BRIA (17:3)-- French Army Mutinies, World War I, Gays in the Military, Harassment, Women, Truman, MacArthur, Korean War

This Bill of Rights in Action explores issues of military authority. The first article looks at the French Army mutinies in World War I and how the French Army dealt with them. The second article examines Truman's firing of popular and powerful General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. The final article looks at how the U.S. military is dealing with the harassment of women and gays in its ranks.

Allied and German armies in World War I fought to a standstill for three years. In 1917, many units in the exhausted French Army mutinied and refused to fight. The French military had to quickly find a way to discipline tens of thousands of soldiers and also persuade them to fight again.

Before war broke out in August 1914, the great European powers had been at peace with one another for almost 100 years. Only the brief Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), which lasted less than a year, had disturbed this peace. Almost everyone imagined that this war would also be short. Most expected the troops home by Christmas 1914. But this didn't happen. The war lasted four years, killed more than 9 million people, and caused more than 32 million casualties. Known as the Great War (later as World War I), it was one of the worst catastrophes of the 20th century.

Although the war was fought in many places, much of the fighting took place on two fronts. On the Eastern Front, Russian troops invaded Germany and Austria-Hungary. After some initial success, the Russians were repelled and by 1915 had lost more than 1 million troops. By 1916, the Russian Army was crumbling. Much of the army was in open mutiny. In February 1917, a revolution toppled the government. In October, another revolution led to a Communist government and Russia's complete withdrawal from the war.

On the Western Front, the Germans quickly pushed into France in 1914, but British and French forces stopped them at the First Battle of the Marne. With the German offensive stalled, the Western Front turned into a stalemate, with neither side able to advance for the next three years.

Both sides dug in, each creating a network of trenches on the Western Front that eventually extended for 600 miles from the North Sea to Switzerland. Each side dug three lines of zig-zagging trenches. Front-line trenches were about 100 yards to a mile from enemy trenches. They were about six to eight feet deep and four to five feet wide. Sandbags and earth were often piled at the top to offer further protection. In the sides of trenches were holes for men to sleep in. In some, earthen stairs led to dugouts deep below the ground. A few hundred yards back were support trenches. Much farther back were reserve trenches. Connecting trenches ran from the front-line trenches to the support and reserve trenches. In this way, troops and supplies could move back and forth easily.

Advancing was almost impossible. A typical combat strategy was to pound the enemy with artillery fire and then order the infantry to charge. With fixed bayonets, men would go "over the top" of the trenches and wade through barbed wire into "no-man's land." Their goal was to overrun the enemy's trenches. But the instant they got out of the trenches, the enemy opened fire with machine guns. Few charges were successful.

At night, each side sent patrols through no-man's land. Some patrols simply attempted to retrieve the wounded and dead. Raiding patrols tried to sneak up close enough to enemy trenches to lob grenades into them or even capture soldiers. Other patrols strung tangles of barbed wire to prevent enemy patrols from getting close to their trenches.

Artillery pounded incessantly. Most trenches could not protect anyone from a direct hit by an artillery shell. This constant vulnerability affected the men. Numerous soldiers suffered from "shell shock" or battle fatigue, now known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the winter, snow fell, and ice lined the trenches. In spring and fall, rain turned the trenches into mud. Rats swarmed throughout, feeding on garbage and rotting bodies. Lice infested everyone. New troops coming to the front lines could smell the trenches long before they could see them.

In the first two months of the war, the French lost 329,000 soldiers. By Christmas 1914, almost a half million French soldiers had died. By December 1916, 3 million Frenchmen had been killed or wounded.

Early in 1917, a new French Army commander-in-chief, General Robert Nivelle, planned a major offensive on the German lines. His strategy was to soften the German defenses with artillery and then, with the aid of tanks, hurl large numbers of troops at the enemy. Nivelle predicted that a "break-through" would occur within 48 hours. This would then lead to a crushing defeat of the German Army and an end to the war.

