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.

It is MEN, not women, who are exempting women from selective service registration and MEN not women who are keeping women from serving in combat positions (which I agree with on the basis of qualification but not as a wholesale exclusion based on sex alone).

As I've said, I'm not a proponent of women in combat on any type of quota system whatsoever. But if there are women who are qualified (and I believe there are a very small minority who are) then they should be allowed to serve in that capacity. Also, in a all volunteer military like we have now, the military should not be excluding ANY qualified persons who can serve in any capacity, be it combat or any other. We cannot afford to turn away qualified persons who are patriotic enough to enlist.

Incidently, not all men are qualified for combat. The military finds useful positions for people of all kinds of aptitudes. Proportionally, more people are involved in logistics and support positions.

Are men who never serve in the military or who never see combat "not equal" with men who have?

That spells an agenda and that agenda is bigottry and hate.

You caught me and my agenda red handed. I joined FR and have been waiting around all these many months just so I could advance my woman hating agenda. Since I've been outed I guess I have to leave now.....not

You didn't mention the behaviour of the male soldiers

Do I really have to? It seems to me that the reputation of the male soldier is quite well known. It was the female soldier being spoke of in the article, not the male soldier. Besides that, the male soldier has proven himself many times over, both in and out of combat. This cannot be said of the female soldier.

Why don't you hold male soldiers to the same moral standards Mr. Highhorse?

Well I guess it's because I expected more from a woman than I did a man when it came to sex. Call me a monster if you want. I guess it might be that my upbringing never prepared me for one woman taking on multiple sex partners at one time....and then bragging about it. I guess my hypocritical upbringing never prepared me for women having fellatio contests to see who could hold the most cum in their mouths. I guess my hypocritical upbringing never prepared me for hearing a young lady brag that she can fit two dicks in her ass and proved it the night before. I could go on, but I do not want to be banned. Now you are right, the male soldiers were just as cupable as the females, but as I said, I just expected more from a woman. If that makes me an evil bigoted male chavenist pig, so be it.

I didn't say anything you said was untrue. I said it was hate speech, biggotted and by the way hypocritical.

So it's true, but I'm not allowed to say it because if I do I'm a bigot and a hypocrit. Hmm. You sound like typical liberal feminist. G*d forbid I call a spade a spade. That's politically incorrect.

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

Ah, now see madam, here is where you let every veteren know that you are clueless and know not of what you speak.

Yes, it is a volunteer military. However, there are a finite amount of slots. Some slots are very competitive and very hard to get into because there are not a lot of them from the get go. When a female receives such a slot and doesn't pull her weight, it hurts everyone. Pulling her weight can mean a lot of things. For instance, she's in x slot, but cannot perform her job functions because she's gotten herself knocked up. This puts a strain on her peers because they have to take up her slack, yet the unit cannot get a person to replace her because she is still there. She may be working as a clerk or a driver or who knows what, but as far as PERSCOM is concerned, she's still filling the slot.

Or how about if she gets knocked up in a CZ. She gets to go back home to a cushy desk job, while her male comrades are living in the mud in a tent. What makes it worse is that after hostilities are over, the Joe's who stayed and pulled their weight cannot go to a well earned desk job because the knocked up females have them all. So off they go to another tactical unit.

And I won't even get into the fact that women are not held to the same standard as men when it comes to PT, yet want to be treated as full fledged soldiers.

First, you can post all the anecdotal stories you want and that proves nothing. You can't prove that women are more or less "immoral" or behave better or worse in their personal lives while in the military. If we want to talk about morality, I've posted above about the tens of thousand of abandoned kids fathered by US military personell in overseas deployements. These are real hard facts, not anectodotes about people engaging in oral and anal sex.

In terms of disciplinary action and criminal involvement, I'd like to see some stats on what percentage of women and men are cited for deriliction of duty instead of hearsay anecdotes about personal behaviour.

