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 In the U.S. Army of World War II, women didn't go on maneuvers and they didn't eat our of K ration cans beside you. |
Was the prison abuse
a frat party gone wild?
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1954, I was serving
as a corporal in the United States Army in Tokyo, Japan. I worked
as a reporter for Pacific Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper,
wearing class A uniforms, shirt, tie and starched pants.
About once a month we put on fatigue uniforms, loose fitting
shirt, pants bloused into the boots and that silly, soft, peaked
cap.
They hauled us out by truck to a firing range at Camp Drake.
We played soldier by firing our M1 rifles, ate K rations and
slept four guys in a tent. This was in case the Chinese occupied
Quemoy and Matsu Islands and we had to rescue them.
We didn’t really sleep. We bullshitted all night long, mostly
about broads we did or dreamed of doing back in the ZI, Army
shorthand for Zone of the Interior, the good old U.S.of A.
Why do I care about any of this now?
The last two weeks or so of these Iraq prison stories and the
conduct of the soldiers there have caused the biggest national
furor since 9/11.
I looked at these pictures on television over and over again,
the smiling soldiers as they watched and forced Iraqis to masturbate,
the silly women’s underwear on the heads of the prisoners,
that goofy smile on the face of the alleged serial lover, Pfc.
Lynddie England, and those pileups of bodies like an NFL tackling
practice.
It all looked like Saturday night parties at the frat house if
we took away the bars and the prison cells in the background.
About the only things these GIs didn’t do in this kind of
scene was swallow goldfish by the dozens or stuff themselves
in phone booths.
I will now connect the dots.
In my Army days the few females around worked in offices or hospitals.
They were never out in maneuvers. They never fired weapons. They
never ate out of K ration cans. They never pissed in a helmet
and dumped it outside the tent in the rain instead of slugging
through mud to the outhouses.
That’s what the Iraqi prison fiasco is all about. Women
on the scene. Women in combat units. Women next to men in dangerous
situations. Women trying to be as macho as the men and the men
trying to show off to the women.
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smile and point until we get the prisoner's pants down!" |
Throw a bunch of adolescent men and women together (that’s what Army units are mostly made of these days--18, 19, 20-year-old kids out for adventure and a few bucks) and watch what happens.
This is what happens. They lose their minds. Their hormones take over. They think more about sex and things that will earn them sexual points. They act stupid. They act like kids at the frat parties. They act like prom kids who weren’t smart enough to hire adult drivers to and from the drinking bouts.
In the 1970s West Point opened their doors to women. The Army integrated sexually. What a mistake. Sure the women should make equal pay for equal work. But biology dictates that it shouldn’t happen on every job.
I can’t have a baby. They shouldn’t be in combat units or serving as prison guards. The general of that notorious prison at Abu Ghraib is a female. Why the hell is everyone so afraid to point that out?
Take a look at her on television. Do you want to invite her to the senior prom or do you want to run like hell when she comes into your classroom?
Why was there such a big deal when Jessica Lynch was rescued from a prison hospital? Would such a fuss have been made of a shot-up guy? The first stories indicated she was so heroic and held off a dozen Iraqis with her weapons the way John Wayne and Brian Donleavy did in World II movies.
It turned out she was knocked out of a damaged car, never fired her weapons and was being treated respectfully by Iraqi doctors. Not an Iraqi soldier was in sight when she was carried to a waiting helicopter.
Double standard, you say. You bet your bippee. I’m media. I know what stories sell. If the person in the bed being rescued was an ugly, fat, drunken Army private, the story does not make the wire services. Rescue a cute female. Boom goes the hype machine.
I know a little about this from a civilian sense. About 35 years ago the first females showed up in baseball press boxes. Some of the reporters were aroused. No, not that way because the females they sent over could stop a clock. They were aroused that their lifelong scene was now being changed forever.
It was a fuss for about a year or so and then nobody cared. A few females, especially when there are Japanese players on a team, fill a press box nowadays. But it is still mostly a guy thing.
There were 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center. Not one was a female. Your house is on fire. A 90-pound female or a 200-pound male are on the scene. Which one do you hope will enter the building and rescue your kids?
It took me a while but I finally got the prison scandal in Iraq straightened out in my brain. There were four male soldiers and three female soldiers in the group that was being charged with misconduct.
It was their form of frat party. I don’t know if they did it all on their own or it came down the chain of command from Don Rumsfeld. I do know they all thought it was fun. Not one was smart enough to back off.
Watch the stories when the kids get killed in a prom date crash. See how most of them are about guys showing off to girls.
We should get the hell out of Iraq. Ladies first.
©2004 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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