More than a million French soldiers left their trenches to attack across no-man's land on April 16. But things went wrong. The artillery failed to blow openings in the German barbed-wire defenses. Well-protected German machine guns cut down thousands of Frenchmen in deadly crossfires. Many French tanks were blown up or got mired in the mud. Hard-driving rain further slowed the French advance.

After a week of French attacks, the German lines still held. More than 100,000 French soldiers had been killed or wounded. Incredibly, General Nivelle insisted on continuing his offensive, believing that the big "break-through" would come at any time.

The 2nd Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment had taken part in this offensive, and German machine gun fire had devastated it. Of the 600 men in the battalion, only 200 lived through the assault. Dazed and demoralized, the 2nd Battalion survivors were promised a period of rest behind the front. Instead, replacements filled the ranks of the dead and wounded, and on April 29 the battalion was again ordered to the front.

Angry and unbelieving, the men refused. Many of them, drunk on cheap wine, shouted, "Down with the war!" By midnight, the soldiers had sobered up and regained their military discipline. By 2 a.m., they reluctantly began to march to the trenches on the French front lines. Recognizing that a brief mutiny had occurred, officers decided that an example had to made of some of the mutineers. In the dark, about a dozen members of the battalion were pulled, more or less at random, from the ranks. They were court-martialed for leading the mutiny. Only those clearly innocent escaped punishment. One soldier, for example, proved he was in the hospital at the time of the mutiny. He was replaced with another man from the battalion. Most were sentenced to prisons outside the country. Five were sentenced to be shot. (One escaped into the woods when German shells exploded as he was being led to the firing squad. He was never found.)

Another, far larger mutiny broke out on May 3. When called to assemble in their battalions and regiments, almost the entire battle-weary 2nd Division came drunk and without their weapons. "We're not marching!" the soldiers shouted. They refused to move out to the trenches. The officers retreated to headquarters, unsure of what to do.

Throughout history, armies traditionally have put down mutinies with force. They overpower rebelling troops and execute them. But this was an entire division. The officers would have difficulty getting sufficient troops to overpower a division. And when they did overpower the division, they couldn't shoot thousands of men. It would be considered a massacre. Besides, they needed the men to fight.

Bucking tradition, the officers decided to send the most respected officers to urge the men to return to the front. The officers talked to the troops, appealing to their patriotism and their duty to replace exhausted troops. The men explained they had no problem defending the trenches. They just didn't want to take part in any more futile offensives. By the end of the day, the troops had sobered up, and they marched to the front. The few men who still refused to go were arrested and taken away. No one else in the 2nd Division was punished.

Soon, more and more units refused to obey orders to march to the front. With the German Army only 60 miles from Paris, this crisis in military discipline threatened the existence of the French nation.

Most of the mutinies in May fit the same pattern. They started at night with drunken infantry troops who were being ordered back to the front. The troops had suffered high losses in the recent offensives, and they wanted no part of future offensives. Many had read pacifist pamphlets. Most had heard about the revolution unfolding in Russia, and they wanted to force their government to end the war. They often marched on railway stations and tried to seize trains to Paris. When they sobered up, most of the troops returned to their units and went to the front. Most of the mutinies went unpunished. But the officers knew they could not rely on these troops to attack. In fact, officers had great difficulty telling which troops were dependable.

The increasing incidents of "collective indiscipline," as the military called the mutinies, ended General Nivelle's dream of a grand victory. On May 15, General Henri Philippe Petain took over as commander-in-chief. A few days later, Petain issued Directive No. 1, which suspended "large-scale attacks in depth."

Petain's directive basically meant that French troops would man their trenches and defend against German attack. Most French soldiers were willing to do this. One group of mutineers wearing flowers in their uniform button holes had told their stunned commander:

You have nothing to fear, we are prepared to man the trenches, we will do our duty and the [Germans] will not get through. But we will not take part in attacks which result in nothing but useless casualties . . . .

