Army officials say the American woman killed in Nasiriyah [Spc. Lori Piestewa] when her convoy was ambushed by Iraqis fought with the valor, ferocity and skill of any man. At the end, out of ammunition, without backup, she thrust her rifle at an oncoming Iraqi soldier, before he shot and killed her." Of course, all of this mythology is without eyewitness corroboration -- it is made up out of whole cloth. Harry Potter is alive and well in the minds of such fools - the radical feminists who brazenly use the death of a female Army 'support' trooper to carry out their agenda of 'socializing' America's armed forces.

The Military's Complicity in Creating the Mythical Modern American War Hero -- Pvt. Jessica Lynch
       One would expect the radical feminists and their supporters to flood the mass media with such messages. What we should not expect is to find our military playing the same game. That is, unless we recognize that all of the military leadership has been 'feminized' to such a degree over the past decade by mandatory sensitivity training sessions, coercive promotional guidelines, and indoctrination that it is second nature for them to cooperate with the activists in promulgating their radical feminist propaganda. After all their careers have depended on it for at least 15 solid years.

       It is a fact that many activist female enlisted and officers work in the field of intelligence gathering and dissemination  -- both at headquarters, in the Pentagon, and in the field. It is possible that these activists are the source of the 'unsubstantiated' reports in Susan Schmidt's Washington Post article, which launched the drive to 'mythologize' the saga of Pvt. Jessica Lynch - to assure her a place in the pantheon of American heroes. After all, this tactic has worked in the 'unsubstantiated allegations' against CDR Bob Stumpf, [read the essay, The Bob Stumpf Affair at this link] and numerous other naval officers who were railroaded out of the Navy as a result of simply attending the Tailhook '91 reunion, and now, presumably at work in the Air Force Academy sexual abuse 'scandal.' Where such tactics have been put to use by the radical feminists to tear down the icons of excellence, it is possible that they are using it to build up heroes where no heroism is displayed when it is required to advance their agenda.

       A disturbing example of this phenomenon (slipped out in a military communique from 'Southern Iraq) was provided to the Associated Press. It was picked up by nearly all of the nation's major newspapers, including the Washington Times. It stated that [27] "Platoon leader 2^nd Lt. Sarah Skinner, finger on the trigger of her M-16, gives the order to move forward as troops under her command prepare to smash their way into 20 derelict buildings where die-hard Iraqi defenders may be hiding. The three-member teams, including several military policewomen, slither through open doors and into the dusky interiors. 'I wanted to go into police work in the army, but I like this stuff better,' said Pvt. Kristi Grant, a member of Lt. Skinner's platoon in the 709th Military Police Battalion."

       "In Iraq, 'this stuff' includes escorting supply convoys through ambush-prone areas, sweeping villages for weapons, arresting Iraqis hostile to U. S. forces and handling prisoners of war. 'There's no job that I can't do in the military police. I like that. It puts me on an even keel with males,' said Lt. Skinner, of Vassar, Mich. Pvt. Grant and Lt. Skinner are among the women making up nearly 20 percent of the 709^th, which saw duty in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. They fill a number of leadership positions. Two of four platoon leaders in Lt. Skinner's company are women, and Maj. Gillian Boice is the battalion's executive officer. 'For women, the MPs are the equivalent of the infantry. It's as close as women get to combat,' said Lt. Skinner, a 25-year-old West Point graduate, as her Humvee barreled through the hillocks of sand in the bleak Iraqi desert."

       Although two other accompanying pieces in this communique reported military units directly engaged in combat with the enemy in Iraq, it is obvious from the above account that the women were engaged in some kind of training exercise to prepare them for the post-war occupation of Iraq. As a matter of fact, of all the pictures and reports from 'embedded' reporters and photographers with the 'front line' Army and Marine troops who were actually hunting and engaging the Iraqi enemy in the Iraq war described men, yes MEN, doing the fighting and killing. I saw nearly every picture from these correspondents published in The Washington Post and New York Times, and only two of them included a female face. And of these, one was a lone female MP, sunbathing in a cammie T-shirt, as she sat on a column of a deserted ancient ruins in the desert - an Iraqi temple of some kind. The other was a picture of 12 people in battle dress, including helmet, of which 7 were women - all attached to a headquarters staff - based in either Kuwait or deep-southern Iraq, far from any of the fighting.

       The communique simply had to be a manifestation of the radical feminist agenda at work within the U.S. military, carried out by U.S. military officers, in an effort to propagandize the value of females in combat or near-combat roles in the war against Iraq. It appears that two psy-ops (psychological warfare operations) were being carried out by the U.S. military in the Iraq War. One against the regime of Saddam Hussein in an attempt to shorten the duration of the war and to assure a U.S. victory. The other by radical feminists 'embedded' within the officer ranks of the U.S. military and 'careerist' officers (the Clintons' army) against the majority of the American people who believe it is wrong to send our women - mothers, wives, and sisters - into combat zones where they run the risk of being captured, killed, or wounded.

       It appears that events, yea even fate, conspired to bolster the myth of heroism for Pvt. Jessica Lynch. Her rescue came at a time during the war that President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the military Commander, Gen. Tommy Franks were under severe criticism for a 'stalled' campaign and for the kind of war plan that was being carried out. The critics aimed at the 'long supply lines,' the 'shortages' of food, ammunition and fuel, and the 'lack of a sufficient number of troops on the ground.' The rescue of Pvt. Lynch came just at the right time. It gave a huge boost to morale of both the troops in the field and the American public. Support for the war skyrocketed. The aura of 'heroism' for the petite Jessica Lynch was a shot in the arm for the Bush war effort. Nothing came out of Central Command to quell the outpouring of emotional patriotism exhibited by the American people. The truth of her 'heroic' exploits while under fire were suppressed by Central Command and the Pentagon. If the American people wanted a female 'hero,' they would damn well get one. Information to the contrary and details of her injuries and captivity would be suppressed.

       That would not stop the British press from reporting the situation. Indeed, our ally, Britain reported that [28] "Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war. An all-American heroine, the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. It couldn't have happened at a more crucial moment, when the talk was of coalition forces bogged down, of a victory too slow in coming. Her rescue will go down as one of the most stunning pieces of news management yet conceived. It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon's media managers, and has produced a template from which America hopes to present its future wars."

