View Full Version : women in combat
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
So far, none of the messages I've read here about women in combat are addressing the issues of sexual misconduct throughout the military, and the numerous scandals that have tarnished the military's image over the past few years.**These scandals primarily involve acts of consensual sex occurring between male and female shipmates or soldiers and their respective seniors within the same units.**It's evident that most military women prefer to either ignore the subject, or to belittle the issue as insignificant.**How many scandals do there have to be?**No matter what you say about women's abilities, or what their opportunities should be, the bottom line is:**sex subverts discipline.**It betrays common sense to think that this problem can be controlled with more sensitivity, consciousness-raising and discipline.**Even with all this in place right now, the scandals keep happening. Unplanned pregnancies have been described as nothing more than an illness, in order to dismiss its true effects.**Soldiers and sailors continue to perceive single, pregnant women as long term burdens on their units; and replacements for these women are often delayed.**It's already known that women have used sexual manipulation to avoid hard duty, and some women use pregnancy for the same purpose.**It seems like everybody thinks they have the answers when it comes to dealing with sex, but so far, its not convincing.**Military discipline is fragile enough, and morale is difficult enough to maintain, without additional distractions of sexual attraction, jealousy and betrayal.**Start debating these topics, and your opinion page will be much more interesting to read and have more credibility than those same old, tired arguments about equal opportunity that have been used for the past 20 years.**By the way, I'm a former Navy Lieutenant, and I served on a ship for 3 years during the 1980s.**Soon after I reported aboard the ship, I discovered that the CO was having an affair with one of the female officers.**Knowledge of the affair had a polarizing effect on the entire ship's crew, and created an atmosphere that gave rise to more misconduct and sexual harassment.**The chain of command covered it up rather than deal with it.**It was a demoralizing tour of duty for everyone involved. I've written a book about the experience.**Hope to get it published soon.**I'm tired of the one sided propoganda out on the market now, and I know the public is, too.******
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105625,3057@compuserve.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Oh, another intelligent person! I suspect you want to exclude gays as well? I don't understand if you are arguing against women in combat, or against women in the military. Well with your argument we might as well forbid both women and gays to work at all. Why not lock them all upp so there won't be to much "sexual distraction".************************** I've listed your arguments to see what it is you are really saying. (1)There have been numerous scandals, they have primarily involved acts of consensual sex between male and female shipmates or soldiers and their respective seniors. (2) Sex subverts discipline(3)This problem cannot be controlled by consiussness-raising or discipline.(3.1)This are been done now and still the problem continues. (4) Single pregnant women are a long time burden to their units, and replacement is often delayed.(5) It's known that women have used sexual manipulation, and pregnancy, to avoid hard duty. (6)Discipline and moral is difficult enough to maintain, without difficulty of sexual attraction, jealousy and betrayal. (7) Your CO had an affair with female a officer at the ship wich led to polarization among the crew, and more sexual harassment.*************************************** ************************************************** *Let's take a closer look at them. (1) You are talking about scandals. Well isn't it so that these cases are scandals because those involved have broken some regulation. Regulation about with whom you are alowed to have sex/relationships with just creates more problem. I'm in the swedish military, and we have no such law/regulation. But of course there are some things that is impropriate. The problem with people in the same units are the risk of selective trearment, that risk you also have with close relatives, such as brothers or sister. Therefore in the Swedish navy: couples and brothers are usally not placed on the same ship. Another problem, witch is much bigger is the "gossip". People often have a tendency to despise a girl who is having "temporary sex", but men are encouraged to do so. What this leads to is usually the men, to trying to "get" the girls especially in their own unit. Well women like sex just as the men, but if they show that they might be "frozen out". Of course this creates imbalance. The solution of this is for men starting look at women as persons which you can have as a friend without having sex or falling in love, and not to see it as some kind of victory to get to have sex with a woman, and for women to stop using their sexuality to get what they want (the problem is that society raises its daughters this way, she can't open a magazin without beeinhg told how to be sexy and attractive) realize that except ofthe pleasure for the moment they will most certainly be the loosers, the way todays society is. About having sex with a senior, the highest ranking is always the responsibel, if you have chosen to be a leader you should be bright enough to know that selective treatment is bad leadership, and having sex with a subordinate even worse and a bad leader should not be a leader. That gos especially for the CO's.(2) Why does sex subverts discipline? Ofcourse one doesn't have sex at work, at work you work. In uniform you behave like a soldier, if you can't handle that you shouldn't be a soldier. What you do at you spare time is your own buisness, unless it's affecting your work. I've spent 6 month on a ship where two leiutenants work that were engaged to each other. I found out after 4 months, there were now way anyone could have guessed that by their behaviour, and it didn't creat any problems at that ship. At work, they worked, they were proffessional. (3) You say that this problem can't be changed by consiuss-raising or similar. You are probably right about that now, things like that take time. The main problem though is the society and the values we are brought up with. It've been shown in report after report that units consisting of both sexes performes better than one-sexed units. To get the benefits of that society must change, and it won't happen by excluding women. If you want to get rid of these problems, go out into society and start change from there. I don't have time to write any more now, but all get back to the rest of your argument some other day
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hanna.lantz@home.se
