Between the age of 17 and 21, I spent some quality time in holes. In the Marine Corps we call them “fighting holes,” not “fox holes.” Those holes serve as battle positions, sleeping quarters, midnight-watch stations and the frozen pockets of hardship and misery that characterize the life of a grunt. For four years in the infantry, I dug these holes wherever the Marine Corps took me: Camp Pendleton, Yuma, Twentynine Palms, the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq and the jungles of southern India. There are few ways in life you can grow closer to a person than to stand post together on a cold night in a dark, muddy hole — especially if you take fire.

The Marine Corps infantry is the finest, most professional and deadliest fighting force on the planet. Proudly known as grunts, these men have fought and prevailed in some of the worst hellholes of modern combat: Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Hue City, Fallujah, the deserts of Al Anbar and the mountains of Helmand Province. The Marine Corps infantry exists to fight and win wars. When there is a fortress to be assaulted, a force to defeat, a hill to take, a beach to land on or a battle to be fought, it is the infantry we send in. Every Marine grunt is conditioned, trained and reinforced to embrace this heritage, ferocity and esprit de corps. Each Marine infantryman is able to proclaim verbatim that, “The mission of the Marine Rifle Company is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or to repel his assault by fire and close combat.”

For 240 years, infantry Marines have been men. But last week, the Department of Defense announced — against the advice of the highest Marine Generals, with many decades of military experience — that the infantry, along with all combat occupations across the armed forces, will be opened to women. This is a momentous decision, and some questions should be asked and answered. Does this decision enhance the overall effectiveness of the Marine Corps? Does it enhance the ability of the infantry to accomplish its mission: To locate, close with and kill the enemy? Does this decision in any way hinder or deteriorate the deadliness of the infantry?

Read the article “The Politically Correct Integration of the Marine Infantry Is a Mistake” on nationalreview.com.