Henrietta Hay's Column

Sex is not new. It has been around as long as people But our military establishment, faced with growing numbers of women in its ranks, acts as thought it just discovered it and is completely confused by it.

In ancient times and through the middle Ages, "Rape and Pillage" were the traditional rewards of winning wars. Women and crops were both there for the victors. Recent events in Bosnia show that this philosophy has not changed all that much.

The Greek hero Odysseus gave early lessons in the place of women in the military picture. After his 20 years away from home during which he repeatedly proved his sexual prowess in his many adventures, he returned home to find his wife, Penelope, surrounded by suitors who were threatening that which was his. He killed all the suitors, but Penelope was spared when he found that she had been faithful to him for all those 20 years.

Now in the latter half of the twentieth century women are a vital part of the military establishment in the United States, comprising one eighth of the total. The whole sex issue, women as soldiers instead of prizes, seems to have caught the guys by surprise. Tailhook should have warned them that the old days are over.

Lieutenant Kelly Flinn, the first woman to pilot B-52 bombers, has been given a general discharge and is out of the Air Force, along with her Air Academy education and millions of tax dollars worth of flight training.

This is a complicated issue and, for all the publicity, we don't know all the facts. One side says she should have been court court-martialed, the other side says she got a raw deal. For the record, I think she got caught in the gender war.

She fell in love with a very sleazy civilian who she says told her at first that he was not married. It was a pretty dumb thing for her to do, but most of us - women and men too - have made at least one stupid romantic decision in our lives. Most of us did not face prison and loss of a career because of it.

We have a woman in a high position; highly trained, highly skilled doing a job that has traditionally belonged to the most glamorous of service men. Sandy Grady wrote that, "When I was a Navy seaman, fly guys strutted as womanizing studs. That's been Hollywood's stereotype since Clark Gable wore a scarf and goggles."

But not for women. Not that we want women to behave like that, but we're not ready to make them run around with a Scarlet A tattooed on their foreheads if they make a mistake.

This is not strictly a case of sexual bias, but surely nobody can say with a straight face that gender was not part of it.

Lt. Flinn has to be an exceptionally fine flyer to be in her position, but she apparently serves under different rules. She was a ready-made target to be knocked down. This was Payback Time.

The first public figure to come to her defense was Senator Trent Lott, Majority Leader. He said, "My wife has a good question. Where's the guy who's involved in the deal?"

Very little has been said about "the guy," who is a civilian, obviously a willing participant in the adultery, and willing to report it, unbeknownst to Lt. Flinn, so graphically that the official report is stamped "Warning: This Report Contains Explicit Material." This may not justify lying, but it may explain it.

Whatever happened in Minot, most Americans believe Lt. Flinn was treated unfairly and that she was treated more harshly than a male would have been. Gilbert and Sullivan would have advised, "Let the punishment fit the crime."

Certainly Lt. Flinn made some serious mistakes, but so, I think, did the Air Force. As Diane Carman said, "The joint chiefs need to take a reconnaissance mission to 1997 and see how to manage a sexually integrated work force."