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Social Experimentation in the Military By Elaine Donnelly My
subject today is national defense, one of the chief
responsibilities of the federal gov- ernment under the United State
s Constitution. As you know, Ronald Reagan won both elections as
President because he stood for low taxes, less government, and
national de- fenses strong enough to counter what he called the
"evil empire." On the night that Ronald Reagan celebrated his f i
rst victory, over President Jimmy Car- ter, soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines serving on military bases around the world
whooped and hollered and celebrated more than anyone else. The
reason was that during the Carter Administration, men and women in
uniform suffered a great deal from the ef- fects of reduced defense
spending, plus the burden of social experimentation that made their
job more difficult and more dangerous. Contrast that jubilant
feeling with 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected Presiden t .
Within days of his election-on Veterans Day, no less-the
President-elect announced his inten- tion to lift the ban on
homosexuals in the military. It was the first of many times that
the new President put political payoffs 'and ideology ahead of
militar y considerations and ' showed his lack of understanding and
respect for the realities of life in the armed forces. Instead of
putting the needs of the military first, this Administration has
been yielding to demands that the armed forces pay any price, and
carry any burden, to advance the career ambitions of a few. That
value judgment has consequences, and much of what I will talk to
you about today flows from the basic, primary decision to put other
considerations ahead of the primary needs of the military . It's
important to remember that as an institution, the armed forces are
uniquely vulner- able to social experimentation. All of the
uniformed services must follow orders in a chain of command from
the President on down, without political dissent. People w hose
lives are af- fected by questionable policies are simply not free
to defend their own interests. At the present time, military people
in uniform are facing two main problems: * What is being taken away
from the armed forces, because of severe budget c uts and
misdirected priorities, and * What is being imposed on the military
by liberal activists, within the Pentagon and in the civilian
world, in the name of "equal rights." Much has been said, here at
Heritage and on the floor of Congress, about severe budget cuts
that are beginning to "hollow out" the volunteer force. Despite the
drawdown, deploy- ments are still increasing, often at the behest
of the United Nations. But money alone cannot buy a strong national
defense. Technology and hardware are im- portant, but it would be a
mistake to focus only on that.
Elaine Donnelly is President of the Center for Military
Readiness and was a member of the Presidential Commission on the
Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. She spoke at The Heritage
Foundatio n on March 3, 1995. ISSN 0272-1155 Q 1995 by The Heritage
Foundation.
Wars are deterred, or fought, not by computers and weapons, but by
people-young men and women who willingly volunteer to defend their
country in spite of great risk and per- sonal sac rifices. We owe
these people the best equipment we can afford and a comfortable
quality of life, but we must also avoid imposing unnecessary
burdens on them that make military life more difficult or more
dangerous. At a time when the forces are drawing do w n but
deployments are being stepped up, sound personnel policies are more
important than ever. It is essential that Pentagon offi- cials,
both civilian and military, keep their priorities straight. If a
ship's captain turns the wheel off course only two d e grees and
keeps on going for a long time, he can wind up in the wrong ocean.
Several years ago, the personnel policies that govern the military
were wrenched off course by a powerful force known as "sexual poli-
tics." The diversion from a steady course o c curred in 1991, just
prior to the infamous Tailhook convention in Las Vegas, which
brought disgrace upon the entire Navy because of the mis- conduct
of a few. In the aftermath of that scandal, and despite a full
year's work by the Presidential Commission t hat studied the issue
of women in the armed forces, objective dis- cussion of women in
combat became virtually impossible. We now know that as bad as it
was, the worst of Tailhook happened not in the fog of alco- hol,
but in the cold light of bureaucratic day. For one thing, a
disastrous double standard was set in disciplinary matters-men were
punished for sexual misconduct, but women were not. Secondly,
Representative Patricia Schroeder and her feminist friends at the
Pentagon have used Tailhook- in the t r adition of Anita Hill- to
advance a political objective. The objective was to repeal the laws
exempting women from combat obligations- on land, at sea, and in
the air. Navy Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, a central figure in
theTailhook incident, was one of se v eral women who were allowed
to push for repeal of the combat exemptions in the sum- mer of
1991. She was also permitted to lobby Members of Congress while in
uniform, despite the normal rules against such activity. In the
aftermath of Tailhook, Chief of N a val Operations Admiral Frank
Kelso reversed his stand on women in combat, and the entire issue
was framed in terms of women's rights, not national defense. Never
mind that Pentagon figures indicate that female officers and en-
listed have been promoted at rates equal to or greater than men.
