LtCol in the AF stands up for her rights

Agreed. I spent the summer of 83 in Riyadh, and there was no official order as to what the women could wear downtown. For good reason, women were highly encouraged to dress appropriately and were discouraged to travel off base without male escorts. I believe the appropriate dress was defined as something that completely covered the body from the neck to the ankles, but I don't think veils were strongly recommended. However they were discouraged from making eye contact with males and were highly encouraged to ride in the back of the bus (seriously). However, unless things have changed, she's free to dress and ride as she wishes. But I can assure you that she will only do so once.............

In a silly way this article illustrates precisely why we shouldn't have women in combat zones in combsat roles; there is no way we can get over them being women - here we have a woman supported by many otherwise normal, logical analysts and tacticians worrying about how she is dressed rather than what her kill-to-shot ratio is.

Reminds me of Snoopy and his illusions of grandeur, a red scarf billowing about his snooty snout, oblivious to the real fact that he is but a cartoon dog.

Apparently you did not read the article completely. There is NO requirement or even a suggestion from the host country for American females to wear these religious garments. Our military instigated this situation and it runs contrary to her beliefs and in her shoes I would do the same thing. As far as giving up your "constitutional" rights, that only goes so far. If your commander tells you to fire upon civillians for no particular reason, you are required to tell them, No! In America, we do not rquire foreigners to attend any particlar church, wear any particular garments, not even to speak our language. How is America being unreasonable to want the same courtesies anywhere else?

But they are not in America, for one thing. For another, there is no commanding officer telling her to fire on anyone.

What IS going on, however, is we have a woman who, regardless of what the Saudi government may or may not have have said regarding attire, is still a guest of that country. Our military forces are there because the Saudi government gave them permission to be there. Period. We know Arabs do not look upon women in the same way we do in this country, and her CO wanted her to dress to reflect this.

The second she defied a direct order from her CO, she was guilty of insubordination and should have been court-martialed promptly.

The fact she has not been, coupled with the accommodations she has been given since then, is a testament of the lack of order and disrepair our military is currently in.

Too bad Bush43 did not bring in David Hackworth as Defense Secretary. McSally would have been out on her a$$ a long time ago.

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