Elaine Donnelly - president, Center for Military Readiness, a public policy educational organization concerned with military personnel issues; author; has made numerous television appearances to debate and discuss military readiness; articles have appeared in magazines and major newspapers.

 When Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, we all celebrated. But the group of people who celebrated perhaps more than any other were the people serving in the military -- the soldiers, the airmen, the sailors and the marines serving at the military bases around the world. President Carter had weakened defense readiness and allowed morale to be eroded because of social engineering.

Contrast the jubilant feelings of 1980 with 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected president and announced within days, on Veterans Day of all days, that he would lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. It was the first of many times the new president put political payoffs and ideology ahead of military considerations and showed his lack of understanding of what the realities of life are in the armed forces.

But Bill Clinton's longstanding alienation from military people goes far beyond his status as a Vietnam war draft dodger, his use of servicemen as waiters at the White House or even his moves to put homosexuals in the military. Instead of putting the needs of the military first, this administration has been demanding that the armed forces pay any price and carry any burden to advance the career ambitions of a few.

It's important to remember that the military is a perfect laboratory for social experimentation and engineering. Uniformed people must follow orders, orders of the Commander-in-Chief, without political dissent. At the present time, military people face two main problems: what is being taken away from the armed forces because of severe budget cuts and misdirected priorities and what is being imposed on the military by liberal activists in the name of equal rights.

Debate in the conservative movement on matters of national security often focuses on the first issue, but money alone cannot buy a strong national defense. Technology and hardware are important, but it would be a mistake to focus only on how many ships, planes and weapons we have.

Wars are deterred, or fought -- not by computers and weapons but by people: young men and women who volunteer to defend their country in uniform, in spite of great risk and many personal sacrifices. We owe these people the best equipment we can afford and as good a quality of life as we can afford. We have no right to impose extra burdens which make military life more difficult or more dangerous.

There are civilians in the Pentagon (many of them feminists, some of whom served in the Carter administration) who have learned how to use the power of the Commander-in-Chief to promote their agenda. In the past year, drastic and revolutionary changes have been made with regard to the use of women in the military, to put women, even women in non-combat positions, closer to the front line on land, sea and in the air.

But the topic for today is not women in combat. Instead, I want to talk to you about four urgent issues -- all of which are presidential and congressional issues. My concern about what's going on in the armed forces right now centers on what I call the demoralization of the military.

The four issues I want to tell you about today are these:

 dangerous double standards in naval aviation training. the Navy's new pregnancy policy which will create a whole new social welfare state. And I might add that even though it's starting in the Navy, it's very likely to be applied in the other services as well. the pending victory for the Clinton administration on the issue of homosexuals in the military. the impact of extreme political correctness, which is driving a young officer out of the Navy  because of his Christian values.

All of these issues demoralize the people who serve in the armed forces.

If you look up the definition of the word "demoralize" in the dictionary, you'll find it has three meanings. The first one is to undermine confidence or morale; the second is to disorder or confuse; the third is to debase the morals of, or to corrupt.

Social experimentation demoralizes the military. It also promises, ultimately, to affect the civilian culture where we live, in very dangerous ways.

The plan to put women or mothers in or near combat units amounts to an endorsement of the idea that violence against women is all right. Boiled down to its essence, that's what the women in combat policy really is. I had a meeting with Admiral Jeremy Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations, recently, and I told him that. He was absolutely baffled. He said, "Oh, no. We're advancing careers for women."

I said, "No, you have endorsed violence against women at the hands of an enemy, and it's a deliberate policy change made by our government under the current administration. It signals that in our culture men will no longer be raised and expected to defend and protect women. By any measure, this is a step backward for civilization, not a step forward. Why are we doing this?"

Starting in 1991, personnel policies which govern the military were wrenched off course by a powerful force I call sexual politics. That was the year the Bush administration allowed women's combat exemptions in aviation to be repealed, although implementation was held up pending the year's study that I participated in as a member of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces.

In 1991 all of the work we did was overshadowed by the infamous Tailhook sex abuse scandal. Tailhook threw the Navy two degrees off course, and they've been off course, heading for the wrong ocean, ever since.

