Debra J. Dickerson is the author of An American Story. Her next book, The
End of Blackness, will be published in October 2003. Stephanie
Gutmann is a writer living in New York and the author of The Kinder, Gentler
Military.
From:
Stephanie Gutmann To: Debra Dickerson Subject: Keep
Women Off the Ground Tuesday, April 8,
2003, at 3:58 PM PT
With their indiscriminate use of phrases like "died in combat"
(when they really mean "died in a combat zone") or "fighting for
their country" (when they actually mean something like "supporting
the war effort"), the news media have done an excellent job
confusing the public about what exactly women do in the military
these days. So, I hope you don't mind, Debra, if I try to make clear
what we're going to be talking about.
Now,
everybody but Debra, listen up! Women in the Air Force and Navy are
currently allowed to pilot planes that engage in combat—by dropping
bombs or by shooting at an enemy plane. They are allowed to serve on
combat ships—which are used to launch cruise missiles and the
aforementioned fighter planes. But in the Army and Marines, the
services that supply the people who toil on the ground, women do not
take direct combat jobs. In a combat position, as the Department of
Defense puts it, a GI's "primary goal is to engage, close with and
[neutralize] ... the enemy." Pvt. Jessica Lynch, for instance, an
Army supply clerk, had been trained to use a gun to defend herself
and her unit if need be, but she wasn't supposed to go around
proactively "engaging" the enemy (and, of course, she didn't).
So, our question is, should the Army and Marines be forced to
change policies that prohibit women from taking combat jobs in their
infantry and artillery units? The question was brought up ad nauseam
after Gulf War I (since we'd entered a period of peace and
prosperity and had time to address nonessential concerns), and if
we're lucky enough to have bought ourselves more peace and
prosperity I think we're gonna hear it again.
But I sure hope not. The only people who truly want to see women
in combat are some TV producers who think it's a "sexy" issue and
approximately 500 cranks assembled on college campuses and in NGOs
around the Beltway.
The national argument might be worth having if there was some
vast, seething body of women longing to personally stick it to the
enemy, but Debra, we both know there is not. I have friends
and acquaintances up and down the rank structure and from every
service—tough, bright, feisty gals all—and I have never met, and
they have never met, a woman who burns to join the ground-pounders.
(Several large-scale surveys back me up on this.)
The truth is, there are only about 200 women a year who could
meet the physical standards required, and even fewer who would
select this MOS (military job). So, we'd have a lot of tsores over a
few people. And if we launch a legal battle on the subject, we'll
open ourselves up to a Supreme Court ruling that might require a
female draft for combat positions—and that would be a real debacle.
No, this debate has been dragged in front of congressional
committees and made the subject of conferences, newspaper articles,
and lawsuits by a very small claque made up of feminist academics
(of both sexes), women's groups, NGOs, and a few retired female
officers. These women never came very close to combat themselves and
have found second careers haunting congressional hearing rooms,
trying to extract maximum drama from military tours that were
largely bureaucratic.
These advocates' concerns have never been practical. It's all
about ideology for them. We need further integration, they say,
because—like the fight to integrate the services racially (a totally
unsuitable analogy)—it is the simply the right thing to do. There is
an entire genre of books about why it is so essential, and it is
hard to summarize, but the gist, as I can glean it from these
jargon-laden tracts, is that women will never be respected as much
as men or paid as much as men unless they are granted
this—admittedly crucial—societal role. These advocates also think,
as the president of NOW put it, that "[combat] exclusion promotes
the view that women are weak, inferior, and need to be
protected."
Well, there's a jumping-off point for you, Debra. Is that why you
think we need a policy change?
Best, Stephanie
From: Debra Dickerson To: Stephanie Gutmann Subject: Workarounds to the
Front Tuesday, April 8, 2003, at 4:25 PM PT
Dear Stephanie,
Speaking as a "tough, bright, feisty [woman]" who served for 12
years in the Air Force and relished the opportunities that service
provided me to engage in fairly frequent bare-knuckle competitions
of one type or another, I would love to give you the fight for which
you so clearly spoil. (Don't you just love what can happen when you
de-dangle prepositions?) But I don't see the need for a policy
change either, if only because female GIs, if they pay attention to
how the military world is structured (and screw 'em if they don't)
can already do just about anything they want. See: the cook and
supply chicks who kicked butt before holding up just as well as the
male POWs—they're all equally terrified and equally susceptible to
torture.
Any GI with more than a year in knows that there are an infinite
number of ways to get to the front without humping a
scoliosis-inducing rucksack. (Successful) GI chicks are smart and
sorta positively cynical. They are very aware of their gender-based
limitations, both the official and the unofficial ones. Knowing that
vocal malcontents have short shelf lives and end up unceremoniously
back at Mom's Air Force Base, they accept those limitations and
focus on finding workarounds. Note that this is neither equality nor
fairness. But it's what there is and, in most cases, it's good and
better than what you'd face in the civilian world, especially for
those of a non-bureaucratic bent. Yet these female GIs quietly smirk
when articles circulate in the Early Bird (a daily
compendium of military-related articles) about agitation to put
women in combat, knowing that frontal attacks like that will do
nothing but wake the sometimes drowsy (but never sleeping) giant of
military sexism.
