AL writes: I don’t get it. Maybe it wasn’t your intention in the article, but it appears that you are saying that there would not be an Abu Ghraib incident if women were not present. Are you saying that? You only brought up the ‘male factor’ in the two to tango reference.I was in the Navy, and I went on two cruises on the USS Boxer (LHD-4) and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). I blame the women and the leadership on board for what happened on the Boxer. All of the women were married, and all of them did not want to go to sea. Instead of extending the tour of the pregnant sailors the CO allowed them to transfer to a shore station. So basically he invented a reason to become pregnant. Still the women were not very smart in the long run. Nine months at sea or 18 years isn’t a hard choice if you actually thought about it. I believe that women are a distraction to the men in the military.
Yet I find that if the same rules were in place after the unit became co-ed, some of the current problems would not have occurred. There was just the fear among the higher ranks (US Navy males- CPO and above) that doing and saying the ‘wrong thing’ might end your career, and because of this women now had an upper hand. This is why women at sea is more of a problem than a step towards fairness (I won’t say equality). I became tired of the whining and the favoritism, and the lack of chutzpa from the male ranks.
As for women in combat, I just don’t know. I wouldn’t want to go. Yet I don’t believe that I should never go to combat just because I am a women. I suppose I have a problem with the women should be honored and cherished theory. Underneath that theory I hear a subliminal message taking away my right to think for myself, and limiting my opportunities. It is a long climb down from that pedestal when you have to recapture the rights you abandoned while occupying the throne. I’d prefer to have my feet planted on the ground.
This is a nice example of what I’m talking about when I write that women would do well to stop overanalyzing what men say. If AL is hearing “a subliminal message taking away my right to think for myself” she should either get her ears checked or see an exorcist. That’s ridiculous. And yes, I am saying that if women weren’t at Abu Ghraib, there would have been a signficant reduction in the amount of sexual shenanigans as well as the amateur porn cinematography. The abuse of prisoners? Who knows, but it seems at least possible.
I never wrote anything about women being honored and cherished. My reasoning in yesterday’s column was entirely pragmatic. Furthemore, as I’m a Dragon, not a white knight or a southern gentleman, I have no more problem holding a woman responsible for any initiation of physical force than I do a man.