For a visual picture of sexual politics in action, just think back to last year, the spring of 1994, when Representative Pat Schroeder, in a replay of her 1991 march against Clarence Thomas in support of Anita Hill, marched with a dozen other liberal congresswomen from the House to the Senate to protest the retirement with four stars of the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Frank Kelso.

 It didn't matter that Admiral Kelso had already given those women everything they demanded -- he totally reversed his position on women in combat, as a peace offering for the infamous Tailhook scandal. That wasn't enough. The congresswomen's performance was so bizarre it should have qualified for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The true objective of the performance was pure sexual politics and intimidation, not just against the hapless Admiral Kelso, but against two other admirals who weren't steadfast enough in promoting feminist goals. All three of them were on record in favor of women in combat, by the way. One of them was Admiral Stanley Arthur, Vice-Chief of Naval Operations, who made the mistake of insisting that women be held to the same standards as men in naval aviation training. Without going into detail to recount the story, Admiral Arthur was punished for his principled stand by being denied promotion to become Commander-in-Chief, Pacific. He has since retired.

The story of Admiral Arthur was a huge blow to morale in the Navy, but the worst part of Admiral Arthur's unfortunate ordeal at the hands of feminist senators was the unrefuted message that is still being conveyed today: Those who hold women to the same standard as men put their careers at risk. The results of that demoralizing message are now visible for all to see.

The tragic story of Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the female pilot who was killed trying to land an F-14 last October on the carrier Abraham Lincoln, demonstrates something I have known about for a long time. We were told about it by witnesses testifying before the presidential commission, but it never really came home until that day when Kara Hultgreen lost her life attempting to land on the carrier. She was a brave woman; she was preparing to defend her country. But that awful videotape of her death, which all of us saw, demonstrates how dangerous it can be when women are simply not allowed to fail in military training.

I met Kara Hultgreen two weeks before the accident happened. That's why I can tell you she was a very impressive woman. I was greatly saddened to hear the news of her death. But following the accident, Navy officials began to spin a dishonest story. Navy officials could have withheld comment as they normally do when accidents happen. They also could have acknowledged that most accidents occur due to pilot error. But instead, Navy officials speculated openly that the accident probably had something to do with the engine, instead of pilot error. Right from the start, they skewed the investigation.

Now it's no disgrace, certainly, for anybody to die in an F-14 aircraft, which is extremely difficult to fly. Even in peacetime, Naval aviation -- landing on carriers -- is the most dangerous occupation in the Navy. But instead of straightforward comments about the accident, an elaborate cover story focusing on possible engine failure was spun up almost immediately.

Lt. Kara Hultgreen didn't need to be vindicated; it was the judgment of the Navy that came under question when the engine failure story started to fall apart. Knowledgeable people recognized something was wrong, and aviators who put their lives on the line every day were justifiably concerned about the Navy's lack of candor.

Back in December, I received information from a known, credible source (I'm not talking about unsigned letters here) indicating that Lt. Hultgreen and a second female pilot still on flight status had training records far rockier than the Navy had let on.

In aviation training, competency is determined in a number of ways. Every training flight is scored, and tiny fractions, high or low, can spell success or failure. In some cases, serious mistakes are marked with what they call "safety of flight downs," or pink sheets. One or two downs can wash you out of aviation training. It's a very serious thing to receive a down in your record.

The information I received indicated that Kara Hultgreen had four downs in her record, combined with marginal scores. The second pilot, the one who is still out there flying, whom I refer to as "Pilot B" to protect her privacy, had a record of low scores combined with an astonishing seven downs. This is unheard of -- it would never have happened if either of them had been a male pilot.

For these two women, I can tell you how these downs were earned. For example, forgetting to turn off an engine before refueling, which can cause a crewman on the carrier to be sucked into the engine and killed (pilot friends of mine have seen it happen); "crashing" in a simulator without ejecting on a timely basis; dropping a non-explosive bomb from low altitude at the wrong angle, which would destroy the aircraft and the pilot if done with a live bomb.

The most serious downs related to failure to follow the directions of the landing signal officers (LSOs), the guys who guide aircraft in safely when they're landing on the carrier. It's critically important for pilots to stay on the glide path for a safe landing and to be predictable in following landing signal instructions. Both of these women had problems following directions predictably in training, and a similar mistake was made on a clear day in October when Lt. Kara Hultgreen lost her life.

