The Post-Tailhook Flogging

In retrospect, 1991 could have been one of the best years to be in the Navy. We started the year off with a bang (literally) by winning the only "feel-good" war since WW-II. My boat was one of the first to make it back to Pearl, and the change was striking; where before the locals wouldn't cross the street to spit on you if you were in the military, now there were yellow ribbons everywhere and "support the troops" signs. For a few months, short hair was actually a plus. There were still fifty guys for every girl in the clubs, but at least, when they shot you down, they held off giggling about it until you were out of earshot. Sometimes, anyhow.

That was until the Tailhook '91 convention in September, when the nation discovered, to their collective horror, that some people in the military were men. The Navy responded to all the bad press by unleashing the greatest witch hunt since McCarthy. Okay, maybe the pilots at Tailhook got a little too drunk and a little too stupid (see what happens when officers party by themselves? That's why they get invited to our submarine ball), but the Navy took this one data point and decided the whole organization was screwed up.

And we all suffered for it. For one solid week, everyone not on watch on my boat had to sit through "sensitivity training" at Lockwood Hall, which basically consisted of various new-age hippies lecturing us on how wrong we were for being men. I'm not kidding; one solid week. Of course, once that was over for the day we still had to go back to the boat and get the normal in-port crap done. Adding insult to injury was the fact that not only were there no women on subs, there were practically no women on the base, period.

My basic impression from that week was that men, and the things men do to get along with other men, were fundamentally corrupt mainly because they were different than how women might act in a similar situation. We, as a nation, still subscribe to the notion the women are naturally more virtuous than men; judging by the Girls Gone Wild videos this is no longer true, if it ever was. Socially, women are certainly different than men, but I don't think they can claim the moral high ground.

So, what was the end result? I think most of us became naturally distrustful of women in the Navy in general. I know I sure didn't want to work with any - they had the freedom to misinterpret anything you said or did however it suited them. This was the new spin on the "Seaman to Admiral" program, where a seaman could take down an admiral with a single sexual harassment allegation, substantiated or not. If I had to deal with female sailors, I always made sure there were witnesses around.

Not much has changed today - we still get yearly POSH (Prevention Of Sexual Harassment) training, and I still avoid contact with women in the workplace as much as possible. Why? 90% of the examples they provide in POSH are guys making innocent mistakes and still getting slammed for it. You never know when one comment to your buddy, overheard by the wrong "womyn" could cost you your job.