       The British newspaper, Guardian, further reports that "'In reality we had two different styles of news media management,' says Group Captain Al Lockwood, the British army spokesman at central command. 'I feel fortunate to have been part of the UK one' ... In the early hours of April 2, correspondents in Doha were summoned from their beds to CentCom, the military and media nerve centre for the war. Jim Wilkinson, the White House's top figure there, had stayed up all night. 'We had a situation where there was a lot of hot news,' he recalls. 'The president had been briefed, as had the secretary of defence. The journalists rushed in thinking Saddam had been captured. The story they were told instead has entered American folklore. Private Lynch, a 19-year-old clerk from Palestine, West Virginia was a member of the US Army's 507^th Ordnance Maintenance Company that...was ambushed. Nine of her US comrades were killed. Iraqi soldiers took Lynch to the local hospital which was swarming with fedayeen, where she was held for eight days. That much is uncontested."

       "Releasing its five-minute film to the networks, the Pentagon claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated. It was only thanks to a courageous Iraqi lawyer, Mohammad Odeh al-Rehaief, that she was saved. According to the Pentagon, Al-Rehaief risked his life to alert the Americans that Lynch was being held. Just after midnight, Army Rangers and Navy Seals stormed the Nassiriyah hospital. Their 'daring' assault on enemy territory was captured by the military's night-vision camera. They were said to have come under fire, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter. That was the message beamed back to viewers within hours of the rescue."

       Al-Rehaief was granted asylum barely two weeks after arriving in the US. He is now the toast of Washington, with a fat $500,000 book deal. 'Rescue in Nasiriyah will be published in October. As for Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites have listed at least 10 Jessica Lynch items, ranging from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 'America Loves Jessica Lynch' fridge magnet. Trouble is that doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will. Her memory loss means that 'researchers' have been called in to fill in the gaps."

     "One story, two versions. The doctors in Nasiriyah say they provided the best treatment they could for Lynch in the midst of war...'We gave her three bottles of blood [for what injuries?], two of them from the medical staff because there was no blood at this time,' said Dr. Harith al-Houssona, who looked after her throughout her ordeal. 'I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle. Then I did another examination. There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only RTA, road traffic accident,' he recalled. 'They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

       "'We heard the noise of the helicopters,' says Dr. Anmar Uday. He says they must have known there would be no resistance. 'We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, 'go, go, go,' with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show - an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors.' All the time with the camera rolling. The Americans took no chances, restraining doctors and a patient who was handcuffed to a bed frame."

       The Guardian report continues. "A military cameraman had shot footage of the rescue. It was a race against time for the video to be edited. The video presentation was ready a few hours after the first brief announcement. When it was shown, General Vincent Brooks, the US spokesman in Doha, declared: 'Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know they'll never leave a fallen comrade.' None of the details that the [Iraqi] doctors provided Correspondent with made it to the video or to any subsequent explanations or clarifications by US authorities. I [John Kampfner, the correspondent] asked the Pentagon spokesman in Washington, Bryan Whitman, to release the full tape of the rescue, rather than its edited version, to clear up any discrepancies. He declined. Whitman would not talk about what kind of Iraqi resistance the American forces faced. Nor would he comment on the injuries Lynch actually sustained. 'I understand there is some conflicting information out there and  in due time the full story will be told, I'm sure, ' he told me."

       "The American approach - to skim over the details - focusing instead on the broad message, led to tension behind the scenes with the British. Downing Street's man in Doha, Simon Wren, was furious that on the first few days of the war the Americans refused to give any information at CentCom. The British were put in the difficult position of having to fill in the gaps, off the record. Towards the end of the conflict, Wren wrote a confidential five-page letter to Alastair Campbell complaining...He described the Lynch presentation as embarrassing."

       "[Wren] acknowledged that the events surrounding the Lynch 'rescue' had become a matter of 'conjecture.' But he added, 'Either way, it was not the main news of the day. This was just one soldier, this was an add-on: human interest stuff. It completely overshadowed other events, things that were actually going on in the battlefield. It overshadowed the fact that the Americans found the bodies of her colleagues. What we wanted to give out was real-time news. The American strategy was to concentrate on the visuals and to get a broad message out. Details - where helpful - followed behind. The key was to ensure the right television footage. The embedded reporters could do some of that. On other missions, the military used their own cameras, editing the film themselves and presenting it to broadcasters as ready-to-go packages. The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably Black Hawk Down."

       The Guardian article explains how this was conceived. "Back in 2001, the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer, had visited the Pentagon to pitch an idea. Bruckheimer and fellow producer Bertram van Munster, who masterminded the reality show 'Cops', suggested 'Profiles from the Front Line,' a primetime television series following US forces in Afghanistan. They were after human stories told through the eyes of the soldiers. Van Munster's aim was to get close and personal. He said: 'You can only get accepted by these people through chemistry. You have to have a bond with somebody. Only then will they let you in. What these guys are doing out there, these men and women, is just extraordinary. If you're a cheerleader of our point of view - that we deserve peace and that we deal with human dignity - then these guys are really going out on a limb and risking their own lives."

       "It was perfect reality TV, made with the active cooperation of Donald Rumsfeld and aired just before the Iraqi war. The Pentagon like what it saw. 'What 'Profiles' does is give another in depth look at what forces are doing from the ground, ' says Whitman. 'It provides a very human look at challenges that are presented when you are dealing in these very difficult situations.' That approach was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq. "

       The Guardian article concludes, "The Pentagon has none of the British misgivings about its media operation. It is convinced that what worked with Jessica Lynch and with other episodes of this war will work even better in the future." Thus the Bush Administration has become an unwitting collaborator in the radical feminist tactic of 'mythologizing' Pvt. Jessica Lynch's 'heroism' under fire in Operation Iraqi Freedom as another step in implementing their 'cultural Marxist' agenda in America."

       There can be no other explanation for the Susan Schmidt story on Pvt. Jessica Lynch's unsubstantiated 'heroism' under fire. There can be no other explanation of the 'bogus' Southern Command 'communique' story of 'warfighting' MPs in Iraq. The radical feminist agenda is attempting to propagandize the American people to believe that women belong right alongside men in ALL combat positions in the U.S. military. They are 'violating' Pvt. Jessica Lynch, her family, and the truth in a crass attempt to impose that agenda on our armed forces. It is based on myth. It is based on lies. It is based on falsehoods. It is based on ideology - one that was spawned by the French Revolution in 1789, not that spawned by the American Revolution in 1776.

