David French on Homeland Security

Don't allow women in military combat positions

"If you integrate infantry units by gender, more Americans will die, and our enemy will have a better chance to prevail on the battlefield," French wrote, citing a Marine Corps study that found all-male infantry units out-performed mixed gender ones.

"Will we have to endure the broken bodies of men and women who could have been saved, of breaches in lines that never should have opened, before we acknowledge reality?" French wrote. "Men are stronger than women, and in ground combat, that strength is the difference between life and death, victory and defeat."

Three months after French wrote this column, the Defense Secretary overruled the Marines and said that women will be allowed in all combat positions in the U.S. military.

Lionize the valor of every life given honorably in service

Some of the greatest moments in American military history have occurred when members of the most powerful military in the world found themselves in hopeless circumstances, surrounded and cut off. We rightly lionize that valor, and it inspires present and future generations to live up to that legacy. That bond of shared sacrifice, of the willingness to die for your brother, sustains our nation and our culture. That's not to say that there shouldn't be accountability for errors--that politicians and generals shouldn't pay a high price for their failures--but rather to note that every life given honorably in service to our nation leaves behind an enduring and powerful legacy.