was her name?”
“Which one? Becky or Arlene? Besides, I still don’t know what you’re
talking about.”
“I rest my case. I can’t talk to you about the problems I’m having with
women on board ship. You’re too busy chasing them.”
Surprisingly, Batman didn’t answer right away, and when he did, the
bantering tone was gone. “I know I used to be a skirt-chaser, Stoney,”
he said. “Used to be I had just one use for women. That’s not true
anymore.”
Tombstone regarded his friend for a moment with a level gaze. “I know.
I was out of line, Batman.”
He’d heard the story from Batman himself. Several years back, during
Jefferson’s deployment to Thailand during an attempted military coup in
that country, Batman had been shot down by rebels along the Thai-Burmese
border.
Chances were he would have ended up dead … but he’d been found
instead by a young Karen woman named Phya Nin, a sergeant in the Karen
National Liberation Army. He almost certainly owed her his life. Ever
since, Batman had continued to maintain the traditional facade of the
swinging, predatory, womanizing naval aviator, but it was clear that
nowadays his manner was a facade.
Perhaps he’d learned something about women while hiking through the Thai
jungle.
“Hey, no biggie,” Batman said. “But in case you were wondering, I’m not
bedding the Amazons. Not that the idea doesn’t have a certain appeal,
but it’s too damned hard to manage any privacy on this bird farm!”
“‘Amazons?””
“The DACOWITS Amazons. What the guys are calling Conway’s people.
Strictly unofficial, of course.”
DACOWITS was the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
Founded in 1951, the organization had for years been in the vanguard of
the fight to secure women the same opportunities in the military as men.
Since the late 1970s, though, the committee had frequently been used as
a political front for the radical feminist agenda. Some people had
claimed that its more extreme members actively sought the draft for
women, if only to deliberately expose more American women to a
non-traditional lifestyle, forcing change for change’s sake.
Tombstone had no opinion on such charges, but he hated the political
shenanigans that were turning the U.S. military into some kind of
social testing program. The Clinton Administration had forced the
women-in-combat issue, just as they’d forced another controversial issue
by lifting the military’s ban on homosexuals. Damn it all, between the
gargantuan budget cuts and the social engineering, it was as though the
White House had been determined to torpedo Navy morale and efficiency.
“So what’s eating you about ’em?” Batman prodded.
“Now that I think about it, I’m afraid the problem is more with me than
with the situation. I was up in Pri-Fly tonight, watching while they
brought Conway and Hanson down. Hanson trapped okay, no problem, but
the weather was getting dicey by the time Conway charlied. She boltered
once, and her fuel was getting tight.”
“She made it?”
“Yup. Second pass.”
“Happens to the best of us, man.”
“Sure. The point is, I was up there with the Air Boss about to have a
cow, hoping Conway wouldn’t have to ditch and praying she wouldn’t slam
into the roundoff. Damn it, I worry about any of my men when they’re in
trouble, but this was different. Worse.”
“The fact that Conway’s a woman made it worse?”
“I guess that’s what I’m saying.” Tombstone took a deep breath. “I was
brought up in a pretty traditional family, Batman. A Navy family. I
was always taught that the womenfolk back home were part of what we were
fighting for. You know, civilization. Family. Motherhood.”
“Mom in the kitchen baking apple pie.”
“God damn it, Batman-”
“Hey, chill out, CAG. I’m not making fun of you. But it sounds to me
like you’re having some trouble adjusting to the times that are
a-changin’.”
“You got that right.” He shook his head. “Another dinosaur, blundering
off to extinction.”
“Another male chauvinist pig dinosaur.” Batman took a bite of chicken
and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “But you’re worried about more
than just your response to female aviators.”
“How perceptive.”
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks, man. What’s the matter, then?