       After the war was won, President Bush 'punted' when asked about women-in-combat, given the experience of the 507^th Maintenance Company and Pfc.. Jessica Lynch, Spc. Shoshana Johnson, and Pfc. Lori Piestewa in Iraq. According to The Washington Times, President Bush [29] "...deferred to the Pentagon the question of women in combat, angering conservatives who want the commander in chief to reverse the Clinton-era rule change putting females on the front lines. 'I will take guidance from the United States military,' Mr. Bush said in response to a question...'Our commanders will make those decisions. The configuration of our force and who ought to be fighting where - that's going to be up to the generals,' he added. 'That's how we run business here in the White House. We set the strategy and we rely upon our military to make the judgments necessary to achieve the strategy." This, of course, is a 'punt.' The radical feminists applauded the president for deferring to the generals. Of course they applaud. They know that every senior officer in the U.S. military has been 'sensitivity trained,' 'coerced,' and essentially 'brainwashed' to support the feminist agenda for women-in-combat. They have spent ten to fifteen years under the yoke of the Cintonistas. They have found ways to sway public opinion in support of the Iraq war and future wars with 'mythical' stories of the 'heroic' deeds - as they learned in the case of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. They would not be where they are had they not supported, nay, worked diligently to implement the radical feminist agenda in our armed forces."

       Of course, critics of women-in-combat remind us that [30], "...the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and two other female soldiers, one of whom was killed, proves the folly of placing women into combat situations. The three were the first female prisoners of war since President Clinton changed the rules nine years ago. Women have not only the [same] risk of physical abuse that men do, but on top of that, there are certain kinds of torture that are unique to women - rape, sexual assault - that have been used [and used by the Iraqis] as weapons of war...We need to make sure that women can serve in the military but not be subjected to unequal combat violence and indeed the risk of capture."

       Wesley Pruden, the Editor in Chief of the Washington Times has it about right [31]. "What can you say about the men in a society that sends women to fight its wars? The temptation is to call them cowards. That might be too harsh (or it might not be). Whatever and whoever they are, they ought to feel shame and mortification when they look upon the photographs of Shoshana Johnson, a 30-year-old single mother of a 2-year-old daughter, languishing in an Iraqi prison. We can only hope that what is probably happening to her, at the hands of men who are taught by their degraded culture and abased religion to regard women as throwaway vessels of their perversions, is not happening to her."

       "The capture of the courageous Miss Johnson, and the news that another brave woman...is [probably] dead has some of the aging radical feminists beside themselves with pride and joy. Equal-opportunity death on the battlefield is the latest triumph of the feminist revolution. Body bags are the latest fashion...(Just so the bags are for other women. Besides, the female casualties will be mostly poor whites and ghetto blacks, anyway.)"

       "Miss Johnson's predicament, and the predicament of a little girl who may not see her mother again, is 'heartbreaking,' concedes Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post, 'but it is not entirely unique. [Miss] Johnson's child is one of tens of thousands who have been left behind while their mothers - or mothers and fathers - go off to war. Is there anything wrong with that?" Miss Applebaum thinks not. She cites no less authority than an assistant secretary of the Navy in the Clinton (naturally) administration as proof that Miss Johnson should be grateful for what is happening to her: "After the long struggle for acceptance, higher-ranking women in particular loathe the idea of treating mothers and fathers differently."

       Pruden continues. "Of course, the feminists demand that women be treated differently once they're in uniform. Claudia Kennedy - a general, no less - broke down in tears when one of her colleagues pinched her bottom. When she recovered her composure, she pursued the  pincher until she got him cashiered from the Army. Shoshana Johnson would gladly settle for a hard pinch this morning."

       "The spoiled-brat feminists have no interest of what combat is about and no interest in finding out. Miss Applebaum likens soldiering to lawyering, and suggests that lady soldiers should get the kind of maternity leave available in any white-shoe law firm. They should have the right to take off to raise their children and return to military service a year later or five years later, and maybe soldier a couple of days a week. 'The military now needs to catch up to the civilian world,' she writes. If you can wrestle with a writ and confront a tort without trembling, surely you can aim a mortar or fire a rocket-propelled grenade."

       "But it's not the spoiled-brat feminists who are to blame. It's the male policy-makers, both Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, for whom people are not flesh and blood who suffer actual pain and death, but are merely statistics to be moved around on a spreadsheet...The policy-makers, many of them chicken-hawks who were too frightened or too proud to wear their country's uniform, couldn't bear up under feminist pressure. An administration headed by a draft dodger, and a credibly accused rapist at that, could hardly be expected to regard 'sexual indecencies' as anything more than a little frat-house fun."

       Pruden has some strong words for today's senior military officers. "The generals knew better, as they know better today. In the heat of the debate over women in combat a decade ago, when this newspaper was making points that almost no one else would, a very senior Pentagon general sidled up to me at a Washington reception and, looking over his shoulder to see that nobody was looking, whispered in my ear: 'Keep it up. Keep it up. You're right. I just wish we could say so.'  Then he scuttled to refuge behind the buffet, in hot pursuit of an iced shrimp."

       "The editorialists at the New York Times, veterans of hip-to-hip combat in the salons of Manhattan, hailed the capture of Shoshana Johnson as the smashing of the 'glass ceiling' over the battlefield. Women armed with sophisticated weapons, the New York Times said proudly, might even 'outperform' men. This is no doubt on rare occasions true. A gun in the hands of a child, or even a 60-year-old newspaper editor, can be lethal. Men can coarsen and toughen women for the battlefield, making them accomplished killers. But what kind of sorry excuse for a man would want to do that to the bearers of his children?"

       Pruden was responding to an editorial in the New York Times which stated [32], "The news that one of the American soldiers taken captive by the Iraqis over the weekend is a woman serves as a reminder of how the American military has evolved, slowly and sometimes reluctantly, into an organization where the dangerous jobs of war are performed by both sexes. While women are still barred from some sorts of duty, the case for equal footing is gaining ground."

       The American people were surprised and shocked that females in the Army would be so close to the combat zone to be killed and taken prisoner by a ruthless enemy. The death of Lori Piestewa and the capture of Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson by the enemy in an ambush in Iraqi-held territory were sobering events. They saw Shoshana Johnson being interviewed on an Iraqi television video, shown on al Jazeera and the major U.S. TV stations. The New York Times reported the affect these events had on women in uniform [33]. "One glance at the terrified eyes of Specialist Shoshana Johnson, the Army cook taken captive this week in Iraq, was more than enough for Laura Sargent, a senior airman...scheduled for deployment...As soon as 'Dateline NBC' flashed the grainy images of Spc. Johnson, Airman Sargent popped in her brand-new DVD of  'Toy Story.' 'It bothered me a lot worse than if it would have been a man,' Airman,' Sargent, a videographer, said this afternoon after a pre-deployment test requalifying her to shoot an M-16. 'I'm thinking, well, women don't really go into combat, and then you look at TV and think, yeah they do. That could be me someday."

