Generally Speaking

by Claudia J. Kennedy

And the support I received was often direct and personal. One evening as I was walking to my car in the South Parking Lot of the Pentagon, a Navy lieutenant commander ran up behind me and saluted. “Ma'am,” he said, “you don't know me.” Okay, I thought, this could be good or it could be bad. What he said was good. “I don't mean to impose, but I just want to tell you how sorry I am this thing happened to you and how grateful I am that you reported it. Guys like that general have no place in the service. Men are as outraged about this as women.”

  Later, after I had attended a promotion ceremony, a senior NCO approached. The man came to attention. “Ma'am, I just want to salute you.”

  All this support was a source of great strength. In the days following the first press stories, I had felt like avoiding the Pentagon corridors. But I knew I had to keep my head up and look people right in the eye. They smiled, indicating their strong support. “Hello, ma'am,” I heard from strangers whenever I walked the corridors. There were as many men as women voicing this tacit support.

  Among my close circle of personal colleagues and friends, everyone believed me and no one ever pressed for additional details on the October 1996 incident.

  On May 8, 2000, the U.S. Army Inspector General Agency completed its investigation of my complaint against Larry Smith. Although the IG report was labeled “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY,” parts of it were leaked to the press within two days. The press references to the report still contained errors, but the major conclusions were accurate: The Inspector General had substantiated my complaint against Smith.

  But senior Pentagon leadership was reviewing the IG report, so that I received no official notification of the investigation results.

  Later, I obtained a redacted version of the report under the Freedom of Information Act. The report revealed no evidence that Smith had committed acts of sexual misconduct earlier in his career. In summarizing the reasons for substantiating my complaint, the Inspector General noted that evaluating the allegations “came down to a question of credibility. There appeared to be no motive for LTG Kennedy to jeopardize her career and reputation by making false allegations. … She was senior to him. They were not in competition for assignments. She did not arrange the office call. There was no apparent incentive for her to ruin his unblemished career and destroy their friendship with false allegations.” I had acted “out of loyalty to the Army” to prevent similar incidents from recurring. “Thus, when one weighed all the testimony and considered all the evidence, coupled with the lack of motive to lie, the preponderance or greater weight of the evidence was sufficient to substantiate LTG Kennedy's allegations.”

  The report also substantiated that Smith had committed an “assault consummated by a battery,” but that this “lesser included offense” would be combined into one allegation of improper sexual harassment. The Inspector General also substantiated that Smith was guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

  It was not until July 7, 2000, however, five weeks after my retirement ceremony in the Pentagon central courtyard, that the Army officially announced that the Inspector General had “substantiated charges of sexual harassment made by Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy against Maj. Gen. Larry Smith.” After briefly describing Smith's October 1996 behavior, the official statement noted that I “did not report the incident to any Army official until Maj. Gen. Smith was identified in 1999 to be the Deputy Inspector General of the Army,” a position that involved overseeing investigations of sexual harassment.

  The statement continued that Smith had received an administrative memorandum of reprimand from General John M. Keane, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Such a reprimand effectively ended Smith's career.

  The Army had upheld my credibility, even though Smith stated publicly, “I have always and continue to maintain that I did not commit these allegations and I am deeply disappointed with the decision to substantiate them. However, for the good of my family and the Army, we have elected to put it behind us and move on with our lives.” The Army accepted Smith's request to retire on September 1, 2000.

  I released a brief public statement through Army public affairs: “I am satisfied with the Army's action in this case. As far as I am concerned, this matter is closed.”

  That statement ended a troubling time for me. But the closing of the Smith incident certainly did not end the chapter on sexual harassment and misconduct in the Army. As the work of the Review Panel demonstrated, an unacceptably large proportion of women and men soldiers experience sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sex discrimination, but many of their colleagues and leaders did not share this perception or attach much significance to it.

  Others, however, including the most successful commissioned officers and NCO leaders the panel contacted, were very aware that the human relations environment in their units was a key factor in achieving their missions. In this regard, these successful leaders held the same attitudes as their civilian counterparts. It is widely assumed among many women activists that men “just don't get it” when it comes to sexual harassment. But what I learned in my own case and from membership on the panel is that many men do get it. They feel bad about sexual harassment. And they work consistently to eliminate it from their organizations.

  Here is the lesson to take from this: Sometimes women do not give these men enough support in discussions of sexual harassment when the issue of gender is raised as if it were an unbreachable barrier dividing men and women. From my own experience, it has become quite clear that it is not gender that divides us any more than it defines us. Behavior defines and divides us. If we act appropriately, and more importantly, if our leaders from the most junior NCO to the most senior general exemplify high standards of behavior and require all of us to follow them, the issues of fairness and equality would soon be resolved.

  For me, recent troubling incidents have brought home some important lessons. It used to be entirely up to the individual soldier, not the Army, to deal with cases of sexual misconduct. But the shameful crimes at Aberdeen put an end to that. Now the Army has to respond to an individual soldier's complaints.