Scoring systems are tough. They have to be in order to save lives. When I received information that the two women had received special treatment despite these problems in training, I realized I would need help to find out if it were true.

I therefore approached the Senate Armed Services Committee and asked for their help in ascertaining whether the information was correct. With the help of Senator Strom Thurmond, all the information was sent over to Navy officials. After that, I had several meetings at the Pentagon with Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Boorda, with Vice-Chief Admiral Arthur (the number two man in the Navy), and several others. After three months the Navy conceded, with some reluctance I might add, that the information was accurate.

So now we know. Double standards for women, even in the perilous field of aviation, are being used. Women simply won't be allowed to fail. We also know that the Navy went to extraordinary lengths to mislead the public about the circumstances of Lt. Hultgreen crash. That has undermined the credibility of Navy leaders and demoralized everyone in the aviation community.

The situation worsened when Navy officials claimed that in similar tests, eight of nine pilots "crashed" in a situation similar to the circumstances of Kara Hultgreen's crash.

Now comes the information that the tests had been rigged so that the proper procedures to fly on safely could not be followed. Of course there were "crashes" in the simulator. This misleading information, relying on informal training exercises for which there are no records, used to mislead the public.

During the last of three meetings with Admiral Arthur, the Navy conceded that my information regarding the training of the two female F-14 pilots was "largely accurate" -- even before the Navy knew I had photocopies of detailed training records.

I then felt a moral responsibility to go public with it, to compile and publish our findings in a Special Report on Double Standards in Naval Aviation. My hope is that release of this information will spur Congress to do something about this, something constructive to stop the Navy from risking young lives for the sake of social goals.

It's an urgent problem. If nothing is done, any future pilot trainee who has a dismal record, but perhaps not quite as bad as Pilot B, could claim discrimination if he or she is washed out. They have an affirmative action plan in the Navy now, called "12-12-5." That means the goal is to have 12 percent African-American, 12 percent Hispanic, five percent Asian-American in the officer corps.

Let's suppose that some person in one of those favored categories, or perhaps a woman, comes in with less than seven downs, and they want to wash her out of training. She could easily say, "Why are you washing me out? That's discrimination. Pilot B had seven downs. Lt. Kara Hultgreen had four. Why are you doing this to me? This is discrimination." In one generation of instructors, the quality and high standards of Navy aviation could be destroyed. And that means lives will be lost. Sons and daughters will be killed needlessly.

 Keep in mind, this affects all of us. Many commercial pilots come from military backgrounds.

Do you remember the news story about the American Eagle commuter flight that went down near Raleigh-Durham late last year? It turns out (and all the networks' news led with this story) that the pilot on that crash had a very rocky training record, very similar to the records earned by the two female pilots. For some reason, the pilot's new employer didn't get that information, and he was allowed to fly anyway. When something happened which he thought was an emergency, he was totally distracted and made a serious pilot error. The plane lost altitude and crashed. And I'm sorry to tell you that the son of a friend of mine was on that plane. His life is gone. And of course the pilot was killed too. Tough training standards save lives; they must not be compromised.

Before affirmative action goals are allowed to degrade the quality of military aviation training, Congress must act. If they fail to do so, then the next president must.

The issue here is not women in combat but corruption of the qualification standards that save lives. Heightening risks in pursuit of social goals is simply indefensible. We cannot allow political correctness to stand in the way of excellence.

The armed forces, in this area and many others, are on the cutting edge for social change. For the most part social change has been a good thing in the military. Certainly the racial integration of the armed forces was a good thing. That happened well before the Civil Rights Act was passed. But where is the military leading us today?

We need to talk about the effect on our culture of changes in the armed forces.

In today's military, respect and concern for women is being strangely redefined. Consider the Navy's new policy on pregnancy.

On February 6, 1995 Navy Secretary John Dalton announced that "pregnancy and parenthood are compatible with a Navy career." It's significant to note that Secretary Dalton's policy makes no difference or distinction whether the pregnant woman is married or single. Nor is there any requirement to identify the father. That is a value judgment endorsing moral neutrality.

