Presswatch: Fort Happy Commune

...The happy commune concept is way beyond them...

...Meanwhile Ricks placed the officers' complaint about being separated from "Young officers are getting out because they feel out of touch with leadership.' their families in the appropriate place: at the end of the story...

...She may be right, although who or what would pay the highest price is really the question...

...It was based, as was the Times story, on an Army survey of 760 officers at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, although virtually all similarities between the two stories ended right there...

...Good taste says anything hinting at testosterone should be ignored...

...Joe historically have stood shoulder to shoulder...

...They are still upset because the European Court of Human Rights overturned the ban on gays in the armed forces last year...

...A newspaper in Amsterdam has just published a happy commune picture: six female crew members of the frigate HMS Bloys baring their breasts to the crew of a passing Italian warship in the Mediterranean...

...A story in the Washington Post said the Army had found that its most promising young officers were disenchanted with the post-Cold War, politically correct, and entirely too sensitive military...

...only z2 percent wanted to leave...

...If we want all of the benefits," she said, "we have to pay the price, and this is one of the prices...

...When captains no longer find this desirable, the Army is in trouble...

...His story ventured into areas where the Post had not gone before, and which the Times and other big news organizations are still determined to avoid: the effects on the military of political correctness...

...48 J~ e 2 o o o " The American Spectator The Army, of course, is aware of its problems, which is why it commissioned the survey at the Command and General Staff College...

...They're about as open to constructive suggestions as the country's Communist mineworkers' union was 2o years ago, and the control-freak tendencies of all British political parties ensure that the country's bloated, expensive county and multi-county forces are inviolable...

...The young officers there had been drawn from the top half of their "class" of officers, and represented the officers it wanted most to keep...

...That's something those million marching morns should consider, if only because in a gun-free America women--and the elderly and gays and all manner of other fashionable victim groups--will be bearing the brunt of a much higher proportion of violent crime than they do today...

...If you have one without the other, you end up with modem Britain: a materially prosperous society in which the sense of frustration and impotence is palpable, and you're forced to live with a level of endless property crime most Americans would regard as unacceptable...

...Because of gender integration and homosexuals in the military," the captain replied, "there is the feeling that being a soldier is becoming less macho, less soldierly...

...On the other hand, there are our traditional allies, the Brits...

...Dismiss this if you must as fanciful, but it is a view that is growing, and you may find its consequences now in much of Western Europe...

...is not decadent, effete, and worn-out old Europe, and what happens there will not necessarily happen here, and perhaps the young officers in the Army survey were unduly pessimistic...

...there are too many programs that appear to be in response to media scrutiny,' such as, it said, training to be sensitive to gay men and lesbians...

...The problem with Britain is that the police force is now one of the most notable surviving examples ofa pre-Thatcher, bloated, incompetent, unproductive, overpaid, closed-shop state monopoly...

...One was a Special Forces officer, and the other a West Point graduate who served in the armored cavalry...

...The Monitor story, which was illustrated with a picture of a pregnant Swedish naval lieutenant in a special pregnancy tunic, also quoted a lady professor from Columbia University...

...No one expects the Dutch to fight a war, anyway...

...The European Commission on Human Rights, which Britain signed on to in 1951 (the clever French got an exemption), has ruled that soldiers may sue their commanders...

...But the U.S...

...Ricks had been the military affairs reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and he joined the Post only recently, but already he has changed its coverage...

...What most disturbed the JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's senior correspondent...

...young officers, the Times said, was being separated from their families when they went on overseas missions...

...We know Bill Clinton's latest favorite statistic--that 12 "kids" a day die from gun violence-- is bunk: Five-sixths of those 11.569 grade-school moppets are aged between 15 and 19, and many of them have had the misfortune to become involved in gangs, convenience-store hold-ups, and drug deals, which, alas, have a tendency to go awry...

...The rules, however, are changing, and in the next joint engagement Tommy could call time out to file a lawsuit...

