More food for thought:
Pentagon's Plan B Won't Stop Battlefield Sex
Posted 02/12/10 Read all 274 comments +6 / -1 raves War is hell, but apparently it comes with a comforting benefit: sex. Commanders seem to acknowledge that it happens in the forward operating bases: Base exchanges sell trashy lingerie, medics hand out condoms and, in some places, have a supply of pregnancy test kits available - and now the morning-after pill.
All U.S. military health facilities around the world have been ordered to carry a pill known as Plan B One-Step. We’re not talking about a quick-kill pill for American soldiers captured in combat; no, we’re talking about a pill meant only for women who fail to follow Plan A: Keep your legs together.
A new Department of Defense policy now requires all medical facilities, including those on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, to carry it.
The decision, made last week, comes on the heels of a commander in Iraq who attempted to enforce a clause in his code of conduct that would have made getting pregnant in combat a punishable offense. Although the code was struck down, now he’s got Plan B.
I won’t object to the pill, as long as the commander takes it too, and every soldier who has sex with a female comrade. After all, the side-effects only cause headaches, nausea, painful breasts and irregular vaginal bleeding. I’m sure it won’t cause too much damage to the male appendage, other than make him follow Plan A for a few weeks if not a few months.
I’m digressing from my original point, however. And that is: What woman is going to follow Plan B if she can’t follow Plan A? The pill has to be taken preferably within 24 hours, or up to 72 hours, to prevent pregnancy. I doubt that sexually active soldiers plan to take it every time they have sex. And apparently, “Sex runs wild in the U.S. military,” according to a 2005 report by Newsmax.
“It is only natural for the teens and 20-somethings who make up the majority of U.S. forces in Iraq to do what civilians of their age back home are doing,” Newsmax quoted Iraq soldiers, who had interviewed with the Salt Lake Tribune on condition of anonymity.
“They can try to keep us apart as much as they want, but they miss the point,” said one female soldier. Sex is "what people this age do," she said. Popping pills, which cause less than desirous effects, are not.
If anything, pregnancy and venereal diseases could increase as a result of a woman relying on the emergency contraceptive pill. This gives soldiers - female and male - another reason to not use condoms. And then a woman has to take the pill in too short of a timeframe to prevent conception.
This does not sound like the answer. So it's back to Plan A - No sex. But that's illogical as well.
Capt. Eryth Zecher, an officer with the 146th Transportation Company, said the Defense Department has not issued a blanket ban on sex in Iraq, although in most commands male and female soldiers are not allowed to be in the same room with the door closed or be "out of uniform" anyplace.
"We don't really have any other choice than to go to each other," said a male soldier in the 872nd Maintenance Company headquartered in Mosul. "In past wars, they could go into town and there would be girls there or boys or whatever you want. Here, you can't really leave the base because you'll get killed."
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/pentagons-plan-b-wont-stop-battlefield-sex/blog-259255/
