The Kinder, Gentler Military
Gutmann, Stephanie
gospel emerged and "younger ministers in the cities often threw open their churches to the disadvantaged and entered the battle against the suffering that surrounded them." Reeves...
...Stephanie Gutmann Scribner / 300 pages / $25 REVIEWED BY H. Joachim Maitre O ur armed forces have been slip' ping toward endangered species status for quite a while now...
...And Cohen signed offon the farce...
...That is why women are not wanted there...
...And then, surprise...
...Nothing then is wrong with recruitment and retention, in other words, that more money would not cure...
...In the 195o's, a religious revival spread across the country and "a golden age of American churches" arrived...
...Gutmann refrains from stating: There are no women players on any team of the National Football or National Hockey League...
...Actually, if the Pentagon really wanted to know why everybody has been heading for the exits, Stephanie Gutmann writes in her splendid book The Kin&r, Gentler Military, "the answer is everywhere...
...Only fundamentalist and conservative churches grew...
...There are very few Klansmen in Hollywood, and fewer still in the entertainment industry...
...This point is drawn, of course, from biology and culture, therefore despised by utopians and hypocrites...
...He gave the green light for the genderintegrated calamity to continue...
...Leashed to such learned counsel coming from whole schools of "social scienfists," encouraged from the White House, pushed by Pentagon top bureaucrats like Barbara Pope of"We-are-abouMo-topplethe-mate, white culture" fame, and abandoned to the wolves by a cowed Congress, the military's flag officers caved and became wedded to the deep insight that sex differences are just a social construct...
...The military's senior leadership demonstrates day after day that it lacks the capacity to acknowledge that such problems exist...
...On shows like "Soap" and "Maude;' everr character was a moron except the black servants (Benson and Florida), who slyly and sardonically insulted all the white characters Kweisi Mfume may rail against the dearth ofblaeks on "Seinfeld," but can you imagine how he'd have howled if the role of Kramer had been given to a black comedian...
...But how did our four-star admirals and generals justify their cowardice under small-arms fire when Congressperson Patricia Schroeder and her troopers demanded surrender...
...It's becoming like Mao's cultural revolution," adds ex-Army officer John Hillen "everybody knows ifs a system built on a thousand little lies, but everybody's waiting for someone that's high-ranking who's not a complete moral coward to come out and say so...
...W hY did young males enter the all-volunteer military in the pasti It was different from 'normal society,'" stresses Lieutenant Commander Thomas Strother...
...The essence of comedy is silly people saying and doing stupid things...
...It was only the bureaucratization of modern armed forces and radical egalitarianism that made them equal opportunity employers--like the Postal Service--rather than institutions that stress the primacy of combat effectiveness...
...Or the U.S...
...The U.S...
...Comedy requires people to make fools of themselves...
...While Bill Cosby and ]aleeI "Urkel" White can safely play the fool in allblack settings, it's very risky for them to do so in racially mixed settings...
...Combat is killing and being killed...
...Naval architects and designers have thought of everything ladylike: bathrooms with increased ventilation "due to hairspray," along with extra outlets and mirrors for hair and makeup...
...That is why women are not wanted there...
...Reeves acknowledges the belier side of the social gospel, the desire for a Christian capitalism "in which wages were fair, working conditions decent, and competition restrained by brotherly love...
...Like American football and ice hockey...
...Throughout competitive sports, males and females are kept apart...
...It was short-lived...
...Do you think any white TV producer dares to make blaek people the butt of a joke...
...One commissioner even voted "undecided" on the question if genderneutral training was good or bad for the Army...
...She ignores the timeless wisdom espoused by Henry Burns in the 1989 movie When Harry met Sally: "Men and women can't be friends-because the sex part always gets in the way...
...So, ifTV's sitcoms are an all-white affair, the NAACP may want to ask themselves if they haven't created a climate in which it's impossible to give a black actor a eomic role without creating a firestorm of controversy...
...discovered that the entire military was in a rictus of political correctness, that it was passing through an anguished self-examination, particularly over the issue of"gender," a word chosen because it sounds less treacherous than the atavistic, mercurial code word "sex...
...We should let the scientists have a go," she muses, "trust the scientists...
...The Protestant churches began to shrink rapidly, and Reeves suggests this was "a consequence of the secularization" of church leaders...
...Defense Secretary William S. Cohen himself is in stubborn denial...
...Apparently, the shopworn challenge to "Be All That You Can Be...
...But soon enough she Combat is killing and being killed...
...Mandatory sensitivity training for all in uniform has become remedy and the accepted prophylactic...
...Which role on "Friends" could safely have gone to a black performer- the ditzy Phoebe...
...Consequently, the ship is built "with women in mind, from the keel up," reports Time magazine's Pulitzer laureate Mark Thompson proudly...
...When the Kassebaum Committee reported-- unanimously -- that discipline, effectiveness, and readiness were not achieved under the mandated training regime, Cohen rejected the report--and asked for yet another committee, this one not federal but congressional, whose more up-beat report met with Cohen's approval...