Logic cannot explain the political connection between Tailhook and
the drive for women in combat. If violence against women is the
problem, putting them in combat is not the an- swer. Proposing
combat duty as the remedy for sexual harassment is like suggesting
that street crime is wrong, but organized crime is okay. Still,
some people have been inclined to go along with the idea of women
in combat as long as it is voluntary. There is no such thing as
"voluntary" combat. T he Pentagon has al- ready conceded that if
the combat exemptions are repealed, women will have to be assigned
in or near combat on an involuntary basis. Furthermore, if women
are to be used in combat units, the exemption from Selective
Service obligations will be challenged in court, as it was in 1980,
when the American Civil Liberties Union challenged women's draft
exemption on behalf of men. The Supreme Court ruled that since
women are not used in combat, for which draftees are called, draft
registration of women is not required.
2
But if the combat rules are changed, count on the ACLU to bring
yet another case on be- half of men challenging women's exemptions
from Selective Service registration. This time, they will probably
win. Some of the finest, most professional women in the c o untry
are serving in the armed forces today. Because women have alwa ys
served their country well in noncombat support roles, and we are
proud of the job they do, some people say they are inclined to go
along with women in combat as long as the qualifying standards are
equal. Because of the unrelenting pressure of sexual politics,
however, qualifying standards are simply not equal. Recruiting
quotas are forcing the lowering, gender-norming, or redefinition of
qualifica- tion standards so that women will no t fail.
Gender-norming is a scoring technique that compensates for physical
differences between men by "enhancing" the women's scores. With
gender-normed scores in physical training events, an "A" grade for
a woman is equiva- lent to a "D" grade for a man. Instead of equal
performance, equal effort sets the standard, which means that the
word "qualified," as in "qualified to do the job," has no objective
meaning. The reason is: battle- fields are not gender-normed. We
cannot assume that for men war is hell, but for women it will only
be heck. It may surprise you to know that there are no objective
physical standards that must be met by recruits who apply for
heavy-duty jobs, other than a minimal lifting test in the Air
Force. An attempt was made by the Penta g on more than a decade ago
to establish a system of objective standards, designed to rate the
physical demands of each job and match indi- viduals to each one.
However, the system was never fully implemented because women had a
harder time passing the test s . An Army official appearing before
the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed
Forces said that as many as 40 percent to 50 percent of enlisted
women are assigned to jobs beyond their physical ability, and
reassignment costs about $16,000 in retraining costs. The
Presidential Commission compiled abundant evidence that physical
strength differ- ences between men and women are considerable. On
average, women are known to have 40 percent to 50 percent less
upper body strength than mal e s and 25 percent to 30 percent less
aerobic capacity-both of which are important for endurance in a
combat environment. We also know that the few women who can compete
with men in the lowest percentile ratings cannot improve beyond
that level. Men can imp r ove a great deal, however, because of
their advantage in muscle mass and size. Recently, the Army has
tried another way to get around these realities by reintroducing
co-ed basic training, an experiment that was tried late in the
Carter Administration and dis- continued because of excessive
injuries among the women and lack of challenge among the
men. The key to making co-ed basic training work, as it is now
being implemented at Fort Jack- son and Fort Leonard Wood, is to
redefine "soldierization," take ou t most of the physical
challenges, gender-norm the rest, and replace military concepts
such as "cohesion" with a touchy-feely kind of group psychology
that makes everyonefeel good. And yes, you must have an aggressive
public relations campaign, playing to ill-informed reporters who
think camouflage face paint is the key to combat readiness.