In spite of Petain's new order, the mutinies continued and even grew in number and scope. The men complained about poor food rations and not getting leaves to visit their families. Many of them read anti-war pamphlets, sent from radical organizations in Paris. During early June, when the most serious incidents took place, units in 16 different army divisions mutinied. Veteran soldiers shot at their officers, set fire to their camps, fought with civilian and military police, and took part in drunken brawls with each other. Rebellious soldiers put their thumbs down and shouted "End the War!" at trucks of soldiers heading to the front. Desertions increased. Through it all, thousands of men disobeyed orders to go to the front. "We won't go up!" became their motto.

Shocked at the fast-spreading mutinies, General Petain concluded in early June that the French Army was "unfit to fight." He found he could rely on only two divisions to stop the Germans from marching to Paris.

By mid-June, Petain had started to implement a list of immediate and long-term reforms of the army designed to stop the mutinies. Many of his reforms, such as granting seven-day leaves every four months, also attempted to lift soldier morale. He also demanded harsh punishment for those guilty of mutiny. "Mutineers drunk with slogans and alcohol, " he wrote, "must be forced back to their obedience."

Petain pressed his officers to identify, court martial, and swiftly punish the leaders of the mutinies. The problem was that when large numbers of soldiers all refused to follow orders at once, finding leaders was difficult. In many cases, the mutinies appeared to be spontaneous, without any leaders. It was not practical to court-martial and punish an entire unit of soldiers because the men were needed to fight.

Petain held General Emile Taufflieb as a model for his officers to follow. At the beginning of June, Taufflieb had handled a mutiny of a battalion of 700 men. The men were marching to the front when on a prearranged signal, they disappeared into the forest and hid in a large cave. Against the advice of his officers, Taufflieb entered the cave unarmed. He asked the men why they had mutinied. When the men had trouble articulating an answer, he told them their duty was to return to their unit. He told them to return by morning or they would face the consequences. Taufflieb gave orders to his soldiers surrounding the cave to fill it in if the men failed to come out by the deadline. The next morning the men returned. Taufflieb asked his officers to select 20 men at random from the battalion. These men were immediately court-martialed and sentenced to death. The others returned to the front.

With the support of Petain, officers punished mutinous troops by court-martialing the leaders. When they often couldn't determine the leaders, they sometimes chose known troublemakers, men with civilian criminal records or those who complained a lot. Or they followed Taufflieb's example and selected every 10th or 20th man standing in the ranks. (This method even had precedent in history. When the ancient Roman army put down mass mutinies, they killed every 10th soldier who mutinied. This is the origin of the word "decimate.")

By the end of June, Petain's army reforms and policy of severe punishment for mutiny began to have an effect. The mutinies decreased and eventually ended.

There were 110 cases of "grave collective indiscipline" reported between April and September 1917. These cases of mutiny occurred in 50 divisions that made up over half of the French Army. At least 100,000 soldiers (out of an army of 4 million) were involved in the mutinies which mainly took place just behind the French lines.

According to official French records, of those court-martialed for mutiny, 3,427 were found guilty. More than 500 received the death sentence, but only 49 were executed. Most of those convicted of mutiny were assigned to disciplinary military units or deported to prisons outside France. But the official records are probably wrong about the number of executions. Some mutineers faced charges other than mutiny and were shot. Many others undoubtedly were shot without any trial and listed as "dead in action."

The Germans received reports of mutinies in the French Army from spies and escaped prisoners of war, but refused to believe such a thing was really happening. By adopting this view, Germany squandered an opportunity to push on to Paris and win the war in the summer of 1917.

By the fall of 1917, the mutinies had stopped and the troops again took their places in the trenches. In Paris, Georges Clemenceau became the head of the government. He promised to intensify the war effort. "I wage war!" he declared. Clemenceau also censored the press and jailed hundreds of anti-war agitators.

American troops began to arrive to support the exhausted French and British armies. In the summer of 1918, Allied forces began to drive the Germans out of France. By October, the German military knew the war was lost and asked for peace.

In a remarkable report that he fully published after the war, Petain spared no one for sharing the blame for the mutinies. He criticized the government for permitting radical organizations and the press to freely publish anti-war material that reached the troops. He condemned the army's badly prepared food, easy access to cheap wine, poorly maintained rest camps, and inconsistent policy on leaves for the fighting men. He went on to criticize the top generals for their obsession with a quick "break-through" without concern for the slaughter that always followed.

