| Women in the Army |
Few Women Get Generals' Top Jobs
 Capt. Kathryn A. Burba holds open the door for her boss, Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. (By Nancy Andrews/The Washington Post) |
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 29, 1997; Page A01 When the Army's 10 four-star generals assemble at the Pentagon, they are shadowed by a handpicked group of lieutenant colonels and majors who are almost always in earshot of their bosses, and never out of step. The confident junior officers even look like their graying lords, only 20 years younger.
Like the generals they serve, all but one of the aides is white. And all are men.
Gen. Johnnie Wilson, the Army's only African American four-star general, sometimes surveys the group of proteges and mentors and sighs. "I say . . . `Guys, what is this?' They say, `We selected the person we felt the most comfortable with,' " he said.
There are few more subjective honors in the Army than being chosen as an aide de camp, the personal assistants who cater to scores of the service's top generals. The post is a strong predictor of success: One-third of the Army's 307 generals were aides early in their careers, and many recall the experience as a source of invaluable contacts and an incomparable first view of the inner workings of military command.
Few jobs today also reveal more about the Army's difficulty in creating a new generation of leaders that includes women, who make up a larger percentage of the service today than at any time in U.S. history. Because generals enjoy great freedom in choosing an aide, the selection process illustrates both intangible and concrete obstacles women face in trying to advance careers in one of the most tradition-bound institutions in America.
Many generals require aides to have experience in combat jobs -- which women are barred from by Army rules. Other generals say that a poisonous atmosphere of rumor and suspicion over gender relations caused by high-profile sexual misconduct cases in the military discourages the selection of women for a job designed to foster a deep, intimate bond. Some say they simply prefer someone like themselves.
 Johnnie E. Wilson, the Army's only black four-star general prepares to board helicopter with his aide, Maj. Anthony Swain. (By Nancy Andrews/The Washington Post) |
With the exception of the few who have had female aides, many generals are unwilling to speak openly about how they choose aides de camp. Those who do underscore both the informality of the process and its importance in determining the military's future leadership.
"I look upon it as a general's responsibility to develop a subordinate," said Maj. Gen. David H. Ohle, the Army's assistant deputy chief of staff for personnel and a former assistant commander of the 1st Infantry Division. "You should always pick somebody you think should be a future general."
He added: "Chemistry means a lot. I go for someone who has hobbies like ones I have. I wanted an aide who could golf with me. . . . Everybody just picks someone who they feel the most comfortable with."
Ohle, like many generals, has always requested an aide who, like himself, comes from one of the Army's combat arms branches -- infantry, armor or artillery. "I know how they've been raised, what they think and what they do," he said. But as a result, "I have never had the opportunity to interview a female."
Every Army general who commands troops -- as opposed to those on the Army's staff -- is entitled to an aide de camp, an enlisted driver and sometimes an enlisted aide who works at the general's private residence. Being an aide de camp is like no other job in the Army, in which young officers who have proven their mettle leading soldiers must accommodate the habits and demands of one individual.
The role of the aide de camp dates to the Middle Ages. It was adopted by the American Revolutionary Army, where, in addition to the European custom of carrying a general's battle orders to troops, aides were seen as proteges of great talent and courage. Historians say Gen. George Washington treated his aides like the sons he never had, a tradition that has been passed through generations.
These days an aide is secretary, diplomat, traveling companion, gatekeeper, suitcase packer, bartender, protocol officer, caterer, navigator and security guard. He might also be a running, golf or racquetball partner. For a year to two, an aide picks up a general for work at dawn and is often the last officer to see the general at night.
An Army booklet instructs aides de camp to know the speed and seating capacity of every kind of aircraft, train and vehicle. Know at least 50 telephone numbers by heart, it says. Know "the right type of wine for a meal . . . how many miles it is to Timbuktu . . . how the boss's steak or roast beef ought to be cooked. . . . The aide must provide raincoats if it rains, coats if it is cold, a pistol if in a hostile country and laugh at all `jokes.' "
In return, an aide witnesses the inner workings of the Army at the highest level and can study the decision-making and leadership skills of its best and brightest.
"The benefits have been unbelievable," said Capt. Brian Johnson, an aide de camp for the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, Lt. Gen. Robert S. Coffey. "I've met and spoken to incredible people. It's very eye-opening to see the working of the Army at this level. It is very rare."
Maj. Anthony Swain, the only black aide to a four-star general, has traveled the world with Gen. Wilson, commander of the Army Materiel Command. What he has learned about leadership is down-to-earth. "The ability to look at, and separate, the trivial stuff from what's important. Not to allow all the other things to cloud the decision-making process," he said. "It takes time to develop."
Lt. Rolanda Colbert, one of the Army's few female aides, said that working for Brig. Gen. David W. Foley was an irreplaceable experience: "He allowed me to sit in on every meeting he had. . . . It has widened my perspective. I'm still a young officer. I still have a lot to learn."
