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5 THE WOMEN’S WAR FOR INCLUSION Even though women had supported, fought, and even been wounded in every American war since the Revolution, they did not actually become integrated into the regular armed forces until the 1970s. In that decade , as the Women’s Army Corps (wac) and other auxiliary forces gradually gave way to a gender-integrated military, women who served felt as if they were fighting a war in a time of peace. This was a war for respect, a war for equality, a war for inclusion in the ‘‘band of brothers.’’ For gay rights advocates, and some of the interviewees in this book, who argue that lifting the ban on openly gay servicepersonnelwillbeaquickandpainlessprocess,thestoriesfromthefront lines of the ‘‘women’s war’’ in the 1970s and 80s provide a cautionary tale. On the second day of navy boot camp, one female recruit recalled, the company commander had said, ‘‘Welcome to the fleet. In the navy’s eyes, you’re either dykes or whores—get used to it.’’ This woman happened to be a lesbian, but the message was targeted at all military women during the 1970s and 80s. As the sociologist Melissa Herbert has observed, ‘‘Gender and sexuality are intertwined in such a way that notions of appropriateness in one are used to reinforce the other.’’∞ This was especially true in the military of the 1970s and 80s as many women found themselves in a catch-22: either they ‘‘proved’’ that they were heterosexual by sleeping with men (often in their unit) or they risked being investigated or kicked out as lesbians. To understand why sexism and homophobia were so endemic during those years, we need to examine the historical context of women’s integration into the armed forces.≤ Some commentators look back on the Women’s Army Corps and other auxiliary services that existed from World War II to the 1970s as sanctuaries of female empowerment and tolerance of lesbian leadership. There is some truth the women’s war for inclusion 131 to this. From 1954 to 1978, the wac headquarters at Fort McLellan, Alabama, had an entirely female chain of command, providing equal advancement opportunities within the corps. ‘‘We had no need to conform to an artificial standard,’’ one former wac o≈cer later recalled. ‘‘Women were entrenched at Fort McClellan, with real power.’’≥ In terms of sexuality, Fort McLellan seemed to be a place where lesbian service personnel found not only tolerance but even acceptance and support. When Brenda Vosbein was assigned to the post for wac basic training in the early 1970s, she found that many of the o≈cers were lesbians. ‘‘When I first went in, women couldn’t be married and couldn’t have dependents under eighteen,’’ she explains. So ‘‘the ones who tended to be careerist seemed to be gay.’’∂ As much as the wac might have been an empowering organization for women in the military, it still bore the hallmarks and deficiencies of a segregated institution. Until 1967 the proportion of women in the military was capped at 2 percent, and women were unable to achieve the rank of general or admiral. Women were also barred from most military occupational specialties (moss) other than administrative, clerical, and medical ones. While Fort McClellan was not a military ghetto, it was clearly a junior sister to most of the predominantly male posts throughout the country. Women’s roles in the armed forces began to change in the 1970s as a result of both military necessity and social pressure. With the end of the increasingly unpopular draft and the advent of an all-volunteer force in 1973, military o≈cials realized that they were going to have to broaden their recruiting vision. Junior rotc (Reserve O≈cers’ Training Corps) was opened up to female high school students for the first time in 1972, and women gained entry into the military academies in 1976. The army even experimented with integrating basic training from 1977 to 1982. The wac and other auxiliary services were dissolved in 1978, sending women o≈cers and enlisted personnel to units throughout the country and the world. That same year, women were first allowed to serve on noncombat ships (though they had earlier sailed on hospital and transport ships). These milestones brought new opportunities for women joining the military and held a sense of promise for recruits.∑ All three of the women whose interviews are included in this section joined the military during the heady days of the...

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