Women find a way to get what they want (or close to it) by
mastering the system. Desperate for action and eager to get out of a
headquarters assignment, I agitated foreeeeever to be assigned to
Intel in Iceland, a NATO tripwire in the '80s. Finally, an
assignments chick whispered to me that I was never going to get that
without a penis and a pilot's license. I did not file suit. I did
not contact NOW. I did what all GIs, who are bred for craftiness in
their mothers' wombs, do. I whispered back, "What assignment can
I get somewhere near at least the possibility of action?" In
other words, I settled. (As a non-pilot male would have. Still, a
man can become a pilot, but a woman cannot become a man. And stay on
active duty. But I digress.) Six months later, I was Chief of
Intelligence in Ankara, Turkey. Not half bad for a community college
dropout ghetto girl. Six months after that—the Persian Gulf War.
Action.
That's the thing. Women GIs don't agitate to carry rucksacks and
become snipers because they already feel like they are
personally sticking it to the enemy. That overarching sense of
mission and group endeavor supplants the need to have their
individual fingers on the trigger. They feel that they are
all shooting those guns, they're all dropping
bombs on Baghdad. Women don't agitate for combat because the gains
they have made and the acceptance they've mostly found imbue their
non-combat roles with dignity, honor, and accomplishment. They don't
agitate for combat because they know they are willing to
enter the fray if required. Even though I had barely tried to master
the M-16 (an automatic rifle) all basic and officer
trainees were required to spend a day at the firing range with, I
still volunteered for the war zone. I was terrified, but I would
have gone had hell frozen over and they needed me. (But first, I
would have hot-footed it for the base firing range and learned to
love that rifle.)
Finally, in the name of all your "friends and acquaintances up
and down the rank structure and from every service," how 'bout a
little compassion for the has-beens who make up those "few retired
female officers who never came very close to combat and have found a
second career haunting congressional hearing rooms, and trying to
extract maximum drama from military tours that were largely
bureaucratic"? I know exactly the type you mean, but Stephanie, do
the math. If they're retired, that means they joined up before many
cool jobs were open to women or before they might have feasibly
switched career fields. Correctly, they feel robbed. They want to
matter in a way they were not allowed to before. What they really
want is an apology.
Since you couldn't get a rise out of me on the non-issue of women
in combat, I know what will. Sorry, Stephanie, the military ain't
even half as politically correct as you think. Readers, I refer to
Stephanie's articles on this subject and her book The Kinder,
Gentler Military. Rhetoric is one thing. Reality is another.
How do the tip-of-the-iceberg rape scandals at the Air Force Academy
occur in an environment so supposedly feminized and hamstrung by
PC-ness? You really want to argue for the scaling back of women in
the service altogether, don't you?
Debra J. Dickerson is the author of An American Story. Her next book, The
End of Blackness, will be published in October 2003. Stephanie Gutmann is a writer living in New York and the
author of The Kinder, Gentler Military.
I, like
Debra Dickerson, was a female military linguist, and, for
Stephanie Gutmann's benefit, the washout rate at DLI when I
attended was estimated to be 60%. Six out of ten did not make
it. I was one of the four left standing at the end. Many men
were not. I guarantee--Gutmann's views not-withstanding--that
the military would be sorely put to find good linguists if
they excluded women, and there are plenty of other military
positions where brain power counts for much, much more than
brute strength. With the current shortage of Arabic linguists,
I'm surprised that anyone would doubt what women are able to
contribute, and the fact is that there are plenty of positions
where a shortage of brain power would mean more lives lost.
Simply put, we want the best people we can find in those jobs,
and axing women from the services would guarantee that we
would not get them. I intend no disrespect to the members of
Private Lynch's convoy, but they saw battle--not because it
was inevitable, but because somebody made a wrong turn. It
surprises me then that Gutmann would use that particular
example to advance the idea that brawn is the only thing that
should really count in the military. We need both brawn and
brains in the military, and while the two qualities are not by
definition mutually exclusive, it's a mistake to think that in
taking care of one, we will luck into the other. A cursory
look at a Bell curve should convince anyone that, without
women, the military would lose half of its brightest potential
recruits.
I
am an Army Officer. I am a male. I have spent the predominance
of my military career in Combat Arm's units, which remain
segregated. Recently I have been assigned to my first
integrated unit since ROTC, and I must confess that my fears
have for the most part been confirmed. To begin with, it is
myth that there are no females in combat roles. As a young 2nd
Lieutenant, I was shocked to find a female officer in the
track positioned opposite my own on the perimeter. She was one
of our chemical platoon leaders, and had been attached to my
company for a high risk operation that would require her
platoons support. While her military role may not have been
one of direct action, she was none the less as far forward as
I was, and therefore subject to the same dangers… My current
battalion is roughly 30% female. Of that 30%, half are
pregnant or on maternity leave right now. If you do the math,
we're at 85% combat power before we even get into the fight…
To further complicate the situation, there are no 'filler'
jobs in my battalion, every individual is a critical piece of
the pie, and each individuals role is highly technical. That
15% of combat power lost off top is composed of mission
critical personnel. Their loss will significantly impact the
effectiveness of our unit… While I will be the first to admit
that there are exceptions to every rule, women, as a whole
should have a limited role in deployable military forces. They
certainly have a place in the military, but that place is in a
non-deployable position stateside. As for the exceptions. I
have on two occasions served with females with whom I would
have trusted my life to without a second thought. Most of the
females I have worked with have been technically proficient,
but the two exceptions I am referring to, had a warrior ethos.