In addition to priority medical care (ahead of dependents), pregnant women, who are primarily lower ranking enlisted women, will have priority off-base housing. The Navy admits that birth control education doesn't work, so they're going to do more of it. Where have we heard that before?

Pregnancy tests will not be required just prior to deployment, however, and there is no indication that women have been or will be informed of the risk of birth defects. This is a very serious, dark secret, because the risks come from nuclear power, toxic substances, jet fuel, high decibel noise, vibration -- all of which are common on combat ships. Nevertheless, the Navy doesn't even require a pregnancy test prior to deployment on a carrier such as the U.S.S. Eisenhower or the carrier Abraham Lincoln.

There are no penalties for repeated pregnancies, either. People in units left short-handed due to pregnancies just have to make do. And, oh, by the way, the policy forbids negative comments about the effects of pregnancy on ships.

All of this is a replay of the social welfare policies which have failed miserably in the civilian world. It demonstrates this basic principle: When the government subsidizes something, it gets more of it. The Navy's pregnancy policy will have the unintended, but very real effect of subsidizing -- and therefore increasing -- the number of pregnancies among single women as well as married women. That is a readiness issue, but it's also a demoralization issue, because the Navy is saying it doesn't make any difference whether pregnant women are married or single.

The Navy's been trying to downplay the effect of pregnancy on readiness, but the truth has a way of coming out. Take the recent news that five pregnant women were evacuated from the carrier U.S.S. Eisenhower. When they announced five had been taken off the ship, I knew there had to be many more. I inquired and found there were 24 others who never deployed with the carrier in the first place, because they were pregnant. Then it was announced there were 10 more evacuated later on in the cruise, making a total of 39 pregnancies. That is a readiness issue. It's a very high percentage compared to the men who lose their combat readiness. And as you transfer that problem to the smaller ships, it's going to be even more severe.

During Desert Storm, women were known to be three to four times as nondeployable as men, primarily due to a 10 percent pregnancy rate that has remained constant, no matter what. That is a readiness issue, and nonjudgmental subsidies are both demoralizing and harmful to readiness.

Morally neutral value judgments are showing up in other areas as well. Consider the new policy, first disclosed by my organization, that men and women of all ranks are being housed together in small tents in Haiti, with no privacy between the cots. This applies to all four services, but it's being done under the direction of the Army.

One of the Army spokeswomen, when forced to admit the cohabitation policy indeed exists, said, "Well, we want our people to be close to each other. We want them to be able to reach out and touch everybody." The last time I checked that was contrary to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but that's the way it is. Not for all the soldiers in Haiti, but for some. It shouldn't happen for any of them. These are people with families, and families don't care for that sort of arrangement. If lots of families don't like it, they're going to leave the service. And we can't afford to lose those kinds of people.

 It also is interesting to note that the Department of Defense deliberately misled the Congress on this issue. In a letter to Senator Thurmond last fall, Secretary of Defense William Perry suggested that separation for men and women would be provided on ships and that the same policy would apply on land. When news of the co-ed tents came to light, they backtracked and said, "Oh, it's nothing new. That's the way the Department of Defense has been doing things for a long time."

Let's take it a step further. If sexual privacy between men and women in small tents with no separation doesn't matter, then what would be wrong with having people who are homosexual and heterosexual housed together in small tents? What's the big deal? You see, if you can have a social experiment declared a success in a controlled environment, then you can go ahead and give orders to carry it elsewhere. I'm afraid that's where we're headed.

I have some news to tell you that I know you're not going to enjoy hearing. I'm sorry to tell you that, even though Congress passed a law to codify the ban on homosexuals in 1993, the Defense Department has done its best, and with great success, to redefine and neutralize that law. The policy has become not only ineffective, it is schizophrenic under the Clinton Administration. And the exclusion policy is at risk of being destroyed by order of the federal courts. If that happens, the Clinton administration and, I might add, Republican leaders who let them get away with it, will have to share the blame.

Here's the problem. The law says homosexuality is incompatible with military service. Regulations issued by Department of Defense, which the Department of Justice is taking into court, say something else. The regulations say sexuality is personal and private, and homosexuality is not a bar to military service. Which is it, Congress? Who's going to decide?

