Never Leave Your Buddy?s Behind: Mike Gravel and the Gay Spartan Army

The above mail was submitted before editing was complete. Again, the reference to Corinthian homosexual units was taken from Will Durant’s “The Life of Greece.” The references to Spartan lovers are several, and derived from readings of ten to fifteen years ago. The suggestion was not to cast doubt on the courage and effectiveness of straight soldiers.

Rather it was to prompt the Pentagan, which over the recent decades has shifted to the progressive left, to undertake the building of a “gay” battalion. Personally, in this day and age, I do not think it would be successful. Throwing a female battalion into combat would end in certain catastrophe. Still, these two groups should be an opportunity to fail.

I’ve read about the effectiveness of Spartan and Corinthian homosexual lovers in battle and am inclined to believe it. We currently have a government whose main business is dabbling in social schemes. In the interest of forming a “Gay” Brigade” the Pentagon should adopt a policy of “Please ask, please tell.” Train the Brigade expertly, then allow them to set sail for Iraq where they will hopefully confirm the Greek experience.
In the interest of gender equity an “Amazon Battalion” should also be formed. However, like most progressive programs this one may prove problematic. Women possess 62% of a man’s strength, and have a pain thresh hold 28% lower than same. In addition, almost without exception they decline employment within all the world’s most dangerous professions. Even in my great grandfather’s day it was so.
In 1917 the Russian socialist leader, Alexander Kerensky, had trained what was designated “The Women’s Battalion of Death,” under the leadership of feminist general, Maria Bochkareva. In her diary the English nurse, Florence Farmborough–then serving on the Eastern front–wrote that when the women were ordered out of their trenches into a hail of German lead, some “did go ‘over the top.’ But not all of them. Some remained in the trenches, fainting and hysterical, others ran or crawled to the rear. Bachkarova retreated with her decimated battalion; she was wrathful, and heartbroken, but she had learnt (sic) a great truth: women are unfit to be soldiers.”
This should be the final word regarding women in combat (zones). But in the world of postmodern America, where no lessons are ever learned, why not form our own “Woman’s Battalion.” The Pentagon could then parachute them into the mountains of Afghanistan, from whence their fortunes could be monitored.