Carrier (1999) (15 page)

Broader questions still remain: Does humankind need women to be warriors? Does human nature demand it? Do equal rights before the law demand it? I’m not going to hazard an answer to these questions. But there’s a much easier one I can safely field: Will women serve in combat in United States military services? The answer to that one, of course, is “yes.” They already have and do. In principle, at least, there is no combat action that qualified women cannot handle. Meanwhile, fueled by the new all-volunteer military of the 1970s, the military began to recruit large numbers of women into the ranks. Initially they were limited to non-combatant and support jobs. But before long, the understanding of “non-combatant” and “support” began to change, and with those changes came an expansion of women’s roles. By the early 1980s, they were flying transport aircraft and helicopters, as well as training and support aircraft.

But female naval aviators still remained landlocked, due to restrictions on women serving aboard ships. These restrictions, I should point out, were legal, not naval. That is to say, the legislation that restricted the role of women aboard ships—and still restricts the roles of women in combat—is contained in Title 10 of the U.S. Federal Code, which must be amended and approved by Congress. Professional military officers may have opinions about the rights and wrongs of these restrictions (which they are obligated to keep to themselves), but the ultimate responsibility for them goes higher up the ladder of government than the rungs they occupy.

In any case, the lot of women in naval aviation during the late stages of the Cold War was anything but pleasant. Since they were effectively barred from front-line fighter, support, and attack units, they would never have the command and promotion opportunities of their male counterparts, which went to “combat” air crews, thus making women second-class citizens in the military. The end of the Cold War in 1989 changed all that. Twice during the Bush years, American forces were committed to combat, in Operations Just Cause (Panama) and Desert Shield/Storm (Persian Gulf). During both operations (notwithstanding Title 10 and other limitations), women were prominently involved in combat operations. Several women commanded units in actual combat, though in “support” roles (military police, Patriot SAM batteries, transport helicopters, etc.). Some became prisoners of war (POWs), and a few died. After women performed in both conflicts with professionalism and bravery, Americans back home could not help but question the restrictions that kept them out of combat units.

Soon after the Gulf War, Congress rapidly amended Title 10, and opened up to women a variety of combat positions that had previously been reserved for male personnel. Women could now fill combat air crew slots and serve aboard warships. By the fall of 1997, only ground combat units (infantry, artillery, armor, etc.), special operations, and submarines remain barred to women. In fact, less than two years after the end of Desert Storm, the services were racing each other to put the first women into the cockpits of combat aircraft. Unfortunately, the change did not come smoothly.

The Air Force’s first female bomber pilot, for example, was forced to resign over an adultery charge, all played before a noisy media circus. The Navy’s first female fighter pilot died trying to eject from an F-14 Tomcat during a failed approach to the USS
Abraham Lincoln
(CVN-74). These lapses and failures, whatever you care to call them, didn’t make life easier for other women flying in potential combat slots. But the greater failure remained in the cultural bias against female aviators. Also, male pilots had a legitimate beef. For in the force drawdown following the Cold War, many male naval aviators were “laid off” and forcibly sent into the civilian job market. Longtime naval aviators couldn’t help but resent the invasion of women (in the name of perceived “political correctness”) to replace their longtime male buddies. The cultural bias of these men, dating back to Vietnam, condemned such “social engineering” changes. So, predictably, early female naval aviators suffered harassment and hostility from the males they flew with.

But then, on the Labor Day weekend of 1991, some very ugly events happened at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, which blew up into the scandal called the “Tailhook Incident.” Tailhook soon turned into an international indictment of the sea services’ treatment of women in uniform. A yearly convention of naval aviators and their supporters in Las Vegas, Nevada, Tailhook had long had a reputation for drinking and wild behavior.
²¹
But Tailhook 1991 went over the top, when several female naval officers and other women were allegedly molested by drunk and out-of-control naval aviators. After one woman officer reported what had happened to her commanding officer and he refused to take action (other officers then and later lied about and tried to cover up the Tailhook events), she went to the Navy’s criminal investigators. An official investigation was started, and the scandal hit the media.

