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Military to scrap pregnancy punishment
General Ray Odierno, commanding general of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, testifies before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 30, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Hyungwon Kang
BAGHDAD |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Iraq will scrap a policy early next year that has led to the punishment of some soldiers serving in Iraq for becoming pregnant, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday.
General Ray Odierno said the new, Iraq-wide guidelines would take effect beginning January 1, lifting rules enacted by the U.S. commander in northern Iraq, who reports to Odierno, that laid out possible punishments for pregnancy among his soldiers.
The policy had been criticized by some women's advocates and on Tuesday four U.S. senators wrote to the secretary of the U.S. Army asking that it be rescinded.
"That will not be in my orders from January 1," Odierno told Reuters on the sidelines of a seminar in Baghdad, responding to a question about whether possible punishment for soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate other soldiers would be part of new, Iraq-wide guidelines Odierno plans to issue shortly.
According to U.S. policy now, individual commanders can issue rules on behavior for troops under their command that are more strict than those issued by their military superiors.
Major General Tony Cucolo, in charge of 22,000 U.S. troops in northern Iraq, has defended his policy, saying that he could not afford to lose soldiers to pregnancy while the U.S. military draws down its soldiers from Iraq.
Troop levels are set to fall to about 50,000 by the end of August next year, and a full withdrawal is due by 2012.
Possible punishments for becoming pregnant, or getting another soldier pregnant, ranged from an administrative reprimand to court martial, although Cucolo later made clear he did not intend to court martial any soldier who became pregnant.
His policy had been in effect since November 4. Four of his soldiers had been found to be pregnant since then. Three male soldiers involved were also reprimanded, one more seriously because he had committed adultery.
(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas: Editing by Missy Ryan and Jon Hemming)
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So in this modern era we are mixing the sexes freely throughout the Army and we expect better individual control of the physical sex drive? What new courses have they instituted in Basic Training that is going to enable each soldier, male and female to control those sudden periods of raging hormones? This is madness to the extreme! A Politically Correct driven military is doomed to failure, and I agree with General Cucolo’s assessment of the situation.
Political special interest groups have never experienced combat situations where success or bloody failure depends on all personnel on station performing their respective assignments, and as the General states, all assignments are critical even those that are not directly involved in participating in combat firefights.
The current problem with the U.S. Army is it is being handled like the French Foreign Legion, because the American public is only involved on a cursory level. The truth of the matter is that because of the VOLUNTEER aspect of the recruitment, the public thinks that there is a certain level of mercenary motivation on behalf of the enlistees, though no one would ever dare say this out loud. And it is this attitude that allows political influences to drive many top military decisions. Vietnam was a far different story. All of America’s sons were subject to the draft, so every American family was directly connected to that war. Unfortunately subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not drawn the same intense interest on behalf of the American public. So today’s Army must depend on high unemployment driven volunteerism.
Lastly, I say along with General Cucolo, at least provide a well configured Army where the military strategists can at least depend on some solid available manpower figures. This is just as important as providing the troops with all of the supplies, vehicles and weaponry that they need. A non-existent pregnancy policy for toops operating in a combat zone is effectively gambling on the lives of those individuals who must daily face fierce firefights with the enemy.
The article mentioned a male soldier who was disciplined not only for disobeying orders and getting a female knocked up, but for committing adultery as well. I say, Finally! Someone must have read the regs again and realized it’s illegal in the military! At least one didn’t get away with it, and I’m glad the female was disciplined too. I wish they’d landed on more of them. I hope the disciplinary measures stick despite the repeal.
I don’t care what the “women’s advocates” were all miffed about. It’s not like the military was going around saying no soldiers could get pregnant EVER, it was just deployment. It might behoove some people to wait a year and reflect before starting a family… I personally think that birth control should be mandatory in the military unless training and counselings are completed to start a family. Period. But that’s just me. The military is not the private sector, and it’s high time people got that through their thick skulls. It’s a totally different animal, and the rules and regs in place are supposed to enforce that fact. There isn’t supposed to be “male” and “female” in the military, just soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and the rights and privileges allowed to them as such. Period. Females need to get it into their heads that they are not special just because they’re female, and it’s the vast majority of these women who give females in the military a bad name. As a medic, I had enough to do trying to keep my soldiers safe and healthy without doubly over PVT Happybags and her unborn love child because she and some yahoo couldn’t exercise enough restraint to keep their pants up in a combat zone. Why not just set up a few maternity wards and daycares in the green zone while we’re at it?
Again, bad move, U.S. Military. I look forward to the headline about the first baby born over there. Since it’s okay now and all.
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