Anywhere, Anytime
Adults should be free to form voluntary relationships under all circumstances -- even in the military
by George Jonas
National Post
July 14, 2010
Soldiers, male or female, are sexual beings. I don't think this is news to anybody, with the possible exception of those who write rules of conduct for military personnel. Often they're soldiers themselves, though usually past their sexual prime. Sometimes I wonder if our sexual rules might become more practical if we reserved sexual rule-making to those who are still active in the field.
Anyway, it hasn't been a good summer for the brass. Three career officers have been stripped of their commands in quick succession; two Canadians and an American. The latest, Canada's Colonel Bernard Ouellette, was overseeing a humanitarian mission in Haiti, but U.S. General Stanley A. McChrystal and Canadian Brigadier-General Daniel Menard had been snatched from the actual battlefield in Afghanistan.
Wartime commanders aren't recalled for trifles -- at least, they used not to be. I'm talking about the days when governments tried not to lose wars. Nowadays, when governments try not to lose face, in addition to being politically correct, I'm not so sure.
Take U.S. President Barack Obama, who relieved Gen. McChrystal of his command for aggravated grumbling.
True, the General and his staff didn't just grumble among themselves. They did it in front of a journalist who made it public in the pages of Rolling Stone. That's not a career-enhancing grumble. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is against the military dress code. Grumbling in the officers' mess is one thing; making a mess on the carpet is another.
All the same, absent a substantial policy disagreement, it's pretty petty to dismiss a key soldier serving in a vital theatre of war for a middling case of verbal incontinence. It takes a rather insecure commander-in-chief to do so, which -- come to think of it -- probably explains the sacking of Gen. McChrystal.
Canada's decision to recall two commanders, fine soldiers by all accounts, is harder to explain. Col. Ouellette and Brig.-Gen. Menard were reportedly relieved of their respective commands for "inappropriate relationships."
What is an inappropriate relationship? I'm glad you asked. There's an old joke about an engineer and a lawyer applying for a job. Asked what is two times two, the engineer replies: Four. The lawyer looks around, locks the door, draws the curtain, then says: What do you want it to be?
Workplaces started going co-ed about a century ago. When the first female secretaries appeared around 1900, the world didn't come to an end, as some people predicted, but neither did human nature. Men continued to be men and women, women. Office romances flourished.
The military started going co-ed in earnest during the Second World War. Fraternization was forbidden, but the armed forces weren't going to foul their own nest. Since the priority remained national defence rather than creating a hospitable environment for Mrs. (or Ms.) Grundy, the brass practised "don't ask, don't tell" long before inventing the term.
There was little danger that a relationship, such as Kay Summersby, a British military driver, claimed to have had with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, would deprive the Allied forces of their supreme commander during the war years. Mum was the word, with everyone looking the other way. America went overseas to deal with the Hun, not to write happy endings for Women's Auxiliary Army Corps soap operas.
Today? Closing the Falaise Gap to prevent the Nazis from escaping would be less important for the Canadian high command than the allegation that General George S. Patton may be having an inappropriate relationship with his wife's niece. "Don't let the pervert's tanks hook up with the Fourth Canadian Armoured Division! She's half his age!" It's lucky that Canada had the Normandy job in the 20th century. We may not be up to it in the 21st.
The 20th wasn't a better century, but its flaws were different. Take the Red Army, raping its way across Europe. When advised that his frontline troops were spreading more venereal disease than goodwill on their way to Berlin in 1945, Stalin famously replied that he didn't expect soldiers who may not live through the day to kiss a woman's hand and ask her for a date.
Unlike Generalissimo Stalin's troops, Canada's frontline soldiers aren't encouraged to rape, which is good, but they can't even ask a woman for a date unless she's on a list of relationships approved by the military, which isn't so good. I bet it irks some girls in Kabul no end.
The rules are silent on kissing hands. Maybe that's optional.
Some think restricting fraternization and cashiering fine officers is a moral improvement over an era that closed its eyes to the carryings-on of an Eisenhower or Patton. Well, it's a free country (or used to be) so people can think what they like. I think it's idiotic.
Adult men and women should be free to form voluntary relationships, anywhere and under all circumstances, in mufti or in uniform, as long as it doesn't interfere with their performance. If it does, as it will occasionally, we should penalize flawed performance, not people's relationships. There. It's not rocket science.