New armed forces scandals revisit the question of why women are in them

ARMIES, navies and air forces are inviting laboratories for government social engineers. Unlike the population as a whole, soldiers, sailors and airmen are captive guinea pigs. Civilians may choose to ignore the latest state edict on proper behaviour and thinking. However, men and women in uniform have no choice but to obey. The irresistible temptation this presents to government do-gooders to tinker with the natural order may be the gravest threat yet to the nation's defenders. A handful of critics charge that more damage will come to the Canadian armed forces from politicians' eagerness to integrate women into combat roles than from the crushing spending cuts of the last three years or the over-stretching of resources to meet growing peacekeeping commitments.

Interestingly, the first proof that Canadian women in combat roles could undermine military preparedness may come from the bedroom and not the trenches. If sensational allegations made in the August issue of the independent Canadian military magazine esprit de corps are to be believed, four unmarried female peacekeepers were sent home from Cambodia this spring after getting pregnant.

On top of that, the magazine reports, female Canadian Forces staff at the northern base of Alert "made a fortune" selling their sexual favours to male colleagues. And two female sailors on board the HMCS Protecteur during the 1991 Gulf War were also part-time prostitutes, the magazine charges. In a curious twist, a third woman who informed on the first two was countercharged by the pair for allegedly trying to seduce them into a lesbian relationship. The magazine claims all three were flown back to Canada in the middle of the war.

The Department of National Defence (DND) has refused comment on the specific allegations made by esprit de corps. DND spokesman Susan Gray would only say, "This alleged prostitution in the forces is based solely on speculation and not fact."

But the accusations do not surprise many military experts. Christopher Check, a former United States marine and now associate director of the Rockford Institute's Center on the Family in America, located in Rockford, I11., claims prostitution is one of the results of putting women in combat. "I know for certain there was a woman marine who was selling fellatio in the [washrooms] at a pier in Saudi Arabia," Mr. Check says. "I understand she was doing quite well for herself, too."

The decision to put women into combat did not come from Parliament, or even from military brass, but rather from the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). In February 1989, the CHRC ruled that "The long-term societal trend is clear; women will continue to enter the paid work force, by choice or by necessity." Therefore, the commission ordered "the Canadian Forces...to take advantage of that trend." The rights body ruled that complete integration must be accomplished in all service roles, except for submarines, within 10 years.

Still, CHRC chairman Max Yalden was not satisfied. "Ten years is a long, long time," he said. "Perhaps when [the forces] get down to the nitty-gritty they'll be able to do it a little more quickly."

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie, who commanded United Nations forces in Sarajevo for over a year after the outbreak of hostilities in the former Yugoslavia, says the CHRC ruling got the Canadian Forces out of a tight spot. Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie had been ordered by his political boss, then-defence minister Perrin Beatty, to conduct "scientific testing" on the suitability of women for combat. But, he explains, the military's physical entrance requirements had not been lowered to compensate for women. So he had the examples of only two or three women to study, far too few to reach any verifiable conclusions. "Except for the CHRC decision, we would have been forced to adopt a quota system, affirmative action [for combat women]," Gen. MacKenzie admits.

Despite his personal reservations, Gen. MacKenzie supported the Mulroney government's decision not to appeal the CHRC decision. "If something's inevitable, you don't spend a lot of time fighting it," he says.

The transition to a coed combat force has been smooth, says Lieutenant-Colonel Diana Hope, Canadian Forces director of personnel policy, who is responsible for "gender integration." Currently all positions in the Canadian military are open to women, who represent 10.8% of all troops. However, there are fewer than 100 women in combat units, less than 1 % of total combat forces.

Lt.-Col. Hope says women's low numbers in combat units is the result of their lack of interest in battle.

She also blames male soldiers' lack of deference to women in uniform. A 1992 survey by DND claimed that almost one-third of women in the Canadian Forces professed to being harassed, with 26.5% claiming sexual harassment. "A lot's happened since then," according to Lt.-Col. Hope. Besides, she says, harassment isn't higher in the military than anywhere else. There has been a changing of attitudes and "all of the units are reaching out and touching."

