Interesting article in April’s Armed Forces Journal.

Lt. Col. Edith A Disler, an associate professor of English and deputy head of the Department of English at the Air Force Academy, argues that the Air Force is attempting to reassert its masculinity through language.

Essentially, she argues that two prominent, rather recent linguistic changes or additions have intentionally excluded women serving in the Air Force.

After deeming the Air Force a support service (rather than a mainly combat service; which I would argue is correct in our current conflicts aside from the Close Air Support they provide allied ground troops), she writes:

Women have long and proudly served in almost any support function one can name — the types of functions dominant in the Air Force today. In the face of this reality, its feminine implications, and leadership’s sense that “Congress doesn’t see what the Air Force is bringing to the fight,” inhabitants of the E-ring have engaged a stealthy and powerful weapon of choice — language — to consciously instantiate reification of the male elite. Such language cloaks women in the Air Force as assuredly as our enemies and potential enemies cloak their women in conservative Islamic dress. Sadly, the use of the term “wingman” is just the start.

I’m not certain that it’s a conscious decision on the part of the Air Force leadership to exclude women through the use of language. I do think they should have taken into consideration the diversity of the force, though. There’s no excuse for the Air Force leadership to have missed the implications of such uses of language. But I don’t think it was malicious.

She does make a good point when she says this, though:

Were you to attempt to attract my attention by calling out, “Hey there, airman,” I would assume that a young enlisted member was nearby and I would neither lift my head nor break my stride. Further, as a lieutenant colonel, I consider myself an airman neither by rank nor by sex.

I don’t want to quote too much more because I want those of you who, like me, enjoy the study of language to read the article yourselves, but I did want to add this:

Lt. Col. Disler recounts watching a video that encouraged airmen to turn in other airmen they witnessed perpetrating a rape:

The video implores its viewers to “take care of your wingman.” Apparently the leadership didn’t know that they’d perpetrated a double entendre of the grandest proportion. In the parlance of today’s 20-somethings, a man who knows that another male is a sexual predator and facilitates that predatory nature is known as a “wingman.” Enter the term into your search engine of choice and you will learn that a “wingman” is a man who occupies the attentions of less attractive women so that his “pilot” can target, as it were, the attractive ones. In the Air Force video, the airman rapist, a man, is known by a friend, a man, to be a sexual predator — the enabler is thus the “wingman” of popular American culture.

. . .

At best, the leadership is out of touch with the societal surround of the demographic at which the film was targeted: 19-25 year olds. At worst, the leadership has created a nefarious subtext. Overtly, the leadership is sending a message of teamwork; covertly, however, the Air Force video invokes a term — “wingman” — peculiar to the overwhelmingly male-dominated fighter aircraft community, thereby reinforcing predatory “work hard, play hard” behaviors consistent with the “flyboy” myth of the fighter pilot. In lieu of the term “wingman,” the leadership could easily have invoked a plethora of more widely known, or at least non-gendered, terms that denote teamwork and mutual concern. Instead, the leadership chose a term from the Air Force community statistically least populated by women, nepotistically retaining delusions of self-made grandeur in hopes of fending off threats to the service’s masculinity.

I agree, I agree. I do think the Air Force leadership is out of touch with the civilian world, and especially the age group she mentions — just like the civilian world is almost completely out of touch with the military subculture. I also think that this argument (that the Air Force used a loaded word in the video that will/would likely result in ridicule rather than instruction) is stronger than her first (that the Air Force is consciously making malicious decisions in their use of language).

I will agree that, on some level, these are conscious decisions, especially in the case of the rape video. “Wingman” is probably used more by civilian college-age males than Air Force personnel (given that pilots are a fairly small percentage of the force). However, again, I don’t believe it is malicious.

And I love her closing:

Words create our worlds — hostile worlds, gentle worlds, artistic worlds and militaristic worlds. The words “duty, honor, country,” “integrity, service, excellence,” “selflessness,” and “sacrifice” invoke worlds that demand devotion enough, without ranking maleness above femaleness or killing above reluctance to kill.

Read the whole thing and let me know what you think.

How would you do on Texas’ eighth-grade science test?

Give it a shot.

I got 44 out of 50 correct. Post your score below.

Also, to my surprise, one of my friends, Krissi Trumeter, criticized my old college friend, Sofia Resnick’s, recent article in the Austin Chronicle. What’s surprising is that they don’t know one another. Austin is a small town.

To see Krissi’s critique of the article, click here and scroll down to “Only State Facts . . . Not Romantic Illusions.”

[musings: test]

I just had to re-post this:

1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don’t look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn’t work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
7. Professionals are predictable; it’s the amateurs that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
9. When you’re ready for them.
10. When you’re not ready for them.
11. Teamwork is essential; it gives them someone else to shoot at.
12. If you can’t remember, then the claymore IS pointed at you.
13. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
14. A “sucking chest wound” is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.
15. If your attack is going well, then it’s an ambush.
16. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
17. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
18. If you build yourself a bunker that’s tough for the enemy to get into quickly, then you won’t be able to get out of it quickly either.
19. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
20. If you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in a combat zone.
21. When you’ve secured the area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.
22. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
23. Friendly fire isn’t.
24. If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
25. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
26. The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass.
27. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
28. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
29. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
30. If at first you don’t succeed, call in an air-strike.
31. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
32. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel’s HQ.
33. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
34. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
35. A clean (and dry) set of BDUs is a magnet for mud and rain.
36. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
37. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
38. Field experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
39. Interchangeable parts aren’t.
40. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
41. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove ANYTHING.
42. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism (in boot camp).
43. The one item you need is always in short supply.
44. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
45. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon’s operator.
46. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
47. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.
48. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
49. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don’t know what they want, but they know for certain what they DON’T want.
50. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
51. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
52. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.
53. When you have sufficient supplies and ammo, the enemy takes two weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies and ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
54. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
55. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
56. Murphy was a grunt

[The Sandbox]

Okay, so you’ve probably heard about the “gay bomb,” which when deployed is supposed to spark homosexual lust within the enemy ranks, thus destroying unit cohesion and allowing the U.S. (or whatever force uses the weapon) to destroy said enemy.

