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By Root 920 0

Awards Program, my heart went out to her. As the first woman to file a formal complaint over the Tailhook assaults, she was sure to experience concerted efforts to smear and disgrace her. Though she escaped the public humiliation of having the smear conducted in front of millions of television viewers, her experience may have been worse because her detractors could act without fear of public scrutiny. Since she was still in the navy, her torment was apt to be daily and routine. Later, men who once had been friends and colleagues, who were part of the cover-up following her complaint, were likely to respond to the exposure by further harassment. I knew that she was going to be blamed. I knew that as a result she would be targeted even by those who did not participate in the original act or the cover-up. I knew that this would continue as long as she remained in the military.

When I met Ms. Coughlin, I was impressed with her energy and with the indignation she expressed over the matter. All of her life, she had wanted to fly planes. Everything about her energy and personality suggests that she is the kind of person who could take on the challenge of breaking into the male-dominated field in a male-dominated institution. She is bright, spirited, clearheaded, and motivated. A woman who willingly took a risk by entering a military which gave her little promise to fulfill that dream. She is like every daughter who is told that the opportunities to achieve are there for her in far greater numbers than for her mother’s generation. Her history suggests that she was willing to work twice as hard and prove herself over and again to be considered as equal to her male counterparts. I have no doubt that it was her sense of principle, that she should be treated as an equal, which led her to report the Tailhook assault. Ironically, that sense of principle and the action derived from it led to a cruel shattering of her hope that she would ever be considered as an equal to even her assailants. Her experience reminded me that those who would judge her, the officers and pilots in the navy, saw and acted toward her in terms of her body parts—not in terms of her skills as a pilot. Afterward, protecting the status quo was more important than recognizing the humanity of the individuals who sought to serve the military.

When navy officials discovered the cover-up in the investigation of the Tailhook incident, some of those directly and indirectly responsible resigned under pressure. Yet the second investigation netted few convictions for the molestations. Admiral Frank Kelso, commander in chief of naval forces during the incident, was awarded a fourth star upon his retirement. Accountability and responsibility, lessons endemic to the military, were low, given the severity of the infractions. Kelso was rewarded for his career, his responsibility for the misconduct overlooked.

The official response to this incident compares unfavorably with the response of the Canadian government to a videotaped episode of racial harassment and hazing. Recruits to the Canadian Airborne Regiment were forced to eat urine-soaked bread and fecal matter as part of the initiation rite. One black recruit was forced to walk on all fours while wearing a leash. As if that were not degrading enough, his initiators smeared the message “I Love the KKK” on his back with feces. The same division was accused of racist acts while acting on behalf of Canada as part of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Somalia. The hazing behavior was the ultimate expression of obedience. The racist element of the division’s activities reflected and reinforced to an unacceptable extreme the hierarchical ordering basic to the military system. In the same way, sexist behavior and sexual abuse represent an extreme way of promoting a hierarchy.

Over protests from various sources, Canadian Defence Minister David Collennette announced approximately one week after news media aired the videotape that the regiment would be disbanded. No videotape of the Tailhook wrongdoing exists. All that existed