A NYTimes article, Marine Commander’s Firing Stirs Debate on Integration of Women in Corps, is a short profile of Lt. Col. Germano and some of the issues involved in her firing.
When Lt. Col. Kate Germano took command of the Marine Corps’ all-women boot camp, the failure rate of female recruits at the rifle range was about three times higher than that of their male counterparts, and she said there was no plan to try to improve it. “The thinking was girls can’t shoot, so why bother,” she said in an interview.
So she worked with trainers to give women better skills instruction, and soon passing rates soared, according to Marine Corps records. In June, 95 percent of women passed initial rifle qualification, equaling the rate for men.
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What’s not to like about results like that? She wasn’t just pushing the recruits on the firing range, but in all areas of their training. And
She began contacting recruiting stations to detail why some recruits had failed basic training — information she thought would help prevent failures in the future.
Probably not the right way to go about improving the overall quality of the recruits. But sometimes in hierarchical organizations, the only way to get things done is to bypass all the middle-men. So, don’t know if that’s a completing legitimate complaint about her performance.
“This whole thing started when her Marines — her female Marines — were telling us they were being mistreated,” said Col. Jeffrey Fultz, the chief of staff for Parris Island. “She was telling them their male counterparts will never respect them if they don’t get good physical scores. You just don’t do that.”
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She requested an independent investigation, saying Colonel Haas had created a hostile work environment and was biased because of her gender. The investigation, completed June 24, did not find evidence of either, but said the female battalion’s need for more drill instructors should be addressed. It also said another survey — one that did not allow more than one response per Marine — should be conducted.
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She was fired anyway. What a waste and squandering of a good opportunity to improve the operation.
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One morning I received a call from a field office employee. Somewhere in Texas early that day, a bank had been held up and the robbers had gotten away with half a million dollars. I immediately imformed my supervisor who leaned back in his chair and said, “You know Marie, proper loss control procedures prevents such occurances. “
I fumed. “Yes, I know. But at the moment I can’t even recall this damn bank.”
I then took off to get the file. The reason I couldn’t recall it was that I never seen the account.
On return to the office, I placed the file on my supervisor’s desk and said, “Looks like this one is your’s.”
He picked up the file and handed it back to me, “Not anymore. Your territory. Your bank. Your robbery.”
It had been a slick job. And in the days prior to ubiquitious security cameras and recordings, they got away with it. Still it shouldn’t have happened.
What does this have to do with Lt. Col. Germane? Well, I pounded on field colleagues to pound on the banks we serviced to double down on operational procedures to prevent such a robbery. Until a few months later when my supervisor, who was a good guy, said, “You’ve proved you point and now it’s time to lighten up. A little, or a lot, more balance can achieve 99.9% and that’s good enough. That last 0.1% isn’t worth the cost.”
Good managers not only do but teach/coach their subordinates good management practices. Gently reel in subordinates that have lost perspective in the pusuit of perfection.
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Doesn’t appear that Colonel Haas has the right stuff for a senior position. And Col. Jeffrey Fultz doesn’t appear to be much better. Lt. Col. Germano is exactly what is needed on the management front lines; they do the heavy lifting. However, they also need quality skilled superiors to nudge them in the right direction when they get too extreme or off course.
Aaron MacLean at Washington FreeBeacon adds more in: Why Did the Marine Corps Fire Kate Germano — It’s Complicated. The MacLean assert that the NYTimes article is too biased in favor of Germano. That’s a judgment call that I don’t share after reading both.
But wait, there’s more!
Allegations that Germano took a “victim-blaming” approach to sexual assault prevention stem from a January brief to officers. Witnesses said she implied that sexual assault is “100 percent preventable” and that “by drinking, you are putting yourself in a position to be sexually assaulted.” One attendee said she would not feel comfortable reporting an assault following the brief because she felt it would not be taken seriously.
…But one thing I know for a fact is that no male Marine officer, absent some sort of career death wish, would ever utter the words Germano reportedly did regarding sexual assault. Suggesting that female Marines could exercise some agency in matters of sexual assault rather than be helpless victims provided her enemies at Parris Island with a mile-wide advantage.
…no male Marine officer, …, would ever utter the word
Dare we ask how the US military is doing on preventing rape and arresting and convicting the perpetrators? How many programs over how many decades and what are the results? Do women and men find it easy to report rapes? Not according to statistics. Maybe, just maybe, they’re doing some things wrong.
While I would never suggest, or even think, that women have the agency to prevent 100% of the sexual assaults they are subjected to. And believe that women should have the autonomy to live perfectly acceptable and normal lives without the threat of sexual assault. However, I agree with Germano that women do have agency in avoiding situations that inherently make themselves easy targets for rape.
If the college campus rape statistics excluded first year students that of their own accord became highly inebriated before they were assualted, the statistics would be less alarming. Maybe no better than they were in the past, which is still unacceptable, but it wouldn’t look as if we were going backwards at a fast rate. Since telling young people to just say no to alcohol doesn’t seem to work, maybe they should be instructed in how to drink without putting themselves at high risk for assault. Sort of like high society cut the drink-drive accidents and deaths way down from what they once were.
MacLean does have a money quote at the end of his piece:
Germano’s sin seems to be that she was pursuing actual respect for–and self-respect by–women in the Marine Corps, and not the fictitious appearance of equality that both her bosses, and some of her subordinates, appear to prefer.
