Local military members discuss women registering for draft, physical standards

Should women have to register with the Selective Service when they turn 18? And should those who choose to serve in the military be required to meet the same physical standards as men?

Much chatter has been devoted to these topics in recent days, but unless or until Congress amends the Military Selective Service Act, the answers depend on whom you ask.

For Master Sgt. Matt Hampton of Jackson, the question instead should be, is America ready to see her daughters fighting in tanks, some never to return?

For Hampton, who now is in the Army Reserves but has served in the military for more than 26 years, it’s a tricky subject. Not only does his wife, Bonnie, also serve in the reserves, but his daughter wanted to join the military, too.

“I’m all for it,” he said.

A health condition kept Hampton’s daughter from being able to engage in basic training, but he said his advice to her would have been the same as it would to anyone. He would have told her to grow some thick skin for what she might see or be asked to do. That’s what equal service means.

“It’s really hard to say ‘equal but separate’ and ‘equal but special,’” he said.

Besides, there hasn’t been a draft since the 1970s. If the government began conscripting troops, it would only be in an extreme situation.

“At that point, we would need anybody and everybody,” he said.

As Hampton sees it, the way military service is viewed by society is changing, and the question of women registering for a draft or being held to equal standards is just one more adjustment in a series of them.

First, service members grappled with concerns over gays serving in the military. Then the big controversy was women being able to serve in combat roles. Now the issue du jour is dealing with women being on a truly equal footing with men, when male soldiers were always taught to protect women and children first.

That kind of chivalry isn’t dead, but it can disappear in a hurry on the battlefield. That’s a key concept when coming to terms with women in combat roles.

“How do you handle that, when everybody’s the same — everybody’s equal?” Hampton said.

Sgt. Bonnie Hampton, who has served in the Army on and off for 17 years, is of a mind with her husband. When it comes to women registering with the Selective Service, she doesn’t see a problem.

“I think it’s fair,” she said.

And when it comes to special operations or more rigorous forms of service, it becomes even more important to have equal standards so a fighting force is operating at its best.

“If a woman decides she wants to be in the infantry or a sniper, she should have the same standards of the males her age,” she said. “Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you’re weaker.”

And Bonnie Hampton should know. She served in the first Gulf War and had to deal with Saudi and Iraqi soldiers to whom female military members were an oddity.

Her official title was a supply specialist, meaning she mainly drove trucks, but sometimes things got tense.

“We were right there on the front lines when they liberated Kuwait,” Bonnie Hampton said.

Carrie Whitsel, the quartermaster at Cape Girardeau’s VFW post, also served in Desert Storm. She was an Air Force sergeant in the Fifth Mobile Aerial Port Squadron, which was charged with going in at the beginning of the war to set up runways and get supplies to troops.

She remembers one day during a week of training in England, while doing maneuvers prior to her deployment to Saudi Arabia. Half her squadron was assigned to be the “good guys” and half were the “bad guys.”

Various tasks were required of each subgroup, and it was hard work. Whitsel, who described herself as “a scrawny little thing,” said, “I was crying by the end of it ... but I made it through.”

“I don’t know how heavy my pack was, but I kept falling over,” she said.

Given her physical limitations at the time and how difficult that particular experience was, Whitsel, who was in the Air Force for 11 years, wonders whether all women should be held to the same standards as all men in military service.

“What comes to mind is women are physically different than men,” she said.

Her niece recently joined the Navy in hopes of becoming an aircraft mechanic and broke her collarbone during physical training, although she was able to make it through boot camp.

“Someone ran into her during PT,” Whitsel said. “She’s a little petite girl.”

Overall, Whitsel said she feels there are some things women can do, but some things they’re not physically capable of doing, which is why strong standards are necessary.

Otherwise, “it could weaken our military to the point where we’re vulnerable,” she said.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652