Women would be required to register for the military draft under a House committee bill that comes just months after the Defense Department lifted all gender-based restrictions on front-line combat units.
A divided Armed Services Committee backed the provision in a sweeping defense policy bill that the full House will consider next month, touching off a provocative debate about the role of women in the military. The panel also turned aside a measure backed by Democrats to punish the Citadel military college in South Carolina for flying the Confederate flag.
The United States has not had a military draft since 1973 in the Vietnam War era, but all men must register with the Selective Service Systems within 30 days of turning 18. Military leaders maintain that the all-volunteer force is working and the nation is not returning to the draft.
The 32-30 vote Wednesday night came with a twist: The proposal’s author didn’t back it, a clear sign that more contentious debate is ahead.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former Marine who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, does not support drafting women into combat and opposes opening infantry and special operations positions to women. Hunter, R-Calif., said he offered the measure in the House Armed Services Committee to prompt a discussion about how the Pentagon’s decision in December to rescind gender restrictions on military service failed to consider whether the exclusion on drafting women also should be lifted.
That’s a call for Congress, not the executive branch, Hunter said. “I think we should make this decision,” he said. “It’s the families that we represent who are affected by this.”
At times, Hunter evoked graphic images of combat in an apparent attempt to convince colleagues that drafting women would lead to them being sent directly into harm’s way.
“A draft is there to put bodies on the front lines to take the hill,” Hunter said. “The draft is there to get more people to rip the enemies’ throats out and kill them.”
But if Hunter was trying to sway people against his amendment, his plan did not work.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said she supported Hunter’s measure. “I actually think if we want equality in this country, if we want women to be treated precisely like men are treated and that they should not be discriminated against, we should be willing to support a universal conscription,” she said.
Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. and a retired Air Force fighter pilot, said draftees aren’t exclusively sent to the front lines. There are plenty of other useful, noncombat positions for them to fill, she said.
If an 18-year-old man does not register with the Selective Service he could lose his eligibility for student financial aid, job training and government jobs. Immigrant men could lose their eligibility for U.S. citizenship. According to the latest annual report, 73 percent of 18-year-olds registered on time during the 2015 fiscal year ending last Sept. 30. And the registration rate for all men aged 20-25 was 94 percent.
Hunter’s amendment was part of a defense policy bill that authorizes defense spending for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The committee passed the legislation by a 60-2 vote early Thursday.
The overall bill cuts $18 billion from the wartime operations account to pay for weapons and troops the Pentagon didn’t request, a money-shifting strategy Defense Secretary Ash Carter condemned as a “road to nowhere” that undermines U.S. troops and emboldens America’s enemies.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the committee’s chairman, defended the plan and said the billions of dollars shifted out of the wartime fund would be restored in a supplemental budget submitted to Congress early next year by President Barack Obama’s successor. He’s argued the committee’s approach is essential to halting an erosion of combat readiness.
On another thorny policy issue, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the committee’s senior Democrat, offered an amendment that would have barred the Defense Department from financially supporting the ROTC program at any institution that flies the Confederate battle flag.
The Citadel is the only school that fits the profile. The college is in South Carolina Rep. John Clyburn’s district. He’s not on the committee, but he backed Smith’s measure in a statement Wednesday, calling the Confederate flag a symbol of hate, racial oppression, and resistance to the rule of law.
The college’s Board of Visitors has voted to remove the flag, but South Carolina state law prohibits them from doing so.
“This failure to take down the Confederate battle flag is an extremely disappointing statement of principles,” Smith said. “They should have voted to take it down instead of dodging the issue.”
The overall bill authorizes $602 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
If women want equality that should also come with the requirement to register with the Selective Service and to be eligible for the draft. Equality can’t be a cherry-pick arrangement.
As for the Citadel, way too much time has been wasted on the Confederate flag. The federal government is approximately $19,000,000,000,000 in debt. Focus on getting spending under control. The Civil War ended more than 150 years ago. If South Carolina wants to fly the flag so be it.
Now your lumping all women into the feminazi stereotype? A draft is lunacy! Its bad enough you take our boys now your coming for our girls! Shame on you all……
Women required to enlist in our armed forces is disturbing on so many levels. Their strength level cannot compare to that of men. They also have to consider being kidnapped and being abused sexually by the enemy. Let us not forget the sexual stuff that might possibly go on within their units. This is not a good mixture. Women have no business playing at war. Leave it to the men and butt out.