...Ricks interviewed a captain who said he knew of two other captains who wanted to leave the Army...

...How did she feel about a draft...

...In both its news coverage and its editorials, the Times has pressed the view that the military should be run like a big happy commune, more concerned with providing equal opportunities for all than with killing people and blowing things up...

...It introduces false priorities, saps morale, and makes the lesser ranks despise the upper ranks that enforce it...

...N by John Corry Fort Happy Commune The Washington Post plays Ricks on the New York Times...

...H ow does the press cover the military...

...Young officers are getting out because they feel out of touch with leadership," the survey concluded...

...Also, in 1989, 6. 7 percent of Army captains left the service voluntarily...

...We're not at all happy about this," a spokesman for the Dutch navy said, even if he had no reason to worry...

...And Ricks then wrote: "Indeed, one of the Leavenworth reports specifically complains that, 'Political correctness reigns...

...There is a lesson in this for the press, but right now only Ricks and a very small handful of others are listening...

...The sole point of agreement was statistical: Thirty-five percent of the officers wanted to remain in the Army, and make it their career...

...military by e-mail...

...They were also distrustful of their own generals, and so they were leaving the Army in droves...

...Ask Phil Collins or Ridley Scott or Germaine Greet...

...The Conservatives' big mistake between 1979 and 1997 was an almost willfully obtuse failure to understand that giving citizens more personal responsibility isn't something that extends just to their income and consumer choices...

...There is a consistency, at least, about the paper's policy...

...S weden, for example, is considering drafting women, and as a story in the Christian Science Monitor recently noted, incorrectly, you hoped, this "signals what might happen elsewhere in Europe--it could even extend to the United States...

...From an estranged perspective usually, although a knowledgeable reporter can make a difference...

...Yes, perhaps, but the liberals oppose "don't ask, don't tell," and the Navy is planning on ships with crews evenly balanced between males and females, and all the services, except the Marines, are failing to meet their recruiting goals...

...And how, Ricks asked, did that perception come about...

...But away from those dark fringes of society, Americans live lives blessedly untouched by most forms of crime-- at least when compared with supposedly more civilized countries like Britain...

...Tony Blair's government says this can be worked out, but the generals are unsure...

...Many believe there needs to be a clean sweep of senior leadership...

...The Times also said the young officers distrusted the generals, although it stressed that far less than the Post did, and about the young officers' disenchantment with a politically correct and entirely too sensitive military the Times said nothing at all...

...In 1991 , 52 percent of Army lieutenants and captains wanted to remain in the service...

...The figure rose to lO.6 percent-a 58 percent increase--in a999, and as Ricks pointed out, a captain's rank often comes with command of a company, and traditionally has been considered one of the most rewarding times in an officer's career...

...If more crack deals passed off peacefully, that "child" death rate could be reduced by three-quarters...

...about the same percentage wanted to leave...

...They were combat officers, and in explaining their discontent and the discontent of others like them, the captain cited the "perception" that "the Army has turned into a politically correct social organization instead of a war-fighting machine...

...N The American Spectator "June 2000 49...

...Most likely he knew some of the recipients...

...When the New York Times caught up with the story the next day, however, it reported it quite differently...

...Thus they were assembled in groups oflz to 15, and asked what they thought of military life, A summary of their views was drawn up, and, as Ricks reported, the summary then went "rocketing around the U.S...

...Consequently the Post story, by Thomas E. Ricks, was something of a breakthrough...

...it also applies to their communities and their policing arrangements...

...They separate men and women in boot camp, and they go about ancient ways...

...The Marines, of course, are very big on testosterone...

...It also noted it in a box on page one under the headline "Army Morale Problem...

...The Times, of course, had it at the top...

...Tommy Atkins and G.I...

...It does not regard the demasculinization, or, if you prefer, the deracination, of the military as a legitimate topic, and neither does most of the media...