Is it just to punish some members of a group when all are guilty? How about punishing all when only a few are guilty? In this activity, students decide whether different cases of group punishment are just.

3. Have each group report their decisions and reasons to the class. Hold a class discussion on each case.

Case #1. A teacher warns a noisy last-period class that if it continues to make noise, she will keep it after school for 20 minutes. The class quiets down, but someone makes a loud shriek. The teacher asks who made the noise. Nobody says anything. She says if no one is willing to point out the offender, then she will keep everyone after class. No one tells and she keeps the class after school.

Case #2. Robinson High School is going to the city finals in basketball for the first time in 20 years. The school has been eagerly looking forward to the game. But when all the starters on the l team violate curfew, the coach pulls the whole team out of the game.

During the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur challenged President Harry S. Truman's authority as foreign policy leader and commander in chief of the armed forces. This resulted in the first major test of civilian control of the military in American history.

General Douglas MacArthur was an American military hero. Like his father, a Civil War hero, MacArthur won the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor. Brilliant as well as brave, MacArthur graduated first in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Leading the 42nd Division in World War I, he was wounded three times. During World War II, he served in the Pacific theater, operating first in the Philippines. When his troops faced overwhelming opposition, he was ordered to Australia. Before leaving, he issued a famous promise, "I shall return." He put together an island-hopping strategy, which led to American forces recapturing the Philippines in 1944. By the war's end, MacArthur was supreme allied commander in the Pacific. His counterpart in the European theater was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Following the war, MacArthur served as military governor of Japan for five years, getting rid of militarist influences and setting up a constitutional democracy.

Harry S. Truman also served his country as a soldier. Enlisting in the Army in World War I, he rose to the rank of captain and headed an artillery unit in France. He returned home to Missouri following the war, worked briefly in business, and entered politics. In 1934, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt picked him as his running mate in 1s944, replacing Vice President Henry Wallace for Roosevelt's fourth term in office. Inexperienced and unknown to most Americans, Truman assumed the presidency when Roosevelt died suddenly in 1945. As president, Truman immediately faced many difficult situations. He negotiated the German surrender. He decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. To stop Soviet expansion, he instituted a policy of containing communism. As part of this policy, he set up the Marshall Plan to send economic aid to Europe, and he established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to provide military security for Europe. In 1946, the Republicans gained control of Congress, and Truman seemed likely to lose the next election. Yet in the 1948 presidential election, Truman pulled an upset victory.

In 1950, war broke out in Korea. During this war, a major confrontation took place between Truman and MacArthur over the conduct of the war. MacArthur was the top commander of the American and other U.N. forces in Korea. Truman, as president, was MacArthur's superior. The U.S. Constitution designates the civilian president as the commander in chief of the armed forces and the one who sets American foreign policy.

Korea had been a Japanese possession since 1910. Following the defeat of Japan in 1945, Soviet troops occupied Korea north of the 38th line of latitude (usually referred to as the 38th parallel). American troops occupied the area south of this line. By agreement, both Soviet and American forces withdrew from Korea in 1948. By this time, Korea as a practical matter had separated into two countries. North Korea, which bordered China, had become a Communist state heavily armed by the Soviet Union. South Korea maintained close ties with the United States, which still occupied nearby Japan under the command of General MacArthur.

In 1949, the Chinese Civil War ended. Victorious Chinese Communist forces drove the anti-Communist Nationalist Chinese off the China mainland to the island of Formosa (now called Taiwan). Soon after the victory of the Communists in China, news arrived that the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb.

President Truman's containment policy sought to stop Communist aggression, especially against Europe and Japan. But Truman administration officials made public statements that seemed to exclude Formosa and Korea as areas to be defended by the United States.

To the surprise of both Truman and MacArthur, North Korea attacked South Korea across the 38th Parallel on June 25, 1950. Moving quickly, and without seeking a declaration of war from Congress, President Truman ordered U.S. air and naval forces to attack targets north of the 38th parallel. He also authorized General MacArthur to send American ground troops from Japan to support the rapidly collapsing South Korean Army.