Secondly, females haven't proven themselves in combat because they haven't been there. So that is a red herring argument. Anyway, the majority of men in the military do not do combat duty. The military puts people in combat for specific reasons. The military would be wise (and is) in hiring people for specific expertise, such as logistics, tactical and technical capabilities. They're not going to put their top technical and logistics people on the front lines, nor should they. Nor would they put everyone in combat and leave no one for supply and backup operations. It's simply ludicrous to equate combat with military service. Most military people, even in wartime, never see combat. My grandfather was an ace mechanic in WWII. He was kept well behind enemy lines fixing machinery and transport vehicles. It would have made no tactical sense to put him in combat. He saved more lives doing what he was good at doing.

Thirdly, I am not a liberal but I am a feminist. However, your collectivist thinking is more indicative of liberals who use collective "group think" to form agendas.

Fourthy, if the military has problems with personell assignement, that has nothing to do with women but how they manage personell. They should look at changing their policies. What do they do if a male has to be on medical leave or is withdrawn for disciplinary action? Again, I'd like to see some numbers on demographic percentages of people pulled from active duty for medical reasons.

Meanwhile, while you're demonizing females off the top of your head, I found some interesting information on attrition rates. The overall attrition rate in the military for people not fulfilling their contract for their first tour for various reasons including medical reasons, drug use, inability to perform duties ect. is 30%. The attrition breakdown rate is:

White male: 33%

White female: 43%

Black male: 33%

Black female: 33%

Hispanic male: 26%

Hispanic female: 31%

It appears to me that while white women do seem to have a higher than average attrition rate, other females are in line with the average and with men in general. Overall it seems a 30% attritio rate points to very poor screening practices. I would hope the military would work on that one.

One could imagine that the attrition rate would be much higher under a draft. Even so, Lew Brodsky, director of congressional and government affairs for the SSS (selective service) has said that if a draft is ever reinacted women will most certainly be needed to fill all the positions such a dire situation and reinstating a draft would imply, particularly in the medical service. This is because we have a much smaller pool of younger people to draw from than in previous wars.

"The 2000 Census estimates that 6.6 million of the 8.5 million health care practitioners, technical and support occupations, are women. Though the database was never collected, Brodsky said the "preponderance of women" in the health care field makes it inevitable to include them in any future database development." (draft registration)

Sorry Lorianne your lack of military service shows. Please don't think I am bashing you because I don't mean to. I have seen unqualified females promoted over excellant soldiers because of quotas and sexual favors. This does take jobs away from the truely qualified.

If this is true, it is a problem that can be fixed through changing procedures. Because a system is corrupt or inept is no reason to say that the female half of the population is unworthy to serve. I don't think any advocates promoting unqualified persons. And as I've said, the military is no place for quotas. It should be performance based. Increasingly, as the military becomes more technilogical, I expect to see them enlist lots of people formerly unable to serve, such as disabled people. Not on quotas, but if a wheelchair bound person was a crack code breaker, wouldn't the military want him on board? I see the military having to adapt to a compete with the private sector for the best and the brightest, and not necessarily just throwing bodies at a problem, which has been the model to date. Sheer numbers of people who are difficult to train and with the high attrition rate show that the enlistement policies need to change.

After Desert Storm one Reserve unit I am familiar with had a 100% divorce rate among both males and females because of all the little trysts during deployment.

Again, it takes two to tango. If people are acting irresponsibly or inappropriately on government time they should be disciplined. Otherwise, this is their private business. Also, are you saying married men were chaste before women were deployed with them?

The military is not a social experiment. Our job is to kill people and bust up their stuff so they never screw with us again.

I agree. Which is why with a VOLUNTEER army which pays low they have to take what they can get, or (my preference) they should compete with the best out there for personell by having stricter standards but compensating people better. Right now the military doesn't do that, and recruits lower income, lower educated, young people (raw recruits). This is fine, as long as you accept that along with that comes problems and that have to be dealt with. I cited above an overall attrition rate of 30% of people who do not finish their initial contract. 14% of those drop out after only 6 months. This tells me the overall entrance standards and screening practicies need review and overhaul.