       The same NYT article reports that "Lt. Lisa Horton, a computer network specialist who expects to be sent to the Persian Gulf soon, also felt an instant connection to Specialist Johnson - and kept watching. 'I don't want to say that I was proud to see her there, but it was almost like saying, 'You go, girl,' said Lt. Horton, 28. 'I was rooting for her as a female, in a personal way. You can get through this, show them what you've got.'"

       "The images of Spc. Johnson, the only woman among the seven American P.O.W.'s, as well as pictures of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and Lori Piestewa, who are missing in action, have been among the most searing and surprising in the opening days of this war. They reflect not only the wide expansion in the combat-related roles women fill, but also, in an era of war without clear battle lines, the potential dangers faced by women - and men - in support units...much of the American public is still struggling to accept women as warriors, particularly after looking into the eyes of Spc. Johnson. 'The men look scared to me, too, but she, her eyes are so wide, she just looks so scared,' said Lori Manning, a retired Navy captain who runs [a radical feminist lobby group]. 'It brings out the protective instinct in everybody. You just want to get her out of there.'" But you can bet your bottom dollar that Lori-baby would not want to risk being there!

       The NYT also reports that "Perhaps the most common concern is over the prospect of P.O.W.'s being raped. Col. Rhonda Cornum, who was taken prisoner in the first Gulf War, was sexually assaulted by Iraqis, but wrote in a memoir that other forms of torture were far worse. Still, nearly every soldier interviewed here, as well as many civilians and military experts, said the first thing they thought of upon seeing Spc. Johnson's  picture was sexual torture. 'Being a woman, there's obviously a lot more things that can be done to you,' Airman Sargent said. 'I believe in women's rights, but if I was in a combat situation, and they were saying they were going to rape me, that would bother me a lot more than if they said they were going to pull all my fingernails off.'

       "For people on both sides of the women-in-combat debate, Spc. Johnson is an important example. If not for the repeal of the risk rule, which said that 'risks of direct combat, exposure to hostile fire or capture are proper criteria for closing  non-combat positions or units to women,' she probably would not have been where she was. And yet, as a cook who landed in harm's way, she proves that combat has become a blurred concept." This, of course, shows how hollow and specious the argument is that 'women should not be excluded from combat positions because there are no longer any 'front lines.'' The radical feminists are arguing semantic nonsense by using it as a defense of their position. The common sense truth is that women should not be set 'at risk' wherever the 'front lines' might be. Their argument is one taken out of desperation - and a sense that the American people are not intelligent enough to see through it. A lawyer's argument for an agenda. An argument to sway an (in their eyes) 'ignorant' American populace.

       The NYT also reports that "A 2001 Galllup poll showed that a slim majority of Americans support having women serve as ground combat troops, and about 3 in 4 say they should be allowed on submarines and in fighter planes. [Obviously, to them, ground combat meant fighting, while submariners and aviators only have 'jobs' during wartime.] Yet many people interviewed this week were ambivalent." What a difference a real war makes for opinion polls. When confronted by reality, Americans are capable of seeing the truth of the matter. Women do not belong in combat positions for a huge variety of valid, solid, and defensible arguments. Only falsehoods, ideology, and myth support the feminist position.

       Indeed, the critics of the Pentagon's women-in-combat policy became quite vocal in the face of the 507^th affair. "Female captive first since Pentagon altered rule [34]" blurted the Washington Times. "Nothing 'cheerful' about women in combat [35]," said Leo O'Drudy in the Letters section of the Washington Times. A letter in the liberal-left USA TODAY, is entitled "Women in combat can be dangerous," is written by a retired U.S. Army colonel [36], "The moral of a POW's tale," appeared in the LETTERS section of The Washington Times [37]. A Washington Times article is entitled, "Serving at greater risk [38]." Jane Chastain writes in WorldNetDaily of "Prisoners of political correctness [39]." David Frum writes in National Review Online, "Well It Worked On Her [40]," and finally, The Washington Post published a 2-column-inch article entitled, "Battle Group Commander Dismissed [41]," way back on page 8 of the front section. He was accused of a sexual liaison with a female naval officer aboard ship.  It is subtly as pertinent as the other stories to the issue of women-in-combat.

Who Are the Real Heroes of the War in Iraq?
       There were heroes in the war in Iraq, and all were men. The heroes were NOT Pvt. Jessica Lynch, Spc. Lori Piewtewa, or Spc. Shoshana Johnson. The men who were legitimate heroes have not had their stories told, or if told, only perfunctorily in the nation's mass media. For example, Sgt 1^st Class Paul R. Smith, credited with saving many lives during a firefight at the Baghdad airport, has been nominated posthumously for the Medal of Honor [42]. "The battle erupted suddenly and without warning. One minute Bravo Company of the 11^th Engineer Battalion was trying to build a holding pen for war prisoners. The next, the unit was under fire from as many as 200 Special Republican Guard soldiers defending Saddam International Airport."
       The Washington Post continues, "After helping evacuate wounded U.S. soldiers, [Sgt. Smith] jumped into an M-113 armored personnel carrier, maneuvered it into the center of a walled courtyard and climbed into the commander's hatch to man its .50-caliber machine gun. Under fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, his flak jacket shredded by incoming rounds, Smith held off a counterattack until he was killed by a bullet to the throat."

       "Smith, 33, of Tampa, was credited with saving dozens of his fellow soldiers' lives in that April 4 battle. Among the most vulnerable were medics at a forward aid station and the staff of a command, both lightly armed units that were accompanying Smith's company of 3^rd Infantry Division engineers. The division's 1^st Brigade, to which the engineer battalion belongs, now seeks to honor Smith by putting him forward posthumously for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor."

       There were even acts of bravery by men in Pvt. Lynch's 507^th Maintenance Company during its ambush. But we did not learn of this until a month or so after the war was over. For example, The Washington Post reports that [43] "There were other acts of bravery. One soldier, whose name could not be learned, bolted from his vehicle to try to rescue other soldiers from a disable vehicle. He took cover behind a berm, not realizing at first that Iraqi soldiers were on the other side in a mortar pit. When he did, he killed a half-dozen of them with his weapons, the defense official said. Soon, though, he was surrounded by a couple of dozen armed Iraqis and is believed to have been killed on the spot."

       When speaking of the highest level of wartime heroism, that for which the ultimate award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, is awarded, one recognizes that it is not 'won.' It is not a contest or a game and does not involve luck. It is awarded for valor in combat. For example, Dorothy Rabinowitz describes the actions that Sgt. First Class Randall D. Shugart and Master Sgt. Gary I. Gordon carried out during an attempt to rescue the wounded crews of downed helicopters in Mogadishu, Somalia in October 1993 [44]. "Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol, Sergeant First Class Shughart and his team leader, while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members...They pulled the crew from the aircraft, and they saved the pilot. They established a protective perimeter, putting themselves in the most vulnerable position. Each used his long-range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers while protecting the crew. Sgt. Shughardt continued his protective fire until he depleted his ammunition and was fatally wounded. His own ammunition nearly depleted, Gordon found a rifle with the last five rounds of ammunition. This he handed to the dazed copter pilot with the words, 'Good luck.' Then, armed only with his pistol, Master Sgt. Gordon continued to fight until he was fatally wounded."

