Rick Santorum expresses his concern that women in combat will "lose focus" on their missions, and then additionally the Pentagon refuses to end its outdated restrictions on women in combat, but women have long since proven their exemplary combat effectiveness and mettle for battle. One significant proving ground was the titanic struggle of 1942-1943 at Stalingrad between the Russians and Hitler's ruthless war machine. This pivotally massive conflict is little credited in our American history texts, but it was the uncontested turning-point for allied victory in WW II. 

The record will note the courage and endurance of the Russian women who proved themselves mortally effective in their war role of that epic battle as sniper, bomber aviator, and other "direct" combat roles. The battle report of the German 16th Panzer Division during their initial engagement against the city leaves no doubt about the focus and force of women in combat: "Right until the late afternoon, we had to fight, shot for shot, against thirty-seven enemy anti-aircraft positions, manned by tenacious fighting women, until they were all destroyed". 

Not one of those tragically heroic soldiers fighting to the last ever lost any of her focus. And the man that feels women must prove themselves equal to men before "allowing" them their rightful equality anywhere exhibits only his own patronizing gender condescension and misplaced chauvinistic hubris.