They would, and could fight. Ironically enough, both had older
brothers. A warrior ethos among our female soldiers is almost
nonexistent. As the potential of our current deployment
increased, I noted a strong, angry even, resistance to the
possibility that they would be expected to deploy, and
potentially fight. I can not justify a military standard on
exceptions. In general, the females I have served with, while
highly intelligent, lack the physical strength required for
daily operations, and the mental fortitude necessary for high
intensity combat operations. Violence is simply not in their
blood. God bless them for that… Not one to offer problems,
without solutions, I have the following recommendations. First
pregnancy must be dealt with. Either female roles should be
limited to non-deployable support roles, or females should not
be permitted to have children while in uniform. While the
pregnancy issue is a sensitive one, it must be addressed.
Political correctness should be checked at the recruiting
office. If you're offended by my language, or by me peeing on
a tree in front of you, you shouldn't be in the Army. There
are limits to acceptable behavior granted, but short of
physical abuse, or extreme sexual advances, political
correctness should be left for civilized society. Women
certainly have a place in our military. They are intelligent,
and capable of working in a male environment, however, social
and physical limitations must be acknowledged, and can not be
allowed to reduce the efficiency of our armed
forces.
I am surprised that Debra Dickerson, who informs us
of her service as an intelligence officer, does not point to
the example of Lt. General Claudia Kennedy, the first woman to
achieve three-star rank, who was also an intelligence officer.
I had the privilege of meeting General Kennedy (who is a
sorority sister of my younger daughter) shortly after her book
Generally Speaking was published, and was delighted
to later receive an autographed and personally dedicated copy.
General Kennedy feels strongly that ALL military specialties
should be open to women. Certainly her opinion is influenced
by her own experience in the Army, when she was continually
confronted by obstacles to career advancement on the grounds
that she "lacked combat and command experience." Well, she
finally got that command experience, but still was barred from
combat. Who knows, she might have made an excellent
chief-of-staff, but her gender alone precluded that
opportunity. Neither General Kennedy nor I will argue that
relevant standards should be lowered to accommodate persons
who are otherwise unqualified for a particular role, but
neither should artificial standards be imposed which exclude
some of the most talented and dedicated people in uniform.
Current Army policy is entirely arbitrary, and it should be
changed. If a woman cannot meet physical requirements for some
positions, let it be the PT test which disqualifies her, not a
policy of gender
exclusion.
Ms.
Gutmann, I'm having problems with your characterization of the
facts. You wrote: 'indiscriminate use of phrases like
"died in combat" (when they really mean "died in a combat
zone") or "fighting for their country" (when they actually
mean something like "supporting the war effort")' If a
woman, in the line of duty, is being fired upon by
combatants, she is IN COMBAT. If a woman, in the line of
duty, is firing on the enemy, (whether she started
it, or the Iraqis did), she is FIGHTING for her country. By
profession, I am a nurse. But that does not limit my day to
giving medications and closing after surgery. If I find myself
in a kitchen preparing meals on a hot stove, I am
COOKING.
As
a former Navy servicemember (female, 1 ea.), I agree that
there's entirely too much PC-ness going on, and I'm tired of
it. Too many folks took a semi-good idea and completely ruined
it. But I have to just say thank you to Ms. Dickerson. I
learned to "back door" a lot of the things that I wanted to do
very early in my career. And many of the things that I wanted
most I never got because I don't have a penis. You do learn to
settle. On the plus side, most of those things are now
available to women. So, should women soldiers participate in
combat or have combat MOSs? I don't think so, but not because
I don't think we can handle it. I don't think the male
soldiers would be able to handle it. Therein lies the
rub.
Stephanie's
coments seem a facile take on the question. Every service has
as part of its definition of "combat" exactly those things
that Stephanie cites as distinguishing the Army & Marine
combat arms, and those things she cites
distinguishing the Navy & Air Force combat arms. So,
what's the difference? Fighter pilots close with the
enemy during arial combat, close air support and bombing
missions, while exposed to enemy fire. Naval warships in
places like the Persian Gulf may spend lots of time in close
with opposition naval units. Certainly, both of these services
are stand off capable, but so are the Army &
Marine Corps — just ask an American tanker 'bout fighting from
beyond the range of opposition armor. By the way,
every Marine is primarily an infantryman
notwithstanding the servicemember's
specialty.
Who are these
people?