3
It may be difficult to understand why highly decorated generals
and admirals who run the armed forces would allow standards to be
redefined, gender-normed, and lo wered for women. The answer,
again, has to do with sexual politics-a technique that feminists
use to substitute emotion and intimidation for rational debate. For
a visual picture of sexual politics in action, think back to last
year, the spring of 1994. S t aging a replay of their 1991 march in
support of Anita Hill, Representative Patricia Schroeder and a
dozen other liberal Congresswomen marched from the House to the
Sen- ate to protest the retirement of Admiral Frank Kelso with all
four stars. It didn't m a tter that Admiral Kelso had given those
women everything they wanted as a peace offering for Tailhook. The
Congresswomen's performance was so bizarre it should have qualified
for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The true
objective of it w a s pure sexual politics and intimidation-not
just against the hapless Admiral Kelso, but against any admiral or
general who would dare stand in the way of the feminist agenda.
Sexual politics sparked another major controversy in the Navy a few
months later , making it painfully obvious that anyone who holds
military women to the same standard of achieve- ment puts his own
career at risk. The number two admiral in the Navy, Admiral Stanley
Arthur, was nominated by President Clinton to become Commander in
Chie f Pacific (CINCPAC). But Admiral Arthur missed out on that
promotion, and has recently retired, be- cause he made the
political mistake of standing by the principle that female aviators
in training should be judged by a single standard. The controversy
beg a n when a female helicopter pilot, who was not doing well in
train- ing, charged that she was getting low marks because of
retaliation by her instructors after she had filed a successful
sexual harassment complaint against one of them. She turned for
help t o then-Senator David Durenberger (R-MN), who called upon
Admiral Arthur, one of the Navy's most distinguished aviators, to
review her record. . Knowing that his promotion might be at risk,
Admiral Arthur still maintained that she could not fly well enough
to win her wings. Senator Durenberger put a hold on the Admi- ral's
nomination, and the No. I man in the Navy, Chief of Naval
Operations Admiral Jeremy Boorda, folded his cards and allowed the
nomination to fail. The worst part of the story was not the lo s s
of a distinguished four-star Admiral. Rather, the worst of it was
and is the lingering message that anyone who holds women to the
same standard is putting his career at risk. Admiral Boorda
recently admitted publicly that the Admiral Arthur incident has
been the biggest mistake of his career. Nevertheless, evidence is
now mounting that even in the dan- gerous field of combat aviation,
some women are simply not being allowed to fail. Recently, the
tragic story of Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the female pilo t who
was killed trying to land an F-14A, broke into the news once again.
The real question is, will the Navy be candid and honest about what
it is doing to achieve its goals for women in aviation? The
perception, and perhaps the reality, of double standar d s in
combat aviation goes beyond one female pilot, to an apparent
pattern of special treatment that undermines personal integrity,
morale, and the safety of everyone concerned. The issue here is not
women in combat, but the integrity of qualification stan dards and
the selection process.
4
The question of high standards and equality of treatment has
become even more impor- tant now that new policies forcing women to
serve in or near land combat units were allowed to go into effect
last October 1. Of cours e, the changes were not billed that way.
The Pentagon's announcement focused on increased "career
opportunities" in units pre- viously closed to women. The initial
plan for women in land combat, as drawn up by civilians who will
never see the inside of a f ox hole, was leaked to my organization.
We released it to the media, and a storm of controversy ensued
which forced the Secretary of the Army to tear up the docu- ment. A
new version was then released, which leaves out some of the units
that were supposed to be opened, such as combat engineering units,
multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), and special operations
helicopters. Air cavalry helicopters remain on the open list,
however, which-in the name of "consistency" -may lead to eventual
repeal of all the land combat rules in incremental steps. Never
mind that air cavalry helicopters, which do reconnaissance in close
tandem with land armor ahead of the front lines, are often shot
down. The prevailing bureaucratic logic at work here is that since
air cavalr y troops end up fighting on the ground only part of the
time, it's all right to put women there. At the same time that land
combat rules were redefined and partially repealed, something
called the Defense Department Risk Rule was also repealed. This is
ext r emely important because it means that women and young mothers
in combat support positions will be sent, on an involuntary basis,
much closer to the front lines. The problem is that in or near
close combat units, women don't have an equal opportu- nity to s
urvive or to help fellow soldiers survive. The military is unlike
any civilian occupation, and unit strength and cohesion are crucial
for survival and accomplishment of the mission. Contrary to the
popular notion that wars are primarily fought on computer screens
these days, soldiers must carry their food, water, am- munition,
and weapons with them, under all terrain and weather conditions,
for long periods of time. Soldiers can't send their equipment ahead
via United Parcel Service. In recent months, the a rmed forces'
unprecedented social experiment has gathered steam. It is designed
to prove feminist theories that men and women are interchangeable
in all roles and that it makes no difference who does the
soldiering and who does the mother- ing. It is now b ecoming
increasingly apparent that the experiment cannot go forward unless
certain things happen that are bound to demoralize the military.