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Well Ms Collins, I hope your book is published soon and does quite well in the Military History section.**I, too, served on a ship in the early 80's (my first, not my only), and I agree there were a lot of problems with integration as people tried to re-adjust their societal upbringings and sort out what was appropriate.**I'm not naive enough to say problems don't still exist, but they're nothing like I (and apparantly you) remember 15-20 years ago.**I do notice, however, that a lot of your logic is flawed or not very well thought out.**It seems your basic premise is that if women & men serve together in the military, they will have sex, which will in turn destroy morale and discipline.**I wonder, can't you then carry this arguement outside the military?**The executive will have sex with his secretary, the foreman with her apprentice, the surgeon with her nurse, the college professor with his student.**Obviously, these relationships do occur.**Well darn it, we ought to get these trouble making women out of the workforce!**Don't you think a more common-sense approach would be to hold the individuals causing the workplace strife accountable for thier own actions?**Let's face it, most people like to have sex, and we're attracted to other people all the time!**We don't just jump on the first hot bod that walks our way though, do we?**We like to think we have a little more self-control than that.**Maybe we're not perfect, but most of us use a little discretion when we pick who we're going to sleep with.**We make little rules for ourselves, like "not somebody who's married"**"not the boss"**"not a smoker" "not the enemy", or whatever.**If we decide we really like somebody, though, we might just wait until they get a divorce, quit smoking, or cease to be our boss.**Although we may be mostly hormones, most of us curb our animal instincts a little.**If it's lust, we tell ourselves "not this one".**If it's love, we wait.**If we run across somebody who absolutely must jump on thier boss, that just can't wait until they're not in that precarious position anymore, that I guess we need to look at that person's judgement.** This is one of those areas where the military dictates morality, and if we can't refrain, we get in trouble.********Since a sexual relationship between 2 people who aren't in a senior-subordinate relationship isn't anybody's business, let's focus on the others; the ones that can adversly affect morale by perceptions of preferential treatment, and are against regulations as a result.**A sexual realtionship between a boss and an employee when another employee either knows or suspects it is bad business.**It gives the appearance of preferential treatment.**It shows poor judgement.**Same holds true in the military.**In the military, though, we lay our lives in the hands of our leader's judgement.**That's why a senior who shows this lack of discipline & judgement is held accountable and makes headlines, while in the civilian sector it's often ignored.**I noted your disdain for the arguement of "women's abilities and what THEIR opportunities should be".**Why "their", not "our"?**Why are you excluding yourself?**It didn't escape me that you seem to generally view women as the evil sirens who seduce their bosses, using "sexual manipulation to avoid hard duty" and presumably gain favors.**I don't do this, do you?**Is this low self esteem, or are you the only voice of sanity and self control in our gender?**Is it possible that the individuals you must have encountered are the exception and not the rule?******I don't want to "ignore" your issue or "belittle it as insignificant".**When inappropriate behaviors of any sort affect the morale of the folks I work with, including sex between a senior & subordinate, I want it dealt with.**Not a knee-jerk reaction , like blaming an entire gender or labling all sexual relations as bad, but on an individual basis.****** I believe many of the "scandals" you're referring to deal with sexual harassment, not fraternization or sexual politics, but in all cases, thank goodness we have them, despite how painful they are.**It shows that people are more and more willing to speak out when wronged.**Certainly, you must have felt helpless and angry.**I regret the bad experience you must have suffered for several years has embittered you to this degree.********I do feel you brought up one valid point, though- the "problem" of pregnancy.**Although it's quite natural for young women to get pregnant (everywhere, not just in the military), it can obviously hurt unit readiness.**I have some ideas on this topic, but am very interested in solutions other people might have thought of?****
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
The recent scandals involving sexual misconduct in the military were not caused by women in combat positions. This problem has been brewing for years for reasons you illustrated in your post. What happened on your ship is a classic example of how a weak chain of command can destroy the morale in a unit. The same weakness on this issue is what precipitated the McKinney scandal. Brenda Hoster reported his conduct to a colonel in her chain of command. He apparently felt that he had no moral or legal obligation to do anything about it. There was nothing consensual about what happened between Hoster and McKinney, by the way. Same with Tailhook and Aberdeen. The bottom line here is that these episodes are not about sex. They're about power. They're in the news because the military and the public are finally listening.
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Hanna, you do quite well debating in a language that isn't your own.**I continue to be quite impressed.************I understand you comment about choosing a different forum to discuss this topic, but I disagree.**I think it's healthy and productive to discuss controversial issues in the open... if it isn't talked about, then you can bet it's thought about.**If it's thought about, then folks will draw their own conclusions without the temperance of varied viewpoints.**The Major's discussion, for example,**gave me pause to think.**I didn't realize the Army may not have as serious a problem as the Navy.**That insight turns my thinking slightly askew from its previous path.**It indicates the problem may not be as much the process of getting replacements in, as I had thought, but rather on education, as she suggested, or in the availability of reliable and confidential birth control options.** To intelligently argue a position I take on an issue, I need to explore ALL the sides, even the ones I don't want to consider, if I'm to make it strong.**In addition, a forum like this invites raw and honest opinions without a lot of sugar-coating, as the option to retain anonymity means people can speak their minds without fear of ridicule or reprisal - at least not in the "real world" they move in.**** I like your thoughts about paternity leave.**I wish it were everyone's paradigm, but we're not quite there yet.**I don't know how that could work in the military though, for the same reasons that I stated are a problem with Maternity leave right now.**In 20 years, someone reading this would probably laugh at my inability to see the answers.******** No, I wouldn't say the problem is that it's difficult to recruit some jobs.**The problem is more getting trained replacements.**For example, the Navy sent me to 1 1/2 years of school to learn electronics and how to fix certain computer systems.**My replacement couldn't be grown overnight, and it wouldn't be cost effective to train more in my specialty than are needed.**Some jobs get even longer and more intensive training.**I can envision some changes to the way replacements are detailed, but my ideas tend to have a price tag.******Good on you for continuing to test your opinions.**It demonstrates intellect and an open mind.**If we all did that, we'd never have a shortage of**solid,**big-picture ideas.