       Combat in other past wars has produced many such heroes - all male. Read the story of 1^st Lt. John Bobo, USMC at the link: Who Chooses America's Heroes? The making of such heroes, including those who fought and won the second Iraqi War, has required the inculcation of a 'warrior spirit' in the MEN (note, I do not use the politically correct, 'men and women' here) who fought them. This warrior ethos is characterized in a report by an embedded reporter with the 1^st Brigade of the 101^st Airborne which suffered a 'fragging' attack by a Muslim G.I., which killed and wounded a few of its officers. Jim Lacey describes how Captains Townlee Hendrick and Tony Jones took charge after the attack [45]. "Just minutes after the explosions, a perimeter was established around the area of the attack, medics were treating the wounded, and calls for evacuation vehicles and helicopters were already being sent out. Remarkably, the very people who should have been organizing all of this were the ones lying on the stretchers, seriously wounded. It fell to junior officers and untested sergeants to take charge and lead. Without hesitation everyone stepped up and unfalteringly did just that. I stood in amazement as two captains (Hendrick and Jones) directed the evacuation of the wounded, established a hasty defense, and helped to organize a search for the culprit. They did all this despite bleeding heavily from their wounds. For over six hours, these two men ran things while refusing to be evacuated until they were sure all of the men in their command were safe."

       Lacey continues the story. "Two days later Capt. Jones left the hospital and hitchhiked back to the unit: He had heard a rumor that it was about to move into Iraq and he wanted to be there. As Jones - dressed only in boots, a hospital gown, and a flak jacket - limped toward headquarters, Col. Hodges, the 1^st Brigade's commander, announced, 'I see that Captain Jones has returned to us in full martial splendor.'"

       Lacey then gives us his impression of the men who won the war with Iraq. "The war had not even begun and already I was aware that I had fallen in with a special breed of MEN. Over the next four weeks, nothing I saw would alter this impression. A military historian once told me that soldiers could forgive their officers any fault save cowardice. After the grenade attack I knew these men were not cowards, but I had yet to learn that the brigade's leaders had made a cult of bravery." He then gave a few examples of such bravery.

Summary of What Actually Happened to Pvt. Jessica Lynch
       In a much belated story, The Washington Post attempts to justify the 'Jayson Blair-like' report by Susan Schmidt in the 'heroic' conduct of Pvt. Jessica Lynch during the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company near Nasiriyah on 31 March 2003. It was her earlier report, based on anonymous intelligence sources, that fueled the maelstrom of reportage on America's Mythical Modern War Hero. It turns out that nearly everything reported earlier was in error. But even the belated report [47], while rich in peripheral detail [front page above the fold with two whole interior pages of text and pictures], only adds to the mystery of Pvt. Lynch's capture and the time and source of her severe injuries. This belated report, however, gives enough new information that hints of a major high-level U.S. Government coverup of the truth of the entire affair. There is, in fact, enough information in the belated report to suggest that not only is it possible that much of the Lynch story was 'managed' to coverup the truth but that it was probably so managed.

       The belated report states that "Initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post [Susan Schmidt's report], which cited unnamed U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, described Lynch emptying her M-16 into Iraqi soldiers. The intelligence reports from intercepts and Iraqi informants said that Lynch fought fiercely, was stabbed and shot multiple times, and that she killed several of her assailants."  This report was completely erroneous. It did, however, "...become the story of the war, boosting morale at home and among the troops. It was irresistible and cinematic, the maintenance clerk turned woman-warrior from the hollows of West Virginia who just wouldn't quit. Hollywood promised to make a movie and the media, too, were hungry for heroes." Of course, this included The Washington Post as well as its cadre of radical feminist sympathizers.

       The truth is that Pvt. Lynch did not perform a single heroic act. She could not have since she was completely physically incapacitated during an accident in which the Humvee in which she was a passenger was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade and collided with a jackknifed U.S. truck. "Lynch tried to fire her weapon but it jammed, according to military officials familiar with the Army investigation. She did not kill any Iraqis. She was neither shot nor stabbed, they said…'We don't know how many rounds she got off,' the official said of Lynch, or whether she got off any shots at all. Her weapon jammed severely...An Iraqi farmer named Khudher appears to have seen Lynch [immediately after the collision]...unconscious, taken prisoner, as well as Piestewa, who was Native American, still alive.'" It turned out that the three male soldiers in Lynch's Humvee, which Lori Piewtewa was driving, were killed in the collision with the U.S. tractor-trailer hauling a flatbed.

       If Pvt. Lynch did not perform a single heroic act during the ambush, how did the false information become available to Susan Schmidt of The Washington Post? The belated report gives us insight into this question. And it raises the specter of a dark side to this story. It involves the political use of information at the highest level of security classification obtained by the National Security Agency at Fort Mead and the highest levels of the U.S. Government. The belated report states that "In the hours after the ambush, Arabic-speaking interpreters at the National Security Agency, reviewing intercepted Iraqi communications from either hand-held radios or cellular phones, heard references to 'an American female soldier with blond hair who was very brave and fought against them,' according to a senior military officer who read the top-secret intelligence report when it came in. An intelligence source cited reports from Iraqis at the scene, saying she had fired all her ammunition."

       The Post continues, "Over the next hours and days, commanders at Central Command, which was running the war from Doha, Qatar, and CIA officers with them at headquarters were bombarded with military 'sit reps' and agency Field Information Reports about the ambush, according to intelligence and military sources. The Iraqi reports included information about a female soldier. One said she died in battle. Some said she was wounded by shrapnel. Some said she had been shot in the arm and leg and stabbed."

       Now here comes the 'kicker.' Realize that such information gathered by the most classified and secret agency in the United States, the NSA, is never ever released to the public in such detailed form without the approval of the highest levels in the U.S. Government, including the President of the United States. The Post states that "These reports were distributed only to generals, intelligence officers and policy makers in Washington who are cleared to read the most sensitive information the U.S. Government possesses." Of course, these elites are the POWER center of our nation. They have total POWER in their domains -- the military, the Executive, the Congress, and the intelligence agencies. The Post observes that "These intelligence reports, and the one bit of eavesdropping, created the story of the war -- the Mythical Modern American War Hero, Pvt. Jessica Lynch.