Several days after the invasion began, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for its members to aid South Korea in repelling the attack and restoring peace. This resolution should have been vetoed by the Soviet Union. But the Soviets were boycotting the United Nations for refusing to admit Communist China. Eventually, more than a dozen U.N. member nations under the overall command of General MacArthur entered the Korean War.

By the fall of 1950, the war was going badly for South Korea and its allies. The North Korean Army had cornered American, South Korean, and other U.N. troops in a small area around the southern port of Pusan. Defeat seemed inevitable.

But General MacArthur devised a bold and risky plan. The North Koreans had taken most of the Korean peninsula. He proposed landing troops from the sea at the port of Inchon far behind enemy lines. The troops would cut off enemy communications and supply lines, retake Seoul (the capital), and "hammer and destroy the North Koreans."

But Inchon seemed an improbable site. The approach was narrow and could be easily mined. The currents ran swift and made it hazardous for landing troops. Mud flats prevented any amphibious landing. The landing would have to be made on one of the three days each month when the tide covered the mud flats. Once ashore, the troops would have to climb sea walls and cliffs. The enemy could defend the port from the heights surrounding it. For all these reasons, many of the high command opposed an Inchon landing and proposed other sites.

But MacArthur believed that because Inchon was such an awful place for a landing, his troops would take the enemy by surprise, which they did on September 15. At the same time, the besieged U.N. troops in the south around Pusan also attacked. The combined forces drove the North Koreans above the 38th parallel in 15 days.

Next came perhaps the most fateful decisions of the Korean War. Pressed by MacArthur, Truman authorized him to pursue the North Korean troops north of the 38th parallel. The United States succeeded in getting a new U.N. resolution. It called for the destruction of the North Korean Army and the reunification of Korea under a democratic government.

American troops led the offensive beyond the 38th parallel, pushing the North Koreans toward the Yalu River, which separated Korea from Communist China. Despite assurances by the United States that U.N. troops would stop at the Yalu, the Chinese government warned that any foreign forces north of the 38th parallel posed a threat to China's security.

Over the weekend of October 15-17, President Truman flew to Wake Island in the Pacific to meet General MacArthur for the first time. The most important question that Truman asked MacArthur was whether he thought China would enter the war. The general confidently replied that the Chinese would not enter the fighting, and the war would be over by Christmas.

Anxious to wrap up the war, MacArthur ordered American and other U.N. troops to press on to the Yalu River. In doing this, he ignored the warnings of the Communist Chinese as well as a directive by military planners in Washington to send only South Korean troops into the provinces bordering China.

On November 25, 1950, nearly 200,000 Chinese soldiers poured across the Yalu River, forcing U.N. forces into a full retreat to the south. MacArthur demanded authority to bomb Chinese bases north of the Yalu in China itself. But fearing a widening of the war and possible entry of the Soviet Union, Truman and his advisors refused. Instead, they ordered him to organize a phased and orderly retreat. On December 29, Truman administration officials informed MacArthur that the United States had abandoned the goal of reunifying Korea.

MacArthur was infuriated at what he considered the Truman administration's sell-out of Korea. MacArthur proposed his own plan for victory. He wanted a complete blockade of the Communist Chinese coastline. He wanted to bomb industrial sites and other strategic targets within China. He wanted to bring Nationalist Chinese troops from Formosa to fight in Korea. Finally, he wanted the Nationalists to invade weak positions on the Communist Chinese mainland.

Appalled that MacArthur's plan could launch World War III, Truman and the top military leaders in Washington quickly rejected it. But MacArthur continued to publicly argue for his plan. He also criticized the "politicians in Washington" for refusing to allow him to bomb Chinese bases north of the Yalu River. He did all this in spite of an order from his superiors in Washington not to make any public statements on foreign or military policy without first getting approval from the Department of State or Defense. MacArthur was on a collision course with his commander in chief.