...military has never made anyone but flag officers wealthy...
...Worse, retention H. JOACHIM MAITRE teaches journalism and international relations at Boston University, where he is also director of the Division of Military Education (ROTC...
...Rabble Yell The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars...
...Reeves doesn't quite say so in this understated book, but he implies that renewed spiritual strength is necessary for America to "live up to its highest ideals...
...Based on the illusion that interviews with active duty soldiers and officers could produce reliable insights or even "the truth" about the gender-integrated Army, the commission operated on faulty premises...
...Yet another Pentagon-driven "survey," this one conducted under the cover of the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies and released recently, finds Army morale at a ten-year low-82 May 2o o o " The American Spectator but cannot come up with a single conclusive reason for the depression other than the military's inescapable obligation to compete for quality manpower within a robust civilian economy, and coming up short, The problem is identified as one of the soldiers' tong work hours and long tours overseas, relatively low pay, low-quality housing, lack of day care facilities and health care provisions...
...All of our military services are experiencing critical shortages of skilled personnel...
...People used to stay in because they felt like they were warriors, making a difference, with commanders they respected, in units they were proud of...
...Leaders of the mainline denominations such as Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists still clung to the standards and tastes of contemporary liberalism, and their churches continued to shrink in size...
...Besides, the profession of arms "has always emphasized controlling emotions and divisive conduet," reminded Rosemary Mariner, Commander, USN (retired) in Joint Force Quarterly...
...Oh sure, on an all-black or predominantly black show, black characters are free to be outlandish, weird or ridiculous (think of Steve Harvey or Martin Lawrenee...
...Cohen would do himself a great service if he browsed through Stephanie Gutmann's observations on gender-integrated training as conducted at Army Base Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and at Great Lakes Naval Training Base, Illinois...
...Not a single woman graces the ranks of Formula One Racing...
...JOHN LEAVY via the Internet 84 May 2 o o o " The American Spectator...
...Navy's rambunctious 1991 Tailhook Convention in Las Vegas, Gutmann thought at first...
...Combat is brute strength and endurance spread through days and weeks and months of war...
...It remains to be seen what impact his clueless Hollywood Blitz will have on military readiness, combat effectiveness, and unit cohesion...
...Three years ago he had announced the appointment of a Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training, chaired by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum...
...The results are in and notorious worldwide under the rubric mutual gender harassment at Aberdeen Proving Grounds...
...Common sense helps explain the obvious: Men are stronger than women, they run faster, throw farther, jump higher, and get pregnant less often...
...That is why armed forces the world over have been reluctant to allow women into their ranks...
...Jane three years ago, was not available but "interested in helping out," SECDEF said afterwards...
...To them, Stephanie Gutmann extends an observation of universal and eternal validity left by the daring aviatrix, Amelia Earhart: "Men would rather vacate the arena altogether than share it with women...
...It was not a feminized culture like elementary school and high school were...
...Gag roles govern all aspects of past and '~ I n " " present gender" tegrahon, the Pentagon policy engineered in the 9o's, when the brass, as Gutrnann writes, "handed over their soldiers to social planners in love with an unworkable (and in many senses undesir'able) vision of a politically correct utopia, one in which men and women toil side by side, equally good at the same tasks, interchangeable, and, of course, utterly undistracted by sexual interest...
...This includes relief from unwanted pregnancies and mandatory sensitivity Sessions for the unenlightened machos still in uniform...
...The American military was cast into a huge and risky social experiment: "It is important to change military culture from a masculinist vision of unalloyed aggressivity to an ungendered vision," law professor Madeline Morris had pronounced from the ivory tower at Duke University, thus qualifying for the position of consultant with Army Secretary Togo West...
...Those feelings don't exist today...
...And doing so is more important than ever, he says, since those ideals are "the aspirations of a great many people everywhere at the dawn of the new century...
...The heads won't have urinals...
...Among the celebrities approached were Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks...
...Catherine Aspy, ex-Army specialist, recalls "that 1984 feeling, the totalitarian feel, the double-think, how one's leaders seemed able to tell you two contradictory things and then, if they were called on it, deny the contradiction, like when they represented women as weak and exploited victims, on the one hand, and as an all-powerful mighty force on the other, and then say it's an 'insult to imply that women aren't identical to men.'" Perhaps the slide into hypocrisy was triggered by the U.S...
...On an emergency mission earlier this spring our Secretary of Defense and Janet Langhart, his spouse, jetted to Hollywood to recruit a dozen movie stars, directors, and producers to do public service announcements promoting the military on radio and television...
...hovers as low as recruitment: For the last two years, 35 percent of Army recruits did not complete their first tour of duty...
...Misdeeds were blown way out of proportion, it would not amount to much...
...Nothing ever blows up in their tenured faces...
...And Miss Julia Roberts, of course...
