t. General Claudia Kennedy, the Army's top-ranking female officer, filed a sexual-harassment complaint last fall against a fellow general whom she accuses of groping her in 1996. It appears to be a classic “He says, she says” case, with the accused claiming that he just gave a friendly embrace to an old friend and neighbor from an earlier posting.

According to reports, Gen. Kennedy wasn’t inclined to lodge a complaint until her alleged groper was tapped as the Army’s deputy inspector general, with responsibility for investigating sexual-harassment charges. So, a well-educated, professional woman is victimized by a colleague, but objects only years later when he is slated for a promotion. Anita Hill comes to mind, and, like her predecessor, Gen. Kennedy apparently didn't want to file a formal complaint, preferring to knife her fellow general’s career late and quietly.

If the behavior was egregious enough to warrant denying the accused a promotion now, then it warranted a timely, formal complaint in 1996. Men in the military shouldn’t be subject to informal, stale, career-killing accusations; and women in uniform too confused or too timid to lodge a prompt complaint shouldn't be counted on to face an armed enemy.