5 Comments for “Fort Hood Soldiers Face Enemy in Ranks”

1. Colonel Whirly

   May 28, 2011 - 2:29 pm

   a truly sad story,but anyone with any insight saw this coming way off,the factors overlooked were combat stresses unknown to soldiers in previous conflicts, relentless multiple deployments to an extreme hostile environment,which were then followed up by inadequate psychological support. new worries and underlying anxieties caused by the economic downturn in the US especially worries about uncertain future opportunities in military and civilian life alike.the political elite demands ever greater sacrifices from their fighting service men&woman yet is unwilling to also increase their support structures,this is the result.
   • Chaplain Kathie

     May 29, 2011 - 4:50 am

     There was a time when women couldn’t be firefighters or police officers.

     Women in FirefightingThe first known female firefighter of the United States was a slave from New York named Molly Williams, who was said to be “as good a fire laddie as many of the boys,” and fought fires during the early 1800s. In the 1820s, Marina Betts was a volunteer firefighter in Pittsburgh. Lillie Hitchcock was made an honorary member of the Knickerbocker Engine Company, No. 5., in San Francisco in 1863, and fought fires for some years after. In Great Britain, Girton Ladies’ College had an all-women’s fire brigade from 1878 until 1932.
     In the 1910s, there were women’s volunteer fire companies in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California. In 1936 Emma Vernell became the first official female firefighter in New Jersey.
     During World War II some women served as firefighters in the United States and Great Britain to replace firemen who joined the military; indeed, during part of the war two fire departments in Illinois were all-female. In 1942 the first all-female forest firefighting crew in California was created.
     There were all-female fire companies in Kings County, California, and Woodbine, Texas, in the 1960s. In 1971 an all-female BLM (Bureau of Land Management) firefighting crew fought fires in the wilds of Alaska during the summer of 1971, and an all-female U.S. Forest Service firefighting crew fought fires in 1971 and 1972 in Montana.
     Sandra Forcier, the first known paid female firefighter (excluding forest firefighting) in the U.S., began working in North Carolina in 1973; she was a Public Safety Officer, a combination of police officer and firefighter.The first woman to work solely as a paid firefighter (excluding forest firefighting) was Judith Livers, hired by the Arlington County, Virginia, fire department in 1974.The first female head of a career fire department, Chief Rosemary Bliss in Tiburon, California, became fire chief in 1993. In the United States today, approximately 2% of all firefighters are female.

     But they kept trying in order to do what they felt they were born to do. They were willing to take the same risks as males but beyond that, they were still willing even when faced with sexual assaults.

     Sexual harassment (from above article)
     In a survey conducted by Women in the Fire Service in 1995, 551 women in fire departments across the U.S were asked about their experiences with sexual harassment and other forms of job discrimination. Eighty-eight percent of fire service women responding had experienced some form of sexual harassment at some point in their fire service careers or volunteer time. Nearly seventy percent of the women in the survey said they were experiencing ongoing harassment at the time of the study. Of the 339 women who said they had complained about harassment, only a third (115 women) listed only positive outcomes: investigating/taking care of the problem, and disciplining the harasser. Twenty-six percent said they were retaliated against for reporting the incident.

     Female Police Officers

     In 1970, only two percent of all police were women but, by 1991, nine percent of police were women (personal communication, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1993). At the executive, policy making level of policing, we find very limited representation of women. Less than two percent of police (1.4%) in the very top echelons of the uniformed ranks are women. In the lower supervisory ranks 2.5% of the lieutenants and 3.7% of the sergeants are women (Martin 1988). Today, in the New York Police Department, 15% of all uniformed officers in the department are women, but only 9% are sergeants, 6% are lieutenants, 3% are captains and 4% are above the rank of captain (personal communication with the Office of Management and Budget, NYPD, data are for 7/31/96). Research has shown that women in policing are not easily accepted by their male peers, their supervisors, or their own police department.

     When men finally see that women are not weaker, less able than they are, less brave, then maybe, just maybe, they will stop seeing them as sexual targets. I doubt this will happen until the good men step up and put a stop to all of this instead of supporting the criminals in their ranks.
2. Tim Zerr

   May 28, 2011 - 8:38 pm

   We were taught in boot camp to kill off the feminine aspect of our personality because it was looked at as soft, vulnerable, compromising, and a threat to survival. I dont believe the military has changed much except that they are denying this reality and putting women in danger around the numbed out emotionally resilient, stoic male soldier in the war zone. Its a set up that has gotten worse since the 2 wars in the mideast.
3. Coffeecrimson

   May 29, 2011 - 5:37 am

   Basically, it happens because men don’t respect women. Despite the fact they have mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, they are so busy being “one of the boys” that they don’t speak up against the harrassers in their own units. They’re trained in the military to not be like women: weak, less capable and a burden on the force. Women are still other in the military almost like the enemy. I don’t know how you get around that. One way is for men and women to interact more and learn more about the humanity of the other, but there will always be those weak people who boost their own ego by mistreating someone else. It could be because of religion, sexual orientation, country vs. city or any other stupid reason. Men have got to speak out against these things for all women not just the ones in their pesonal lives.
   • Chaplain Kathie

     May 29, 2011 - 6:12 am

     There is a poem about not caring until what was being ignored happened to them.

     First they came
     First they came for the communists,
     and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

     Then they came for the trade unionists,
     and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

     Then they came for the Jews,
     and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

     Then they came for me
     and there was no one left to speak out for me.

     Some men will stand up because it is the right thing to do but others won’t until it is about them. If it is their sister or wife that is attacked, then maybe they will stand up to the criminals committing the crime and then, maybe, attitudes will change.

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