ADAM AND EVE AND THE ARMY
Drogin, Bob
Adam and Eve and the army Make war, not love Bob Drogin When Army Staff Sergeant Dar-ryl Stewart kissed and had sexual intercourse last spring with a recruit he was engaged to marry, Fort Jackson...
...The other armed services have issued nothing similar...
...There have been at lease six court-martials of Fort Jackson soldiers for fraternization in the past two years, including the April 1977 case of Drill Sergeant Richard Getty, sentenced to a month in prison and a bad conduct discharge for having sexual relations with recruits...
...They're very unhappy about it...
...outside of a duty association required to accomplish a duty mission...
...She complained she was a "scapegoat for everybody...
...That makes the fraternization policy especially controversial at Fort Jackson, the Army's largest recruit training post and one of only three in the country that train women...
...A new regulation, upheld by another military court, prohibits "any nonprofessional, social relationship of a personal nature between any permanent party personnel and a trainee...
...The report included Bob Drogin is a reporter for The Charlotte Observer...
...Adam and Eve and the army Make war, not love Bob Drogin When Army Staff Sergeant Dar-ryl Stewart kissed and had sexual intercourse last spring with a recruit he was engaged to marry, Fort Jackson officials court-martialed him, busted him one rank and fined him $500...
...Their sentences sometimes compare with those of two drill sergeants convicted in December 1978 in connection with the previous June 29 heat stroke deaths of two first-day recruits who died after strenuous exercise...
...Total Army strength is about 760,000...
...While the directive did not specifically prohibit anything, it instructed commanders to "counsel those involved or take other actions as appropriate...
...It's bad for discipline...
...That is up from 12,400 in 1972 when the Army launched a concerted effort to recruit women...
...A problem as old as Adam and Eve is plaguing the Army...
...But some sergeants have been convicted for nothing more serious than dancing, kissing, and hugging...
...Howerter, a highly decorated eighteen-year veteran, was reprimanded and fined $1,200...
...The others are Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort McClellan, Alabama...
...In one administrative case, however, a Fort Jackson board fined Sergeant Rodney Congdon half a month's pay in 1976 for "dancing and socializing" with a trainee...
...In other administrative action, a staff sergeant was demoted in February for charges including marrying a trainee...
...I believe the whole company is messing around...
...Army headquarters declared war in November on what a May study called "a creeping advance of sex fraternization throughout the Army," undermining discipline, authority, and morale...
...He said he had been engaged to the woman for more than six months...
...In 1825, the first reported American case, a first lieutenant was convicted in Boston of degrading himself "as an officer and a gentleman" by going fishing and getting drunk with enlisted men...
...The new directive and previous individual base regulations anger some officers and enlisted personnel who say fraternization rules violate First Amendment guarantees of freedom of association — as well as the laws of nature...
...I love her and I love the Army," said Stewart, a college graduate with ten decorations and awards, at his court-martial...
...A military judge declared a base regulation unconstitutionally vague in 1977 after a male drill sergeant was charged with inviting female recruits to drink liquor in his room...
...Whatever may be happening now, fraternization policies are nothing new to the Army...
...socialization, courting, and marriage" as examples...
...The Army says it doesn't know how many sex fraternization courts-martial it has held...
...How can you legislate romance...
...was demoted one rank and fined $500...
...asked Colonel Mae Pomeroy, an Army spokeswoman at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina...
...Jelinsky was relieved of command and received a negative evaluation in his otherwise unblemished military record...
...That's a real toughie____My personal feeling, my total personal feeling, is that somebody is trying to reinvent the wheel...
...The military calls it "sex fraternization" — socializing, and more, between men and women of different ranks...
...The fraternization rule is a very big bone of contention among NCOs [noncommissioned officers, including drill sergeants] on the base," said a senior legal officer...
...Legal officers say NCOs usually are more severely punished than recruits in fraternization cases, but say that's because NCOs should know better...
...The Army's November fraternization directive followed national publicity in the case of Captain Michael Jelinsky, an officer at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, who married a noncommissioned female officer last February against his commander's orders...
...The man was also charged with pulling down another soldier's pants, embezzlement, masquerading as an enlisted man, and throwing a dead cat at someone...
...The thing is, the rules have got to be applied with common sense, that's the most important thing," the senior legal officer said...
...It specifically bans drinking, dating, gambling, and sex...
...And the Army wants it stopped, particularly as more women join what used to be called "this man's Army...
...It's kind of hard for the sergeant to order Mary to scrub out the latrine the next morning when they were sleeping together upstairs the night before," one Army legal officer explained...
...There are about 5,050 male recruits there...
...They point out that fraternization rules protect NCOs and officers from blackmail and prevent instructors from taking advantage of recruits or showing favoritism...
...I feel fraternization [regulations] conflicts with personal interests...
...In that case, Sergeant Lawrence Chapman Jr...
...Although the Army wants to restrict fraternization at all ranks, it is particularly concerned about what it considers compromising activities during basic training...
...Figures are also unavailable for soldiers disciplined outside courts-martial...
...A lot of girls from both platoons are fooling around with drill sergeants and trainees, and they are laughing behind my back because since all the attention is on me, they are getting away with all kinds of things," she said at the time...
...Sergeant Willie Alexander was sentenced to six months in prison, loss of two-thirds pay for six months, and reduction to private...
...In a court-martial last April, Sergeant Max Howerter was convicted of two counts of kissing and hugging a female trainee and letting her sit on his lap in front of other recruits at a Columbia bar...
...His fiancee, Private Cheryl Barnard, received thirty days restriction to base, thirty days extra duty, and a $ 150 fine...
...There are about 49,000 women in the Army...
...He said only "the most serious cases" are prosecuted...
...Since there are only ninety-six female drill sergeants for about 1,950 female recruits at Fort Jackson, some of the 581 male drill sergeants have to train female platoons...
Vol. 43 • March 1979 • No. 3
