I have a very conservative friend (I’ll call him Newt) and he loves to jerk my chain. But the other night he was absolutely convinced that he had finally found something we could both agree upon, and our conversation went a little something like this:
“And just what might that be?” I asked him with interest.
“Well, I think we can definitely agree about the role of women in combat,” he suggested.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well,” said Newt, “as a Vietnam veteran yourself, I would hope that you would agree with me that there simply is no role for women in combat, and that they should be staying home and raising their children.”
“But what if they don’t want to stay home and raise children?” I asked Newt.
“It doesn’t matter. Women should still never be allowed to fight in a war under any circumstances. You wouldn’t have wanted a woman next to you in a foxhole in Vietnam, now would you?”
“Well, I guess that all depends,” I pointed out.
“I’m serious,” said Newt. “A lot of female soldiers were killed in Iraq, and I think that is simply awful! A great country like ours doesn’t need to be giving their women rifles and sending them off to fight in a war.”
“But it’s my understanding,” I said, “that most of the women we have sent overseas are doing non-combat duties.”
“That may be,” said Newt, “but they’re still getting killed and it’s simply not acceptable. Don’t you agree?”
“Well,” I said, “as you know, I think it’s unacceptable that any American soldier had to die in some of these really stupid wars lately.”
“Just stay on the subject,” said Newt. “Do you or do you not think American women should be allowed to be in combat?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, then think about this. You’re back in Vietnam, you suddenly get ambushed, you’re wounded, you’re going to die if you don’t get out of there quick, and the only soldier near enough to help you is a girl. Now how would you have liked that?”
‘Actually,” I said, “come to think of it, I was in a situation pretty similar to that once, and the only soldier near enough to help me was a guy, and he didn’t move a muscle until reinforcements got there.”
“So, you’re honestly going to tell me you think that men and women are equal in combat situations?”
“I just don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess it would depend on the particular soldier. I’m sure that in many ways men are the better soldiers, but I bet that in other ways, a woman will make a great soldier.”
“You’re just saying that because of all that women’s-lib garbage you believe in and because you want to be politically correct. Come on, be honest! I want a yes or a no! Do women belong going off to fight in a war or not? ”
After giving it another minute or so of serious thought, I finally said, “Okay, here is what I think. I think women should be allowed to fight in a war, but only if all the men have to stay home.”
“Now what in the world is that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it,” I said. “We would get all the countries in the world to sign a treaty or something saying that when the next war breaks out, only women will be allowed to go off and fight in it.”
“And why would we do something as stupid as that?”
“Just think of all the lives that we would save,” I said.
“Why would lives be saved?”
“Well,” I explained, “because unlike men, the vast majority of women are much too smart to keep fighting and dying for years and years over things that don’t make any sense. I think it was Woody Allen who said that the hardest part of any war is getting everyone to show up, and if only women were allowed to be soldiers, we might even get rid of war all together, because I bet women would have no trouble at all finding better and much more important things to do with their lives than fight in stupid wars and they would just simply not show up.”