       Jessica Lynch's injuries and her psychological condition are still shrouded in secrecy. The Post's belated report describes it thus, "Jessica Lynch, the most famous soldier of the Iraq war, remains in a private room at the end of a hall on an upper floor of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her door guarded by a military police officer. To repair [her] fractures, a spinal injury and other injuries suffered during her ordeal, the 20-year-old private first class undergoes a daily round of physical therapy. But she does so alone, during lunch hours, when other patients are not admitted.

       What could it possibly be that requires such seclusion from those other than her immediate family, a high school friend, and her medical 'keepers?' The Post explains that "Lynch has been in the hospital now for 67 days. Her physical condition remains severe. But she also appears to suffer from wounds that cannot be seen -- and the story of her capture and rescue remains only partly told. Her family says she doesn't remember anything about her capture. U.S. military sources say she is unable -- or unwilling -- to say much about anything that happened to her between the morning her Army unit was ambushed and when she became fully conscious sometime later at Saddam Hussein General Hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq."

       Why does the Post inform us that Jessica Lynch may be unwilling to say much about her ordeal? What is the data on which this statement is based? Could it possibly be that Pvt. Jessica Lynch was brutally and ruthlessly tortured during her ordeal by her Saddam Fedayeen captors -- the most vicious and inhuman torturers known to mankind? If so, why is the U.S. Government cloaking this information with secrecy at the level that once was reserved for the National Security Agency -- the highest level of intelligence information? There are hints of the reason for this in the Post's belated report -- hints that suggest the possibility, nay, even probability of a U.S. Government coverup every bit as deep and sinister as that of the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by the Israelis in 1967. But in the Lynch case, it  would be a coverup that hides facts from the American people that would wash the idea of women-in-combat from the face of American politics. If all America became aware of the fact-of Jessica Lynch's torture as a result of her capture in a combat zone, the all-volunteer military would be in jeopardy. Radical feminists and their supporters in the U.S. Government would lose ground in their attempt to 'socialize' the U.S. military.

       The Post's belated report relates that the three male soldiers in Jessica Lynch's soft-top Humvee, driven by Lori Piestewa, were killed instantly in the collision with the jackknifed tractor trailer. "Piestewa and Lynch were seriously injured, according to the senior officer's account. Lynch's arm and legs were crushed by the compression, U.S. doctors later concluded. Tiny bone fragments protruded through her skin." That is the official U.S. Government position. It is all conjecture. Later in the Post story, that position is clouded with some doubt. "U.S. military sources believe most if not all the fractures [suffered by Jessica Lynch] could have been caused by extreme compression during her vehicle accident." That's right. This is simply a medical speculation. A more realistic account is given in the Post's belated report from an Iraqi orthopedic surgeon who treated Lynch at the civilian hospital from which she was rescued.

       Majdi Kahfaji, the Iraqi surgeon who performed surgery on Jessica Lynch, told the Post that "...Lynch's wounds made him suspicious. The fractures were on both sides of her body, for example, and 'if they all came from a car accident, there was no glass in her wounds, no lacerations or deep bruises…maybe [Her injuries were caused by] a car accident, or maybe they broke her bones with rifle butts or by stomping on her legs. I don't know. They know and Jessica knows. I can only guess." Of course, Dr. Kahfaji knows well the methods used by the Saddam Fedayeen -- detailed in an essay at the link: Jessica Lynch's Army: The Clinton Legacy. He appears to suspect that many of her wounds resulted from torture by Uday Hussein's Baath Party paramilitary thugs.

       There was plenty of opportunity for the Fedayeen to torture Jessica Lynch after her capture and before her rescue. According to the Post, Lynch was delivered by a policeman to an Iraqi military hospital just a mile or two from the ambush site. Lynch and Piestewa arrived at about 10:00 a.m. the morning of the ambush, which occurred at about dawn. The Post relates that "Adnan Mushafafawi, a brigadier in the Iraqi army medical corps, a member of...Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and the director of the [military] hospital, said…'They were both unconscious.' They were severely wounded, he recalled, exhibiting symptoms of shock and trauma…'Miss Lori had bruises all over her face,' Mushafafawi said. 'She was bleeding from the eyes. A severe head wound. [So much for the radical feminist's claim of Piestewa's heroism in fighting off her attackers.] Did either soldier display evidence she had been stabbed or shot? 'No, no,' he said. Pressed, he later answered, 'Maybe Miss Lori, maybe shot.'"

       Doctors at the military hospital treated Lynch's 'multiple fractures [unspecified, of course] and a head injury that he described as minor. They sutured the wound. She was given blood and intravenous fluids. The staff took X-rays, partly set her fractures and applied splints and plaster casts to them. According to the Post, "The military doctor said Lynch briefly regained consciousness at his hospital, but appeared disoriented. 'She was very scared,' he said. 'We assured her that she would be safe now.' But when Mushafafawi suggested to Lynch that he might attempt to better set her leg fracture, Lynch said, 'she didn't want us to do anything more,' he recalled."

       Mushafafawi's hospital is the one in which the U.S. Marines found a torture chamber in the basement after attacking it. Mushafafawi is also reported to have told the Post that "…[he] did not know what happened to Piestewa or Lynch between their capture shortly after 7:00 a.m. and their appearance at his hospital about three hours later." The Post also reports that Mushafafawi said that "[Lynch] was here [at his hospital] two, three hours and then transferred by military ambulance to Nasiriyah's main civilian facility, Saddam Hussein General Hospital across town." This was the hospital from which Lynch was rescued by U.S. Special Operations Forces.

       Thus, Pvt. Jessica Lynch was under the control of the Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters for three hours before arriving at the Baath Party headquarters at the military hospital, with a functioning torture chamber in the basement. While there, she was under the control of the Baath Party functionaries for two to three hours as well. Each of these two to three hour periods were more than enough for her to have been tortured by the methods detailed above in this essay -- including breaking a victims back by dropping an 18-pound cinder block on it and breaking legs and arms by stomping on them. We know for certain that the Iraqi lawyer who aided the rescue attempt saw a black-hooded Fedayeen 'torture' Jessica with 'slaps to the face.' Other evidence, provided above in this essay establishes that Jessica Lynch was being 'tortured' by the Iraqi's even at the civilian hospital from which she was subsequently rescued.