When the Chinese offensive stalled just south of the 38th parallel in the spring of 1951, Truman began to work on a peace proposal. This would have re-established the original border between North and South Korea and removed all foreign troops from both countries.

A few days after MacArthur received notice of Truman's peace proposal, he announced his own terms for ending the fighting. In a public statement, again without getting any clearance from Washington, MacArthur taunted the Chinese for failing to conquer South Korea. He then went on to threaten to attack China unless the Chinese gave up the fight. He even said he would meet the enemy military commander to arrange how to end the war.

MacArthur's announcement was an ultimatum to China. It completely torpedoed Truman's diplomatic efforts to negotiate a cease fire. America's allies wondered who was really in charge of U.S. foreign and defense policy. Truman was stunned. "By this act," he later wrote, "I could no longer tolerate his insubordination." A few days later, MacArthur's Republican Party supporters in Congress released a letter from him in which he declared, "There is no substitute for victory."

Truman met for several days with his top advisors. In the end, they all agreed that MacArthur had to go because "the military must be controlled by civilian authority in the country."

Truman acted quickly without giving MacArthur the chance to reconsider his views or to resign. His dismissal was final and complete. The hero of the war in the Pacific against the Japanese was stripped of his command of U.N. troops in Korea, his command of all U.S. forces in East Asia, and his position as the head of the American occupation of Japan. MacArthur's half-century of military service had ended.

In a written public statement, Truman acknowledged MacArthur "as one of our greatest commanders." But he went on to explain that "military commanders must be governed by the policies and directives issued to them in the manner provided by our laws and Constitution."

Public reaction was overwhelmingly against the firing of MacArthur. Republican congressional leaders invited him to address Congress on his views about how to conduct the war. The Republicans also called for a congressional investigation of American foreign policy in Asia and even discussed "possible impeachments."

Tens of thousands of telegrams opposing MacArthur's dismissal flooded the White House. President Truman himself was booed at a baseball game. A Gallup Poll, however, revealed that despite MacArthur's enormous popularity, only 30 percent of the public agreed with his view of expanding the war to Communist China.

MacArthur returned to the United States and was welcomed by huge emotional crowds. In his televised address to Congress, he repeated his message that, "In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory."

Later, appearing before a joint House and Senate committee, MacArthur argued that the fight for Korea was the critical test of America's resolve to stop Communist aggression. Failure to stop it in Asia, he said, would surely lead to future defeats in Europe and elsewhere in the world. But under questioning, MacArthur admitted that he did not know much about America's foreign and defense policies outside of Asia or how they might be affected by expanding the Korean War.

Truman administration officials and military leaders also testified before the congressional committee. They contradicted MacArthur's judgment that an attack on China would not draw in the Soviet Union. They further stated that the United States would have to bear most of the fighting because our allies opposed an expanded war in Asia.

MacArthur had tried and failed to win the Republican nomination for president in 1944 and 1948. In 1952, taking advantage of his popularity as a critic of Truman's Korean War policies, he tried again. But this time he was beaten by another war hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower. After winning the presidency, Eisenhower largely adopted Truman's peace plan. He negotiated a cease fire in 1953 that re-established the border between North and South Korea at the 38th parallel.

Later, as MacArthur realized that nations could exterminate each other with nuclear weapons, he denounced war. On his death bed in 1964, he warned President Lyndon Johnson not to send American ground troops to Vietnam or anywhere on the Asian mainland. This was the final ironic twist in the life of the general who had once called for America to go to war against China.

In the United States, civilians control the military. The U.S. Constitution makes the president the commander in chief of the military. Civilians head the U.S. Department of Defense and the individual service branches. Congress makes the armed-forces budget and conducts investigations and makes recommendations on military issues. Civilian courts review military judicial actions.

This civilian control has sometimes been tested. The Truman-MacArthur confrontation was perhaps its greatest test. Another was the Vietnam War. Many military leaders felt hampered by restrictions placed on them by the president and civilians in the Defense Department. But although they grumbled, they did not challenge civilian control.

In this activity, students examine the value of civilian control of the military.