Feminists, such as American Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, argue that putting women in combat roles would lead to a feminization of the military, which they consider a good thing. But, "you've got to hope your enemies do the same," laughs James Scott, writer for esprit de corps. "I definitely think there's a certain natural biological ideology that men and women have. It's a danger that women will make your military nice and gentle and nurturing. Unfortunately your enemies may not follow that prescription and guess what? You're going to get your butt kicked somewhere."

"Your military has a particular role to perform," Mr. Scott continues. "Whether you like it or not it's there to prepare to fight national wars and to enforce national policy." Perhaps women are more conciliatory and less aggressive, Mr. Scott concedes, "but when a soldier has to pick up a rifle and charge a farmhouse full of enemy soldiers are you going to say 'well, let's send a woman and see if she can root them out her way?' You can't change the job in order to accommodate new social conditions."

"The military is a place where traditions have practical value," argues the Rockford Institute's Check, who retired at the rank of captain in 1994 after six years in the U.S. Marine Corps, including service in the Gulf War. Innovation should have only one purpose, he says. "Will it make us better at killing our enemies? If the answer is no; even if the answer is not certain, then that change has to be resisted."

Peter Worthington, former war correspondent and editor emeritus of the Toronto Sun, decries the experimentation he sees running rampant in the Canadian military. "I think the bureaucrats in uniform are running the armed forces and they're destroying them. There's a greater division now than ever between the active military and the bureaucratic military." Soldiering is like no other job, he insists. "As long as you are going to make the military into a civil service job with job equity and parity and quota systems...it's going to make the military worse."

A veteran of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Mr. Worthington is infuriated by the efforts of organizations such as the Canada 21 Council, a group of former Liberal activists and career lobbyists to "make the Canadian Army into social workers." The "peacekeeping myth" of modern politicians and bureaucrats is nothing less than "a subversion of our country's traditions." The havoc wreaked on the forces since the unification crisis of the 1960s "has left our military too ill-equipped to fight," Mr. Worthington believes.

No country in modern times has ever successfully integrated women into its permanent combat ranks, says military historian and former Canadian Forces soldier John Thompson, now executive director of the MacKenzie Institute. He says that even countries in mortal danger have given up on the idea. Israel is the example most often used by feminists. But Israel "actually took women out of the front line at the very height of their manpower crisis in 1948, at the very time when they were taking immigrants off ships as soon as they arrived, giving them a rifle and some scratch training and flinging them into battle."

It has as much to do with the men as with the women, Mr. Thompson says. "The problem is that the males get over-protective. In the Israeli Army in 1948, they were taking too many losses because men were protecting female soldiers in the ranks"--not only from wounding or death but also from capture. "The Israelis had a very good idea of what the Arabs would have done to a captured female soldier, even the body of a captured female soldier." The horrifying experience of captured American service-women during the Gulf War proves that this is still a threat (see below).

The Soviet Red Army during the Second World War is also cited by feminists as an example of side-by-side male-female fighting. But according to Mr. Thompson, segregation was the key to the success of female Russian soldiers in the war. "The Soviets had all-women units--women sniper regiments, women infantry regiments, artillery, close air support, etc. Some of them behaved quite well but generally again when they had to co-operate with men they found the males were getting overprotective. After the war, the Soviets took women out of combat units."

One successful example of men and women fighting together, says Mr. Worthington, was the Eritrean Liberation Army. Mr. Worthington, who reported on the civil war in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, recounts, "You had 3 million Eritreans against 40 million Ethiopians. You had to use every facility, every man, woman and child."

Mr. Worthington believes there is a threshold for successful integration of female soldiers. When they reach 30% or more of an army "they have an acceptable sort of social environment. If it is fewer than that you have all kinds of problems of rivalries...men worrying about how the women were doing."

