Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0112/01123.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 20KB | 346 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01123}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) History Of The Women Marines 1946-1977
Chapter 13}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stremlow, Col. Mary V.}
$Affiliation{U.S. Marine Corps Reserve}
$Subject{women
military
marine
husband
duty
service
woman
colonel
married
time}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) History Of The Women Marines 1946-1977
Author:      Stremlow, Col. Mary V.
Affiliation: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Date:        1986

Chapter 13

Marriage, Motherhood, and Dependent Husbands

     Right from the start, Colonel Towle had to field questions from
newspeople insinuating that the Marine Corps was against matrimony for women
Marines.  Tactfully, she, and then later, her successors, Colonels Hamblet and
Henderson, assured the reporters that Marines certainly were not antimarriage.
The laws, Department of Defense regulations, and Marine Corps regulations of
the time supported their statements:  marriage was indeed acceptable; husbands
and children, however, posed some problems. Generally, it can be said that
from 1948 until 1964 a woman Marine could marry, and almost immediately ask
for a discharge; the acquisition of natural, adopted, foster, or stepchildren
under 18 years of age, in fact required discharge.  Husbands were not
considered dependents unless they were actually dependent upon the wife for
more than 50 percent of their support.

Marriage

     Under the policy in effect from 1949 until the Vietnam War, enlisted WMs
who married could ask for an administrative discharge based solely on
marriage.  Providing they had completed one year of their enlistment beyond
basic training, they were discharged for the convenience of the government.
Regular officers were eligible for release two years after their appointment.
During the Korean War, regulations were more stringent, but were relaxed
immediately after the emergency.  This liberal view toward discharges and
release from contractual obligations reflected society's negative attitude
toward working wives.  Needless to say, it contributed to instability in the
WM program.

     With changing values, a manpower crisis in the 1960's, and a need to
improve the attrition rate of women Marines, Colonel Barbara J. Bishop, by
then the Director, led the fight to tighten the rules.  Colonel Bishop
reasoned that women must honor their enlistment contract.  To make it easier,
husbands and wives, whenever possible, would be stationed at the same or
nearby bases.  A joint household policy was put into effect on 14 July 1964
which stated:

A married enlisted Woman Marine may be discharged at her written request,
provided she is not stationed at or sufficiently close to the duty station or
residence of her husband to permit the maintenance of a joint residence, and
provided she meets all of the following conditions.

a.  A transfer request to the same or nearby duty station or place of
residence of her husband has been submitted to the Commandant of the Marine
Corps and has been denied.

b.  The separation of husband and wife has exceeded 18 months.

c.  The enlisted woman is not serving on an extension of enlistment or
reenlistment entered into subsequent to marriage.

d.  The enlisted woman has completed 24 months of service subsequent to
completion of a service school if the length of school was more than 24 weeks.

A married woman Marine officer does not become eligible for separation or
release from active duty, simply because of her marital status, until she has
completed her period of obligated service (3 years).

     In August of the following year, 1965, due to the demands of the Vietnam
War, discharges based upon marriage were suspended regardless of place of
residence.  Then, once again, on 31 October 1966, the joint household policy
was reinstated.

     The desired effect of these new regulations - to lengthen the service of
many WMs - was realized almost immediately.  The rate of discharges for
reasons of marriage was dramatically reduced from 18.6 percent in fiscal year
1964 to 6.3 percent in fiscal year 1965 and, finally, to 2.3 percent in fiscal
year 1966.

Motherhood

     A study group in 1948 meeting to discuss proposed regulations governing
the discharge of women stated:

It is believed that pregnancy and motherhood ipso facto interfere with
military duties . . . .  Granting of maternity leave would result in having
ineffectives; replacement could not he procured while the woman remained on
the active list; and the mother of a small child would not be readily
available for reassignment.  Necessary rotation of duty assignments would
require the family unit to be broken up for considerable periods of time, or
at least until the husband made the necessary provisions to establish the home
at the mother's new duty station . . . .  It is believed that a woman who is
pregnant or a mother should not be a member of the armed forces and should
devote herself to the responsibilities which she had assumed, remaining with
her husband and child as a family unit.

