Aaron D. Wolf’s “Drafting Our Daughters” (Heresies, January) is an excellent article.  Having served three tours in Vietnam as an artillery surveyor, forward observer, and civil-affairs team chief, I’ll make some additions.

On December 3, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter demonstrated an incredible ignorance of infantry combat reality and a possible hatred of 18-year-old females.  Most infantrymen are 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old athletic and aggressive young men.  They are also loaded with testosterone.  A young female who can complete advanced infantry training would be athletic, reasonably attractive, and very rare.  Move forward to the jungles of Southeast Asia.  Infantry units do not travel with portable showers and latrines.  They urinate and defecate on the trail in front of one another.  They seldom bathe.  Female infantry soldiers would experience the same.  Because females are physically different, the lack of hygiene would cause serious gynecological problems.

Occasionally a pond or stream is located, and bathing is permitted.  The female soldier is going to bathe with the male soldiers.  She is going to be one of the guys.  What sane policymaker, mother, or father would want America’s sons and daughters bathing together in an immediate combat zone?  Carrying 40 to 80 pounds of hardware for weeks at a time, killing and being killed is not an M.O.S. for young ladies, no matter what Debbie Wasserman Schultz advocates.  Men do not like it either.

Aaron D. Wolf asked, “Where have the churches, the conservatives, the fathers of America’s daughters been, while this hate campaign against women has been waged?”  Our people work in the private sector.  We are small businessmen, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, miners, manufacturers, etc.  We pay our own way, but we have been overwhelmed.  Sometimes we cannot see through the stress and aggravation.  We subsidize those who hate us through confiscatory taxation and sadly by sometimes supporting organizations who detest us.  Constitutionally, we must eliminate most of the federal government and support only the organizations that support us.  If a company’s policy is not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas, then that company should be exposed.  The IRS must be eliminated, because it persecutes Christians and small-business owners.

Most leftists are cowards.  They crumple when aggressively confronted.  Because they own the media, Hollywood, the federal government, and big finance, they usually get their way.  It is difficult to expose them for what they are: haters.  However, I believe there is a change coming.  Donald Trump recently asked, “Where are the Pattons and MacArthurs?”  They are here and ready for action.  They just do not want to be isolated, humiliated, and left unsupported.  Perhaps I’m dreaming, but a combination of Donald Trump and Ron Paul might save the nation.  Trump is showing guts, and we all know Ron Paul is the real deal.

        —Patrick Reilly
via email