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Old 12-30-2012, 12:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieB View Post
Here's an interesting ethical note:

I'm a lifelong feminist and have opposed the military draft (I only want soldiers in the military who want to be there).

In about 1980 my younger sister was in law school and there was a possibility that the draft would be extended to women. And I was stuck!
  • I didn't want my sister to get drafted,
  • I didn't want her law school to be interrupted
  • and I was totally sure that if women are full citizens, they should be as liable to the draft as men are.
Horrible dilemma to be caught between two strong political/ethical beliefs and a family situation. And my baby sister would have been a terrible soldier. She was and is scared of her own shadow and panics under pressure consistently.

This conflict was awful for me and for my parents. In the end, it didn't matter since the law didn't get passed. Middle America was not ready to give up its daughters and made Washington very aware of their opinion. But it is really enlightening to confront your own beliefs and conflicts that way, under such pressure.

Thank god we have an all volunteer military now, where people can go and serve who want to stand up for their country, or get a skill, or go to college after, or have life-long free health care or all of the above. All you have to do is risk your life...
I would content that the parents and siblings of men that are drafted go through the exact dilemmas.

While women are not currently on the front lines of the war on terror, they are affected by being attacked and captured while performing logistical, medical and communication support. One of my coworkers was a Captain in the Medical Corp. she was an RN. She served in the secure zone in Iraq and on a daily basis her location was bombed with mortars. She saw many of her female comrades killed while trying to save the soldiers wounded on the front line.

I'm wondering if your sister would have been weeded out during basic training anyway, which is the way it should be. When women go through basic, for some reason the drill instructors really pushed us hard. Sometimes I wonder if it was harder than our male counterparts, but probably not. Anyway, that was my experience.
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