Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
former,

I agree with Fuchs perspective on 'values'. Obedience, for example, is great when your unit is in contact. It's not so great when an institution worth over $1 trillion and a million+ service-members is on a path of decline or committed to a course of failure. Honesty, integrity, courage (moral, intellectual, physical) are values I'd place higher than willingness to obey.
While I don't disagree with your hierarchy of values, none of those are why people who could have joined the military tell me they didn't join the military. They talk to me about not wanting to be told what to do all the time, and that they don't want to get blown up in some far away land. Maybe you hear different things... The second part is certainly why the mothers of America discourage their sons and daughters from joining as well. I'm the first person from my family to voluntarily join the military in over 160 years of having been in this country. I couldn't adequately describe how badly my parents didn't want that to happen. And I'm from the demographic which is generally more willing to serve. What's your plan for overcoming that? Promising the mothers of America that you won't get their kids schwacked?


Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
In a democratic society, the military needs to remain responsive to the expressed needs (through the political system) of the public. If that means females in combat arms or adapting regulations on facial or head hair for a multicultural force, then the military needs to change to implement those values. I have yet to see a substantive argument published anywhere that integration, homosexuals, or responsive regulations are detrimental to good order and discipline or the ability to fight and win wars.
I don't have any direct experience in serving with an open homosexual, so I'll pass on commenting about that. However, if you think that integrating females into combat units is a good idea... we'll just have to disagree.

I suppose, then, that you would agree that there is a substantive argument that, let's say, the average football/basketball/whatever team will be improved by replacing half of its members with women?