Meanwhile, the Navy so badly botched the investigation that no convictions were obtained against the officers accused of assaulting women. And then Navy leaders lost control of the situation, resulting in the forced resignations of several high-ranking civilian and military leaders. In the process, thousands of naval officers, most of whom were not even there, had their careers harmed by the political fallout. Yet the botched investigation and the Navy’s political folly were hardly the problem. Much less was it that naval officers had gotten drunk, molested women, and then lied about it (though this was bad enough). The problem was the hard-drinking, hard-living, womanizing, daredevil, isolated tribal culture of naval aviation. Naval aviators, a bastion of male exclusivity, had made it painfully clear that they did not want women in their combat flying units, and they had made their displeasure widely known. There would be further problems. But—slowly—progress was coming.

Naval aviators finishing a day’s flying in the “Dirty Shirt” pilot’s wardroom aboard the USS
George Washington
(CVN-73). Naval aviators treasure such moments, and the comradeship that goes along with them.

Though it has come at a high price, and with many fits and starts, much has changed in the culture of Navy flying since “Tailhook.” Women in ever-greater numbers are serving aboard combat vessels. Every carrier group that deploys today has female air crews, along with a growing population of women aboard the ships that they fly from. From helicopter pilots flying off the back of escort vessels to fighter pilots flying patrols in no-fly zones, women have arrived and are in to stay. In the process, many longtime Navy traditions have gone by the wayside. Some of the changes have been as simple as the new rule that every person aboard ship sleep with (at least) a T-shirt and underwear on, to avoid “exposures” in a passageway at night; and sailors have learned to knock and wait for permission to enter female quarters. More substantially, ships have been rebuilt with separate berthing areas and heads (sleeping and shower areas). The result has been the greatest single change in Navy culture since the arrival of the all-volunteer force in the mid-1970’s. Along the way, the Navy has learned important lessons about the effective integration of women into units and cultures that they previously have not been part of. These include:

 

All of these initiatives have started to “level” the naval aviation playing field for women, and allowed them to gain a foothold in fleet aviation units. Still, some things cannot be mandated or trained into professional warriors. You can’t teach a young “nugget” how to become “one of the boys” in his or her first squadron, for instance. Doing that is especially tough, even if you are equipped with a “Y” chromosome. All naval aviators, no matter what their sex, must be “bonded” into their squadron if they are to survive the emotional and character-building strains that they will face on their first real “cruise.” First-tour naval aviators are traditionally “pushed” by the members of their squadrons, and for good reason. The pressure dished out in the ready rooms is designed to separate the winners from the “also-rans.”

Lots of male naval aviators fail to survive their first squadron assignments due to the pressure, and so have many of the women who have tried. Frankly, some of these women have shown every bit as much personal courage as civil rights pioneers like James Meredith and Rosa Parks. They have gone where no other women have been before, and the survivors are frequently among the best in their class groups upon graduation. They have to be.

Meanwhile, future squadron and air wing commanders will have to show greater sensitivity and leadership to the conditions of all “nugget” aviators, women included. This may help the entire naval aviation community, since keeping more junior officers after their first tours means fewer personnel will have to be trained. At over a million dollars per trainee, that quickly adds up to real money.

How exactly does one go about becoming a naval aviator? Let’s take a quick tour of a hypothetical naval aviation career. Though this may seem like a bit of ego puffery, it’s not: Young people choose to try out for naval aviation because they want to be among the “best of the best.” If you can launch and land a modern aircraft from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, cruiser, destroyer, frigate, or amphibious ship, you will never have to justify your flying skills to anyone. Nobody else—not the Israelis, British, not even our own U.S. Air Force—makes pilots better than the USN. Much like Marine Corps basic training, which produces the world’s finest combat riflemen, the Navy trains fliers with basic flying and combat skills that are unsurpassed. Of course the USAF and others train excellent combat aviators. That goes without saying. However, when you want superb combat skills,
and
the ability to fly off of a rolling and pitching deck at night in rough weather, you’d better plan on calling the Navy for the air crews.