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While I was in command of a Marine artillery battalion, all of us battalion commanders lived in dread from the "visits" of DACOWITS (Defense Advisory Committe on Women in the Service). They were a collection of middle-aged harpies - often the wives of Congressmen - who came to military bases trolling for any kinds of stories, made up or not, of the oppression of women and pushing for increased numbers and involvement of women in combat.

None of them had been in the service, of course and they were wined and dined by the top level commanders in fear of what they could do to their careers.

A fellow battalion commander called me and told me that his 155mm battalion had been selected for the DACOWITS treatment and he was worried. In those days, the Marine Corps had zero women in the artillery but as usual, the forces of feminist "equality" made us a target for them.

My advice was to put those ladies on a gun crew for the day: issue flak vests and helmets and earplugs and take them to the field (he was at 29 Palms so the firing was easily within reach) and have them emplace the M-198s (7.5 tons each), prepare the guns for firing (hefting 96 pound projectiles on the loading trays and fire them.

At first they thought it would be great fun. And they all crapped out within a half hour or so and gave up on artillery for that session and my buddy retained his command.