...The inept Ross...
...Clearly, television producers are happy to employ black actors in serious roles...
...What others think, however, isn't the important point...
...Miss Gutmann concludes her fine book with the recommendation to leave the needed reform of our misguided Revolution in Military Personnel Affairs to--the number crunchers...
...She quotes Army Captain Jeff Church from the Internet: "It's not just about the money...
...Demi Moore, ideally suited after her fling with the Navy SEALS in the flick G.I...
...Strother remembers never having heard a senior officer openly suggest that ending the exclusion of women from combat might hurt recruiting: "Yet, since allowing women to serve in combat roles, recruiting has slid in the tankY Strother has retired from the Navy, and the sea-going service has countered the fall-off in recruiting and retention with The American Spectator _9 May 2 o o o 83 ideas on how to recruit more females...
...It's TV's most popular sitcoms ("Cheers," "Seinfeld," "Frasier," "Friends," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Dharma and Greg") that have had lily-white casts...
...N Correspondence (Continued from page I1) . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i . . . . . . . series of the past ten years ("E.R.," "Law and Order," "Chicago Hope," "NYPD Blue," '"Fhe Practice," 'q~hird Watch," etc...
...It's about the command climate, stupid," an active-duty officer tells Gutmann...
...Thank goodness Gutmann doesn't mean the "social" scientists who have been so instrumental in creating the mess now strangling our military...
...Can mere advertising gags and public relations gimmicks keep America's allvolunteer force afloat...
...fails to ignite the career ambitions of today's Generation Whatever...
...But when a "white" sitcom features a black character, political correctness dictates that he be the voiee of reason and sanity, like Lionel Jefferson on "All in the Family" (and we all remember how hilarious Lionel Jefferson was...
...They will have reached 25 percent Navy personnel strength within five years...
...The Marine Corps, resistant by custom to all radical chic designs intent on first modifying, then exorcising the allmale warrior culture, will come under unprecedented pressure once the Pentagon's newest blue-water experimental laboratory is completed and dispatched to foreign shores...
...Gutmann shows that it is impossible for the military to analyze, much less solve, its "gender integration" and recruitment/retention problem from within...
...If our moral and cultural slide continues, all of America's power and prosperity won't keep the new century from becoming a lot uglier than the last...
...There was more...
...Virtually overnight, the "warrior culture," masculine by definition, therefore detested in the radical feminist ranks, was out, and the "gender-neutral" New Age Army, Navy, and Air Force were in by swift decree...
...None races motorbikes in competition...
...Ao ensure that they are disciplined, effective and ready...
...What comedy producer has the nerve to make black people look foolish...
...Moreover, non-commissioned and mid-level officers--those essential sergeants, captains, and majors--are hanging up their uniforms at an alarming rate...
...Church membership, attendance, and the importance placed on religion dropped" Reeves writes...
...You think Mr...
...Marine Corps...
...The United States Army, which fell 6,29o bodies short of its 1999 recruiting goal of 74,500 needed to guarantee the mandated 485,0o0 active-duty personnel strength, recently decided to switch advertising agencies...
...It was a bastion of masculinity where young men were encouraged to be a little wild if it contributed to combat readiness...
...Anyone in uniform asking openly whether America's new gender-neutral fighting force can still win wars (as Gutmann does after countless chats with young and older soldiers and sailors across the continent and aboard the carrier ]ohn C. Stennis in the Arabian Gulf) becomes an instant target, susceptible to corrective measures on grounds of having violated the paramount gag role so pervasive throughout our post-modem Army, Navy, Air Force, and now infiltrating even the Proud and Few...
...The Israeli army officer who said that any nation which uses Women in combat is not worth defending had it right: Men are expendable, and women are not...
...Their goal: "To determine how best to train...
...Wilt catchy new slogans spread by glitzy multimillionaires keep them in...
...They live in an unforgiving world where if you are wrong the stuffblows up in your face...
...But even here, it's worth asking: Whose fault is that...
...A major calamity besieging our Army is the gender-integrated basic training mandatory for all recruits, the blatant double-standards applied, the dumbed-down performance requirements, and the service's adamant denial of anything being wrong with both program and process...
...The 196o's laid waste the churches as it did so many American institutions...
...He might conclude that the four-volume final report, issued in July 1999 bythe Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues, costing the American taxpayer roughly $5 million, is the result of a time-wasting, useless activity...
...You get the idea...
...By abandoning many traditional biblical beliefs, adopting radical theology and 'situation ethics,' and endorsing and financing demands by feminists, civil rights activists, and antiwar demonstrators, these denominations had become mere echoes of the counterculture...
...The USS San Antonio, an ultramodern troop carrier, will accommodate not only 700 Marines plus their helicopters but also a female crew component numbering 25o...
...Sadly, the pattern set in the 196o's remained...
...Mfume would have been happy to see a black Cliff Klavin on "Cheers...
Vol. 33 • May 2000 • No. 4
