So I’m nearing the end of my first tour in the United States Navy and it has been exciting and frustrating and educational. I’m strongly considering another couple of tours, but that’s another story. Tonight I just want to make a quick comment about something really bizzare coming out of Rick Santorum’s mouth. (I know, shocker.)
Apparently he’s concerned about the Pentagon’s announcement that they are opening up more service options to female service members. Something about how if I see a woman in danger I’m going to do something foolish to try and save her in an effort to be chivalrous.
The reason Mr. Santorum’s concerns are so profoundly naive is not because they are sexist or even terribly incorrect; I would put myself in unreasonable danger for the sake of saving a woman on the field of battle. What Mr. Santorum fails to understand is that I would do the same for any of the men.
There is no word in English to describe the relationship between two people who fight under the same colors. People instinctively reach for terms of kinship but that implies a bond of love, and that’s not what you get in the military. I definitely don’t love all of the people I serve with. I might even joke about a few of them needing a bullet in the ass. Love is a bit flimsy anyway.
What we get instead of love is something that occurs only rarely in the civilian world: Trust. As in I will take your life into my hands and guard it with mine. When we are in the fight you are never alone; you will never need to look over your shoulder for the enemy because I am behind you; you will never need to hesitate because where you go I will follow. I cringe a little reading all that because I know it’s 2012 and people don’t like to talk like that, but that’s the way it is.
Of course the disuse of words like “Honor” and “Courage” and “Trust” is exactly what leads former senators from Pennsylvania to think that something as cheap as chivalry plays any role in decision making during a firefight. The person pinned under fire fifty feet from you doesn’t have a gender. They don’t have a family either, or a rank. They have you and you have them. There might be fifty of you or just a pair but the world stops at the edge of that fight.
This is reflected in our history and our present and it is the reason our armed forces are better than anything else out there. We don’t leave our own behind. So I want to say to Mr. Santorum and anyone else who’s worried about combat effectiveness being reduced by the presence of women, homosexuals or minorities: unclench your sphincter. As much as every service member enjoys hearing lawyers speculate about how to better run the armed forces, we do actually have rigorous screening and training programs to prevent liabilities from showing up in a combat zone.
Not that he’d know.