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Before two months of basic training were up, however, the Pensacola, Fla., woman was out the door, acknowledging that she couldn't adjust to military life. "It was totally not what I expected," she said.
With recruiting in a deep slump, the Pentagon is pinning more and more of its hopes on young women like Azriel - without whom, top officials often say, today's military simply could not function.
Yet year after year, women leave the services at higher rates than men, driven out by injuries, family considerations, job opportunities and other causes, including a sense that the military just isn't right for them. With the services' increasing dependence on women, the early departures signal trouble for the Pentagon.
Women now account for 14 percent of active-duty personnel, up from 10 percent a decade ago, and they make up 20 percent of new recruits.
The exodus is particularly unsettling for the Army: 47 percent of its enlisted women are gone, either by choice or involuntarily, before the end of three years, despite having signed up for terms averaging four years. The comparable attrition rate for Army men is 28 percent.
Across all the services, 38 percent of women are out the door within three years, compared to about 33 percent for men.
These numbers raise uncomfortable questions about whether women are failing to find the kind of personal support or job opportunities they had hoped for in the military.
That conclusion would be a bitter disappointment for the services. Smoothly integrating women has been one of their biggest challenges of the decade, and the cause of a series of scandals and political controversies.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, calls the departure rate a "dramatic rejection of the military" that the government urgently needs to understand. Navy Capt. Barbara Brehm, military representative to an influential Pentagon advisory committee on women, calls the attrition rates "simply unacceptable."
The problem has major financial ramifications. The Army, for example, pays about $35,000 to get each new
soldier through recruitment and the first stages of training; this month, after the worst recruiting year in two
decades, the service authorized bonuses of as much as $65,000 just for signing up.
With these issues in mind, the Army this year began what is apparently the first focused study on the attrition
of women, and officials expect the results may lead to recommendations to help lower the departure rate.
Officially, recruits aren't entitled to leave until the end of their enlistment periods, which are legal commitments.
But as a practical matter, an unhappy soldier can often find a way out.
Commanding officers are far more flexible now about departures than they were during the draft era.
Sometimes, rather than have unhappy or maladjusted troops causing problems in the unit, they will approve discharges for psychological or medical reasons.
Soldiers are allowed to leave voluntarily because of pregnancy or parenthood, to attend school, to study to become officers, or in cases of personal hardship.
And if they can't get out any other way, many recruits are willing to take bad-performance discharges, experts say, because of a general perception that employers don't attach as much significance as they once did to `bad paper' on a resume.
Within the Army, the departure rate is considerably higher for white women: 54 percent leave before three years are up, compared with 37 percent of black women and 43 percent of Latinas.
An internal Army analysis notes that white women enter the force with some of the highest test scores and skills. ``High aptitude may contribute to attrition, as these soldiers see greater socioeconomic opportunities
outside the military,'' the analysis says.
In addition, some experts suggest black women are more likely to have had friends or relatives who have been in the service, and generally have an easier time adjusting to its stresses because they know what to expect.
In a series of focus group interviews with enlisted women this year, a congressionally appointed study panel heard several complain that they felt isolated and excluded from some physically demanding and traditionally male jobs.
One sailor told panel researchers of her frustration after getting turned down twice for welding school: `Most of the guys, they get the schools. And I ask for school, and it's like, `What do you need this school for? You're a woman.' ''
In separate interviews with a Los Angeles Times reporter, some enlisted women described entering the military with high hopes, only to reach the conclusion that they are better suited to the civilian world.
Azriel said she was drawn to the Army by TV advertisements. But she found the rigors of Army life not to her liking and became unmotivated and depressed. Finally, her superiors had her ``chaptered'' out, which means she was forced to leave. She plans to return to her job as a contract paralegal.
Seaman Tatinyana Pinkney joined the Navy two years ago, passing up three college scholarship offers because she yearned to travel far from her home in Pine Ville, S.C. But after two sea tours, she decided she had made a mistake.
Pinkney, 20, has decided she wants to return to civilian life and move back home to take care of her ailing mother. She is planning to marry her boyfriend, whom she met while in the Navy. Because she's pregnant, she is free to leave with an honorable discharge.
Janice H. Laurence, a psychologist who assisted with research for the Commission on Military Training and Gender Related Issues, cites a ``disillusionment factor'' among some military women.
Problems arising from military travel and dual-career households put women under special pressures, Laurence said. The Pentagon may have to come up with some creative personnel policies to ``deal with the family issues,'' she said.
Some conservative observers have come to different conclusions. They believe the numbers suggest the services might be better off focusing their efforts on recruiting men.
``It's quite possible they're just wasting a lot of money,'' said Anita Blair, a conservative activist and lawyer who chaired the congressional commission on gender issues in the military.
The services, for their part, have in the last two years been stepping up efforts to reduce attrition generally, although they haven't initiated programs aimed at women in particular.
The Army's training and doctrine command, which oversees early training efforts, has begun half a dozen programs to improve the conditioning, skills and motivation of soldiers who are falling behind.
When asked about attrition among women, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said the Army is ``always concerned about our attrition numbers, and they're never low enough.''
Yet he signaled the service would be willing to go only so far to reduce them, since it doesn't want to keep people who aren't willing, or able, to do the job.
``There is a quality factor here, and we have assured ourselves that the quality of the force will not be degraded,'' he said.
LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST-11-29-99
He imagined himself sick and feeble. He imagined that his days of working and bodybuilding were over.
Since the diagnosis in 1997, Briggs has faithfully adhered to a daily regimen of medications - a regimen that he says is the reason those fears have not been realized.
Today Briggs will share his experience with the nation in a satellite teleconference on AIDS in the black community. Surgeon General David Satcher will be the host.
Billed as the largest World AIDS Day event, the conference will electronically link speakers at five historically black colleges and universities, including Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, and will be carried over the World Wide Web at www.blackfamilies.com.
The themes of the conference are prevention, testing, and the availability of effective treatments. Such treatments are often underused in minority communities.
"I think if people see the benefits, a person who is a living testimony, they will at least consider ... using the medication," said Briggs, program coordinator for HIV prevention programs at the Watts Health Center in South-Central Los Angeles.
By focusing on the impact of HIV and AIDS on African-Americans, the teleconference recognizes the devastating impact of the disease among people who are not white and gay. African-Americans, for example, make up an estimated 12 percent of the U.S. population but nearly 37 percent of reported AIDS cases.
The appointment of the former managing editor of Money magazine came one month after Hachette Filippachi Magazines assumed full control of George by buying the 50 percent stake it didn't already own from the Kennedy family.
Kennedy's death in a plane crash in July had raised questions about the future of the magazine, which had been struggling with lower advertising.
But Hachette's president and chief executive, Jack Kliger, has maintained that the company is committed to the magazine and to Kennedy's goal of reporting on the intersection of politics and culture.
In an interview, Lalli said he will keep the tone of the publication generally positive but that he will also strive for more newsy stories.
Lalli was the top editor at Money for eight years before being promoted to senior executive editor at Time Inc., where he oversaw international development of several of the company's magazines.
Lalli left Time Inc. at the beginning of this year. He said he missed the hands-on experience of running a magazine.
11-30-99
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