       It is of note to establish what Jessica Lynch was wearing after her 'treatment' at the Baath Party military hospital in Nasiriyah. The Post reports that "Mushafafawi said he and his medical staff cut away Lynch's uniform and threw her clothes on the floor. She lay on a gurney, almost naked, as Iraqi military doctors and nurses worked on her, he said." This may be true. And then again, it may not be true. Given the brutal torture methods described above by the Saddam Fedayeen and the Baath Party which they serve, this aspect may require some further questions. These thugs are noted for their gang-raping of female relatives of their own citizens. This prospect, though thoroughly disgusting and abhorrent, is a possibility in the Jessica Lynch saga. After all, the Post reports that "Later that day [of the ambush], the Arab news network al-Jazeera broadcast graphic close-up film of bodies, believed to be from Lynch's unit, sprawled on a concrete floor at an undisclosed location. Two of the soldiers appeared to have been shot in the forehead, one between the eyes. A smiling Iraqi moved among the bodies, displaying them for the camera. Four exhausted and shaken POWs from the 507th were shown in the same newscast…"

       The Post reports that "When Lynch arrived at Saddam Hussein hospital in a military ambulance that afternoon, the nurses and doctors who admitted her said they were surprised to find an American woman, almost naked, her limbs in plaster casts, beneath a sheet."

       As for the public relations aspect of the Jessica Lynch story, the Post describes the euphoria surrounding the news of her rescue. "Central Command's public affairs office in Qatar geared up to make the most of [it]. 'We wanted to make sure we got whatever visuals were available,' said one public affairs officer involved. The task force had photographed the rescue. Special Forces had already provided exclusive, opening-day video to the news media of Iraqi border posts being destroyed by nighttime raids. That had been a hit, public affairs officers believed…'We were hoping we would have good visuals [of the Lynch rescue]. We knew it would be the hottest thing of the day. There was not an intent to talk it down or embellish it because we didn't need to. It was an awesome story."

       "For the U.S. military and the American public, Lynch's rescue came as a joyous moment in one of the darkest hours of the war, when U.S. troops looked like they were going to be bogged down on their way to Baghdad. But the rescue had gone off without a hitch. 'It took on a life of its own,' said one colonel who tried to answer the barrage of media queries. 'Reporters seem to be reporting on each other's information. The rescue turned into a Hollywood concept.'"

       "After her rescue, nowhere was joy greater than in Lynch's home town...The family's elation was tempered when it discovered the true extent of Lynch's injuries upon reaching her bedside at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. At Walter Reed, Lynch's bones have been put back together with such a delicate and extensive network of rods and pins that it can take an hour for her to move from bed to wheelchair. 'She is still struggling with pain and her recovery will be slow,' said family spokesman Randy Coleman. Her mother said, 'It's amazing she can walk at all -- she is a body full of pins and screws.'"

       "Still, Lynch is making progress. She recently walked more than 100 steps using a walker...People who have seen her said she is psychologically traumatized, and appears somewhat dazed, though she is better now than in the early weeks." Of course, we may never learn the details of what really happened to Pvt. Jessica Lynch -- for many reasons. Even the Post's belated report is unenthusiastic. "Lynch's story is far more complex and different than those initial reports. Much of the story remains shrouded in mystery, in large part because of official Army secrecy, concerns for Lynch's privacy  and her limited memory."

       Yes indeed, her privacy. Sounds just like the 'zone of privacy' which Hillary Rodham Clinton has recently declared to deflect embarrassing questions about her past and that of her husband. But now the 'zone of privacy' surrounding Pvt. Jessica Lynch is being used to cloak the reality of combat in the interest of politicians who want to be re-elected more than they want to face the truth and lead this nation away from the debilitating special interests of the radical feminists with an agenda.

Conclusion
       There is a strange parallel between the situation of our 700 or so POWs in the Vietnam War and the seven who were taken prisoner by the Iraqis in Operation Enduring Freedom. In spite of the fact that the North Vietnamese and Jane Fonda insisted that our POWs in the Hanoi Hilton were not being tortured, we only found this falsehood when Jeremia Denton [48] surreptitiously signaled T-O-R-T-U-R-E by blinking his eyes in Morse Code while appearing on a North Vietnamese propaganda interview, televised worldwide. This truth became known to the American public many years after the first POW was taken captive. The truth about this torture was suppressed by the North Vietnamese, with the help of American collaborators (Fonda, Baez, Hayden, etc.) as an instrument of psychological warfare by the North Vietnamese on the American people. It was only after the POWs were repatriated -- some after eight and one half years of imprisonment and torture -- that we learned the details of the brutal methods used by the North Vietnamese in an attempt to use them as pawns in a propaganda campaign to influence the course and outcome of the war. If the American people could be persuaded to oppose the war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese would win the war through influencing the 'hearts and minds' of the American people.

       The strange parallel to the recent war in Iraq is that the U.S. military, complicit with political bureaucrats in the Bush administration, are now suppressing the 'fact of' the torture of Private Jessica Lynch by her Iraqi captors. They are doing this in order to mask the truth of the abject failure of the experiment to send our nation's young women, including single mothers of small toddler children, into the combat zone where they are subject to death, severe injury, capture and torture by some of the most sadistic monsters on the face of the earth - the Saddam Fedayeen.

       Had the 'cultural Marxists' in the Clinton administration succeeded in completely 'socializing' the entire U.S. military, the anemic resistance of the 507^th Maintenance Company to the Iraqi ambush would have been characteristic of the entire military; not just its support 'tail.' We could not have won the war with Iraq with such a totally 'feminized' combat force. The Clintonistas were well on their way to completing this 'feminization' project and only lacked time-in-office to finish the project. They made a 'jobs corps' out of the Army's support 'tail,' 'feminized' the aviation branches (Navy and Air Force) and 'combat' ships to the extent that their role in the Iraqi War has been described as 'support' of the ground war - just as cooks, clerks, and maintenance personnel of the 507^th were described - part of the support 'tail.' Indeed, more Army cooks, clerks, and maintenance personnel were killed, wounded, and captured in Iraq than the combined casualties of Navy and Air Force 'combat' airmen.

       We can only thank God, and a few stalwarts like Gen. Charles C. Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps who, at great risk to his career, successfully resisted the Clinton administration's attempt to impose mixed-sex basic and advanced training, with concomitant reduced qualification and training standards for the Marine Corps. Similarly, the Army fought hard to maintain the combat training integrity of their Special Forces, Rangers, Airborne, Armored, and fighting Infantry units. They were manned by MEN. And these MEN, Marine and Army, did all of the 'real' fighting in the Iraq War of 2003.

       Indeed, even these forces are feeling the pressure to conform to a politically correct agenda. David Hackworth describes how, in the aftermath of the war with Iraq, even the Army's elite Rangers have General Officers who sacrifice high 'warrior spirit' standards for career advancement. Hackworth laments [46], "While the rest of the U.S. Army has lowered its standards to the point where seasoned war vets find today's combat training a joke and the crusty salts who fought at Anzio, Osan and Dak To refer to what passes for most training as 'an invitation to get killed,' Rangers have fought lowering the training bar and have consistently turned out hardened studs who commanders in the field would fight to get."