Lowering physical stand- ards is only part of it. If you look up
the definition of the word demoralize in the Ameri c an Heritage
Dicfionary, you will find it has three meanings. The first is "To
undermine confidence or morale." The second is "To disorder, or
confuse." The third meaning is "To debase the morals of; to cor-
rupt." Social experimentation accelerates the de m oralization of
the military and promises to change the culture in disturbing ways.
Plans to put women and mothers in or near combat units amount to an
endorsement of violence against women. It signals that in our
culture, men will no longer be raised and expected to defend and
protect women. By any measure, this is a step backward for
civilization, not a step forward.
5
In today's military, concern for women and children has been
strangely redefined. For ex- ample, consider the Navy's new policy
on pre gnancy, which will likely become a prototype for the other
services if it is not challenged by Congress. Incidentally, my
frequent comments regarding the Navy are due to the fact that they
have taken a clear leadership role in social experimentation. I co
m e from a Navy family; my father was a submariner; and my
objective in talking about the Navy is to encourage a con-
structive return to sound personnel policies in all of the
services. On February 6, Navy Secretary John Dalton announced that
"pregnancy an d parenthood are compatible with a Navy- career."
There is no doubt that pregnancy is a "natural" event, but whether
it is "natural" aboard warships is another question. It is
significant that it makes no difference if the pregnant woman is
married or sing l e. Nor is there any requirement to identify the
father. By assuming a posture of moral neutral- ity, the Navy has
made a serious value judgment that undermines expectations for
professionalism and responsible moral behavior. In addition to
priority medica l care ahead of military dependents, pregnant
women, who are primarily lower-ranking enlisted women, will have
priority off-base housing. The Navy admits that birth control
education doesn't work, but its plan is to do more of it. People in
units left shor t -handed due to pregnancies are forbidden to make
any negative comments. This provision is vague but pernicious in
its implications. Off limits, for exam- ple, would be comments
about repeated long-term vacancies that require other crewmem- bers
to work 12 - hour double shifts. Pregnancy tests will not be
required just prior to deployment, and there is no indication that
women have been or will be fully informed of the risks of birth
defects from nuclear power, toxic substances, high-decibel noise,
or aviatio n vibration aboard combat ships. There are no penalties
for repeated pregnancies, which is a replay, of course, of social
wel- fare policies that have failed miserably in the civilian
world. When combined with aggressive recruiting quotas for women,
the ov e rly generous, morally neutral directives are likely to
demonstrate a long-standing principle of government policy: When
you subsidize something, you get more of it. In this case, the
"something" is pregnancy among single and married Navy women, who
may or may not be available for deployment when the Navy needs them
most. That will have a serious negative effect on readiness, as
well as a demoralizing effect on the Navy. The Navy has been trying
to downplay the effect on readiness, but the truth has a way o f
coming out. Take the recent news that five pregnant women were
evacuated from the car- rier USS Eisenhower. The Center for
Military Readiness has learned that the total of pregnant women
assigned to the Ike is actually 29, and still counting. Fourteen wo
m en became pregnant between April I and October 1, and ten more in
the last three weeks just before the October 20 de- ployment. By
the time the ship returns, the pregnancy percentage will probably
be about 10 percent of the female crew, which was the stan dard
rate during Desert Storm, when women were known to be three to four
times as non-deployable as men-not counting those who took
discharges. That is a readiness issue!
