First off, the war ain't over. No one is going to walk out into the fields to minesweep if they're liable to get shelled. Second, $4m CAD is just fun bux.
Then to the meat and potatoes, I'm not even going to bother trying to get around the paywalls or visit the sites [I'm not reading the article]. When it's only right wing coverage, you know there's probably nothing more than a blurb about men and women being able to sign up for the world's most unfun game - and their sure as hell not mentioning NB, or other queer identities.
This is one of the myriad ways they pull people in. On its face, who gives a shit about what gender the people are? If they've got the guts to risk splattering them so some kid years from now doesn't become an amputee, then they're braver than the troops and especially the cowards that planted the mines. But some mention of men and women being able to roger up, maybe worded in a weird way by some staffer, is used to frame gender discussion as clearly silly. The right takes this and says "see, they're nuts!" by pointing out the silly irrelevance of gender in this situation. Rinse, repeat.
People don't read the article (Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot. I've, read enough reactionary slop to know they probably actually quote the innocuous line so they have some cover.) and then bring this shit up when talking about "wokism". Like, yeah, if you believe this shit, I'd become reactionary too - none of us are immune to it.
At least we've got robots and remote control cars nowadays. With enough supplies/money, the operators don't have to get in mortal danger so very often.
I believe those remote controlled cars are in mortal peril