THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 3, 1994 TAG: 9408020355
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JACK DORSEY
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Granted, times are changing aboard today's Navy ships as more crews become integrated with women.
The Navy's policy has broadened to allow women to serve on nearly every type of ship, except submarines.
So it was no surprise last week as I joined the crew of the 2nd Fleet command ship Mount Whitney, operating between Cuba and Haiti, to find more than 100 women fully integrated among the 600 people who run the ship and the 2nd Fleet staff.
Women have been coming aboard since late last year, performing just about every job from engineering, to navigation, mess management, communications and much more.
So comfortably do the two genders seem to fit in their day-to-day routine that there is little reason to notice that things have changed.
What happened to me, however, shows a bit of naivete on my part in this new era, by forgetting what one Navy captain said were my ``manners'' aboard his ship.
No, I wasn't cussing, or telling off-color jokes in front of the women sailors. Much of that, by the way, has been toned down.
Men even tend to spruce themselves up a bit more, too, avoiding coming to the mess decks until they've changed out of soiled, or smelly clothes.
What I did in this new Navy era was to forget that, with women aboard, ship's work goes on 24 hours a day: You don't walk around anymore in casual attire as if you were living in a men's college dorm.
I was working late on my stories the first night I spent aboard the Mount Whitney and decided at about 11:30 p.m. that it was time to take a shower and hit the rack.
So, as I have done for more than 15 years of riding Navy ships, I simply tied a towel around my waist, picked up my shaving kit and headed across the passageway from my room where I entered the head.
Now the head was directly across from my stateroom. It was no more than three feet away.
But, as luck would have it, so was a female petty officer third class doing the nightly mopping chores along the passageway.
Well, she screamed and I screamed, and we both scattered before either could offer apologies.
I went on toward my shower, somewhat upset that this new Navy couldn't keep such things from happening. I believe she found another area to mop.
The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned the incident to a senior officer sitting with me.
His response was one of unexpected indignation.
``You, sir, should not have been so rude,'' he shot back.
``The rule on this ship is that you wear a robe when going to a shower. Men are not allowed to be bare-breasted inside the ship.''
Jogging on the flight deck in shorts and without a shirt is OK, for the men. But when you are in the ship, in order to be fair and courteous to everyone, cover-ups are the rule, he said.
That jolted me. But it was a fair jolt, because he was right.
For the next six days I wore trousers and a shirt on my way to the showers.
A robe will be in my sea bag from now on. MEMO: To share your views on a military topic, send us a column to the
address in the INFOLINE box at left. by CNB