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
I see your point, I probably should have posted the mail as a reply to Collins instead. I'm young and I don't have any children of my own yet, but my fiencée and I are discussing when we shall have children and we are trying to fit that into our careers. I didn't know of your regulations at sea and I can see that it might be a problem. I have to ask if women often happens to be pregnant while at sea? Today most women don't have to get pregnant unless they wan't to.(unless they're careless). Collins was right about one thing, pregnancy is not a disease that just "happens", you have to be quite active to "get it". So then the problem is how to make people behave in a way that don't get them pregnant at the wrong time?********About the present regulations, are there any regulations concerning men that becomes fathers while at sea? Can they get "shore-duty" so they can see their child? Or maybe a short "fathers-leave"? In Sweden they are guaranteed that by law, and I think that's a right they are entiteled to. YES, it is a problem to unit readiness when people decide to have children and yes, only women can carry the baby in their bellies, and some are single parents, (my parents were divorced and I grew up with my father due to my mothers illness, which might have had some kind of effect of my opinions about "parenting").**It is needed to come up with some kind of solution regarding pregnacy ( I don't have any good ideas right now, I'll be back when I have)BUT I think it's dangerous to focus to much on that single issue, at least in public debate, because that gives people like Collins reason to argue for getting women out of the military, which would be unlucky for both, country, military and women. I think it's needed to change the "thinking" in the subject in two ways. (1)Change the issue from something negative into something positive. In Sweden the head of the largest telecommunications-company have in media expressed his weiw on employees. He encourege them to take "parental-leave" when they have children, both men an women, because he is convinced that children make you grow as a person, it develops your leadership and trains your ability of doing many things at the same time, and cooperation. The vacancies creates problems but the company gain more than they loose. (2) It must be natural for men be a part of raising a child(as you said). The head of one of the parties in the parlament (male) have recently been having "parental-leave" to be home with his son, and working part time from home, and he want to encourage more men to do the same.************ You wrote that this didn't answer your question but I think it partly do. We've had this debate in Sweden too, but what have happened? As soon as more and more men started to be home with their children, the issue suddenly started to change from beeing a problem into beeing something possitive. That a man or women have to leave work because they are having a child is a problem, but it is also neccesary if we don't want mankind to "disapear". The organisation have to be adjusted to that, I believe it isn't today. The organisation still lives somewhere in the mid-century, when women stayed home taking care of children, and men whent to work and to war, and I think it will stay that way if no one starts to look at it from another perspective, not until then, new bright ideas will develop in the matter.****************The military have to adjust their organisation to the fact, that it probably will be a steadily increasing number of their personell that suddenly "disapears" a year or few month during their active duty. They have to plan for that, and to handle that takes a higly flexibel organisation, and i suspect that your military-system is about as flexibel as ours (not much). Maybe more cooperation between the branches for example.******************As I read what you wrote I realise that you have the answer within your questions. What is beeing done about doing it easier to get a replacement? And what is beeing done to get people to be more careful to not get pregnant? You know more about what is beeing done than I do, but there must be some way to change the organisation in order to get a "smother" dealing with replacements? Or is it difficult to recruit for some jobs? Then the jobs must be made more attractive. We can't forbidd people having children and the organisation have to adjust to that.****************I hope i have managed to make my thaughts understandable, it's a little bit difficult to debate in a language that isn't your own. I would be glad for any input in this subject because I'm still testing my own point of wiew.
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hanna.lantz@home.se
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
: Submariner, I would never compare pregnancy to drug abuse, sexual harrassment or racism.Of course you wouldn't because it doesn't support your arguement.**However, loss rates due to pregnancy are detrimental to readiness and can have just as negative an impact as the above mentioned problems.: Last time I checked, pregnancy wasn't considered a criminal act.You're right, it's not.**However just because something is not against the law doesn't mean that it is not wrong.**Slavery, along with it's associated abuses, rapes, and murders used to be legal, even affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, but that did not make it right.It's legal to partially remove a full term, viable, healthy child from it's healthy mother's uterus, stab it in the back of the head and kill it (i.e. partial birth abortion), but that doesn't make it right.: Nonetheless, we could draw some interesting parallels between your response and sexism.Really, such as ...?**Surely you don't mean to intimate that because I point out that**pregnancy is a problem in the military that my attitude is sexist?**I would hope not.**Name calling has no place in intelligent debate and soils those who engage in it.: I did try to find the article you referenced in the USNI Proceedings - in fact I searched back issues through 1996, but couldn't find any reference to the L.Y. Spear. All of the articles I found regarding integration of women on ships were very positive and emphasized the need for strong leadership to make it work.The article which I referenced, "Much Ado About Nothing", is located on pages 66-68 of**the June 1997 Issue of Proceedings.**Interestingly, this article was cast in a "positive light" as well.**However, an evaluation of the data provided sheds a different light on the matter than intended by**the author of the article.The Navy wide shipboard pregnancy rate of 11.8 % which I cited was mentioned in the 6 APR 98 Washington Times article, "Navy Finds Pregnancy Put at Risk Sea Duty." The bottom line is that pregnancy IS a problem.**No amount of "Leadership" can stop a servicewoman from getting pregnant if she want's to.**When she does, someone else has to pick up the slack while she is either gone or unable to perform all of her duties.**The fact that many of these pregnancies are often illegitimate exacerbates the problem and indicates an even larger problem: that of sex among the ranks.**You can not have an effective unit at land or sea if the troops are having sex.**The data I have seen indicates that this is a problem on ships.**Recent articles about the US Army's roughly 6.5% pregnancy rate in Bosnia (see 4 Nov97**Washington Times: "Pregnant Troops Make US Laughingstock of Bosnia"), which I believe is an "unaccompanied" tour, would seem to indicate that pregnancy and sexual relations among the ranks IS a problem in the Army, your statements to the contrary notwithstanding.I'm not saying that I have all of the solutions, but I am saying that we need to wake up and recognize that there is a problem, instead of denying it and pretending that everything is "OK."Submariner
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Interesting response.**I've shown and referenced some of my data.**Where's yours?**With respect to the agreement with the services you mention, anyone with any significant time in the officer corps knows that to get advanced (or just to stay in, sometimes), you tow the "party line".**Just ask LCDR Kenneth Carkhuff, who was drummed out for an un-PC opinion.**Another good example is LT Patrick J. Burns.**He told the truth when the Navy was covering up a PC issue and was burned for it.** You will also find that many officers (now safely outside of the service) support my position.**There are also individuals such as Col Robert L. Maginnis (USA Ret) and Elaine Donnelly who voice similar opinions and back it up with the data to prove it (just as I have, to some degree).**There is also the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces which provides some interesting data and conclusions for those who are willing to read it.**The bottom line is that there is quite a bit of evidence to support my conlusions.**You simply refuse to accept the facts.**It is unfortunate that a fellow officer such as yourself feels the need to resort to innuendo and personal attacks to further your position, rather than engage in an intelligent debate.**This is part of the reason why the armed services don't officially acknowledge a problem when it comes to such issues, it's not PC,and it is easier to attack the messenger than to deal with the data..
