Posted on 04/12/2005 4:41:27 AM PDT by StoneGiant
Some girl soldiers just want to have fun
By KATHLEEN PARKER
IT’S BEEN 25 years since Goldie Hawn played the unlikely military enlistee, Pvt. Judy Benjamin, who discovered the Army wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she signed up for travel and adventure. But that was then, and it was fiction besides. Now, we know that women soldiers are just like men soldiers. Or so we’re supposed to believe.
Flashback to two weeks ago: I’m washing my hands in an airport restroom in Columbia, S.C., wedged at the sink between two blondes gleefully applying makeup. When I ease past one to reach a paper towel, she apologetically blurts:
“You’ll have to excuse us, we haven’t seen makeup in three months!” Revlon should have had a hidden camera. Rarely has anyone enjoyed the feminine joys of lipstick and mascara with such unabashed relish.
The two were “soldiers” just out of basic training at Fort Jackson. Both were leaving the Army because of medical problems — one with arthritis, the other asthma — that hadn’t been diagnosed when they enlisted. If they had looked like soldiers earlier in the day, they didn’t now. They looked more like sorority sisters, giggly and equally excited to let down their hair, which they’d had to keep pulled in a bun during training. They confessed to having spent the morning binging on candy bars and other junk food they’d missed.
I took their names and numbers, explaining that I might write about them, but have decided to protect their identities out of consideration for their privacy and in light of what I’m about to say. With apologies:
If these two were what the U.S. Army considers soldiers, we’re in trouble. The gals probably would agree.
When I asked why they had joined the Army when we’re at war, which can flat-out ruin a manicure, they reported wanting to escape their small towns and earn college tuition. Both now were headed home to minimum-wage jobs. One hoped to save enough money to go to cosmetology school, which seemed like an inspired idea.
Obviously, two young women escaping the mistake they’d made three months earlier are not representative of the military as a whole, but these giggly-girl soldiers may be symbolic of a larger problem — not so much recruiting promises that fall short, but the Army’s stubborn insistence on gender-based recruiting quotas for women and coed training.
Here’s the problem, as explained to me by Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness: When boys and girls join the Army, they must be transformed from what they are into soldiers, a process that requires concentration and focus. Recall the purpose of a soldier is to kill people and break things.
Not that most of us need reminding, but boys and girls tend to be distractions for one another. The Marines understand this, which is why they separate males and females during basic training. And the Army knows it, as evidenced by its own research, but chooses to ignore the facts in deference, apparently, to feminist goals.
As long as men and women are seen as interchangeable, then feminist theory survives — even if some of our “soldiers” don’t. Never mind that coed training was found to be “not efficient” according to a 2002 “Gender Integrated Training” report presented to the secretary of the Army. The briefing also reported that coed training negatively affected “rigor” and “standards” (translation: women couldn’t keep up with men), and that women suffered a disproportionate number of injuries, especially stress fractures to the shins and feet.
Nevertheless, the Army concluded that coed training was “effective” because women were accepted more readily, and men and women “shared” training experience. In other words, the Army defines military “effectiveness” in sociological terms of acceptance and sharing.
If we could break for a moment from roasting s’mores and singing “Kumbaya,” we might focus on the contradiction that it is “not efficient” but “effective.”
The point is not that women don’t belong in the military — though given women’s statistically diminished “rigor” and “standards,” they inarguably don’t belong in the infantry — but that women can’t be properly trained (or men either) in a distracting, hormone-rich environment.
If the Army were serious about transforming girls to warrior-soldiers with a capital “S,” the theme of the Army’s post-Jessica Lynch “warrior ethos” training program, the brass would follow the Marines’ lead and separate the sexes.
The fact of human nature, as opposed to feminist theory, is that girls will be girls when guys are around, and vice versa. This maxim produces beneficial results when population growth needs a boost, but otherwise leads to something less than military readiness.
Kathleen Parker’s e-mail is kparker@kparker.com
"I wanna wear my sandals... I wanna go out to lunch."
There it is...
Same story as lastweek.
They weren't soldiers, they were medically discharged neverbees.
I was thinking the same thing. It sounds like the military looked for something to dump them for.
I couldn't have said it better. Kathleen Parker is terrific!
Training standards have been lowered over and over since women and men have done the co-ed thing in the army- to the detriment of all.
This isn’t a completely fair article. I happen to know several young ladies who are in the Navy working as linguists. If you saw them away from their job they are very much like the two described in the story, but when they are on duty they are deadly serious. They know that people’s lives depend on the information they provide.
I hate to say this, but all of the standards of the Military have slipped, including those on Submarines (all male crews). In my experience, it has little to do with feminism (at least in the Navy) but has a lot more to do with PC and the work values of this generation, IMHO.
At the coastguard station I served at, it was 50/50 for female coasties. Two were the hardest working and physically capable coasties anyone would care to work with.
The other 2 were weak, lousy attitude and far too small to tighten a small baot mooring line in good weather They were a risk to the lives of those who served with them, and stole the billet from otherwise capable coasties in the name of PC.
I do not have any problem with women serving in certain roiles as long as they are capable. Kim Campbell is an A-10 pilot who seems to have proven her worth. Jessica Lynch should have never been where she was when her unit got overrun. Lori Piestawa (sp) is now dead for the same reason.
This article isn't about Navy linguists, which are perfect jobs for females. That job does not require male physical strength, and does not involve exposure to enemy contact.
The author's criticism is directed at the Army's insane attempt to integrate women into jobs and places for which they are not physically equipped, and in which their presence is at best a distraction and at worst a threat to the men who must pick up their slack. Failure to grasp this reality is a failure to understand the shockingly brutal nature of ground combat.
The 414th Intel Brigade that monitirs the fence along the West Bank is completely female. No distractions. They do great job.
But Israel got over the illusion that the men and women are interchangable. The Feminist threat to our military is that they believe that if the combat man cannot change for female social experimentation, then the men must go.
Kathleen Parker hits the nail on the head. I was a TAC Officer in the Fort Rucker, Alabama Warrant Officer Flight Training program in the early 70's when the first female Warrant Officer Candidates entered the program. Throwing 2 females into an all male flight platoon was severely disrupting to training. Learning to fly a helicopter is stressful enough without having to battle hormones at the same time. There was no good reason for the distraction, the women did not belong there. Before you say it; "equal rights" is not a good reason, we're talking about the defense of the country here not PC feel-goodism. When foreign boots are standing on our shores then I'll think about it.
There was supposed to be a "?" at the end, as well as a:
;-)
What I wrote doesn't say that, nor am I trying to imply that. But maybe a clarification is due.
Two of the women I worked with were as hard working as any coastie would care to work with. If they were any harder working, they would make those around them look lazy. The put in a level of effort commensurate to what was reasonably expected of any coastie, male or female.
Similarly, they were strong and could work hard all day. They were good small boat coxswains. They could pull in the towing hausers. They were as physically capable as anyone would care to work with. They were both above average in strength and endurance. The Coast Guard did not have to lower standards for these women to be good Coasties.
They may not have been my first choice for crewmates, but they would definitely have been in the top 25%.
Now I have my clarification in, explain to me how & where I said they make every other Coastie look like incapable wimps so I don't make the same mistake again. I tried to be careful to say that Arlene & Tina were as good as anyone would care to work with, not that they were better than 100% of the males. How did you come to that conclusion?
Well, that makes a big difference. See explanation above.
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