Sexual tension between men and women in combat is always troublesome, too, according to Mr. Thompson, who explains that the Red Army had a brutal solution. "There was a standing order for Soviet commissars to shoot women who had become a cause of dissension and division within partisan units. That doesn't say much for the sybaritic men. You could say this was sexism, but it was still the problem men had serving with women in combat."

Furthermore, women soldiers get very little respect from their male counterparts, says Mr. Check. "At the US Naval Academy in Annapolis," he says, "the slang term for female midshipmen is WUBA, which stands for Women Used By All." And female recruits often have to worry about their female superiors as well. Mr. Check says that the dominance of a group of lesbian drill instructors at Parris Island, South Carolina, the Marine Corps' main training camp, was so severe that female officers he knew wen afraid to go there.

Morality is difficult for women to maintain in military situations, too, according to Mr. Check. Of single parents in the U.S armed forces 64% are male, 36% are female "When you consider that women make up about 10% of the forces, they are over-represented in illegitimacy," he argues. Pentagon figures show that 11% of female troops, married and unmarried, are pregnant at any one time. And it is now commonplace for American servicewomen to become pregnant in order to evade hazardous duty. "Women don't even need to get pregnant," says Mr. Check. "I know of one woman marine who routinely avoided weekly physical training duty by saying she had to get a pregnancy test."

Lt.-Col. Hope says she doesn't know what purpose it would serve to keep pregnancy rate statistics for Canadian servicewomen. "I've never seen any. I'm not even sure they exist," she says. "Bullshit," replies Gen. MacKenzie. "Sure it happens and will continue to happen," he says of the "self-inflicted wound" of deliberate pregnancy. Still, he argues, it's not so much different than "the old days, [when] men used to shoot off a toe," in order to avoid duty. Canadian service-women can get up to six months maternity leave, and servicemen can get up to two months paternity leave.

Pregnancy rates in the Canadian Forces are already impairing efficiency, says Gen. MacKenzie. "Current policy does not fill in behind," he says. In other words, "there are no extra positions to fill these vacant spots [caused by maternity leave], so it creates a manning problem." First Canadian Service battalion in Calgary is particularly affected by this. "The smaller the army gets in size, the more significant the problem is," the general explains.

Just as our armed forces are weakened by the pregnancies of soldiers, the demands of army life place a great strain on female soldier's families. Sgt. Teresa Vezeau is responsible for building and computer security at CFB Edmonton. The 32-year-old military policewoman has been in the service for 13 years. She has an administrative position now, but for nine years she worked a 12-hour shift. As a mother and the wife of a firefighter who also does shiftwork, she says her marriage has "had its difficult moments."

The longest Sgt. Vezeau has been away on duty has been three months. But it is possible she could be sent as an MP to a United Nations peacekeeping posting, which would take her away for six months and put her in a combat zone.

By her own admission "more determined and stubborn" than most people, Sgt. Vezeau says she looks forward to the opportunity to be posted to a war zone. She says she is "no more [worried] than anyone else. I do have a family. My feelings on that are that I've been trained for 13 years and I would prefer to go myself rather than have the military take on someone who is not trained." She'd probably like it, she says, although her husband "is a little more apprehensive."

Has the Canadian experiment with women in combat been a success? "That's the party line," says Mr. Thompson. But he disagrees. Many of the women who go into combat roles were looking for something else. "A lot of positions in the Army are hard to fill anyway. Not many people want to be infantrymen." Gen. MacKenzie concurs. "Combat is often a consolation prize because they can't get into engineering or communications." Mr. Thompson believes that "only segregated units could have a chance of success."

Mr. Worthington says of the integration effort: "It's totally unnecessary in Canada. Our military is so strapped anyway and I don't think there are many women who want to be soldiers." Since the number of female combat soldiers will never rise near the 30% plus level he thinks necessary for successful integration, the Canadian Forces experiment is just "tokenism."