Lorainne, don't fight it, we see these types of soldiers everyday here on post. It's easier to degrade the whole sex, than to admit anything else. Women take much needed slots or even rank. That may be true, but it is very true with some men as well. And for every woman, you can damn well bet there is a male soldier pulling the same crap as SOME of those women, riding sick call to get out of P.T., whining... pulling the rest of the team/squad down. Trust me you could turn this into a never ending sex war with this mind set... it's not worth it.

God forbid! Don't ask what sex seems to get more DUI's, on post bar brawls, or seem to visit ADAPCP more than the other.... And once a soldier gets to SSG or MAJ and above it's all DA select, so anyone going "career military" these days has to have a D.A. photo and a good set of either NCOER's or OER's to back up getting that rank (and in most all cases that male OR FEMALE DESERVES the higher rank).

I believe if women want to serve in combat arms M.O.S.'s there should be VERY RIGOROUS standards set in letting them do so, even to possibly designating an all sex battalion. And as far as these soldiers that think their women hating attitude is not because of their bias observations, Just tell them to go and DX their attitudes. And just because your not "active duty" does not make your points any less valid or possibly untrue.

Women who received the Distinguished Service Cross - WWI

Jane Jeffery: English Red Cross nurse serving with the American Red Cross; severely wounded during an air raid, refused to leave her post and continued to help others.

Beatrice M. MacDonald: wounded in Belgium during an air raid at a casualty clearing station and lost sight in her right eye.

Helen Grace McClelland: also on duty with the surgical team at the British casualty clearing station and cared for Beatrice MacDonald during the air raid.

Eva Jean Parmelee: although wounded in air raid she continued to serve throughout the emergency.

Isabelle Stambaugh: seriously wounded in an air raid at a British casualty clearing station in Amiens, while working in the operating room with a surgical team.

Reconstruction Aide Emma S. Sloan

Mary Roberts Wilson was the first woman to be awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in combat for her action during the battle of Anzio during World War II. With her Army evacuation hospital under German shellfire, Wilson continued supervising her nursing staff of 50, allowing the hospital to continue functioning. Tom Brokaw devoted an entire chapter to Wilson's exploits in his best-selling paean to World War II-era Americans, The Greatest Generation.

When the Germans bombed the field hospital at Anzio beach, Italy during WWII medical personnel evacuated forty-two patients by flashlight without incident, and for their bravery four nurses:1st Lt. Mary Roberts, 2d Lt. Elaine Roe, 2d Lt. Virginia Rourke, and 2d Lt. Ellen Ainsworth, received the first Silver Star medals awarded to women in the U.S. Army. Ainsworth, who was killed during the attack, was awarded the medal posthumously.

On Sept. 1, 1999 Sgt. 1st Class Jeanne M. Balcombe, of the 1st Platoon, 55th Military Police Company, was posthumously awarded the Soldiers Medal for heroism in the face of danger. While on duty on Aug. 21st 1999, Balcombe's quick thinking and selfless response safeguarded and protected others at the Troop Medical Clinic at Camp Red Cloud, Korea. She placed herself in harm's way between three soldiers and an armed gunman.

Colonel Ruby Bradley is America's most decorated military woman. She served in WWII - and was a POW for 37 months in a Japanese prison camp. Later she was a frontline U.S. Army nurse in Korea on the day 100,000 Chinese soldiers overran American troops and started closing in on her hospital tent. Col. Bradley has earned 34 medals and citations for bravery, including two Bronze stars. She retired from the Army in 1963, but remained a nurse all her working life.

The first woman to receive The Purple Heart as a result of combat was 1Lt Annie G. Fox, while serving at Hickam Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7 1941. Lt Fox was later awarded the Bronze Star.

And the list goes on and on and on and on and on.......

You are engaging in collectivist demonizing and pure speculation. It is irrational. Even if it was true, under your logic, men should not be allowed to serve in the military since some of them have been convicted of rape. Since a few have, all men should be held accountable for the actions of a few. After all, we know some men are going to rape. So why not indict all men pre-emptively before they get around to doing it?