     This sort of reasoning, typical of the times, formed the basis for Marine
Corps regulations on the subject until 1970.  The rules were very strictly
enforced, and any responsibility for children forced the separation of a woman
Marine from the service.

     The first step toward a mote liberal view was taken in the fall of 1970
when Headquarters announced that a WM who is the stepparent of, or who has
personal custody of, or adopts, a child could ask to stay on active duty.
Each case had to be reviewed, taking into consideration such factors as length
of service, performance record, ages and number of children involved, and the
commanding officer's evaluation of the situation.  Waivers were granted if it
could be determined that parenthood would not interfere with the Marine's job.

     On 12 August 1970, Colonel Jeanette I. Sustad, Director of Women Marines,
startled the women attending the Women Marines Association Convention in
Philadelphia by predicting the possibility of allowing natural mothers to
continue on active duty.  It was, in fact, due to her personal efforts that
many of the long-standing regulations were set aside. Times had changed, women
had changed, mores had changed.  It was 1970 and women no longer accepted the
old order as dogma.

     Colonel Sustad invested a great deal of her time locating and attempting
to gain acceptance of this view at Headquarters.  Colonel John L. Ostby of the
legal Division was her trusted advisor and mentor, supplying her with facts,
legal interpretations, and whatever ammunition she needed to get by each
stumbling block.  Certain that success was within reach, Colonel Sustad kept
at least one Reserve officer's separation papers in staffing - lost in the
administrative maze - until the regulations were changed allowing for a more
favorable disposition of her case.

     And, change did come in 1971 when a waiver policy for natural mothers was
tested.  Again, each case was carefully considered by Headquarters and women
with good records who were able to show that they could adequately care for
the child were allowed to remain on duty.  Gunnery Sergeant Frances L.
Gonzales, the first WM to take advantage of the program, never missed a day of
work other than annual leave and the travel time involved with her transfer at
the time.  Lieutenant Colonel Carolyn Auldridge Walsh, the first officer to
remain on active duty after having a child, lost little time as well.  Colonel
Sustad credits the positive example of these first cases with helping to calm
the fears of some, but not all, of the opponents to the idea.

     Women who had been discharged from the Marine Corps for pregnancy took
new hope, and some asked to be allowed to return.  Major Mary Sue Stevens
League, separated in March 1970 because of pregnancy, was one of these former
WMs who sought to regain her commission.  On 24 January 1972, she was given
the commissioning oath in the Marine Corps Reserve by her husband, Lieutenant
Commander William C. League, a Navy chaplain, in ceremonies at the Marine
Barracks in the Naval Shipyard at Portsmouth, Virginia.  She reportedly was
the first woman Marine to regain her commission after becoming pregnant and
being separated.

     The Department of Defense in 1975 published instructions which precluded
the involuntary separation of servicewomen on the sole basis of pregnancy.
Marine Corps Order 5000.12, dated 16 July 1975, specified that WMs who are
pregnant may, upon request, be discharged or retained on active duty if
otherwise qualified.  Women who chose to remain in the Service were cautioned
that parenthood did not entitle them to special treatment or consideration in
duty assignments, and commanding officers had the obligation to initiate
action for discharge in cases where women failed to carry out their duties
after the birth of the child.

     Pregnant WMs could wear civilian clothes when the uniform no longer
looked appropriate.  The seemingly unlikely prospect of a regulation maternity
outfit was under study by the military services and later approved.

     Under normal circumstances, and based upon the advice of a medical
officer, a pregnant servicewoman was expected to lose no more than 10 weeks of
duty - four before delivery and six after.  If the mother wanted more time off
for reasons other than medical, she could ask for annual leave.  A 1977 study
showed that even with time off for maternity leave and other strictly female
matters, servicewomen lost much less time than men because of their lower
incidence of absence without leave, desertion, and drug- and alcohol-related
problems.

