Yesterday, a military judicial court convicted Delmar Simpson, an army drill sergeant at the now infamous Aberdeen training ground, of 18 out of 19 charges of rape. In the barrage of media coverage over the incident, reporters tossed around phrases like "systemic problems of the military" and "a culture of abuse," to describe relations between the sexes in our country's armed forces. This, the latest in a recent flurry of sex-related scandals, has given political pundits the opportunity to rehash discussions of a gender-integrated military and second guess its leaders. It's time for cooler heads to prevail: why not begin with the very personnel those pundits and politicians are so eager to "protect"?

As a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), I visited over 50 military installations worldwide and held focus groups for over 6,000 women. In the aftermath of Tailhook, we were particularly sensitive to the issues raised by cases like those at Aberdeen. Contrary to what is now the popular perception, we found that sexual harassment, rape and assault were not pervasive in the military; a recent Department of Defense study and our own reports show that over the last few years incidents of sexual harassment have declined. Around the world, military women of all ranks asked us to stop focusing so much attention on those issues, which they found strained the working relationships of their units, and start focusing on much more practical and real concerns.

What were the leading issues for women in the armed forces? As the military downsizes, bureaucracy failures and resource shortages topped the lists: back-to-back deployments, child care, medical care and housing -- not unlike the concerns of their male colleagues.

In the summer of 1995, we visited Adak, Alaska, a remote naval base in the midst of the Aleutian Islands, and met 800 men and women who were suffering from the psychological stress of working in a rapidly down-sizing base while living in an isolated area with few creature comforts. Mail and basic necessities like hygiene products arrived irregularly. The clergy were beset by personnel seeking emotional support; most of the year, the sun was not visible. Once a central point of the Cold War, Adak is now a forgotten relic, and the remaining staff suffers for it.

In the United States Air Force in Europe (USAFE), evidence of stress directly related to downsizing was also apparent. We met with pilots and maintenance crews who had back-to-back missions that kept them away from their families and did not provide time for much-needed rest. Their greatest fear is that we will see -- as some say we already have -- pilot error directly related to exhaustion. Our research also found a direct correlation between the operations tempo, marital problems and an increase in domestic abuse.

On the positive side, DACOWITS also found a command climate of which the United States military should be proud. Exceptional leaders came up with creative ways to handle shortages and to fully utilize the men and women in their command. In the Navy's Mediterranean installations, we found a senior enlisted man who had set up a "loaner" store from which personnel could borrow tools to fix up aging housing. In Adak, we found a cohesive, mixed-gender operation despite the hardships. A female officer there noted that, "the best thing you can do to integrate women into any shop is to put them alongside and pretend you don't know who is a man and who's a woman--give them equal tasking . .. The minute you do differen-tiate...people will call foul."

We must be clear that the incidents at Aberdeen are the rare exception, not the rule, and should be dealt with swiftly, severely but individually. Let us exercise caution when we condemn the whole for the actions of a few. These issues are scintillating to the press and can make careers on Capitol Hill, but the majority of men and women in the military would appreciate at the very least equal attention paid to the issues that affect them daily--health care, child care, and the sufficient allotment of resource. Listen to them: they'll ask to be allowed the necessary support systems to continue doing their jobs--protecting and defending the United States.

-by Lisa Guillermin Gable

Ms. Gable recently completed a three year term on DACOWITS, where she served as Vice-Chair (1994) and Director of Communications and Strategic Planning (1995). She is currently an independent marketing consultant and serves as a pro bono advisor to Pacific Research Institute.