No, what I am saying is that "some" women will engage in this behavior. Some women in every profession do, and being in close quarters on a submarine gives added "opportunities". The men, because of PC bullcrap have NO way to defend themselves. In this sense the women are getting special treatment not afforded by men because the brass will roll over every time.

I think our servicemen have enough to deal with, they shouldn't have to perform their job attached to the hip of another guy so that they can be sure to have a witness. The JOB is paramount, not "equality".

First, you can post all the anecdotal stories you want and that proves nothing.

I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone. I gave an opinion based on my experiences. You disagree with my opinion and that's fine.

It's simply ludicrous to equate combat with military service.

After rereading my post, I can see where I made it look like this is what I meant. I should have been more clear. You asked someone whether "men who never serve in the military or who never see combat "not equal" with men who have?"

I said yes, but did not clarify. I have nothing but gratitude and respect for non-combat arms folks. When I said "In the eyes of the law yes they are. In the eyes of this vet, no they are not," I was speaking of men who served in the military vs. men who did not. I have never met a combat arms soldier who did not appreciate a non-combat arms soldier, although we gave them a rash of good natured sh*t. They kept us supplied, fed and in good health, as well as allowed us to communicate with each other and fly/ride at times. My apologies to your father and any vet who reads my first post. It was not my intention to disparage.

The military puts people in combat for specific reasons. The military would be wise (and is) in hiring people for specific expertise, such as logistics, tactical and technical capabilities. They're not going to put their top technical and logistics people on the front lines, nor should they. Nor would they put everyone in combat and leave no one for supply and backup operations.

Thank you for explaining the military to me, but there is no need. Instead of talking about it, why don't you go join and live it. You know, serve your country, give something back?

However, your collectivist thinking

Please provide an example of collectivist thinking in my posts.

Fourthy, if the military has problems with personell assignement, that has nothing to do with women but how they manage personell.

Can't argue with that. If I was king for a day, if a single woman got herself knocked up, she would get administrative punishment (article 15), the same as she could get if she wound up with an STD. I would then kick her out of the military to free the slot for a qualified soldier. Darn. There I go being a male chauvanist pig again.

I am not a liberal but I am a feminist.

I've never heard of a non-liberal feminist. What does a non-liberal feminist believe or not believe that a liberal feminist believes (or doesn't believe)?

Army Major Rhonda Coraum (sic Cornum) was neither raped nor sodomized.

I must respectfully disagree. She testified that she was "violated orally, vaginally and digitally." I believe it was Congressional testimony. There was scant news coverage of the event, however. I am not sure if this was because they wanted to protect her dignity, or because the media viewed it as an inconvenient series of events during the upcoming politically charged debate regarding women in combat roles.

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.

Again, I am not trying to be contrarian--but I believe she said that after being pulled from the wreckage of the helicopter with 2 broken arms, one of the guards unzipper her flight suit and did as you said. She stated he was afraid of it being discovered by another Iraqi guard, and that this guard later sexually abused her in prison.

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

The DoD did confirm that "both women POWs were raped." Starts and Stripes also reported it, although they later downplayed this release. I cannot find it on the net--my apologies. Specialist Coleman was very young when captured, and I saw her when she was released along with the other POWs. She looked awful, almost robotic. I thought she gave an interview to some womans magazine about 4 years ago, but I cannot recall if she went into details.

I agree there is conflicting information surround the testimoney of (then) Maj Cornum---now Col Cornum.

There are over 200 "hits" on her name in yahoo alone, many of them fawning, or with an agenda. But, then, this forum can be said to have an "agenda" also.

There is this letter, however, which does confirm that Cornum has been inconsistent on her portrayal of what exactly occurred. As I said, I am positive she told others she was raped, and then downplayed the incident into on "molestation."

Another Gulf War POW testified that he attempted to stop several Iraqi guards from raping her again, and was beaten "to a pulp."

Regardless, I mention this only because I believe it relevant to this debate. I wish to say to all our wonderful vets, both male and female--that you have done a tremendous service to your nation. To belittle all women in the ranks as "whores" as I read in previous posts is wrong and impugns the integrity of women who have served honorably.

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