Fifty years ago, the U.S. military took the lead in seeking to end racial discrimination in America. Now, the military is taking on the fight against the harassment of women and gays in the ranks.

A little more than 50 years ago, the U.S. military placed African Americans in segregated units. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order integrating the military services. The military was fully integrated during the Korean War, but it still had racial problems. Many career officers opposed integration. Racial prejudice and discrimination stirred conflict within the ranks. To build a more cohesive fighting force following the Vietnam War, the military took steps against racial discrimination . It adopted a policy that denied promotion to anyone who exhibited racist behavior. It instituted an affirmative action program to promote qualified minorities to senior officers. Today, the U.S. military stands as one of the most thoroughly integrated organizations in U.S. society.

Currently, two other groups--women and gays--are seeking full integration into the military. Although they have met opposition, both groups have made substantial progress. Women now serve in most units, but are excluded from many combat positions. After years of banning gays from serving, Congress in 1993 instituted a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which has made it easier for gays to serve.

Along with these breakthroughs, one problem that has arisen is the harassment of women and gays in the ranks. Surveys have shown that harassment of women and gays is widespread throughout all the armed services. Top civilian and military leaders have confronted the problem head-on. They have made it clear that, like racial discrimination, harassment of anyone wearing an American military uniform will not be tolerated.

Women joined the military services during both world wars, but only in segregated auxiliary corps. They served mainly as nurses and support personnel. In 1948, the Women Armed Services Integration Act admitted females into all branches of the military, but limited women to no more than 2 percent of those in the armed forces. Moreover, servicewomen were excluded from all combat roles and most other jobs traditionally held by men. Most women ended up in clerical and medical positions.

When the draft ended in 1973 (the same year that American troops left Vietnam), all the military services suddenly had to actively recruit to keep up their strength. Consequently, the 2 percent rule was lifted, and women began to enter the military in numbers never seen before. In addition, more jobs opened up to them, but still not those related to combat.

About 35,000 women served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In many cases, women held combat support roles at the front lines of fighting. Following the war, the Army and Navy adopted the Air Force practice of training male and female recruits together. (The Marines still train them separately).

In 1994, women were allowed to enter many more combat-related jobs. For the first time, women flew combat aircraft and served on most Navy ships. But females were still excluded from "direct ground combat" positions in the infantry, artillery, and tank units. These combat positions amount to about 30 percent of the jobs in the military. More importantly, because experience in a combat role is closely tied to advancement in rank, women do not have the same opportunities as men to be promoted, especially to command positions.

Today, 200,000 women actively serve in the U.S. military. They are a distinct minority, making up about 15 percent of all personnel in the armed forces. Some critics object to the "gender integrated" military. They argue that men and women training, living, and working together undermine unit bonding and combat readiness. Others, however, agree with the view of former Secretary of the Army Togo West Jr.: "Women are here to stay. If we are going to have a successful Army we must be able to pull from the widest available pool of talent."

In 1991, the Tailhook Association, an organization of U.S. Navy pilots, held a convention in Las Vegas that ended in a drunken frenzy of sexual harassment. Male Navy officers fondled, slapped, and stripped more than two dozen women, half of whom were also officers. Making things worse, the Navy tried to cover up what had happened.

Before long, the press began reporting incidents similar to the Tailhook episode in the other branches of the armed services. The reports made it clear that sexual harassment of females by males was a problem in the new "gender integrated" armed services. But another shocking incident occurred five years later. It shook the belief that men and women could successfully train and work side-by-side in the same military units.

At the Army training facility at Aberdeen, Maryland, a dozen male drill instructors were accused in 1996 of raping and sexually abusing 50 female trainees. A sergeant was eventually convicted of raping six women and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Others were found guilty of lesser offenses.

The Aberdeen case was all the more shocking because the Department of Defense as well as the separate services had for some time attempted to end sexual harassment against women. In a number of surveys beginning in the late 1980s, the military learned that more than 70 percent of servicewomen knew of someone who had been sexually harassed. In 1991, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) issued clear policies making it illegal to sexually harass anyone in the military. Cheney also established training programs to identify, prevent, and investigate complaints of sexual harassment. The military defined this as any unwanted sexual conduct that created a hostile or offensive work environment. Obviously, however, these steps had not been adequate.

