by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
As a veteran who has served with some outstanding women, I support the integration of the services, but take issue with your suggestion that physical prowess is becoming obsolete. No matter how fancy your toys are, you still need physically superior men and women to march through the bad areas where vehicles can’t travel, to continue on when technology breaks down, and to carry your buddy miles to safety when he or she gets shot. This is not to say that women cannot fulfill that role, but that it’s naïve to suggest that the need for physical strength and endurance has passed.
Of course physical prowess will never be obsolete; I wrote "becoming more and more obsolete" only to emphasize our rapid reliance on combat technology, such as back-mounted computer systems, combat-readiness drugs, exoskeletons (see above), and, eventually, semi-autonomous robots.