     Finally, in respect to the demands of both motherhood and her job, if a
Marine asked to remain on duty, but later found it impossible to do justice to
her responsibilities, she could ask for an administrative discharge.

     In early 1949, when the policies were being formulated that would
eventually cause the discharge of all pregnant servicewomen, Rear Admiral
Clifford A. Swanson, Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Department
of the Navy, stood alone in an attempt to protect the careers of women in the
military.  Taking a somewhat radical position, one not even espoused by the
leading military women of the day, he wrote:

Inasmuch as pregnancy is a normal biological phenomenon in women in the
military age group it must be assumed that the possibility that women entering
the regular military service become pregnant was recognized by Congress when
reference (a) [Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948] was enacted.
It would appear to this Bureau that the apparent purpose . . . was to afford
women an opportunity to enter into and remain in the military service as a
career and that the subject proposed regulation is inconsistent with this
apparent purpose of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948.

In connection with the foregoing, it cannot be presumed to be the policy of
the military service to regard either the institution of marriage or the
raising of a family with disfavor.  However, it is recognized that if such
personal interests seriously interfere with military duties, or if female
military personnel desire to give up their military career voluntarily in
order to raise a family . . . it would be desirable to have means available
whereby such personnel can be expeditiously separated from the service.  Aside
from these considerations there would appear to this Bureau to be no reason
for terminating the service of personnel who are pregnant but physically able
to perform their duties . . . .

     Admiral Swanson made specific recommendations regarding time off,
maternity leave, and discharges, and while the regulations published 27 years
later are not precisely his, the philosophy is unmistakable.

Dependency Regulations

     In a report to the House Armed Services Committee on 6 March 1972,
Colonel Sustad wrote:

Title 37 contains different criteria for defining dependents of men and women
military members.  This results in an inequality of treatment between the
married military man and the married military woman.  It also causes a
difference in treatment between the military man married to a civilian and the
military man married to a military woman.

To this simple statement of fact, she added her personal view, "The present
law is clearly unfair to the military woman.  In recent years this inequity
has become the primary complaint among women in the Marine Corps."

     The question of dependency had long been an irritant causing ever
increasing dissatisfaction to those who found themselves adversely affected by
the law and policies.  When women first entered military service, the
traditional American family concept was that of a unit financially supported
by the male member.  For many years, women accepted the inequities with only a
minimal amount of grumbling; but few, if any, considered challenging the law
until the era of women's rights approximately 1970.

The Military Couple

     For WMs married to servicemen the problems focused on quarters and the
basic allowance for quarters (BAQ) normally provided to members of the Armed
Forces with dependents.  Since the Marine wife in a military family received
military pay, she was not considered a dependent.  It then followed that the
husband was entitled only to the lower BAQ provided to members without
dependents.  Furthermore, if the husband was assigned to sea duty, field duty,
FMF duty, or combat, where presumably adequate quarters were furnished him,
even the without-dependents allowance was denied to him as it was denied to
all of the bachelors.  The wife was not entitled to any allowance for quarters
unless she was a major or above, and unless there was no available space for
her in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ).

     Put into effect, this policy financially penalized not only WMs, but
their service husbands.  The experience of two lieutenants stationed at Camp
Lejeune in the mid-1960's is typical of the inconvenience caused many.  Since
there was at Camp Lejeune a BOQ for women with plenty of available space, the
WM lieutenant, although married, was assigned a room.  She, therefore, was not
entitled to a monetary allowance.  Her Marine husband, because he was married,
was not required to live in the BOQ, but since his wife was a Marine, he was
paid BAQ at the rate of a single man.  They rented a house together and she
merely ignored the assigned quarters.  When the husband left for a six-month
Mediterranean cruise, his entitlement to an allowance stopped and they were
left with two alternatives: maintain the house anyway or put their furnishings
in storage at their own expense for six months, and have the wife move into
the BOQ.  They kept their house. As to public quarters for families on board a
base, when they were available, only the husband was eligible, and the
assignment was based upon his grade regardless of who was senior.