6
Morally neutral value judgments are harming the military in
other areas as well. Consider the new policy, disclosed by my
organization, that some men and women of all ranks are be- ing
housed in small tents in Haiti with no privacy between the cots. To
varying degrees, this applies to all of the services under the
direction of the Arm y . An Army spokeswoman, Major Cindy Sito,
admitted to The Washington Times that the co- habitation policy
exists and said the Army wanted its people to be able to "Reach out
and touch everybody." The last time I checked, male/female touching
was contrary t o the Uni- form Code of Military Justice. It also
appears that the Pentagon is trying to mislead Congress on its
co-ed housing pol- icy. Last September, Defense Secretary William
Perry told Senator Strom Thurmond, then ranking member of the
Senate Armed Se r vices Committee, that appropriate privacy for men
and women would be provided on land, as well as at sea. If we are
spending millions to restructure combat ships for the private
accommodation of women, why do people serving on land have any less
right to r easonable accommodations for privacy? Please keep in
mind that if experiments with small unisex tents can be declared a
big suc- cess, it will be a prototype for all the services in the
future. Furthermore, if sexual privacy doesn't matter with regard
to m en and women, then what is the problem with housing to- gether
homosexuals and heterosexuals? I am sorry to tell you that the
campaign to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military has not
stopped, despite Congress's action in 1993 to codify the ban. The
issue remains unre- solved because the policy has become
schizophrenic under the Clinton Administration. For one thing,
Defense Department regulations are in conflict with the law.
Legislative history of the 1993 statute says that homosexuality is
"incomp a tible with military service" and lists a dozen reasons
why homosexuality creates "an unacceptable risk to the high stand-
ards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that
are the essence of military capability." On the other hand, the Def
e nse Department regulations declare, without authorization in the
law or legislative history, that "Sexual orientation is a personal
and private matter" and "homosexuality is not a bar to entry or
continued military service." That concept, which is at the h eart
of the President's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, was specifically
rejected by Con- gress. It is based on the legally questionable
notion that "status" as a homosexual can be separated from
"conduct." The contradiction is easy to exploit in court, w h ich
is why several lower court judges have tried to declare it
unconstitutional. The Defense Department's flawed and inconsistent
regulations, combined with the De- partment of Justice's failure to
provide an adequate defense of the law in court, could re s ult in
a catastrophic loss before the Supreme Court. The Administration
would be delighted, of course, if the Supreme Court did the work
for them, making it possible for the President to deliver on his
campaign promise to homosexuals despite the exclusion law passed by
Con- gress in 1993. Senator Dan Coats, who chairs the Senate Armed
Services Personnel Subcommittee, an- nounced recently that he will
take appropriate action to correct the problem. In the meantime,
the Clinton Administration is continuing t o promote the idea that
"sexual mi- norities" should be understood and supported as part of
our nation's "diversity."
7
On September 8 of last year, the Department of Defense and
several other government agencies devoted tax dollars and "company"
time to something called the "Diversity Day Training Event." Six
commands of the Navy were particularly prominent in the plannin g
of the event, and two uniformed admirals welcomed participants.
Most of the sessions were noncontroversial, but the centerpiece of
the event was a work- shop on "sexual minorities" conducted by
trainers from GLOBE-Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Employees. Du r ing
that session, a video called On Being Gay was presented, featur-
ing a young homosexual man describing and asking for acceptance of
his sexual lifestyle. You should also know that despite Congress's
enactment of a law banning homosexuality from the mi l itary,
training sessions promoting "sensitivity" to homosexuals are
currently be- ing presented on military bases- one of them taking
place, I've been told, in an Army chapel at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Speaking of insults to persons of Judeo-Christian val u es, I must
tell you how far some Pentagon leaders will go to stifle dissent
about social engineering in the military and to re- wire the values
of those who serve. Some months ago, Navy Lieutenant Commander Ken
Carkhuff, who led a helicopter squadron, lea r ned that his unit
was to be among the first to include women on the combat mission to
Haiti. Prior to that mobilization, he felt honor-bound to tell his
commanding offi- cer, in a private, informal setting, that he could
not support the Navy's policy on w omen in combat.