       But now, Hackworth continues, "That is until Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who runs Fort Benning [the Ranger training school] today, was told by a few recent Ranger graduates that they were turned off by Ranger School because some of their RIs [hardened veteran Ranger Instructors] were meanies and actually yelled and cursed at them and even made them do pushups when they goofed up. Others complained in writing that they'd been sleep-deprived and that the training was too difficult. For the record, the RIs...who know what it takes to win and walk away alive - were merely following the battle-tested Darby [Darby's Rangers fought in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France during WWII] practices of creating maximum stress, teaching attention to detail and passing on the proven tactics and techniques that have worked so splendidly for our Rangers in a bunch of bad scrapes."

       "But serving Rangers say Eaton went ballistic. He assembled the RIs and gave these tough, dedicated warriors - most with 12 to 15 years of service - a tongue-lashing they'll never forget. About the time this general-officer temper tantrum occurred, an investigation was launched. Magnificent soldiers such as Command Sgt. Maj. Bobby Lane, a combat Ranger with 23 years of superior service, were relieved and other equally fine soldiers' careers went down the toilet. The result:
· RIs are now no longer allowed to swear in the presence of a student. Nor can they raise their voices or use pushups as punishment. Students wear sneakers instead of boots and are coddled as if they were at a Boy Scout Jamboree instead of preparing for a kill-or-be-killed rendezvous [with a potential enemy].
· When an RI complained to his boss that today's training environment is like 'walking on egg shells,' his Colonel said, 'Good, that's the way I want it.'
· When Ranger students were recently caught writing 'obscene graffiti' on a Ranger vehicle, RIs asked their colonel to boot the guilty from the school. He passed. Could he be afraid of the students complaining to Eaton?

Hackworth concludes, "Pray our future enemies will be as weak as the Iraqis. Because down the road, we might not have real Rangers to lead the way as they have for 250 years."

       Another example of how flag-rank officers continue to carry the water for the radical feminist agenda, resulting in the 'feminization' of the U.S. military, is the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, ADM William J. Fallon, USN. He was the guest speaker at the Banquet celebrating the dedication of the RA5C Vigilante aircraft at the Naval Air Station Sanford Memorial Park on 31 May 2003. A full-size RA5C was refurbished into mint condition and raised on a tripod pedestal  as if it were taking off from the Sanford International Airport. Over 1,000 former pilots, naval flight officers, and maintenance personnel celebrated this event.  CAPT Jerry Coffee, USN (Ret.), a former Vietnam War POW, spoke at the outdoor dedication. CAPT Coffee received a rousing standing ovation when he told the audience that, in spite of the hardship and torture during his 7 years and 9 days of captivity, he would do it all over again if given the choice. He knew, first hand, the barbarity, cruelty, and character of a totalitarian communist regime.

       At this instant, a formation of four F/A-18 Hornet jet aircraft flew overhead at about 500 feet wing-tip to wing-tip. When the announcer said, 'The flight is led by CDR John Butler,' all in attendance knew it was C.T. Butler's son. C.T. was a fellow Vigilante pilot who died during a night FCLP (field carrier landing practice) accident [he lost an engine on take-off and did not survive the ejection at low altitude] at the air station in the mid-1960s. Precisely over the crowd, the 3rd aircraft in the formation raised its nose, and with full afterburner shot straight up into the blue. I turned to my wife and whispered, 'I'll bet that is C.T.'s second son, Richard, paying his respects to his father in a 'missing man' formation. It was. And C.T.'s widow, Barbara, was in attendance. It was a touching tribute to C.T. Butler, an old friend and 'warrior' in the finest tradition of naval aviation. That was the bright side of the dedication ceremony and of its place in naval aviation. There are still 'warriors' with the 'warrior spirit' of old in naval aviation. Unfortunately, they are all young 13er-generation officers below the rank of Captain.

       There was, however, a dark side. And that was ADM Fallon's speech at the dedication banquet. We knew that we were in for a treat of fantasy when he spoke of his 1,600 'traps' [carrier landings] in a braggadocio manner [he is a Naval Flight Officer -- a backseater, who never makes a carrier landing -- a passenger, not a pilot]. This, of course, was a lie as every pilot in the audience knew. Nevertheless, taking advantage of the powerful patriotic energy at the weekend's celebration, he heaped praise on those Special Forces heroes who fought the battle in Afghanistan known as Roberts' Ridge. Roberts, a Navy Seal, was killed by the Taliban after falling out of a helicopter on a mission in the Tora Bora region. Fallon told the story of an Air Force Special Forces medic who was with the team that attempted to rescue Roberts and/or recover his body. The medic died in a firefight during the rescue attempt. Fallon then concluded with his grand gesture. The medic's widow, who had two young children, had just recently accepted a scholarship in the ROTC at a major U.S. university and was dedicated to 'following in the footsteps of her brave husband.' In the patriotic energy of the moment, this rousing entreaty for women-in-combat received a standing ovation from the 700-plus attendees at the banquet. In hindsight, it was a brazen attempt to 'politicize' the bravery of both Roberts and the Air Force medic and use it in a self-serving way to promote Fallon's own personal career interests. Such is the nature of the cadre of flag-rank and general officer leadership in today's military. They have been 'sensitivity trained' in an environment that has weeded out all of those with the 'warrior spirit.'

       In addition to this perfidy, now, after the war we find that the radical feminists and their supporters in the U.S. military and the weak-kneed politicians in Congress and the Bush administration are attempting to coverup the details of the torture of Private Jessica Lynch in a psychological operations campaign directed at the American people. The truth about this matter would throw in a cocked hat the propaganda with which the American people have been bombarded about the combat effectiveness of our all-volunteer 'socialized' armed forces. It would expose these people as shamans and outrage the American people who would demand a return of the exclusion of women-in-combat - the only reasonable outcome of this failed experiment.

       If we do not learn from the experience of the 507^th, Private Jessica Lynch, Spc. Shoshana Johnson, and Spc. Lori Piestewa, the radical feminists will continue to 'socialize' our armed forces - including its real combat units - to the point that they would not be able to fight and win a war against Third World adversaries, much less a more competent, modern enemy in the future.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:  (See link below).



                                                                                              Return to:


     Home                The Jessica Lynch Corner                Women-in-Combat                          Jessica Lynch's Army

                                      Who Chooses America's War Heroes                    Footnotes to this Essay