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Hit a nerve? Feels more like "rewind" - back to 1981 when this same debate was raging on the "pregnancy problem" that increasing numbers of women in the military were bound to present. The "problem" never materialized. Yes, I said UNPLANNED pregnancies are a problem, in and out of the military, primarily because they negatively impact the women involved. However, I stand by my original conclusion that pregnant servicemembers aren't a readiness problem. The services, by the way, agree with me. The USNI Proceedings is full of articles written by officers serving aboard ships in the Navy who say it's not a problem. Army officers all the way up the chain of command have agreed that pregnant soldiers have not in any way hindered the Army's ability to deploy units and carry out it's mission anywhere in the world. In 1981 no one really knew what impact pregnant servicewomen would have on readiness, but many were predicting dire consequences for the military because of it. In 1998 we have mountains of data to prove that there is no readiness problem due to pregnancy. In spite of this, we still have people like you predicting the same dire consequences. I asked you what you had to offer, and you gave just what I expected - nothing.
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Ouch!**Judging by your sarcasm, I must have hit a nerve.**Whose hysterical?**Thank you for a least admitting that pregnancy is a problem.**That is my point entirely, and pregnancy is just part of the problem.**My solution?**Although I don't have the the exact answer, I refer you to a post by a female chief petty officer and my response to her at the below website (www.enlisted.com/boards/women/messages/91.shtml) .**Oh, and the difference between Army and Navy stats probably has something to do with being in closed spaces for long periods of time at sea.**Yes, I know that each service has its unique trials, but I think that sea duty has something to do with the discrepancy.
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Pregnancy is a voluntary condition.**I would like to point out to you that sometimes it's not a voluntary condition.**The only form of BC that is 100% effective is abstinence.**It sounds like you are talking about making women responsible for the pregnancy, or the birth control to prevent it.If I recall corectly adultry under the UCMJ is defined as sexual intercourse with someone not your spouse.**That would include all single people.**Faced with a possible courts martial (both male and female) I think people would be a little more careful.**If there are women getting pregnant to get easier asignments the thought of a courts martial might deter them.**These are laws that are on the books today but rarely enforced.**Adultry can only be proven if there is evidence or the member admits to it.**I think pregnancy constitutes evidence, however it should never be one sided..both members should 'pay the piper'.SemperFi!
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joan_e@yahoo.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
And I appreciate yours as well.**I solicited your opinions, so it would be bad form for me to try & change your mind on your positions (not that I think I could; you're very persuasive yourself.)**I concur on a couple of things, but on a lot of them I think we'll probably have to agree to disagree.** I could see the argument to exclude women from serving at sea with men starting to rear its head, for example.**I'm so tired of arguing that one for so many years that I'd just likely get really irritated really fast, so I don't even want to go there.**So back to the main theme.**One thing I agree with you on is direction from above.**Too many leaders do to little, in all the pond sizes.**When we see a different pregnancy rate in the services, it tells us something.**When we see a disparity in the numbers between commands, it practically shouts.**Education, availability, confidentiality, options, policy, counseling, leadership, leadership, leadership.**What is one command doing differently from another?**I feel that too many times, a woman who gets pregnant is "blamed", and the buck stops there.**The problem's been identified; it's that bad girl over there, no more thinking required.**That's one of the reasons I keep probing to see what people think.**Occasionally, we even find**women who will quickly point the finger of blame rather than look at the bigger picture.**As long as it's the fault of some wayward gal, then it's not ME, you see, I'M not the troublemaker, it's those others.**The fact is, most people want to do a good job & be successful in their undertakings, make it on their own, be a star.**The idea that women would use pregnancy as a means to get out of a deployment is pretty far-fetched.**Even if somebody were to say it in anger, do we really think they'd decide to take on the life-long responsibility of a child to get out of a deployment?**I'm not saying it doesn't happen, because there's an exception to everything.**I'm saying it's pretty damned rare.**I just really feel we're not proactive enough with our folks in prevention.** Singling out who we want to counsel or help can be perceived as delving into their personal business, discriminating, judging, etc.**If everybody gets it, though, the ruffled feathers will smooth out.**And honestly, you can't tell which men & women need help anyhow, & they aren't going to come ask us.**One short story:**"On my last ship"...**we had one raging CO.**Either you hated him, or you just respected him.**You know the type.**Did a lot of things wrong, but did a lot of things right, too.**When we pulled in to Thailand, (which, as you know, is infamous for the high rate of HIV amongst the prostitutes), there was a box of condoms on the quarterdeck.**EVERY SINGLE CREWMEMBER- Officer, Enlisted, Man, Woman, was handed a condom EVERY SINGLE TIME they went ashore.**Pleas of**"But I'm a married man!!" or "But I'm not that kind of a girl" wouldn't have worked, because although you can't force people to protect themselves, you can force them to take the protection.**I honestly don't know if this reduced the rate of HIV, mothers, and fathers, but I'd sure like to.**Can you picture a similar large scale plan?**We (me included) focus on the women because unplanned pregnancy is the most apparent hit to unit readiness, but a young unprepared father needs our help, too.**I would love to see us all move from the reactionary mode.**I sure hope I'm not making it sound like everyone in the military is a sex-crazed, irresponsible fiend, because I don't mean that, either.**People will make their own choices, but we ought to ensure they've got the tools they need to make smart ones.**And people stationed overseas for months or years at a time don't always have the mobility, flexibility and access to help that our civilian counterparts do.**You brought up some other points that I'll respond to another time. For now, FW&FS.
