It was 10 am on a Sunday, Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I was standing in men’s World War II Barracks with a can of Comet in one hand, a toothbrush in the other. What had stopped me dead in my tracks was a series of very large, oddly-shaped white porcelain objects attached to the wall right next to the line of sinks.
Never seen anything like it. I was a farm girl from Florida. Barely twenty-one. I could recite Shakespeare or Shelly, name most Beethoven symphonies from their first several bars, and I had an extensive vocabulary. I was sophisticated.
Uh-huh.
But this thing, with a handle at the top that distributed dribbles of water down the inside of it smooth, curved, but badly-stained surface, was an utter mystery.
We Need More Women!
In 1973, the Great Eminences in the Pentagon decided that it was time to get more women into the Army. They decided to open up all kinds of Military Occupational Specialties (Army speak for jobs) to women, many of them without thinking much about the physical requirements (like, field medic), or for that matter, the kind of physical training…