(Washington, D.C.): In recent days, sex in the military has been making news again. As
usual,
these titillating developments are symptoms of a larger and more serious problem — a sign that the
armed forces are being diverted from their mission, the integrity of their code of conduct
undermined and the conditions necessary to retain the best and brightest in uniform eroded.
When taken together with the deleterious effects of other forces that are at work — many of
them
the products of the Clinton Administration’s counterculture assault on the military
implications of the current series of sex-related developments should be seen for what they are:
evidence that the Nation’s armed forces are in serious trouble and, as a result, that the Nation is
likely to find itself in trouble when the military will have to be called upon to fight its future wars.
A Bill of Particulars
Recent manifestations of the problems arising from sexual politics’ assault on the U.S. military
include the following:
- Congress has recently been wrestling with legislation that would require all the
armed
forces to separate the sexes in basic training. This step was courageously recommended
earlier this year by a blue-ribbon commission chaired by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum
Baker. Secretary of Defense Cohen has implicitly acknowledged that a problem exists with
gender-integrated training in the Army, Navy and Air Force (the Marines alone have conducted
separate basic training for its male and female recruits),(2)
but refused to adopt the Kassebaum
Baker Commission’s conclusions. - According to press reports, the Pentagon is wrestling with ways to change the
Uniform
Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) so as to adopt a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude
toward most instances of adultery. Secretary Cohen — stung last year by the rejection
of his
first choice for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Ralston (USAF), over an
extramarital affair the General acknowledged having years before and confronting a number of
other controversies involving adulterous behavior (from Commander-in-Chief Clinton to Maj.
Gen. David Hale to Lieutenant Kelly Flynn) — directed his General Counsel to explore
alternatives that would bring the UCMJ more into conformity with contemporary American
society’s relatively lax mores. - Most recently, the Washington Times revealed yesterday that members
of the gender-integrated crew of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln are
wrestling with each
other in “orgies” ashore and afloat, giving rise to a new nickname for the ship: “the
Baberaham Lincoln” or “the Babe,” for short.
As a result, the issue has now been joined in Congress. In connection with action on
the FY1999 Defense authorization bill, the House of Representatives adopted a
provision that would require separate sex basic training. The Senate rejected a similar
measure, however, and the issue will be resolved in a conference committee —
presumably, under threat of a presidential veto if the House position prevails.
Published accounts indicate that, to his credit, Marine Corps Commandant
Charles
Krulak has objected to the idea of making adultery a punishable offense only in
circumstances where it interferes with unit integrity and good order and discipline. The
20 July Washington Post quotes Col. Stuart Wagner, a Marine Corps. spokesman, as
saying: “You need trust and accountability on the battlefield. If you can’t trust the
Marine next to you to remain faithful, how can you trust him on the battlefield?” As a
result of the continuing thrash, Secretary Cohen has apparently scrubbed plans to
unveil this controversial new initiative as early as this week.
Unfortunately, the reality is that sexual fraternization is rife in today’s military. A
senior officer just returned from a lengthy overseas deployment told the Center for
Security Policy recently that many commanders have concluded that they have no
choice but to turn a blind eye to such behavior, even when it occurs between officers
and enlisted personnel, lest their own careers be blighted by the executive or legislative
branch enforcers of the new sexual politics. As a result, subordinates are losing
confidence in their superiors and respect for the system when the chain of command
ignores, or otherwise papers over, such morale-eroding and discipline-undermining
conduct.
The Bottom Line
The question occurs: At what point will the American people realize that the
institution they rely
upon for their security is being systematically undermined by the counterculture-dominated elite’s
insistence that the military conduct itself in the same fashion and according to the same standards
as the society it protects? As the Center noted on 9 June:
- “The fact is that obliging men and women to sleep in close proximity,
whether in basic
training dormitories or subsequently in tents, barracks or ships, creates opportunities
for fraternization that have a ruinous effect on the good order and discipline the
military requires to perform its mission. Pregnancies, disruptive jealousies, double
standards masquerading as ‘gender norming,’ adultery and destruction of the families
of service personnel — to say nothing of sexual abuse and rape — are only part of the
problem. Even more worrisome from a national security point of view is the
prospect that armed forces wracked with such behavior are unlikely to be able to
fight as cohesive units should they be called upon to do so.”
Like it or not, the “gender-norming” of the military to conform to the
codes of conduct of
society at large is a recipe for leaving military demoralized, hollowed out and incapable of doing
its job and, therefore, for leaving American society undefended. If the President and his civilian
advisors refuse to confront this reality, the Congress must do so at once — if only to prevent
further initiatives that will make matters worse, possibly much worse.
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1. These include: the sustained cutting of investment in defense, the
extraordinarily high
operational tempos being sustained in support of peacekeeping and station-keeping missions
inimical to readiness and morale, political correctness and declining confidence in the chain of
command. See Center’s Decision Brief entitled Clinton Legacy
Watch # 27: A Counterculture
Assault on the U.S. Military and the National Sovereignty It Safeguards (
June 1998).
2. See the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Secretary Cohen Implicitly Confirms that Gender Integration Conflicts
with Good Military Order, Discipline and Readiness (
3. See the above-referenced Center Decision Brief
(No. 98-D 103, 9 June 1998).