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Tracy,I appreciate your well thought out, persuasive arguement.**First, I will admit that my comment about "close quarters" was just "thrown out there", if you will, without any real critical thought before hand.**I don't know why there is a pregnancy rate difference between the Navy and the Army (Oh, and by the way, GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!), however I feel that it is a significant problem that needs to be addressed in both services. I would like to touch a little on your comments on (2) before "trying my hand" at (3).**I realize that each individual's personal experience is only "a sample" of the overall population, and is just a small part of the big picture.**Deployments of certain ships (i.e. USS Acadia, and USS Eisenhower), would seem to indicate that conception is going on at sea.**Many of the pregnancies on these ships occurred after deployment, and on the Eisenhower two of the individuals actually video taped their "act".**Now I realize that the potential for conception during port calls exist, but I still believe that sex at sea is a problem.**Yes, many women plan their pregnancies around sea duty and that is to be commended.**However, many don't.**A while back I e-mailed "Female Sailor!" of the aforementioned message board and asked her about pregnancies on her ship.**Now, I realize that I have no way to verify her info or authenticity (or that of anyone else who posts on a message board, for that matter), but her posts (as much as one may or may not agree with them) lead me to believe that she is legitimate.**Anyway, she informed me that for the first 3 months of this year 23 females on board her ship became pregnant (out of about 500, of a crew of about 2500).**Only 2 were married.**That is a problem.**The article about the L.Y. Spear in Proceedings lends credence to her claim.**Yes, pregnancy and birth are wonderful, beautiful, sacred events.**My wife and I have three children and intend to have more.**But illegitimacy is a serious social problem and burden both in and out of the military.**I would say that it is of more concern in the military because of our responsibility to defend the US Consititution and the nation which it directs.**O.K, here we go on (3).**I agree that it is none of my business what goes on in your personal life, as long as it stays in your personal life.**I also agree that people who perform as they should should be treated equally.**That is not the case with pregnancy on board ships.**A pregnancy affects the crew.**I will not go into the details that you know so well.**I submit that it is unfair to allow a female to depart from sea duty due to pregnancy when a male sailor is not allowed similar consideration when his wife is pregnant.**Now I realize that this is not practical (there would be no one at sea if this happened) and I understand the physiological reasons for doing so.** However,if we are to evaluate individuals on their performance, it seems a little unfair for one individual to have to stay with the ship while the other gets to leave when in each case a "family" is going to have a child.**Further, it affects morale when the person who stays at sea ends up doing the work of the one who left.**My solution?**I honestly feel that we are hamstrung at the command level and below.**You cannot stop a sailor from becoming pregnant.**You can educate, but I think that most of these adults (emphasis on the fact that they, men and women, are adults) are already aware of the facts of life.**Therefore, "managing" the pregnancy issue at the command level becomes an issue of crisis management, which is not really managing the problem at all.**The tools must be provided from above, which probably won't be coming any time in the near future.**SECNAV's policy regarding pregnancy should be changed.**The current policy is, in effect, a subsidy of pregnancy, and any student of government knows that if you want to get more of something, subsidize it.**Now here's where are REAL cat fight would begin.**How does one "equitably" change the pregnancy policy?**It needs to be changed in such a manner that there is no longer an incentive to becoming pregnant while at a sea command.**In fact, there needs to be a disincentive.**Now how to do this without increasing the abortion rate or imposing draconian measures is a difficult puzzle, to say the least, and requires more thought than can be included in a "short" posting.**I'm sure that I will stir a hornet's nest with this, but I think that we should seriously consider telling sailors that if they get pregnant while at a sea going command, they will be discharged (yes, I know that this will possibly "encourage" abortions and don't have a quick "fix" for that problem).**I also think that any male sailor who impregnates a female sailor should be held fully (financially and otherwise) acountable for that child.**Significant unplanned losses at sea going commands are readiness issues, and pregnancies at sea are a significant portion of that problem.**Currently, everyone but the pregnant sailor is negatively impacted by her loss, and there is no disincentive for her not to become pregnant at sea (as you know, a negative performance evaluation may not be given due to a pregnancy, regardless of the impact of that loss on the command).**I know that there will be those who will say "yeah, but injuries are part of unplanned losses, what about them?"**Well, if a sailor intentionally injures herself or himself, that sailor is punishable under the UCMJ for malingering.**Pregnancy is a voluntary condition.**Then there is the issue of whether we should putting men and women together at sea for long periods of time, but that is perhaps a topic for another day.**I'm sure that this post will keep the discussion lively on its own.**I apologize in advance for not promptly responding to any responses to this post, I anticipate being otherwise occupied in the near term.**Semper Fi!**(Sorry, "Fair winds and following seas" just doesn't have the same ring)**Submarine Mustang (or, Submariner, if you prefer)
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Oh how I love a good debate! This is just too much fun.**(My husband's at sea, and obviously I'm not getting enough time around other grown-ups, hunh?)**** Submariner,**I've heard the explanation of "close quarters aboard ship" used for pregnancies at sea, but I don't think I agree with it.**That would lead us to believe that the fathers are also aboard, and/or conception occurred at sea.**I think the first case is rare, and the second so rare as to be non-existent.**Of the 9 pregnant service women I've had working for me in the past 6 years, only one has had a relationship with a member of the command.**Maybe that should be irrelevant, but I think you understand my concern for the conclusions that could be drawn from such an assumption.** That said...... Your discussion has made me curious.**We've got a 3 part think going on here- (1) Is there a problem.... (2)**What's causing the problem... and (3) what should be done to solve it.****As Hanna pointed out, (and I agree with her,) women everywhere get pregnant, and the military is a little slow by viewing it as a burden vice a normal, beautiful and necessary event.**As the Major pointed out, (and I agree with her,) most of us plan our pregnancies and balance our lives, families and careers.**Most of us don't choose to become Mothers while on sea duty or while engaged in some sort of combat operations.**Doing so, in most cases, would show a colossal lack of common sense, or perhaps just ignorance, or maybe the system had failed to provide them with the tools they needed to prevent or postpone a pregnancy.**As you & I have both pointed out, we do have a problem, at least in the Navy.**Soooo..... We addressed (1) and touched on (2).**Here's where my curiosity kicks in.**I see you're a mustang, so you've been around.**I also see you're a submariner, so, as the Major points out, it's unlikely you've worked with many women.**Let's say you were put in the position of leading a division or department tomorrow aboard a surface combatant vessel with men and women sailors working for you.**Keeping in mind that no professional sailor likes to have a senior nose in their personal business, and that I know I would resent a boss treating me different in any way because of my gender, what (if any) action would you take in the management of pregnant servicemembers as it pertains to your div/dept readiness (either in preventative or in after the fact administration in terms of gapped billets and such)?**What (if any) command level action would you like to see taken?**What (if any) DON or DOD action would you like to see taken?**What say you about (3)?