A general seeking a new aide usually asks the Army's personnel offices for a list of qualified candidates. Some generals choose someone they already know.
Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Kinzer, commanding general of the 5th Army, selected a major he first met as a quarterback 20 years ago when he was involved in the Fort Campbell high school booster club. Lt. Gen. Coffey met Capt. Johnson a decade ago because his daughter was a friend of Johnson's sister.
Familiarity is especially comforting, say generals, with all the attention on the military's sexual harassment problems.
The golf course at Fort Hood, Tex., is what comes to mind on this subject for Maj. Gen. Morris J. Boyd, deputy commanding general of the III Corps. Boyd recalled a moment last month when he put his arm around his 25-year-old male driver. "This relationship is one of slaps on the back, of genuine warmth," said Boyd.
That would be impossible with a female aide, he said. The base's inspector general has told Boyd not to touch any woman in uniform, in any way. "In today's environment, we aren't going to have a genuine warmth [with women]," he said.
"I would have no problem hiring a woman to do anything I need to have done," Boyd said. But he also outlined the obstacles to making such a choice.
Boyd said that when he received his first star as the assistant division commander of the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan., there were plenty of female candidates for aides to choose from. But he decided that selecting a woman would add to all the other unfamiliar work issues he had to deal with as a new general.
He said he agreed with his wife, who told him, "It's not time to take this on for the Army. Perceptions . . . people are measuring you."
"There were too many downsides," he said he decided. "If you come on post and you hire a woman to be an aide, in the first week you've just established a new policy, a new tradition. It's huge. That's the big challenge. I didn't seriously consider a female aide."
Four years later and with the confidence of another star on his shoulder, he now instructs the personnel office to send him a candidates list for aides that includes women and minorities. "Then it's up to me, my personal choices," said Boyd, who has not chosen a female aide. "I'm in charge of that."
Generals and aides who are crossing the gender barrier are acutely aware that they are walking through a minefield of perception and innuendo.
Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, deputy chief of staff for intelligence and the Army's only female three-star general, said that after she chose a male aide several years ago she made sure the two of them were never in her house together without a third person present.
"I had no doubts about myself or him," said Kennedy, but was guarding against any chance of gossip. "There was some comfort and protection in terms of one's career because he was married."
One of the most visible female aides in the Army is Capt. Kathryn A. Burba, who became aide to Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. this year. She said part of her job is dodging even the most remote chances of misperceptions. When she discovered, for example, that arrangements for a trip to Fort Hood included having West's aide stay in one room of his three-bedroom VIP residence, she nixed the plan.
"Perception is everything," she said. "You really won't want your female aide living in the same house, even in separate rooms."
Usually when Burba is setting up West's out-of-town trips, she'll make a point of calling ahead to alert the staff in the most subtle way she knows. "I'll call and say, `I'm Capt. Burba, Secretary West's aide.' "
The generals who hire female aides are more likely to have worked already around female officers and soldiers.
Women make up about 20 percent of the troops at the Army's Military Police and Chemical Corps schools at Fort McClellan, Ala., where Brig. Gen. Foley is deputy commanding general. Some of his closest advisers have been women, he said. When he had the chance to hire an aide from a slate of 10 lieutenants, he chose Rolanda Colbert.
"No, I wasn't worried about a lot of perceptions," Foley said. "Those women deserve every chance the men get. . . . There's not a difficult decision I made that my aide wasn't fully exposed to."
Foley continues to follow Colbert's career. Since working with him, she has been promoted to captain and is now in advanced officer training at the base.
Merit and personal bonds have always been the brick and mortar of the Army, with loyalties formed on the battlefield the most sacred and lasting. Generals and aides often develop life-long connections.
When Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, the Army chief of staff, was a major nearly 25 years ago, he was an aide de camp to then-Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams. Reimer recently appointed one of Abrams's sons, Lt. Gen. John N. Abrams, as deputy commander of the training and doctrine command.
Today, Reimer's aide de camp is Maj. Timothy Vuono, the son of former chief of staff Gen. Carl Vuono. Reimer met young Vuono in 1981, when Vuono was an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame and Reimer was a colonel, said Reimer's spokesman, Lt. Col. Mike Galloucis.
Reimer's personal staff of eight officers includes two women. But in the 13 years since he got his first star and selected his first aide de camp, he has considered but not chosen a woman for the job.
Lt. Gen. Frederick Vollrath, who is in charge of Army personnel policies, predicted that "as the institution grows female leaders in greater numbers . . . there'll be more and more a natural willingness to overcome perception problems and stereotypes."
Gen. Wilson favors "sort of prodding the system gently," he said, describing his attempts to bring up the subject with his peers. "On occasion the institution will become complacent and the question is, can we right the wrong ourselves or will it take external people?
"We have to keep the focus on and say to those of us who wear stars, we understand your concerns . . . I understand the nervousness" about choosing a woman, he continued, "but I just don't think we can cop out. We've pledged to counsel and mentor each of us."
Next: Bending the rules in the field
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