Chief of Army tells sexist troops to 'get out'

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Was going to post this in the cool videos thread but it's topical so I thought I'd post it here. This is a message from the chief of the Australian army to all personnel about ongoing cases of sexual harassment/assault that keep hitting the headlines, and I think he's run out of patience.

 

Perhaps similar issues in the U.S. Army. I'm not sure what he's specifically getting on about (he seems to be saying there is basically a "cabal" of wrong-doers that is currently being investigated for leading some sort of exploitation--I don't think we have problems like that) but the U.S. Army, too, is really struggling with this right now. I guess, let me be more specific, we've really struggled with this for decades (and probably since our Army was first brought into being) but it is definitely hitting the news now.

"The Invisible War" documentary really lays it out against the U.S. military culture.

 

Are you in the military, Dog?

 

I'm glad you posted this here, since I never go into the big videos thread (I like to start each thread from the beginning, and I just don't have time to watch that many videos). It is so reassuring to see military leaders take a stand like this.

 

I am, for some time now.

 

Ah right, it sounded like you had first hand experience!

I used to work in an airport and was the only one who had security clearance to do the flights into certain areas. The lads we used to get in were a little...erm...difficult when they saw a little blonde woman with boobs telling them what to do. Mind you, they only played up once!

 

Well, what I've learned over the course of my career is that the guys who have a hard time with a woman telling them what to do, are the ones who have a hard time with all sorts of different people telling them what to do. In my experience I've ran into fewer sexist guys, than I have flat-out arrogant men who typically lack appropriate experience in many different situations, areas, and walks of life.

I find rank and authority to generally be pretty cut-and-dried and have no patience for people who repeatedly buck against it. That being said, I personally appreciate and encourage clear, thoughtful, and rational dialogue in my organizations, because I fully understand that I lack experience and knowledge of wide swaths of human experience--and that pretty much all of us are the same way.

 

It is still hard to carry out orders if that boss/officer is an idiot. Ladies often have to work twice as hard to earn such a position.

My sister has a high position in a shipyard and has told me plenty stories of men just ignoring her orders. Those hurdles were removed, but it costs both time and money.

In my case I had a female boss once. No biggie.

Some might even say that emancipation has come to a halt, until the glass ceiling is breeched.

The Norwegian army has introduced military draft for females recently I believe.

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A little thought popped in.

Might it be that a lot of soldiers are recruited from the more macho based origins?

Do those nations have equal rites in their constitutions?

 

Possibly if you're talking about enlisted troops, but in the video above (and in many cases in the US military as well) the cases involved officers. My work brings me into contact with many officers, but few enlisted troops. While I'm sure there is a bit of machismo across all areas of the military, officers are generally not knuckle-dragging neandertals taken from the dregs of the human population (and to be fair, most of the enlisted troops aren't either). The vast majority of officers are college educated, and at least reasonably intelligent people.

 

Unless you are counting warrant officers or don't consider an academy graduate college educated, all of our officers have college degrees.

 

OK then - all of the officers I know do have college degrees. I said the "vast majority" do simply because I didn't know if you could become one without a degree, and I certainly wasn't implying that the number of officers I know is an all-inclusive list.

 

^ I am not sure about all the services. When I attended the Army's Officer Candidate School a few years ago, there were several other candidates in my class who didn't have college degrees yet. They had 90 credit hours and were told they would have to earn their degrees in the 3 years after commissioning, or they'd be taken off the promotion list. So, at the time, no matter what, the rule was that you needed to have completed 90 credit hours and you needed to finish up that degree within the first 3 years of your career--or you weren't going to be promoted, which has long-term effects beyond simply not making it that particular year.

My understanding is many finished up their degrees via on-line education, but some did a few jobs for the Army and then the Army gave them a year basically "off" from Army-related jobs, in order to pursue their degree full-time and complete it.

The rules governing these courses and commissioning change all the time. The Army lacks a coherent long-term strategy when it comes to many things, which includes in my opinion a huge number of its personnel policies, and they'll change rules like this one related to the holding of an actual degree prior to commissioning, and many other rules, in a heartbeat if they think they need more or less lieutenants this year.