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Decided I was a little hard on the "Female Sailor" I wrote about earlier, so wanted to soften my rather condemning comments.**I read some of her other stuff, & some of it seemed very credible.**I just found that particular post to be peculiar & not well researched.
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Decided I was a little hard on the "Female Sailor" in my earlier post, & wanted to soften it a bit.**I read some of her other stuff, & found she had some well-thought out opinions & comments.**It was the specific post your linked me to that I found poorly reasoned / researched.
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
I just went to the link you suggested, and I have to say, my initial reaction to the overall tone of that site is less than ecstatic.**I read the comments made by the Chief you were referring to, also.**Although I am loathe to criticize my peers in the Chief's community, I'm going to.**I think this gal is a little out there, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you based much of your opinions about women in the service on what she's got to say.**
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Ouch!**Judging by your sarcasm, I must have hit a nerve.**Whose hysterical?**Thank you for a least admitting that pregnancy is a problem.**That is my point entirely, and pregnancy is just part of the problem.**My solution?**Although I don't have the the exact answer, I refer you to a post by a female chief petty officer and my response to her at the below website (www.enlisted.com/boards/women/messages/91.shtml) .**Oh, and the difference between Army and Navy stats probably has something to do with being in closed spaces for long periods of time at sea.**Yes, I know that each service has its unique trials, but I think that sea duty has something to do with the discrepancy.**
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Okay, Submariner - here's an opportunity to offer a constructive solution, since you are such an expert on women in both the Army and the Navy. (And if you really are a submariner, I expect you have VAST experience serving with women.) What's the solution???? Even if your figure of 6.5% pregnancy rate for Army women in Bosnia is accurate, it's still far less than the 11.3% you quoted for Navy women on ships. How do you explain the difference? By the way, I'm not denying that unplanned pregnancies are a problem (see my earlier post on this subject), especially for 18-21 year olds. Not one branch of the military has done a credible job of addressing this issue, and we need to. What we don't need to do is get hysterical every time we see a pregnant woman in uniform. I've already made a recommendation that will address at least part of the problem. What can you offer?
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
((My apologies for the double post.**Unfortunately this website edits a post in such a manner as to make it difficult to determine when Major P's comment ends and my comment begins.**Hence, my repost with Major P's comments preceded by "::" and my comments preceded by "**"): : Submariner, I would never compare pregnancy to drug abuse, sexual harrassment or racism.**Of course you wouldn't because it doesn't support your arguement.**However, loss rates due to pregnancy are detrimental to readiness and can have just as negative an impact as the above mentioned problems.:: Last time I checked, pregnancy wasn't considered a criminal act.**You're right, it's not.**However just because something is not against the law doesn't mean that it is not wrong.**Slavery, along with it's associated abuses, rapes, and murders used to be legal, even affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, but that did not make it right.It's legal to partially remove a full term, viable, healthy child from it's healthy mother's uterus, stab it in the back of the head and kill it (i.e. partial birth abortion), but that doesn't make it right.:: Nonetheless, we could draw some interesting parallels between your response and sexism.**Really, such as ...?**Surely you don't mean to intimate that because I point out that**pregnancy is a problem in the military that my attitude is sexist?**I would hope not.**Name calling has no place in intelligent debate and soils those who engage in it.:: I did try to find the article you referenced in the USNI Proceedings - in fact I searched back issues through 1996, but couldn't find any reference to the L.Y. Spear. All of the articles I found regarding integration of women on ships were very positive and emphasized the need for strong leadership to make it work.**The article which I referenced, "Much Ado About Nothing", is located on pages 66-68 of**the June 1997 Issue of Proceedings.**Interestingly, this article was cast in a "positive light" as well.**However, an evaluation of the data provided sheds a different light on the matter than intended by**the author of the article.The Navy wide shipboard pregnancy rate of 11.8 % which I cited was mentioned in the 6 APR 98 Washington Times article, "Navy Finds Pregnancy Put at Risk Sea Duty." The bottom line is that pregnancy IS a problem.**No amount of "Leadership" can stop a servicewoman from getting pregnant if she want's to.**When she does, someone else has to pick up the slack while she is either gone or unable to perform all of her duties.**The fact that many of these pregnancies are often illegitimate exacerbates the problem and indicates an even larger problem: that of sex among the ranks.**You can not have an effective unit at land or sea if the troops are having sex.**The data I have seen indicates that this is a problem on ships.**Recent articles about the US Army's roughly 6.5% pregnancy rate in Bosnia (see 4 Nov97**Washington Times: "Pregnant Troops Make US Laughingstock of Bosnia"), which I believe is an "unaccompanied" tour, would seem to indicate that pregnancy and sexual relations among the ranks IS a problem in the Army, your statements to the contrary notwithstanding.I'm not saying that I have all of the solutions, but I am saying that we need to wake up and recognize that there is a problem, instead of denying it and pretending that everything is "OK."Submariner
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Submariner, I would never compare pregnancy to drug abuse, sexual harrassment or racism. Last time I checked, pregnancy wasn't considered a criminal act. Nonetheless, we could draw some interesting parallels between your response and sexism. I did try to find the article you referenced in the USNI Proceedings - in fact I searched back issues through 1996, but couldn't find any reference to the L.Y. Spear. All of the articles I found regarding integration of women on ships were very positive and emphasized the need for strong leadership to make it work. As an Army officer, I have no direct experience with working on a ship in the Navy, and the numbers I quoted in my previous post were from the Army. I do have direct experience with deploying Army units, all of which were gender integrated, into combat zones and serving with them for extended periods of time. Leadership, as emphasized in the USNI Proceedings, was the key ingredient in my Army units just as it appears to be in Navy units. For those of you who are not familiar with the USNI Proceedings, it is an interesting forum for debate and well worth your time to check it out. It is not, however, an official source of information on pregnancy rates in the Navy. If the pregnancy rates Submariner quoted are in fact true, I'd be curious as to why they are so much higher in the Navy than in the Army.
