The Feminization of the U.S. Military August 11, 1999 Even though the voters elected a President who said he "loathes" the military, we couldn't have imagined back in 1992 how much damage Bill Clinton would actually do. Now we wonder if our once-great military can survive another year and a half of our most embarrassing Commander-in-Chief. Every service except the Marines is falling short of its recruitment goals. Our most experienced pilots are leaving in unprecedented numbers, and even large cash inducements can't prevail on them to reenlist. Raising the pay of our service personnel and buying them glitzier equipment won't remedy the problems any more than additional money poured into poor schools is improving education. The most serious problems are the feminization of the military and U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts that bear no relation to American national security. Other morale-lowering problems are the court- martialling of honorable servicemen for such offenses as refusing to wear a United Nations uniform and refusing to be "shot" with the experimental, controversial anthrax vaccine. Add to this list of problems the career-ending punishment of a serviceman with a superior record because he objected to spending 48 hours secluded with a female not his wife. Whatever happened to common sense, as well as standards of honor, morality, and patriotism? For 25 years, the feminists have been demanding a gender-neutral military. What they really want is for feminists to give the orders, with the men cowed into submission, and Bill Clinton is helping them to pursue their goal. Gender-integrated basic training has resulted in lower standards, more injuries to women, more resentment among men, and scandalous examples of rape and sexual harassment. Only the Marines have not yet fallen for the idiocy of integrated basic training. In 1997, a Pentagon commission headed by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker called for sex-segregated basic training. She served the ball right up over the plate, but the Republican Congress struck out, created another commission stacked with feminists, and caved in to their demand to continue coed basic training. At Minot Air Force Base, N.D., the practice is to send two officers down to the base of the missile silo, where they spend 24 to 48 hours secluded in a space about the size of a school bus, with one bed and one bathroom behind a curtain. The Minot missile force has 250 men and 83 women, resulting in the high probability of mixed-gender two-person crews. Lt. Ryan Berry, a Catholic and married, objected to being so cozy for so long with a woman not his wife. He was punished by his commanding officer, who spouted the feminist mantra that "equal opportunity" is the Air Force's top priority. The latest foolishness is the Navy toying with the notion of putting female sailors on submarines. Navy Secretary Richard Danzig floated this terrible idea in a June 3 speech to the Naval Submarine League when he warned the submarine force that it was in danger of remaining a "white male bastion" and ought to get in step with the rest of society. The Navy has already sent some female officer candidates on unprecedented two-day-and-night "career orientation" trips aboard submarines. The close quarters and psychological strain of submarines are even more unsuited for coed coziness than the coed tents which the U.S. Army uses for our "peacekeeping" forces in Bosnia. On attack submarines, three men often share a single "hot bunk" in rotation. It's hard to say which option would be more destructive of submarine teamwork and morale: a "hot bunk" menage a trois or giving female sailors preferred, exclusive accommodations. We already know from Lt. Berry's case that "equal opportunity" for women means indiscriminate assignment that flouts common sense, the realities of human nature, the dignity of marriage, and respect for the wives at home. The purpose of the military is to defend Americans against the bad guys of the world. The warrior culture, with tough, all-male training, is what attracts young men into the armed services and motivates them to sacrifice personal comfort and safety while serving their country in uniform. It's no wonder that the services can't fill their recruitment goals for a feminized military. Dumbing down the physical and psychological requirements so that Clinton's political appointees and the medaled brass can continue to tell us that women and men are performing equally is destructive of morale for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is a lie. Although the Constitution gives Congress the responsibility "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces," most of this destructive social experimentation to create a gender-neutral military has been implemented, not by law, but by executive orders and regulations. We need a real man in the White House with the courage to stand up against the radical feminists. Which one of our aspiring Commanders-in-Chief will promise to overturn the feminist agenda and rebuild our once-great military into what it used to be: a fighting force that can defend America? Phyllis Schlafly column 8-11-99