Bear in mind that OCS produces very few officers every year. The ROTC programs produce the vast majority of the Army's officers, then USMA, followed by OCS. I think shortly after I graduated from OCS they upped the size of the school and therefore the output but I believe it was still commissioning only a few hundred officers a year. ROTC and USMA commission in the thousands. That being said, relating this back to the original comments re: college degrees, I've never met an officer commissioned through USMA who hadn't earned his degree in conjunction with commissioning, and I'm pretty sure all the ROTC guys have to complete their degrees prior to commissioning, as well. So whatever OCS does or doesn't do, it affects a pretty small percentage of the officer pool.

Again, in the Army, warrants don't have to have degrees; I think they have to have something like 75 credit hours to attend WOCS. However, in my experience, I haven't yet met a warrant officer who didn't have his bachelor's degree, and I've known several who had master's degrees as well. (At grad school I knew one who was studying for his PhD). I would fully expect the Army to continually fiddle with the rules and regulations governing acceptance to WOCS as well as commissioning and promotions later on, in a manner similar to OCS.

 

No higher education required to be a warrant officer.

High School to Flight School

 

That's not exactly true. It is indeed true that one can enter directly into the Army to become a pilot and earn warrant officer rank that way, but many other warrant officer specialties (a warrant officer is a technical specialist) do require formal scholastic education to a certain levels.

I did not know some warrant officers could commission into some branches without some college credits, so I stand corrected. I don't interact with warrant officer pilots much, however, so I erred by extrapolating my experience with other WO branches into "universally-applying knowledge." That being said, I think the "High School to Flight School" program was started up in 2005 and I suspect it's not intended to be an enduring program.

 

It was possible to join the Army as a warrant officer helicopter pilot without any college credits when I joined the Navy back in 1998. I considered it at the time, which is why I know about it.

 

I'm probably going to catch hell from some here for what I am about to say, but whatever. I will state up front that I am by no means anti-Military.

That said, though, the fact is that the military is an institution that emphasizes the used of violence in order to achieve objectives. Therefore, it tends to attract people who are willing to use violence -- pacifists tend to avoid it.

So what's your point, LKD? Well, it's this -- in the best case scenario, you have soldiers who use violence to protect those who can not or will not protect themselves. In the worst case scenario, you get those who use violence for primarily selfish reasons. I opine that those soldiers are not few in number, in any military, and they resort to force any time they are not getting their way. Thus, if a woman is annoying them, they don't avoid her, reason with her, or otherwise solve the problem in a civilized fashion. He rapes her -- a violent attack -- in order to achieve whatever his objective is.

Correcting this violent mindset is difficult -- all of the sensitivity training in the world cannot counteract the mindset of some douchebags, and it's especially tough when the rest of the training being received is PRO-violence. This is the dilemma I feel all militaries must face.

 

LKD, I doubt I strike anyone on these boards as being terribly hawkish, and i served. Free medical, 30 days paid vacation, holidays off when you aren't on deployment... I wish I never left...

 

I thiink youv'e been playing too much Halo 4 and taking it way too seriously.

 

I do not mean that all servicemen are thugs -- my Father is a veteran and I know several soldiers from both the Canadian and American armed services. But some are such thugs, and I think the statistics regarding sexual assault in the military bear that theory out.

Drew, I know you served, and I never once thought of you as one of the brutal, rapacious ones. The same goes for the others on these boards that served. It should go without saying that I would never insinuate such a thing about another board member, but for clarity sake I have said it plainly.

I have never played any Halo game, or Call of Duty, or any similar games.

 

Most members of the Military are pragmatists. They aren't opposed conceptually to force, but they serve out of patriotism, for the benefits (free medical is a very big deal in the US -- few employers offer it -- and pension programs are almost unheard of in this day and age), or for the stability of the work. Given that 91% of enlisted Military jobs are non-combat, and considering that anyone joining the Military out of a desire to do violence would avoid those jobs in favor of the 9% of positions that carry the opportunity for combat, we can reasonably conclude that the Military as a whole is no more (or not much more) inclined to approve of violence as a means to an end than any other organization.