Very well written freewrites. Kudos.
I hope, however, you'll forgive a short commentary about the subject matter. As a combat veteran of an elite military force, I find the "ideological basis" of the freewrites ... ridiculous.
Physically, women CANNOT do the same things as men and military service is not about providing someone the opportunity to fulfill their childhood dreams.
If a woman can haul the base plate of a 81mm mortar ... and her backpack ... and her assault rifle ... in full combat gear ... across several miles of broken terrain ... at a full run ... under the mid-day sun in the middle of a desert ... then fair enough, 82nd Airborne it is.
But study after study demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of women cannot. Indeed, the majority of men can't either. The men that can't ... don't get in, and neither should the women. Life's full of disappointments.
Ignoring biological realities, and lowering the bar so that women can get over it, means endangering everyone in the unit ... and, inevitably, means that someone (the men) would have to carry a woman's gear so as to compensate for her lesser physique. Dismissing this "reality" is pure ideology ... belief in an ideal in spite of obvious contradictory facts.
If society has become so ideologically rabid that it insists on providing women a chance to serve in combat (BTW, parachutists generally have to be the most physically fit of all infantrymen), then I have a solution: The formation of "all women" battalions.
Hence, when one woman cannot handle the crippling physical demands, then it will be another woman who will have to compensate ... and/or the entire female unit who will have to pay the price.
Send such female-only battalions into the same combat zones, with the same missions, as all-male battalions. And then we shall see who's right and who's wrong: The green-haired Gender Studies professors sipping their Starbuck's lattes as they parade around with placards ... or guys like me who have already done that which is being contemplated doing.
Imagine the arrogance of my thinking that my opinion is worth more than theirs. It must be the misogyny ... or, perhaps, it's my objection to "female hygiene."
Or, I suppose, it could be the scars that cover my body and the memories that come with them.
In any event, my daughter WILL NOT be a part of such a social experiment ... because I have the ability to temper my ideals with critical thinking and, thankfully, so does she.
Quill
RE: Weekend Freewrite