The concept that the Department of Defense is pushing is what is known as "Don't ask, don't tell."

Remember when the President came out with his policy? In essence, it said that a homosexual can serve in the military as long as he doesn't say he's homosexual. That's what President Clinton wanted, but not what Congress passed. Congress passed an exclusion law, not a law to accommodate homosexuals in the military. The law was certainly intended to read that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. That is what the legislative history says.

But when you have such a contradiction in policy and when the Department of Justice goes into court as we saw in New York recently in the Able case, you invite unnecessary problems. In the Able case, six homosexuals won their case against the government. Why? Because in effect the judge said, "This is illogical. What do you mean by saying that homosexuals can join the military, and that homosexuality is not a disqualifying characteristic, but if someone says they are homosexual, they are subject to dismissal. That's illogical."

And you know what? I have a hard time faulting the logic of that judge. His rhetoric in the decision was very intemperate. But strip away the nasty language and you have logic that served to strike down the regulations and the law at the same time.

Here's the problem. The regulations are supplanting the law. The law is not getting a fair day in court. The law hasn't even been heard yet in court, but it's being stricken down anyway.

Now what is Congress going to do to correct the problem? There are some simple solutions which many of us have been pressing for for well over a year and a half, but nothing has happened yet. Congress should abolish the regulations and affirm the law, but the window of opportunity in the current congressional session is very small. I don't know what's going to happen, but I will try to keep you posted if you're a member of my organization. We will do the best we can to publicize the problem, and I need your help.

Even our conservative leaders seem strangely unconcerned. They say, "Well, we'll wait until the courts rule on the constitutionality of the homosexual policy." But if the courts rule the wrong way, there is no realistic backup plan. We could lose everything at the hands of the federal courts. And remember that Bill Clinton would like nothing better because he could pay off on his political promises to homosexual activists, but let the courts do the work for him. This should be a congressional and presidential issue of the highest order.

 Nothing would demoralize the military more than the acceptance of avowed homosexuals. You know what that will mean. There will have to be clubs, training sessions, and perhaps even parades to promote gay pride. We already know that the Clinton administration is using government agencies to promote the homosexual "lifestyle." Did you hear about the Diversity Day training event last September? Tax dollars paid for Department of Defense sponsorship. Two admirals of the Navy were there in uniform to officially welcome participants. Most of the workshops were somewhat noncontroversial, but the real core of Diversity Day was a seminar that had to do with promoting sexual minorities -- and I do mean a wide variety of sexual minorities.

The Diversity Day training event was conducted by trainers from GLOBE which means "Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Employees." (It seems that all federal government departments have "GLOBE" groups now.)

During the session on sexual minorities, a video called On Being Gay was presented. It featured a young homosexual man describing his lifestyle and asking for acceptance. During that session, there were also numerous insults to Christian values.

Despite Congress' enactment of a law banning homosexuality from the military, these training sessions have been going on for a long time. I hear from uniformed people telling me this all the time. I even heard from a young Marine who was assigned to an Army base, who told me they had one of these "sensitivity" sessions held at an Army chapel.

There is something very wrong going on that is demoralizing the military. And we have to do something about it.

Speaking of insults to Christian values, I'll tell you about one more major issue. And this tells you how far some Pentagon leaders will go to stifle dissent about social engineering in the military and to rewire the values of those who serve.

Some months ago, a Navy lieutenant commander by the name of Ken Carkhuff wrote a letter to me that raised disturbing questions. Lt. Cdr. Carkhuff was leading a helicopter squadron, in Jacksonville, Florida, where he's based. He learned that his unit was to be among the first to include women on a potential combat mission to Haiti.

He felt honor-bound to tell his commanding officer in an informal setting that he could not support the policy on women in combat. He said the policy is an endorsement of violence against women and contrary to his Christian values. At no time did he say he would disobey orders. He didn't realize he was putting his career on the line. He didn't know the "PC police" were about to swoop in. But that's what they did.