Marine Wife - Civilian Husband

     During the legislative hearings that preceded the passage of the Women's
Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, much attention was paid to the
question of military women with civilian husbands.  There was, in the minds of
many, a real fear of an army of indigent men - camp followers, in effect - who
would take unscrupulous advantage of the largesse of the United States
Government and military wives.  The ensuing laws, Title 10 and 37 of the
United States Code, laid down specific tests of dependency which were
interpreted for 25 years to mean that a civilian husband was not the dependent
of his military wife unless he was dependent upon her for more than 50 percent
of his support due to total and permanent mental or physical disability.  The
ramifications were considerable, and especially difficult for young Marines
who upon discharge enrolled in college while their Marine wives continued on
active duty.

     The civilian husband had no type of identification card and hence had to
obtain a visitor's pass each time he came on the base, and could not, of
course, go to the service club, post exchange, or commissary, or use any
recreational facilities such as the swimming pool, golf course, or theater
unless accompanied by his wife as her guest.  Additionally, he was not
entitled to medical care.  The couple was not eligible for family housing,
travel and transportation allowances for the husband, dislocation allowance,
overseas station allowances, or a family separation allowance.

     Because of a quirk in commissary regulations which used the term
"authorized agent" rather than "dependent," occasionally local authorities
ruled that civilian husbands could, with a special pass, shop for groceries.
Other times, under stricter interpretations, the man was given a pass that
only allowed him to accompany his wife into the store and help her carry out
the purchase, but not to shop on his own.  Most often, the civilian husband
was not allowed to enter the commissary at all.  The Armed Services Exchange
Regulations, on the other hand, specifically limited the use of post exchanges
to dependents, thereby summarily barring all civilian husbands of
servicewomen.

     Lieutenant Colonel Clowers, perhaps the only woman Marine officer of her
time to be married to a civilian husband for the majority of her career, was
never permitted to live on board a Marine base with her husband.  In fact,
although she was always permitted to draw the single quarters allowance, she
lived under the constant threat of being assigned quarters in a BOQ and losing
that entitlement.  In 1956, the colonel was ordered to Parris Island to take
command of the Woman Recruit Training Battalion and she was advised of the
commanding general's desire that all battalion commanders live on board the
base.  The Quartermaster General at Headquarters, however, ruled that her
husband absolutely could not live with her on base except for visits of a
maximum of 30 days since he was not dependent on her due to mental and
physical incompetence.  In the end, the dilemma was solved by cancelling
Lieutenant Colonel Clower's orders to Parris Island, and sending her instead
to Quantico to command the Women Officers Training Detachment.

     The first major change in interpretation of the law came on 3 July 1972
when it was ruled that a husband could be considered a dependent when there is
sufficient evidence to establish his dependence on his service wife for over
half of his support without regard to his mental or physical capacity to
support himself.  Thus, a student husband, for example, if his veteran's
benefits did not make up more than 50 percent of his support, became eligible
for an identification card and the attendant privileges.

     Women Marines, as all married servicewomen, still resented the narrow
interpretation of the term "dependent" since wives of servicemen were
automatically granted all privileges regardless of their financial, physical,
or mental status.  Morale was significantly raised in the female ranks
therefore, when on 14 May 1973, in the Frontiero vs. Richardson case, the
Supreme Court ruled that servicewomen were eligible for all benefits,
privileges, and rights granted servicemen under the same circumstances.
Furthermore, former or retired servicewomen could file claims for retroactive
payment of with-dependents quarters allowances for periods of active duty
during which they were married but not receiving the increased allowances.
The single, major complaint of WMs at the time of the ruling was thus
resolved.