Don’t automatically think of sex cases as gender cases. Yes, it’s important to ask if Lieutenant Flinn was singled out just because she was a woman. But it’s most important to see that the rules are consistently applied to everyone, male and female. My father was a navy veteran, and my parents taught me to believe that the higher the seniority, the greater the responsibility. But too often enlisted personnel and junior officers get hammered while senior officers slide by. A double standard of any kind undermines leadership, which in turn weakens the readiness to fight and win wars. If soldiers see their superiors getting away with something, they start to question all rules. How can we be sure these soldiers will obey orders in combat?
Don’t let politics decide the case. The services should listen to lawmakers, because they represent the people - and fund the military. But it’s a mistake to reflexively cave in to politicians. I think of the case of Adm. Stanley Arthur, a Vietnam veteran who was denied a much-deserved promotion in 1994 to be head of U.S. forces in the Pacific. One issue was Arthur’s refusal to reinstate a female helicopter pilot who had failed flight school. The woman complained to Congress that her failing grade was retribution for a sexual-harassment complaint she had filed against a superior; the brass in the Pentagon bowed to the pressure from the Hill. Only later did it become clear that Arthur had been right- that though navy officials agreed she had been harassed, she would have washed out as a pilot anyway. But by then it was too late to save Arthur.
Be clear what the rules are. Ethics are hard to regulate. There are many shades of gray, not the bright lines the military prefers. But sexual jealousy can ruin the essential bonds between soldiers. Certainly, fraternization - the military’s unwieldy term for having sex with a fellow warrior in the same chain of command- should be banned. Adultery is a harder question. In most cases, sex with civilians probably won’t influence readiness. But what if a pilot is sleeping with his navigator’s wife? The military needs to draw sharper distinctions to make the rules meaningful - and avoid more cases like Flinn’s. And that is certainly in everybody’s interest.