Within days, the Navy began proceedings to separate him for cause -- in effect, to fire him -- charging him with dereliction of duty. I should mention that before they decided to actually dismiss him, one of the options they considered was reassigning him to Adak, Alaska, or Bahrain, or somewhere in the Middle East. It was a punitive thing. Glowing fitness reports and career evaluations were knocked down to almost zero, even though Carkhuff had an exemplary, outstanding record. When Navy officials said he was derelict in his duty, they also said his stated beliefs were "incompatible with military service." Can you believe that? Incompatible with military service.

This man is a Naval Academy grad, with an exemplary record. He has five children. And he's two and a half years short of early retirement. And they're dismissing him from the Navy because his Christian values, in opposition to woman in combat, are incompatible with military service. The hearing in Carkhuff's case will take place next week, on May 18. I think we all need to watch that case very closely. We need to lend support to him because he could be the first of many if he loses his case.

This action conveys a devastating and hurtful message. It says that the armed forces don't want or need persons of Christian values. By contrast, a couple of other boards of inquiry, like the one that Lt. Cdr. Carkhuff faces, have allowed self-proclaimed homosexuals to remain in uniform.

What kind of a contradiction do we have here?

Why are the leaders of the 104th Congress allowing this to happen?

How did we get to the point where tolerance of homosexuality is encouraged, but adherence to Christian values is punished? The armed forces depend on people like Lt. Cdr. Carkhuff. Their families are needed to support the volunteer force. If the idea of violence against women is okay and the ideal of being an "officer and a gentleman" is now obsolete, what's the Navy going to replace it with? What values are they standing for now?

I think we have to realize that much of what is happening, I'm sorry to say, is due to inattention and procrastination in Congress. There has not been a full hearing in the Senate on the issue of women in combat, or anything close, in almost four years. On the House side, when they repealed the law on Navy ships, I was given all of five minutes to speak, after a full year studying the issue on the Presidential Commission. That's it. Everyone else invited to testify during that brief hearing was on the pro side.

Certain leaders in Congress have told me they don't want to be bothered with these issues. But just because a pot is on the back burner doesn't mean it can't boil over. And these pots are boiling over all over the place.

Congressional review of the personnel issues is long overdue. I hope you'll join me in insisting, at the very least, that hearings take place as soon as possible.

We must insist that the military institutions which lives and careers depend upon, including scoring systems in training, not be corrupted for the sake of political expediency. Double standards and favoritism must be ended. Foolhardy affirmative action quotas lower standards, put lives at risk and must be ended. The Departments of Defense and Justice must be required to follow the intent of the law regarding homosexuals.

And finally, the consequences of social change and experimentation in the military must be evaluated in terms of the effect on readiness and the strength of the armed forces, not the self-serving statements of people who like to go out and proclaim success only in terms of career opportunities for women. That's not what the military is for. The military is there to defend the country. What a radical concept. You would be surprised how often people forget that.

On all the issues I've mentioned and others we hope to deal with in the future, we have to fight hard. We must defend the basic principle that the military is there to defend the country. We have to support the people who want to do the right thing and apply pressure to those who could do more but are not doing what they should.

I'd like to close with a personal note. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of seeing the President using the troops for photo ops and political payoffs.

As we look at all the candidates vying to become the new Commander-in-Chief, we have to be very careful whom we choose. We need to remember that military service in a candidate's background is important, but it's not the only factor that matters. Every candidate should be asked, "What have you done, and what have you done lately, to defend people in uniform against the demoralizing orders of the President currently in office, Bill Clinton, and his feminist appointees at the Pentagon?" That's just for starters.

Second, what will you do to restore sound principles of readiness and high morale in the armed forces? The military is a resilient institution. Jimmy Carter damaged it greatly, but Ronald Reagan, when he came into office, quickly restored its strength, readiness and morale. After four demoralizing years of Bill Clinton, we need a new Commander-in-Chief who will quickly act, and I do mean quickly, to repair the damage.

It won't be easy for us to deal with these issues. But it's up to us to defend the people serving in uniform. In the face of sexual politics and other outside political pressures, they cannot defend themselves. I'm one of the few people working full time on these issues, and I need all the help I can get from other organizations and individuals, to defend people in uniform. We have the finest military in the world and a responsibility to keep it that way.