EGALITARIANISM AND THE MILITARY

We are the most egalitarian society in history. Women serve in combat units in the military, and the openly gay are now allowed in the military. Back in the stone age (WW II) our military allowed only heterosexual males into combat, thereby denying countless women and gays their egalitarian right to get themselves killed while carrying a rifle in combat. Our heterosexual males were so enthusiastic about availing themselves of this opportunity that most of them waited to be drafted instead of running right out and enlisting.[1]  We've fixed all that now by doing away with the draft and making our military a laboratory for experimentation in egalitarianism. Do we live in a great country or what? We do have a few problems relating to this exercise in egalitarianism,[2] but surely the effort we expend in getting these issues worked out is not going to compromise the military’s combat effectiveness.

The suggestion is now made that we cannot be truly egalitarian until we allow transgendered individuals into the military.[3] There is no mental health bar to allowing the transgendered into the military. The American Psychiatric Association just took a vote and abolished the mental disorder formerly known as gender identity disorder. Just look it up in the DSM V.[4] If someone is  not comfortable with being transgendered, that person may have a mild case of gender dysphoria,[5] but that’s nothing to worry about. The only real problem would be the hormone therapy.[6] We’d have to figure out some way to accommodate that. I’m sure that we can find a way to keep our transgendered soldiers in combat supplied with their regular dosages. It wouldn’t compromise combat effectiveness at all.  

I don’t think the APA should stop with gender identity disorder. They could greatly increase the number of potentially available soldiers by taking a vote and abolishing other mental illnesses.  

Our next step down the path of egalitarianism in the military should not come from the APA, though.  The American Medical Association has to help us do away with the ban on diabetics and asthmatics. If it doesn’t strain our logistical capabilities to keep the transgendered in combat supplied with their needed hormones, then it should be no problem at all to keep diabetic soldiers supplied with their insulin and asthmatic  soldiers supplied with their breathing therapy.  All we really need to do to make this happen is to have the AMA meet and vote that diabetes and asthma are no longer diseases. The APA did it. Why can’t the AMA do it too?

And while they’re at it, they can help remove an old stigma I suffered when I tried to enlist in the military during the Vietnam War. I want the AMA to vote high blood pressure off the list of diseases. I was denied entry into the military simply because I had an alternative blood pressure, and that certainly flies in the face of true egalitarianism. I’m sure the Army could have kept me supplied with my daily dose of blood pressure medicine when they sent me to Vietnam. Keeping soldiers supplied with necessary therapeutic drugs in a war zone should have been no problem at all.

I applaud our military’s ongoing experimentation with egalitarianism. I’m sure it has our enemies shaking in their boots.