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
I disagree with your first senctence.**A recent Navy wide survey indicates that the pregnancy rates for women on board ships is 11.8%.**That means that on the average, 11.8% of the women on board ship will not be able to deploy with their unit.**On some ships it is worse.**The CO of L.Y. Spear, for example, reported last summer in the USNI Proceedings that of the 389 females on board, 16% were unplanned losses for the previous year due to pregnancy.**When all reasons for unplanned losses were taken into account, the loss rate for females was 24% compared to 7% for the males.**When one takes into account the effects of pregnancy on a ship and its crew (as so well stated by Tracy), it is clear that pregnancy IS a significant readiness issue.**The arguement that these rates may be similar to the those for the general population as a whole is specious.**Would we make the same comparison to justify drug abuse, sexual harassment, or racism?
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Submustang@aol.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Major, I never did respond to this, as it was pretty cut & dry.**Thanks for the feedback; you brought some interesting points to light.**And I certainly agree with you about focusing on prevention.
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Pregnancy isn't as much of a readiness issue as the opponents of women in the military would have everyone believe. It was such a non-issue during the Persian Gulf deployment that we didn't even track it in the Army. It was only after the war was over and all the hyperbole started about women getting pregnant to avoid deployment or to be sent home early that we went back and dug out the numbers. What we found out was that pregnancy rates remained stable before, during and after the Gulf War at about 8%. This is about the same percentage of women who are pregnant in the general population at any given time. Most military women go to great lengths to plan their pregnancies so that they don't interfere with deployments. The majority of unplanned pregnancies happen to women under 21, and most of the time these result from a profound lack of knowledge about birth control on the part of both sexes. One solution that wouldn't even cost a lot would be to incorporate sex education into all initial entry training for every soldier entering the military. It won't prevent every unplanned pregnancy, but it'll sure make a dent in the problem.
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Hanna, I don't think I was clear on my question.**I in no way mean to imply that because women can get pregnant they should be excluded from the military.**I'm a mother of two, and had both while on active duty.**I certainly feel I've been an asset to the Navy, as have the many other mothers I've served with.**I am happily married, & my husband & I share our parenting responsibilities (actually, privileges is probably a more accurate description!)**He's active duty too, and every 3 years we switch from sea to shore & vice-versa.** Although I understand your argument that a child has 2 parents and both should be responsible, it doesn't always work that way.**Sometimes one parent may not be a fit or ready parent, sometimes the parents may decide they can't get along... the list of reasons is endless.**Although mine is a stereotypical nuclear family of 4, many single-parent families do wonderfully, & I subscribe to the philosophy that whatever works for a family, as long as all involved are happy with the arrangements, it's terrific, & more power to them.**This was all in answer to your response, but has nothing to do with my question.**I'm not talking about parenting, I'm talking about pregnancy.**Sure, men are just as responsible for pregnancy as women.**Who could argue that?**But men don't sustain the life of a baby in their bellies, nor do they give birth.**Which brings us to the problem I'm referring to:**In the Navy, if a servicemember gets pregnant while on sea duty, she must be within helo distance to a hospital.**After the 20th week, she is transferred to shore.**After giving birth, we're given 6 weeks of maternity leave to care for and bond with our child, and to recover from childbirth.**Normally, a woman doesn't go back to sea for 6 months after giving birth, & then it won't necessarily be the same ship.**Although I personally think this is a responsible policy for the mother, baby, Navy and Nation, what it translates to for the unit is an "unplanned loss"- the servicewoman won't be back to the ship for a year, if ever.**Therein lies the crux ; that's not a**responsible thing to do to a unit, the Navy, and Nation.** In the mean time, the ship has to try & negotiate a replacement.**Until they get it, that billet is empty.**This is especially bad if the woman had a critical NEC (job specialty, ie the one to fix the radar) or if it's a very small ship where every body is vital to operations.**Before you say it, yes, men & women sometimes get injured, & that takes them away from duty, too.**That's a related issue, but not the one I'm talking about.**I don't think pregnancy (or the ability to get so) is reason to exclude women from service.**That would be an extreme and absurd conclusion.**There are reasonable solutions, but I think we need to give it some thought.**Pregnancy IS a real problem to unit readiness on deployable units,**with the way its currently handled.**Is the solution for the military to physically prevent pregnancies while women are at sea?**Boy the ACLU (not to mention most anyone who reads this) would have a field day with that one!**Is it some changes to existing policies?**If so, what?**I don't know the policy for other branches of the service, but I suspect it's similar?**I'm curious about SOLUTIONS you & anyone else may have thought of in coping with a problem.**It is a problem that exists, regardless of whether or not we want to accept it.**What are your thoughts?
