A reader makes an interesting case:
I served six years, from 2002 -2008, and made multiple tours overseas. I served honorably alongside women, who were every bit as ferocious and competent as any drill sergeant could hope to train. There is no appreciable difference in performance that so many fear.
Yet I must dissent against women serving in combat at this time.
Our current ammunition is composed of depleted uranium. Uranium is a pyrophoric teratogenic agent. The former means that when a round is fired, microscopic amounts of the bullet are burned and ablated off as it passes through the air. This is regarded as a feature, rather than a flaw. But it also means that the soldier that fires the round will ingest tiny amounts of uranium compounds through inhaling the air the bullet passed through.
This is where the second classification comes into play. Teratogenic agents remain in the body and generate biological abnormalities. For adults, this is essentially not an issue. But it is for developing embryos. As the compounds remain in the body, a female veteran could see immense complications if she chose to have a child, seeing immense spikes in the chances of birth defects. Fallujah saw birth defects and early-life cancers increase by a factor of 15 times following combat in that city.
This is the breaking point for me. It is one thing for a woman to freely choose to sacrifice for her country. It is another for all her children to go through life with afflictions and deformities for decisions made before they were conceived.
I am aware that this is an argument against the use of depleted uranium rather than against the use of women in combat. Hopefully that will be resolved, as these same risks for female soldiers exist for female civilians in a combat zone. But the reality of it is that until this issue is resolved, through changes in policy or advances in science, I cannot stand behind asking the next generation to take on such a burden.
The Dish 