Bob Ringma, Nanaimo-Cowichan Reform MP and defence critic, spent 35 years in forces, retiring as a major-general. Based on his experience in the Korean War, Mr. Ringma says, "I could not [then] conceive of women serving in roles other than the traditional ones, such as nursing." But he's changed his mind. My attitude of 'No, I don't think it will work' has changed now to that it can work in certain situations."

Gen. MacKenzie is also a convert. "I was amazed at how many of my concerns were proved groundless," he confesses. He now concludes that the fears of others that women would prove so disruptive that military efficiency would be impaired are false. "I am more concerned about sexual orientation," he adds, referring to the DND's 1992 decision to end its ban on homosexuals. "Many lesbians are attracted to the military life," he argues and this places considerable strains on vulnerable young heterosexual women entering the military. Still, he adds optimistically, "the numbers are so small, the problems tend to go away."

So few women have opted for and completed the requirements for combat duty that a statistical disparity has been created. Military analysts now fear feminists will blame the low numbers on systemic discrimination, claiming that women are willing and able to fight but are being quietly kept from doing so by sexist military bosses. This worries Gen. MacKenzie. "Affirmative action would be a stake through the heart of the fighting organization," he says. "It would show our leaders had less concern for the lives and the safety of their units than for political experimentation."

Ultimately, the purpose of armed forces is to kill or die. "Is this a proper role for women?" asks esprit de corps' Scott. "They have to bear the future generations...So to put them under conditions where that would be threatened is almost like saying you're putting your country's future in front of the muzzle of a gun."

Mr. Thompson quotes Rudyard Kipling. "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." He worries that "women are much crueller and mentally tough than men, and that encouraging that aspect of female character may not be in our best interests."

Mr. Check believes there are still some things worth fighting against. "When a civilization is prepared to send its daughters and sisters to war, it really can't consider itself a civilization any more."

WHEN Josephine Green, an unmarried British Royal Navy nurse, became pregnant in 1984, she knew she would lose her job. Pregnancy was a sacking offence. She moved to Australia and carried the dark secret of her child's father with her. When she announced last June that her lover had been a Roman Catholic priest, she became a tabloid star and earned $747,000 for her sordid story.

While Miss Green's is the most notorious case, it is not the only incident of the British armed forces dismissing a female officer or soldier after she became pregnant. In all, over 5,000 former servicewomen fired for becoming pregnant are suing the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for lost wages, loss of future wages, lost fringe benefits and "solatium consolation," or hurt feelings. The total bill could be in excess of $213 million. The headlines following each new settlement have shocked and disgusted the British public in equal measure.

Until 1989, the British armed services followed a policy of strict equality at all ranks. Women had to be as available for duty as men. Those who joined up knew that if they became pregnant they would get not maternity leave, but a pink slip. In 1989, however, the British High Court ruled that this regulation was a violation of the 1976 Equal Employment Opportunity Act.

In 1991, two women launched the first suit against the now-unlawful old policy. The MOD pled guilty and agreed to provide maternity leave. The awards were relatively modest, $21,000 and $32,000, respectively. But the military was now helpless against the tidal wave of suits that followed, most before labour relations boards instead of the courts. Disaster struck the MOD last year when the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, to which Britain is bound by the European Community, struck down Britain's $23,000 limit on awards based on sexual discrimination.

After that ruling, the awards to female former soldiers and sailors discharged for becoming pregnant quickly became astronomical. And being with child while in uniform had become what in England is called "a nice little earner."

Women have no combat role in the British armed services and are still largely restricted to the traditional roles of nursing, training and teaching. Arguing against the size of the awards, the MO1 pointed out that 90% of the fired women had found other employment, and more significantly, that only 46% of servicewomen granted maternity leave since the policy had been changed had returned to their jobs at the end of the leave.

Something of a turning point in public opinion was reached when the London Sunday Telegraph arranged a meeting between the most outlandish of the litigious women and a Royal Air Fore aerobatic pilot rendered a quadriplegic after a mid-air accident in 1963. Abigail Kirkby-Harris said it was "absolutely appalling that Michael Cooke was not legally entitled to any compensation for his catastrophic wounds. Yet she betrayed no inkling of irony when she claimed to have been "robbed" by the Royal Army Educational Corps and that $1.08 million was "what I was worth for having her career of teaching mathematics and English to soldiers rudely interrupted.