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wjungle@pacbell.net
Anonymous
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Very often in the debate, it seems like all women are single parents. Yes, women get pregnant, but it takes TWO to do it. A child have TWO parents, in case someone had forgotten. It is not the mother's responsibility only, the father is responsibel too. Now some people "demands" the woman to alone be responsibel, and then they say she can't work because of that responsibility. When the child is born it needs love from a parent, father or mother, (or other adult) that takes care of it. The life of the child doesn't automatically becomes better just because the mother raises the child. Knowledge of how to deal with children aren't something you are born with, you learn by practise, that goes for both men and women. But not everybody can be pregnant, only half of the population have that possibility. That don't give us a reason, or right, to exclude those people from any work. A pregnancy lasts about 9 month. A few of these month one probably have to be a little more careful than usual for the baby, and at some stage it even becomes clumpsy to move around. The average family have to or three children. How much of a lifetime will be spent in that condition if you have two children? About ten months.**That's not enough to use as an argument to exclude half of the population. You will certainly have a brain-drain if you exclude 50% of the possible recruits. (The combat units would sure need some moore competition as well.) In sweden parents are alowed to stay home with their child for 6 months and keep their income during that time, but only if the parents share that time, with no-one of them beeing home less than a month. Otherwise they only get income to cover 5 months. After those 6 months usually day-care starts for the child while parents work. Of course you can be home longer if you want, but then you have to live on one salary. That is more usual if one of the parents have a relative high income. Interesting is that as 97% of the ArmedForces is male and they are married to women that hold civilian jobs, often their wifes have highrer salary than they (the goverment doesn't pay too well). In their case it's most economic favorablr for the husband to be home with the child. Today, as it gets more and more accepted in society, more and more of them chose to work part-time or stay home with their child full-time, while their wife works because she brings home the most many. So one could start a debate about that, but then it probably wouldnt be the "military-husbands" that was the problem, but the low salary. Instead when it's a woman , she is the problem. It's only a matter of how you choose too look at the problem. As I see it,we need women AND men if we are to be as good as possible. We all shall have the same opportunities and responsebilities, also when it comes to children.
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hanna.lantz@home.se
LTC William E. Bailey
03-31-2006, 04:03 AM
Pregnancy isn't as much of a readiness issue as the opponents of women in the military would have everyone believe. It was such a non-issue during the Persian Gulf deployment that we didn't even track it in the Army.
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peeplej@bosch-brakes.com
Perhaps there's another reason why the Army isn't counting the number of pregnant soldiers returned from OIF/OEF.
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. Central Command is not tracking the number of troops who must leave the Iraq war theater due to pregnancy, prompting military advocates to charge the Pentagon wants to keep secret what could be an embarrassing statistic.
There have been anecdotal reports of unmarried soldiers becoming pregnant in Iraq. One military police unit reported losing three women for that reason. Pfc. Lynndie England, the 21-year-old photographed holding a leash attached to an Iraqi prisoner, became pregnant during an affair with another soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison compound in Iraq.
But overall numbers are hard to come by. "We're definitely not tracking it," said a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I've been attending operations briefings for two years, and I don't think I have heard once that pregnancy has come up."
As in the case of Pfc. England, pregnancies can be embarrassing to the military. In May 2003, the Marine Corps was forced to bring a Marine back home after she gave birth on a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf. She told superiors she did not know she was pregnant.
During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the press branded the destroyer tender USS Acadia the "Love Boat" after 36 sailors — 10 percent of the women aboard — became pregnant while deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm.
Of British forces in southern Iraq, 82 women were sent home in 2003 after discovering they were pregnant, reported the London Daily Telegraph, which quoted government numbers.
Pregnancies can hamper readiness by creating hard-to-fill vacancies. A presidential commission in 1992 found that pregnancy was a main reason why the non-deployability rate for female troops was three times higher than for men during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf conflict.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said she repeatedly asked the Pentagon to compile the statistics for the current war, but was rebuffed. She finally filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act in April.
Mrs. Donnelly said the issue is important because of changes in policy and attitudes in the early 1990s that put more women in key jobs, including ones closer to ground combat.
"It's a factor that you can't ignore," said Mrs. Donnelly, a member of the 1992 presidential commission. "The answer I'm getting now is, 'We have not captured that information.' If that's true, it's irresponsible."
Retired Army Col. David Hackworth says he has also been rebuffed in attempts to get information on troop pregnancies.
"I've been getting serious stonewalling from the [public affairs] folks at the Pentagon," the decorated Vietnam veteran and syndicated columnist wrote on his Web site. "They treat pregnancy stats with a higher security classification than the number of nukes in their arsenals."
Mr. Hackworth appealed directly to troops in service: "If you can get your hands on some hard stats for your unit, please send 'em along."
Mrs. Donnelly said, "It would not be in the interest of the Army to release those numbers because it might raise questions about having so many women in so many unprecedented positions."
Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said the Army does chart the number of women who choose to leave the service because of pregnancy, but does not release information on those who exit a war theater. Army regulations forbid pregnant soldiers from staying in the field.
"The Army reporting is in general terms, reflecting [Defense Department] guidance," Col. Hart said. "We give you general numbers. That's designed to protect the rights of women, soldiers and the organization."
The "general numbers" show statistics for women who voluntarily left the Army after becoming pregnant. In recent years, those numbers have ranged from 1,506 in 1998 to 1,698 last year. In the first half of this fiscal year, which began in October 2003, 922 women have left the Army due to pregnancy.
Col. Hart said non-deployability because of pregnancy "wouldn't present any special problems" in Iraq. For a number of reasons, including injuries or illness, "soldiers have to return home all the time," she said.
While the Army does not track pregnancies during deployment, individual units do.
Task Force Ironhorse, a group of 33,000 soldiers anchored by the 4th Infantry Division, experienced "less than 20" pregnancies among some 2,000 female members, according to Lt. Col. William MacDonald. "We were fully capable to do our mission," the spokesman said.
There are now 255,000 soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, of whom 28,142, or 11 percent, are women.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, women served in more combat roles in aircraft and ships than in any U.S. operation. They totaled 25,455 in a 269,000-troop invasion force, according to the Pentagon. Women are banned from ground combat, but nonetheless find themselves in such roles as members of supply convoys and military police units that experience firefights.
Mrs. Donnelly has written to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warning that the military is becoming a haven for single moms. She said fiscal 2002 statistics show that the Navy reassigned to shore duty 2,159 pregnant women, or 12.3 percent of 17,543 enlisted women on ships.
"Overly generous incentives for single parents and large families attract even more unstable, low-income families that depend on the [Defense Department's] extensive social welfare system," Mrs. Donnelly wrote. "Some feminists have described the military, approvingly, as a 'Mecca' for single moms."