Too Much Togetherness May Be a Military Problem

The federal study of gender-integrated training in the military services is neither an argument for reducing the role of women, as some conservatives would like, nor a prescription for moving backward on opportunities for women, as some feminists fear. It is instead a thoughtful look at shortcomings in military training and some sensible ideas for organizational changes. The study emphatically supports gender-integrated services. It also recognizes that fixing current problems in the system will make for a stronger military.

Women today hold nearly one out of seven jobs in the armed forces. They command ships, missile batteries and attack helicopters. The advisory committee headed by former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker found that “the increasing number of women in expanded roles is an important reason why the United States is able to maintain an effective and efficient volunteer military force.”

But the essential requisite for military effectiveness is good order and discipline, and instilling those habits of mind and behavior is the main objective of basic training. The committee visited 17 military posts and talked to more than 1,000 recruits and 500 instructors. Two of its findings are of special importance. Male and female recruits alike broadly agreed that basic training should be more demanding, physically and mentally. And, higher up the line, there was an especially disturbing consensus that graduates of basic training were arriving at their operational units “with less discipline, less respect, less military bearing and less technical skill than previously.”

The committee recognized that many factors contribute to these shortcomings. High among them, it notes, are discipline problems arising from integrated housing (males and females in the same barracks, though on different floors) and integrated training units at the primary level, meaning the platoon in the Army and the division in the Navy. Its far-from-radical remedy is to have separate barracks for recruits and to delay integrated field training for some weeks until the rudiments of discipline and proper military behavior have been absorbed. Neither of these proposals would stunt the career advancement of women; both would probably contribute to a more effective force. We think this approach should be adopted, monitored closely and, if found to work, made permanent in basic training units.