  In my own case, some displeased senior generals have said that I should have dealt with Smith privately and not officially involved the institution of the Army. But they miss the point. I did deal with the Smith incident privately at the time. Only when he was assigned to become the Deputy Inspector General, a position for which he was not qualified given his behavior toward me, did the matter become an institutional responsibility.

  Do I wish none of this had happened? On a personal level, absolutely. My last few months on active duty were a time of distraction and unwanted publicity. Until then I valued my privacy. And I also knew my decision to come forward with a complaint would definitely affect my professional future. There were positions outside the Army for which I am qualified, but which would never be open to me after the notoriety of the Smith case.

  That is just a fact of life. It's human nature (not only in the Army) for people to react negatively to injured parties. They get cut from the herd. Call it the whistleblower syndrome. It is an important question for both civilian and military leaders to address as they try to resolve problems of fairness and equality in their organizations.

  Given the nature of the highly publicized Smith incident, my guess is that a lot of readers will have turned to this chapter first. I hope they don't stop here, but go back to the beginning of the book. I think they'll find an interesting story.

  8

  Fitness Physical, Mental, and Spiritual

  For most people today the image that comes to mind when they hear the word “soldier” is of a robust young man or woman in camouflage Battle Dress Uniform, the epitome of physical fitness and mental alertness. Indeed, the Army has been developing programs for decades to make that image a reality for all soldiers, no matter their rank or age.

  And it has been my own experience that fitness is an essential attribute of effective leadership, that physical and mental fitness are intertwined, and that
what I call spiritual fitness provides successful leaders an added dimension of character from which they can draw strength at times of stress and crisis.

  Physical fitness is probably the best known of these three attributes. Some of the first newsreels of soldiers taken at training bases during World War I showed them doing calisthenics on the parade ground, an aspect of military training that has not changed much since the days of Sparta. Millennia later when the United States sent its soldiers into combat during the Persian Gulf War, they were probably the fittest troops ever engaged on the battlefield.

  When I was a company commander at Fort McClellan, our post commander, Major General Joseph Kingston, who believed strongly in the value of physical fitness to restore discipline among the soldiers of the “hollow Army” of the mid-1970s, reflected one day as we stood in my company area on the connection between physical fitness and morale. Units running together in formation—headed by their platoon leaders or company commanders—enhanced that intangible but essential psychological factor known as esprit de corps.

  “Captain,” he said, “you need to make sure your soldiers have a physical training program.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  But when I later discussed the issue with First Sergeant Benson, she raised some pragmatic concerns. “When would we do this, ma'am? Will the Training Center release our people for PT? And where will we get the equipment and the trainers?”

  In short, she correctly indicated that the Army then placed little emphasis on physical fitness. But for the last twenty-five years, physical training and fitness have become an Army priority.

  Recent Army programs have included the Fit to Win and Fit to Fight campaigns, under which individual soldiers and units train for and maintain their fitness. The two main aspects of the effort are weight control and physical conditioning achieved through physical training. Soldiers must now maintain their weight within a certain range based on gender, height, and age. For example, a thirty-five-year-old woman soldier who is five feet five inches must weigh less than 146 pounds, while a man the same age who is five feet eleven inches must weigh less than 195 pounds. Soldiers who exceed these limits are put on remedial programs to learn about diet and to exercise more frequently. The Army takes this effort seriously: Soldiers' height and weight appear on their Efficiency Reports, and those who are unable to meet their weight standards within a certain period of time are discharged.

  This was not always the case, especially for so-called garrison troops, the kind of soldiers General Kingston was concerned about. The mess halls of the past were not the place for a soldier trying to lose weight. The typical chow line at breakfast included creamed beef on toast, sausage patties, and grits dripping in butter. The main course at lunch was often pot roast and mashed potatoes swimming in gravy. Fresh vegetables were hard to find. Salad bars were unknown.

  In the past, the problem of being fat and being in poor physical condition became serious when soldiers were no longer either in demanding training or assigned to units with a physically active mission. That was the main reason the Army revamped its nutritional program and modernized its mess halls, which are now called “dining facilities.” Today the Army feeds its soldiers wisely, always providing lower-fat alternatives to traditional high-calorie meals. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are plentiful. And every year, the Army holds competitions among its cooks to recognize those who can provide the most nutritious and appealing dishes. The old saw about the mess sergeant having his taste buds shot off in the last war simply no longer applies.

  In 1982, when I was a major on the staff of the Military Intelligence brigade at Field Station Augsburg, I became involved in competitive running almost by chance. I had enjoyed running individually about twice a week since arriving in Germany. My apartment in downtown Augsburg overlooked Jakobertor, one of the five standing Romanesque gates of the ancient walled city. I was lucky to have a two-bedroom flat in a new building with a grocery on the ground floor and a basement garage. By German standards, I lived well.

  Most weekends, I ran along the inside perimeter of the wall, alternating from path to sidewalk. This kept me safely out of the warren of narrow streets, through which the local burghers careered in their Mercedes and Audis like so many Panzer-grenadiers at the battle of Kursk. (According to GI lore, Augsburg was one-hour driving time west of Munich, unless the driver was German, in which case the trip took twenty minutes.)

