Your Hysterical Army

As in most of these cases, the actual details of who-did-what-to-whom turned out to be rather thin gruel. Maj. Gen. Larry Smith had known then-Maj. Gen. Claudia Kennedy for years; they bumped into each other in an empty office and at some point an "inappropriate advance" was initiated. Both parties say that the whatever-it-was (details were shrouded in Manhattan-Project-level secrecy) was "fleeting" and never repeated. He was quoted saying that he "kind of hugged her"; she said "it was more than that."

There were enough twists to keep the story going for a while. "The groping," as the press had now taken to calling it, occurred in 1996. Kennedy told her boss about the incident right away and, as she put it in a 1997 interview, "it was investigated carefully...[with] positive response on the part of the Army."

Flash forward about four years. Kennedy, now a three-star, is planning her retirement from the service. Meanwhile, Smith, who is still a two-star, is poised to step into a new job in the Inspector General's office, where, among other things, he will investigate sexual harassment allegations.

So why did Kennedy resurrect this supposedly settled matter?especially when she was so close to a poignant closing of a successful, commendation-bedecked career? Kennedy said she didn't like the idea of Smith investigating harassment complaints, that this would be, in effect, too blatant a disregard of the seriousness of sexual harassment in the force.

Actually, the whatever-it-was in the Pentagon office didn't even qualify as sexual harassment as the law defines it. Both generals had been exactly the same rank at the time. Thus there could be no element of "quid pro quo" or abuse of power. Even Kennedy seemed to understand this when she told a reporter in 1997 that "a pass is different than sexual harassment... What's illegitimate is when you work for him, or he works for you."

But the letter of the law didn't matter much here. Smith's fate was decided in what former Judge Advocate Gen. Henry Hamilton calls the "more elastic," more subjective world of the military's administrative hearing system. An investigation of this "unwanted sexual advance" was launched, Smith's promotion was put on hold, the most senior brass made sheepish comments about not having been informed at the time and predictable editorials were written. This incident, intoned The New York Times, shows "how that much more needs to be done to end harassment and...retrograde attitudes toward women in the military." Meanwhile, "short of holding weekly firing squads" for men accused of sexual harassment, said Larry MacIntyre in the Indianapolis Star, there isn't much more the Army can do to eliminate it, since the Army already offers its personnel weekly and monthly seminars on the subject.

A few weeks ago two new elements were added to the career trajectories of the two players. Smith's promotion was formally rescinded; his career is probably over. Just a few days after the tearful ceremonies marking her departure, Gen. Kennedy's new agent, William Morris, announced that their new client would be writing a memoir for Warner books; an editor was already assigned. Every detail of her alleged victimization and the fallout in the weeks afterward had appeared on The New York Times' front page. This denouement, on the other hand, was relegated to a three-inch squib of wire copy on A24 or thereabouts.

I guess it's time to "formally" (as they say in the military) admit my own biases here. I get misty-eyed with adoration and admiration over some of the female officers (from all services) I've met. Gen. Claudia Kennedy is not one of them. Ending her military life by dynamiting the career of a respectable, well-meaning officer over "something any middle school girl has to cope with everyday"?in the words of columnist Fred Reed?is just the beginning. Kennedy, whose career had been spent in military intelligence, always seemed far more interested in enemies and danger closer to home. She is known for starting addresses (to West Point cadets and wizened NCOs and veterans' associations) with the line, "This is not your father's Army anymore." She's also the author and ceaseless promoter of the COO (Consideration of Others) program, in which bored junior officers and grizzled noncoms are forced to sit around listening to lectures about being nicer to one another. And she was part of a panel in 1997 that used questionnaires asking whether anyone had "treated you differently because of your sex (e.g. mistreated or ignored you?)," and whether anyone had "touched you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable (e.g. laid a hand on your bare arm, put an arm around your shoulders)?" to conclude that 47 percent of women in the Army had been victims of sexual harassment. "Most [female] trainees had not truly understood that the inappropriate behaviors" they had been asked to report "may lead to and include sexual harassment," reported the panel with amazement. "These trainees view such acts as consensual behavior or flirting."

When the book deal news came down, a few cynical and uncompassionate people, like myself, immediately began speculating that Kennedy (perhaps acting unconsciously) had resurrected the complaint to raise her profile and whip up some business. After further research I recognize this as a reflexive reaction of a cynical, uncompassionate person. Life is always more complicated than that. The much more awful fact is that Kennedy seems to have bought her own hype, to have come to believe (as the Seattle Times put it) that she "exemplifies the courage of her profession by filing a sexual harassment complaint against a fellow general," and that this is all serious drama worthy of a general in the U.S. Army. Quoting Zola at a retirement ceremony, she exhorted a crowd of women officers to "Live out loud!"?"If discrimination or misconduct is not reported at an appropriate time, then public policy many never change...and will continue to harm us and others."

This sad story might be easier to forget if it didn't point to a larger issue: The services have gone headlong off their rockers on the subject of sexual harassment, and are still running around like a bunch of hysterical chickens even while the civilian world has finally begun to develop some sense. Anyone with a brain could see that the original definition of sexual harassment?as it in appeared in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?was ridiculously broad. After 10 years in which sexual harassment charges in the civilian workplace rose 150 percent, civilian courts of the late 90s began to attempt to wrestle the beast down, to add qualifications. Some genius court ruled, for instance, that the complainant must have clearly signified his or her displeasure with the activity, and the activity must have persisted after the initial "bug off."

From all accounts Smith seems to have been a good man, another one the relentlessly self-immolating Army has jettisoned for a trivial offense. Why do they keep doing it?especially when the Secretary of the Army is busy setting up "blue ribbon" panels to try to determine why their best and brightest officers are slipping out the door as soon as they get the chance? As Napoleon Bonaparte once said, even the warrior who is "full of courage and sang froid before an enemy battery...trembles before a skirt."

Stephanie Gutmann is the author of The Kinder, Gentler Military, which was published by Scribner in March.