because they cannot meet the basic physical fitness test requirements -- push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and running.

The Navy SEALs, for instance, have a particularly tough time finding young hopefuls who can swim and run well enough just to be accepted into the program. Then comes the hard part. Eighty percent of those entering SEAL training don't make it. Lots of young men want to be SEALs. Few have what it takes to become SEALs.

Truth be known, each of the American armed forces needs the best people, and they do not accept less.

Who's Actually Closing With the Enemy

There are also the politically motivated myths about who's doing the fighting and why.

Multiple myths have been publicly perpetuated -- and never publicly corrected -- about women having to fight because there aren't enough men. Or that minorities and young people from urban areas are over-represented in the combat arms branches.

G.I. Jane

We've all heard the congressmen and congresswomen on the House floor talking about our men and women fighting in Iraq, as if to suggest that every single soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, regardless of gender or job description is actually FIGHTING. Politicians love to suggest that everyone is fighting, because it sounds fair and inclusive, and most of their constituents truly do not know any better.

Granted, the battle lines are certainly blurred in the modern world. Some women have certainly been flying aircraft in-and-over battle spaces; and some women on the ground have had to squeeze the triggers of their weapons in self-defense and while defending others. This has in fact happened several times involving women who serve in military police units. And all have performed magnificently in a variety of critical roles: An example being Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, whose remarkable leadership and heroic performance in action against an insurgent ambush on March 20, 2005 I reported in a Scripps Howard piece.

But percentage-wise, female soldiers are not fighting (in the pure sense of the word) on a par with their male counterparts. And in terms of “offensive ground combat,” females do not serve in those units designated for that kind of fighting.

Females are not kicking in doors and fighting alongside the Marines in Ramadi. They did not storm Fallujah. They don't suit up for counter-terror missions and other special operations. Nor do they go out on infantry patrols. And according to Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), they should not.

“Women have always served in the armed forces with courage and distinction,” Donnelly writes in a 2006 CMR article, Grim toll of women lost in war. “But there is no military necessity to send young women and mothers to fight in close combat areas where they do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive.”

Granted, women have been killed and wounded in Iraq, but not because they were personally engaged in “offensive ground combat.” Most by far have been the victims of ambush, as have American civilian construction workers and truck-drivers, none of whom are combatants either.

But those who disagree with Donnelly seem to look for any opportunity to perpetuate the myth because they see the military as beneficial in a way in which it was not designed to be (and I'll get to that in a moment).

Minority Representation

Then there is the suggestion that American minorities (and those from lower income urban areas) are being over-represented among the front-line combat troops. But according to Who is Volunteering for Today's Military, “Urban areas are actually underrepresented among new recruits. Suburban and rural areas are overrepresented.”

The report states that African American troops, who represent roughly 17 percent of the overall military force, have suffered approximately 11 percent of those killed in Iraq. Whereas, white Americans who comprise 67 percent of the force have suffered 74 percent of those killed in Iraq. And Hispanic Americans, nine percent of the overall force, have suffered 11 percent deaths.

All have performed well, and distinguished themselves in combat. But the higher white and Hispanic casualty percentages reflect the fact that those two groups, for whatever reasons, overwhelming enlist for service in frontline infantry and special operations units. So the idea that minorities (except in the case of Hispanics) or those from the inner city are disproportionately fighting and dying in Iraq is simply not so.

“This pattern results from occupational choices young people make,” according to DoD. “For example, African American youth choose to serve in support occupations such as the health care field, which tend to feature valuable job training over bonuses or education incentives. These are the choices young volunteers make.”

The Purpose of the Military

Some might ask, why bring a discussion of gender and race into a discussion of the American warrior culture? The answer lies in the fact that gender and race issues are key components of American military culture, just as they are of American society. There is indeed a history of discrimination in the American military. But in the sense of rectifying any forms of past discrimination, the American military has in many ways proven to be more progressive than American society.

Additionally, though men and women of all races and ethnicities serve and have served in the military with great honor and distinction, there are those Americans with a political aversion to our military culture who would prefer to use the military for social experimentation rather than for what the military was designed to do: Fight and win wars. And they have used and twisted the gender and race variables for their own benefit (as discussed in who's actually doing the fighting , and who is -- and is not -- being over-represented).

Too Elite?

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the more “elite” a military organization might be, the less connected it is to American society, thus a threat to society.

In 1997, for instance, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister -- obviously not thrilled with the fact that Marines, placing great focus on preparation for combat, and training their male and female recruits separately, took aim at Marine culture. “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are,” she said before a Harvard University audience. “Marines are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you've got some risks of total disconnection with society. And that's a little dangerous.”

Of course, it was a ridiculous comment. The Marine Commandant demanded an apology, and Lister was quickly canned. But I can assure you we Marines (active, Reserve, retired, and former) laughed about it, because, “Yes we are extremists, and we are dangerous. That's why we win wars and are feared throughout the world.”

Despite the Listers of the world, the American military culture and class have survived because of our “heroes” and “elites,” and will no doubt continue to do so. It hearkens back to the things I discussed last month about our being descended from cavaliers, cowboys, Indians, and frontiersmen: We are genetically and spiritually the same. Or as Professor Busch said, “America's love of the fabled hunter/rifleman has seldom dwindled, and never died, even though in the twenty-first century he may wear a green beret rather than a coonskin cap.”

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