EDITORIAL : MILITARY INTELLIGENCE; SEPARATING MEN AND WOMEN IN BASIC TRAINING IS A STEP FORWARD FOR BOTH.THE battle over sex and the sexes in the military is moving into a new staging ground, basic training. A Pentagon advisory committee headed by former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker (born July 29, 1932) formerly represented the state of Kansas in the United States Senate, having served from 1978 to 1997. She was the daughter of Alf Landon, who was the Governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937 and the 1936 Republican candidate for has recommended several constructive changes in the way men and women are prepared for battle and military service. One of those changes would be separating male and female recruits during basic training to reduce potential discipline problems and enhance unit cohesion and teamwork. Already, several women's groups are challenging the study's conclusions, saying the proposals would be a backward step for women in the military. Not so, say experts. Why? Because women are indispensable to meeting recruiting quotas in an all-volunteer, market-driven fighting force Fighting Force is a 1997 3D beat 'em up developed by Core Design and published by Eidos in the same lines of classics such as Streets of Rage and Double Dragon. . If women are fulfilling a vital role in the military, the question becomes, is the military fulfilling its vital role in preparing both sexes for battle? The answer, unfortunately, is an unqualified no. The committee was convened by Defense Secretary William Cohen For other persons named William Cohen, see William Cohen (disambiguation). William Sebastian Cohen (born 28 August 1940) is an author and American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. in the aftermath of the rape and sexual harassment sexual harassment, in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes. cases at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is a United States Army facility located near Aberdeen, Maryland (in Harford County). The Army's oldest active proving ground, it was established on October 20, 1917, six months after the United States entered World War I. . In the wake of the military's dismal failure at preventing sexual misconduct sexual misconduct Professional ethics Any behavior that violates a health professional's ethics through sexual contact of physician and his/her Pt. See Professional boundaries. and abuse and allowing standards to slip, what should be the response? Not political correctness, that's for sure. Common sense has been missing, and the committee's recommendations seem designed to reinstill that vital component. The panel recommends placing men and women in single-sex core training units, known as platoons in the Army, divisions in the Navy and flights in the Air Force. Basic training in the Marines is already segregated by sex. The panel also suggests that men and women recruits be housed in separate barracks bar·rack 1 tr.v. bar·racked, bar·rack·ing, bar·racks To house (soldiers, for example) in quarters. n. 1. A building or group of buildings used to house military personnel. where currently they may be on separate floors or in different wings of a building. The committee made other sound recommendations such as increasing the number of female recruiters and trainers, enforcing consistent and higher training standards for all recruits, and improving instructions on dealing with sexual harassment. The object should be a rigorously trained, highly efficient corps of soldiers prepared to do battle at a moment's notice. If that means separating the sexes during basic training, then so be it. |
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