A bemused Mr. Cooke said: "It's a funny old world where ladies who are performing their God-given right to have children are not able to claim such vast amounts." This gravy train for the gravid may have reached its destination before Mrs. Kirkby-Harris was able to board, however. Last month, Britain's Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that six-figure awards are "manifestly excessive," and urged tribunals to "keep a due sense of proportion" in the future To date, the MOD has paid out $48 million.

TAILHOOK, the sexual harassment scandal that has rocked the United States Navy establishment for three years, ended earlier this year with a verdict based on a peculiar twist of logic. Investigators determined that the navy pilots who sexually assaulted two of their female colleagues during a convention in Las Vegas were, like most fighting men, unable to control themselves in the company of women. The proposed solution: introduce women to combat. Put them on the front lines and in the barracks side-by-side with men.

In September 1991, fresh from their triumph in the Gulf War, active and former naval aviators convened at the Las Vegas Hilton for Tailhook '91, an annual event renowned for its nightly uninhibited partying. But even by Tailhook standards the debauchery on the Saturday night of the gathering was astounding.

Lieutenant Rolando Diaz was publicly shaving the legs of female Navy officers on the infamous third floor of the Hilton that night, an infraction later termed a serious breach of discipline. One of the women he depilated was Lieutenant Paula Coughlin. At the time, Lt. Coughlin seemed to see the incident as a bit of harmless fun. After he shaved her limbs, she signed a banner he was carrying with the words, "You made me see God. The Paulster."

Later, however, Lt. Coughlin claimed to have had her buttocks and breasts fondled by flyers who had formed a gauntlet in the hallway outside Diaz's room. Stories of public orgies also leaked to the media. Overnight, Lt. Coughlin became famous.

Lt. Coughlin's cause was taken up by Colorado Congressman Patricia Schroeder, an advocate of American servicewomen being placed in combat roles, who bayed for the blood of Navy officers and bureaucrats, whether involved with Tailhook or not. When the Navy announced it intended to give the accused men due process, Rep. Schroeder uttered her now-famous catch-phrase for all men: "They just don't get it."

The year the investigation began, 1992, was an election year and then-president George Bush was suffering a "gender gap" among female voters. The Navy didn't have a chance. The Secretary of the Navy, the Judge Advocate General, the Naval Intelligence Service Commander and a Rear Admiral were fired or forced to resign, even though they were not directly involved nor linked to any cover-up.

Lt. Coughlin's memory failed her when she was asked to testify at the court-martial of her alleged assailants. Under cross-examination she could identify only two men, one of whom was not at the hotel and the second of whom had an iron-clad alibi. Christopher Check, a former U.S. marine and current associate director of the Rockford Institute's Center on the Family in America, says that "having willing female participants is no excuse for intemperate or bad behaviour." But the fact that no successful courts martial have resulted from Tailhook proves that it has become a powerful feminist myth. "Sexual prowess is an identifying feature of American servicemen," Mr. Check says. "The way sailors and marines, in particular, behave when they are on liberty is deplorable."

But there are greater perils to combat life than mere drunken lasciviousness. Army Major Rhonda Coraum testified in favour of admitting American women to combat roles before a 1992 presidential commission, even though she revealed that she and Army Specialist Melissa Coleman had been subjected to a special torture while they were held prisoner by the Iraqis during the Gulf War. They had both been raped and sodomized. "Do we really want women subjected to this?" asks Mr. Check.

The denial of reality is a contageous social disease. The most important reason that women should not be in combat units has to do with the Chivalric code, that has brought out the best in Western Warriors for over a thousand years. Men are supposed to protect women. You trash that ethic, you destroy the call for courage and sacrifice above and beyond the mere orders of the moment.