As a result of the Aberdeen case, the Army surveyed 30,000 soldiers in 1997. It discovered that sexual harassment was still common "throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines." The Army blamed poor leadership among commanding officers, who often did not take complaints seriously. The Army and the other services soon redoubled their efforts to prepare commanders to aggressively eliminate any environment that seemed to tolerate sexual harassment.

Interestingly, both critics and defenders of women in the military used the Army survey to try to prove their point. The critics said that sexual harassment would not be a problem if men and women were once again segregated into separate units with different roles. The defenders, however, called for even more integration of women into combat positions. They argued this was necessary to do away with the disrespect shown by many males who seemed to view their female counterparts as second-class soldiers.

For many years, homosexuals could not legally serve in the armed forces. But in 1993, Congress and President Clinton compromised on a new policy that permitted gays in the military as long as they did not openly proclaim their sexual orientation. This "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy satisfied few, but it did enable gays to lawfully pursue a military career.

For a while, the military services did little to stop harassment of soldiers who were believed to be gay. Then in July 1999 a shocking crime took place. A soldier used a baseball bat to beat to death Barry Winchell, a 21-year-old Army private. During the attack, the soldier shouted anti-gay names at Winchell. Following this brutal murder, Secretary of Defense William Cohen ordered the Inspector General to survey the extent of anti-gay harassment in all the services.

In the spring of 2000, the inspector general reported that 80 percent of service members surveyed had heard derogatory names, jokes, and other offensive anti-gay remarks. Nearly 40 percent said they had actually witnessed or experienced harassment because of a soldier's perceived sexual orientation.

Strikingly, most service members also believed that their superiors tolerated such behavior "to some extent."

Cohen formed a group of senior civilian and military leaders from each service to develop a plan to root out the harassment of gays. The group concluded that, "Treatment of all individuals with dignity and respect is essential to good order and discipline." The resulting Department of Defense plan made commanding officers accountable for vigorously enforcing new anti-harassment measures. One of them required that commanders take action against anyone who engages in, condones, or ignores any "mistreatment, harassment, and inappropriate comments or gestures" against military personnel who may be gay.

According to the Defense Department plan, the real threat to the military is anti-gay troublemakers, not gay soldiers. At the press conference announcing the plan, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki stated that harassment violates human dignity and destroys military unity. "Whatever else Private Winchell may have been," Shinseki concluded, "he was one of us."

While much sexual harassment in the military and workplace has been eliminated in recent years, schools are just beginning to deal with this problem. One major national survey found that 85 percent of girls and 76 percent of boys had experienced some form of sexual harassment at school. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools could be sued if administrators and teachers are aware of sexual harassment among students, but do little to stop it.

(Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education.) In this case, a fifth-grade boy persisted in touching a girl's breasts and making remarks like, "I want to go to bed with you."

Courts and legislatures are developing legal definitions of sexual harassment. Student-to-student sexual harassment is usually defined as unwanted behavior of a sexual nature that interferes with the victim's right to get an education. Below is a list of student behaviors. In small groups, discuss each of the listed behaviors, vote on each one to decide whether it should be considered sexual harassment at school. Be prepared to report back your answers (along with reasons for each decision) to the whole class.

Officers: Marjorie S. Steinberg, President; Jerome L. Coben, President-Elect; Publications Committee: Marvin S. Sears, Chairperson; Jerome Byrne, Gerald Chaleff, Lee S. Edmond, Patrick J. McDonough, Gail Midgal Title, Michael W. Monk, Thomas D. Phelps, Peggy Saferstein, Sandor E. Samuels, Deborah S. Saxe, Lois Thompson, Carlton Varner. Staff: Todd Clark, Executive Director; Marshall L. Croddy, Director of Program and Materials Development; Bill Hayes, Carlton Martz, Writers; Bill Hayes, Editor; Andrew Costly, Production Manager; Lois Thompson, CRF Board Reviewer.

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