  The weather was cool; the dirt paths were soft from the frequent Bavarian rain. But I didn't consider myself a serious competitor. Running was just an avocation that kept me fit and cleared my head after a busy day at the office. I began that tour at Field Station Augsburg as assistant operations officer and later became the station operations officer. The assignment perfectly matched the intensive specialized training I had undergone during the three-year Junior Officer Cryptologic Career Program at NSA. My work kept me in a huge windowless building all day. Soldiers doing shift work—” on trick”—came and went in large groups every eight hours. If there were a crisis, and the need to meet a “surge” requirement, everyone was so absorbed with their mission that they wanted to remain on the operations floor to observe and help out. The NCOs had to send soldiers home to get their rest to be prepared for their next shift.

  For at least six months of the year, I would arrive at the immense gray building before the cold dawn and leave after the sunset. For many of us, skiing in the Alps on holidays and weekends gave us the one occasion to climb above the clouds and see the sun. But just getting outdoors and running provided a physical outlet I could tap into whenever I wanted.

  Many soldiers, however, considered running just an irksome requirement on the semiannual PT test. Most still ran in their combat boots, and only changed to running shoes in the early 1980s. When one warrant officer went to the PX to buy his running shoes, the clerk asked him how often he ran. “Maybe twice a year,” he replied, “if I can't get out of it.”

  “These will last you a lifetime,” she said, handing him a pair of Nikes over the counter.

  Then one day a captain named Dodson came into my office to announce he was forming a cross-country team to participate in the VII Corps championship. The competition would take place near Munich in a few weeks. The five-kilometer run required each team to field both men and women of a variety of ages.

  “We can't do it without a senior woman runner,” he said. “And we don't have one. Can you help us out?”

  I was hesitant, having never run cross-country competitively before. What if my slow speed hurt the team's performance? But I had been successfully accomplishing the two-mile run on the Army Physical Fitness Test well within my age and gender standards. And the 5-K run was not that much longer. Besides, I tended to perform better on runs requiring more endurance than speed. This might prove interesting.

  “Yes,” I told him. “I'll run.”

  The day of the run was cold and misty after recent heavy rains. I ran in a field of women soldiers, most of them younger than me, including an enlisted woman who was considered the favorite based on her past record of unchallenged victories. After the start, I fell into a steady, dogged pace. The ground was so soaked and chewed up by earlier competitors that the backs of my legs and my shirt were soon slick with liquid mud thrown up from the soles of my shoes. The young woman soldier ahead was obviously concerned about being beaten by a runner she could hear gasping close behind her. But I didn't have the breath to reassure her that I was in the older, masters category and thus not a competitive threat to her.

  To my great amazement, I became the VII Corps women's masters champion for 1983. To my even greater amazement, I discovered there was a follow-on competition in a few weeks in which I also had to run. I won that event as well, and became that year's U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) women's masters champion.

  A year later, I was assigned as an action officer in the Training Directorate of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS) in th
e Pentagon. When I reported for duty, my boss, Colonel Dennis Malcor (who retired as a major general), called me into his office for a brief introductory meeting.

  At the conclusion of the serious discussion, he leaned back in his chair to point at a picture on the wall showing only a muscular forearm and hand. “Major,” he said with mock severity, “I wouldn't expect you to know this since you're so new here, but you are talking to the world's foremost handball player.”

  “Sir,” I replied in the same tone, “you have no way of knowing it, but you are talking to USAREUR's women's master running champion.”

  He grinned. “Good,” he said, his tone growing more serious. “In this directorate you will do physical training three times a week during duty hours. That is mandatory, two hours of PT, three times a week. You will work the rest of your schedule around that requirement.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The other action officers, all of whom loved and respected Colonel Malcor, confirmed his prowess on the handball and racquetball courts. “But don't worry about him beating you on the PT test,” another major told me. “For the run, you'll need a calendar to time him, not a stopwatch.”

  Colonel Malcor's edict was rooted in concern for his officers' well-being and for the success of the organization he led. In the previous eighteen months, four people in the ODCSOPS had died of heart attacks, one right at his desk. This was just the beginning of the Army's antismoking campaign and the emphasis on better nutrition. It was also the early days of the effort to clean up traditionally heavy drinking and to encourage running as a social event rather than the nearly obligatory happy hour at the officers club.

  However, the conversion of the Army from hard drinking to hard running was not without resistance from a few traditional soldiers. I'll always remember a particular sergeant in the MI brigade I later commanded in Hawaii. He had been injured in an accident and a “line of duty” investigation was conducted. The investigating officer summarized the accident this way: “This NCO was bowling off duty. In the process of throwing the ball, he states that his ankle gave out, and he hit himself in the head with the bowling ball and also fell against the ball return, knocking himself out. He had a blood alcohol content of .31, which I believe contributed significantly to the accident, which I find is therefore not in the line of duty.”