Well said, Ohioan. We stand to lose much more than we stand to gain by feminizing the military.

I wouldn't dig most of it. I wouldn't dig it at all. Some guys dig stinky wimmin, but it ain't my thing.

bwhahahahaha! That was funny! However, I think he meant literally dug most of the foxhole, as in the male soldier digging most of the foxhole, while the woman did whatever.

Army Major Rhonda Coraum (sic Cornum) was neither raped nor sodomized. She testified that one of her guards fondled a breast while they were riding in the back of truck. That guard was repremaned by a fellow guard. When Major Cornum testitfied before Congress she the indcident was "no big deal."

Whatever happened to Army Specialist Melissa Coleman has never been made public.

The truth of the entire article must be questioned in light of these known false statements.

"I didn't realize Canada still had any military forces..... "

Canada does not have military forces. What does it have to defend? How could we ever imagine that Canada could be offensive (other than the dribble that drips from the mouth of it's Prime Minister - even our leftist DemonRats would be embarassed by the likes of him).

What Canada does have is a few men in their military who wish to be like us, and they have been integrated to prevent them becoming like us.

I hate to have to agree with you, but your premise is close to the mark. If women in the military are whores, then let them be that, but do not give them military position or rank. That is the worst thing you can do to the military - give a militarily ignorant female rank (Pvt - General -- it doesn't matter - the few that would not be a part of all that should choose a vocation where it is not part of the MOS.

I've had to deal with being deployed with women. Frankly, I think they're a pain in the ass. They can't do anything, can't carry anything heavy, and don't really have a job besides to flirt with the higher-ranking guys in charge of the division.

There are a few who are good--they can carry their weight, know their job (and do it), and can take and give out a ribbing along with the men. However, they are few and far between.

No hate at all lady. Just the observations of a nine year active duty soldier. Did you serve your country in the military? If not then you don't know what the h*ll you're speaking of and should STFU. If you did, then you know exactly what I am talking about, even if you do not want to publicly admit it.

As far as ingratitude, I see nothing to be grateful for. They take jobs away from soldiers who will pull their weight and perform the job they were trained to do.

By the way, if you will notice, my original post stated a large contingent of women, not every woman in the military. There is a difference.

No hate at all lady.

Oh yes it is hate. You didn't mention the behaviour of the male soldiers, just some of the women. That spells and agenda and that agenda is bigottry and hate.

Just the observations of a nine year active duty soldier. Did you serve your country in the military? If not then you don't know what the h*ll you're speaking of and should STFU. If you did, then you know exactly what I am talking about, even if you do not want to publicly admit it.

I didn't say anything you said was untrue. I said it was hate speech, biggotted and by the way hypocritical. Why don't you hold male soldiers to the same moral moral standards Mr. Highhorse?

As far as ingratitude, I see nothing to be grateful for. They take jobs away from soldiers who will pull their weight and perform the job they were trained to do.

In case you missed it, we have a VOLUNTEER army. Nobody is taking jobs away from anyone.

By the way, if you will notice, my original post stated a large contingent of women, not every woman in the military. There is a difference

So? Why don't you hold men to your same high moral standards Mr. Holier Than Thou?

They weren't on ships when I punched out but I was stationed overseas with them and you know what you're talking about. Everyone of them that came in for duty that involved getting their hands dirty or oily got knocked-up (never married) so they couold claim medical reasons for an office job. Medically disabled sailors are not replaced so the men just have to work longer and harder to make up for the whores that want to sit around getting fatter by the day. And, they take-up all the good shore jobs where a real sailor can be with his family in an interesting location. I'd tell you about the lone sailorette on Diego Garcia for two days but I'd be banned from FR.

....four unmarried female peacekeepers were sent home from Cambodia this spring after getting pregnant.

That's nothin'. These Canadians are rank amateurs.

In 1991, the US Navy destroyer tender USS Acadia (AD-42), subsequently nicknamed "The Love Boat," had to evacuate 36 out of a crew of 360 sailors because they were pregnant.

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