Lieutenant Commander Carkhuff said that the policy conflicted
with his Christian beliefs because it boils down to an official and
deliberate endorsement of wartime violence against women. Carkhuff
did not say that he would not lead the squa dron; nor did he
disobey an or- der. Nevertheless, within days, the Navy began
proceedings to separate him "for cause," charging him with failure
of leadership and dereliction of duty. Next month, Carkhuff will
face a Board of Inquiry to show why he shoul d not be expelled from
the Navy. The fact that he is a graduate of the Naval Academy with
13 years of exemplary service, and is only two years short of early
retirement with five children to support, seems to be of no conse-
quence. As soon as Carkhuff exp r essed his personal views in
private, glowing fitness reports that described him as a "community
superstar" with "unlimited potential... destined for com- mand and
beyond" were downgraded to ruinous levels. A revised fitness report
asserted flatly that "Lt . Cdr. Carkhuff's stated beliefs are NOT
COMPATIBLE WITH FURTHER MILITARY SERVICE." (Emphasis in original.)
Think about what that means. If the Navy succeeds in firing
Lieutenant Commander Carkhuff at the Board of Inquiry hearing late
in May, they will be c onveying the devastat- ing message that the
Navy does not want or need persons of Judeo-Christian values. But
the armed forces dependon people like Lieutenant Commander
Carkhuff, and the families that support them, to volunteer for
military service. Why i s the Navy driving these people away in
pursuit of social experimentation in the military? And, by the way,
what will the services do with the time-honored ideal of an
"officer and a gentleman?" By contrast, a similar Board of Inquiry
recently allowed Navy Lieutenant Zoe Dunning to stay in the Navy,
even though she admits to being a lesbian. And Navy Lieutenant
Tracy Thorne, an avowed homosexual, was recently awarded a Navy
Achievement Medal in a ceremony at Naval Air Systems Command in
Arlington.
8
How did we get to the point where tolerance of homosexuality is
encouraged but adher- ence to Christian values is punished by the
military? It's been said that the armed forces lead the way for
social change and the civilian world follows. Positive changes ha v
e been achieved in the past, but where is the military leading us
now? And how much social experimentation will men and women in
uniform withstand without walking away? We cannot afford to lose
good people because of personnel policies that defy the exper i -
ence of history and undermine readiness and morale for the sake of
social engineering. In 1933, General Douglas MacArthur said this
about the importance of morale in the armed forces: [Morale] can
survive and develop in adversity that comes as an inesca p able
incident of service, but it will quickly wither and die if soldiers
come to believe themselves the victims of indifference or injustice
on the part of their government, or of ignorance, personal
ambition, or ineptitude on the part of their military l e aders.
Today, a combination of indifference, ignorance, and political
influences that conflict with military values is making military
life more difficult and more dangerous. One of the most compelling
witnesses who testified before the Presidential Commi s sion on the
Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces was David Horowitz, who
became a "born-again American" after many years of militant
activism as a radical leftist youth. Horowitz, who co-authored the
book Destructive Generation-Second Thoughts About th e '60s, told
the Commission that: The military is one American institution that
survived the '60's intact. Now it threatens to become a casualty of
current radical fashions. The worst crimes of our century have been
committed by idealists attempting to era d icate injustice, stamp
out politically incorrect attitudes, and revamp human nature. Let's
not addthe weakening of America's military to the depressing list
of disastrous utopias thatfail. In all of the focused debate over
terms of the Contract with Ameri c a, we cannot afford to ignore
what is happening to our military. It is the only military we have,
and it deserves close attention. Just because a pot is on the back
burner doesn't mean it can't boil over. Congressional re- view of
the personnel issues is l ong overdue, and I hope you will join me
in insisting that hearings take place as soon as possible. We must
insist that the virtues and values that lives depend on in the
military not be cor- rupted for the sake of political expediency.
Double standards a n d favoritism must be ended, and the
Departments of Defense and Justice must be required to follow the
letter and intent of the law. Because lives are at stake, debate
and the process of evaluation must be open and honest. If people in
uniform cannot speak for themselves, in defense of their own
interests, then we must speak for them. If we don't, who will? We
must insist on a military that is governed not by political
pressure groups, but by sound principles that protect readiness,
justice and equal treatm ent, and integrity in leader- ship.
9
Achieving these goals will not be easy, but our constitutional
responsibilities require no less. We have the finest military in
the world-and a responsibility to keep it that way.
10
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