I’m sick to death of the “Suzy Rottenpants” argument. If women are so much weaker than men, it’s because society has been telling them that before they went to kindergarten. While women’s weightlifting may not score the pounds you see in the men’s division, they are more than capable of meeting the standards of general infantry, which is where the majority of conscripts would end up if we ever needed to use the Draft. And given the increasing automation EVERYWHERE (military included), there’s a good chance they could end up at some glorified desk job–like “remote air vehicle pilot.” Or that exoskeleton they’re working on, which could render the strength argument moot.
And then there’s the consideration that we might be less quick to activate the draft, knowing we’ll be calling up women and not just men.
Liberal feminazi right here….
Joanne,
It’s possible that women could be taken as prisoners of war and brutalized, even raped. It’s also possible this could happen to men.
What sexual stuff do you think is going on now in units with both men and women?
“Women have no business playing at war”. Think about your statement for a minute and take me seriously when I say you are so wrong. Women have every business serving in defense of their country. I did. I recommend it for both men and women. You are woefully behind the times. Catch up or get left behind.
The fact that there are some non combat jobs women may be able to get, does not mean that with a universal draft, that my daughter would not be potentially be drafted to fill a combat position to fight against men who are bigger and stronger than her, including ISIS who, if they could, would do unspeakable things to her, while some young man gets to stay home.
So?
(And how often, since the advent of the automatic rifle, do infantry close to hand-to-hand range? Like the gun rights advocates have said, a gun makes a 100-lb woman and a 240-lb man equals. Applies to combat just as well as civilian life.)
I think there are places in the military where women can serve. I don’t think it should be in a GROUND combat situation. There are a lot of places that a woman can serve without getting in harms way. Women pilots and crews. Behind the lines, support roles and a lot of other things that are available without being in a combat situation.
Any base or camp can become a “GROUND combat situation.” There are a lot of female combat veterans whose PTSD and other COMBAT-caused medical issues are being ignored because they had “desk jobs” and weren’t in “direct combat.” One of the arguments against restricting the jobs available to women is that modern warfare doesn’t really have any “front lines” or “rear echelons”–anybody in the theater can end up in “ground combat,” and treating anyone like they won’t be in GROUND combat just makes it worse for them when it actually happens.
Wait a damn minute!!! What part of EQUALITY is in question here??
Women are supposedly fully qualified to be elected to public offices such as Congress, (I’m thinking Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Elizebeth Warren, etc) serve as Govenors, Mayors, on City Counsels, one is campaigning for election to the Presidency, as well as one running on the platform for Vice President.
Woman are on a ‘Quota System’ (in much the same as ‘hyphenated-Americans’~~call it what you may~~discrimination in: equality, inclusion, diversity, ethnicity, gender, prejudices,, sexual orientation, pay, education, employment, contracting, religion, age, disability, assimilation, culture, heritage, ownershp, governance, the list is endless.
As long as we as a society are being driven by ‘EXCEPTIONS’ to true ‘EQUALITY’, it will NEVER exist. You cannot discriminate against certain groups OR sexes without discriminating against another group.
Equality means EXACTLY that, EQUALITY.
Personally I feel ALL forms of reverse discrimination should and must be eliminated, and that includes ‘Affirmative Action’ programs, which have been a dismal failure in American society, despite being the law of the land for OVER half a century.
Barrack and Michelle Obama are prime examples of Affirmative Action’s worth. (retired Seniors MIGHT (or not) get a 1% COL while the Obama’s take yearly MULTI-MILLION dollar vacations at taxpayer’s expense~so much for lead by example eh?) It only gives the individual or group of individuals a sense of entitlement.
Back to the issue at hand, I feel if my son has the ‘Opportunity’ to serve his country, in whatever capacity, it is MORALLY WRONG to deny my daughter that same ‘OPPORTUNITY’.
God forbid, I would not wish to lose EITHER of them, as so many other parents have. The only solace would be in knowing that if EITHER of them died, I would hope they died for a noble cause.
In the meantime, I will continue to push for ‘TRUE EQUALITY’.
Hell No We Won’t Go
And not all of us want “equality”!
Such crap
Whoever thought that one up out to be thrown out of office immediately