Well, now there’s the ‘Ennui Gas,’ “a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life and a sinking sense that everything they have ever accomplished ultimately amounts to dust.”

What would Camus do?

More seriously, Captain Craig Coppock has written a wonderful Cliff’s Notes for Counterinsurgency (.pdf!) which should be read by not only his intended audience — “Rifleman through Platoon Leader” — but by a civilian audience with little knowledge of COIN theory and strategy and what’s currently happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. His paper breaks COIN strategy (which has been implemented in Iraq since Gen. Petraeus’ arrival and, increasingly, in Afghanistan) down so that it can be understood by laypersons. And, with the election coming up, it is especially important that we know what is really happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how our military leaders and military scholars are confronting the difficulties there.

And, finally, a man has been arrested for complaining too much. All I can say is, I can’t believe it wasn’t me.

Ross Douthat penned an interesting column in a recent issue of the Altantic saying that post-9/11 America has, culturally, returned to the paranoid style of the 1970s.

Conservatives such as Noonan hoped that 9/11 would bring back the best of the 1940s and ’50s, playing Pearl Harbor to a new era of patriotism and solidarity. Many on the left feared that it would restore the worst of the same era, returning us to the shackles of censorship and conformism, jingoism and Joe McCarthy. But as far as Hollywood is concerned, another decade entirely seems to have slouched round again: the paranoid, cynical, end-of-empire 1970s.

He then goes through many film genres and compares recent films to those made in the ’70s. He even gives shout-outs to some of my favorite television shows: The Wire and Battlestar Galactica.

. . . [T]he first great revisionist sci-fi serial, Battlestar Galactica, helmed by an ex–Star Trek writer and featuring enough sex, violence, and religious fanaticism to set Gene Roddenberry spinning in his grave.

Most important, though, is that he questions the reason we have returned to such a style:

This last reality brings us to the question of how authentic our back-to-the-’70s moment really is. The Vietnam War was a cultural phenomenon in part because it couldn’t help being one—there was no way for Americans to keep the war at arm’s length, not with more than 50,000 dead, a million deployed over the course of the war, and every able-bodied teen and twentysomething at risk of conscription. In contrast, the Iraq War, a lower-casualty conflict fought by an all-volunteer military, takes place at a greater distance from the everyday lives of those Americans who don’t have a family member deployed overseas. The objective correlatives needed for a truly pessimistic era simply don’t exist for many Americans today. The last time around, we were participants; this time, we’re voyeurs.

It’s an interesting view. Read it yourself.

In other news, the Supreme Court has just ruled “that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.” This is just bad public policy that hurts the poor, minorities, the elderly and the disabled. Ugh.

I think this is great.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad.

Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

. . .

At a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference, Gates said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other problems in the Central Command area of responsibility, demand knowledge of how to fight counterinsurgencies as well as other unconventional conflicts.

“I don’t know anybody in the U.S. military better qualified to lead that effort,” he said, referring to Petraeus.

Asked if moving Petraeus from the Iraq command could interrupt momentum against the insurgency, Gates said that by waiting until late summer or early fall he hoped to “ensure plenty of time to prepare for a good handoff.” He said it also would help that Odierno has had experience as “Petraeus’ right-hand man” over the last year.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report, while not true, had become a distraction.

[Emphasis Mine]

A truer statement than Secretary Gates’ I could not make.

Some of my favorite COIN bloggers, though, disagree with Gen. Petraeus’ appointment — and its possible after-effects.

Really? Is this what we’ve come to?

You (Obama) lifted your finger to your face, and you, you know, “scratched.” Sure, it might have looked innocent enough. Faces itch sometimes, whatever. But we know what you were doing. We know why you used your middle finger to do it. Mr. Obama, you Flipped the Bird. And, on behalf of Hillary Clinton—obviously, the intended recipient of your crude gesture—we are Very Offended.

Please. Say it ain’t so.

[Columbia Journalism Review]

Hamas, on the State Department Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization list, has all but endorsed Senator Obama . . .

–The Tank, a National Review Online blog

Well, we knew this would come around sooner or later. The primary isn’t even over yet! Can’t these Hamas guys at least hold out until the convention, like Hillary’s doing?

But, seriously, this is the first Republican “terrorists-support-the-Democrats” attack I’ve seen from a prominent conservative blog and magazine this election (which isn’t to say there haven’t been more).

The U.S. Air Force’s first stealth fighter and one of the services’ most attractive planes (especially if you’ve ever seen one fly overhead), the F-117 Nighthawk, will be retired April 21st.

[Danger Room]

. . . because I was on the pot.

(Taking a shit, that is.)