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 he 50th anniversary
that the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS)
will be celebrating this week should be its last. Established
by
General George C. Marshall to advise the secretary of defense on
issues unique to women in uniform, the 33-member committee has become
a high-profile lobby that harangues the brass on behalf of a destructive
feminist agenda for the military. Under the Pentagon’s new management,
dilettantes who shortchange the needs of the military shouldn’t
have free rein to nag the uniformed “patriarchy.”
A third of DACOWITS’s membership expires each year. Secretary Rumsfeld
might be tempted to appoint some women to the committee who are
far more sympathetic to military preparedness than to Patricia Ireland’s
gender-blind vision of a fighting force, but this would be a mistake.
DACOWITS has become an institutionalized force, staffed by ambitious
female officers and pressured by their retired counterparts, that
is aggressively committed to eliminating all remaining “barriers”
to full equality. The views of enlisted women, who oppose the involuntary
assignment of female soldiers to combat, and of virtually all military
men, are ignored.
DACOWITS’s latest crusade has been to harass the Navy to integrate
submarines. Meanwhile, any attempt to examine previous integration
policies are seen as evidence of hostility to women in the ranks.
As long as DACOWITS operates, with a career staff, and a big learning
curve with a gravitational pull to the left for new appointees,
it will apply constant pressure for the Pentagon’s new management
team to further feminize the force.
DACOWITS’s golden anniversary presents the perfect opportunity to
thank the committee for its enormous contributions to women in the
service, whose present integration in the ranks is evidence that
they are no longer in need of a special advocacy outfit. Disbanding
DACOWITS would be a powerful symbol of equality for women in uniform.
To mark the committee’s 50 years of service, current members could
be awarded gold watches. Then, when they’re out of the way, those
of us who care only about combat readiness can set to work —
turning back the clock.
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