Rage of Battle

what he called the “verminous pad of the runt”—Kim Il Sung’s Pyongyang — had stunned his officers during the Pyongyang raid by using women volunteer chopper pilots in the lead assault on the North Korean capital.

At a time when American-ROK morale was rock-bottom in Korea, Freeman had paradoxically reversed his previous stand against using women in combat roles. He had asked for women volunteers to pilot the lead choppers — and had got them. In one stroke he had ended debate in America about women in combat and shamed reluctant male conscripts to “volunteer.” Even so, a prejudice Freeman held close to his bosom and took to Europe was his belief that no matter how successful women might be as chopper pilots or superb ground crew, there was no place for them in a tank. The Dutch Forty-Second Mechanized regiment now trapped in the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket had been the first to raise the matter. Freeman’s objection, in a confidential memo to the Pentagon, was now part of the growing Freeman legend.

“A tank battle,” he had written, “is no place for a woman. Forty sixty-pound rounds may have to be hand-fed into the main gun if automatic load malfunctions. I do not subscribe to the common theory that a woman aboard a tank will make the men softer — cause the men to be more concerned with protecting the weaker sex than with killing enemy tanks. Nor do I believe they are the weaker sex in terms of their ability to sustain high-level stress. On occasion I would argue they are superior in this regard. Nevertheless, a woman aboard a tank is unacceptable because it is a matter of hygiene. No one in the Pentagon seems to realize that in battle, a tank crew cannot make rest stops. For a tank to stop in the kind of sustained and highly mobile battles we have been engaged in to date would make the tank a stationary target, and as we have discovered with the Russian night sights, the enemy needs only a five-second fix on a stationary target to blow it to pieces. Besides which, the interior of the tank is a highly charged, fume-laden atmosphere in which the necessary body functions only add to an already unpleasant situation. In short, defecation and urination will in most cases have to be undertaken, as they have traditionally been, in helmets until the opportunity for jettisoning such material presents itself— which may not be for many hours. It is not only the severe discomfort and unpleasant atmosphere which I have in mind in strenuously arguing against women tank crews but rather a sensitivity to their need for privacy, which simply cannot be accommodated aboard an armored fighting vehicle.”

Col. Maureen Davis of the USMC replied that “General Freeman’s objections to women tank crews no doubt arise out of his sincere concern for hygiene and practicality. He need not be so concerned. No doubt the general knows a great deal about tanks, and in being so occupied with this, it appears that he has not kept pace with the results of an astonishing study which shows a woman’s anatomy allows her to drop her pants as quickly as any male, and in any event, women find it easier to relieve themselves than their male colleagues, who, as I understand it, often have difficulty in aiming.”

“Cheeky bitch!” Freeman had thundered, and was not won over until the intelligence officer in Heidelberg personally requested three minutes of the general’s time after Freeman’s intense briefing of the disastrous NATO situation.

“What’s your name?” snapped Freeman.

“Norton, sir. Major James Nor—”

“All right, Norton. You’ve got one minute. Shoot!”

“Sir, I’ve been tallying destroyed tanks by crew composition. Those Russian tanks with mixed crews are scoring better than all-male crews.” He paused.

“You’ve got thirty seconds left, Major,” growled Freeman. “I’m not a goddamned mind reader. Shoot!”

“Sir, it seems that our assumption that women would inhibit aggressive action — that male crew would want to protect the women and therefore withdraw — is incorrect. All the evidence suggests the opposite. With a woman aboard, male crews are afraid of being seen as, well—”

“As cowards!” said Freeman. “Yellowbellies.”

“Yes, General.”

“What’s your name again? Norton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, Norton. We’ll put gals inside the turrets.” It was the kind of decision that endeared Freeman to field officers — the ability to cancel his own prejudice on the evidence and to waste no time in implementing a new tactic or strategy. “Mind,” added Freeman, “none of them over thirty-four.”

Norton was nonplussed.

“Their tits,” explained Freeman, pulling tje glove on harder, riding crop dangling freely from his wrist as he smelled the change in the air, still dusty and cordite-filled, blowing in from the battlefields to the east, but much colder, more bracing. “No big tits,” he continued. “Get in the way of the laser sights. Can’t get close enough to the eye cup.”

Norton looked for help from Col. Al Banks, the general’s aide from his Korean days, but help was not forthcoming. Sometimes Al Banks didn’t know himself whether the general was being serious or making a joke.

“Norton?”

“Yes, General?”

“We’ve got to do something about this Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket. We need every man, woman, and jackrabbit we can get. Appreciate your report.”

“You’re welcome, General.”

Freeman was already walking back to his staff Humvee, buttoning his coat collar against the sudden drop in temperature that had resulted from an Arctic front, when he turned to Norton. “Major? How’d you like to be in my G-2? Get your ass out of that castle in Heidelberg to where the action is?”

“That’d be fine, sir,” Norton lied.

“Good man. Al, you see to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Norton, when you get yourself to Arnhem, I want you on aerial reconnaissance. Not afraid of flying, are you?”

“No, sir,” Norton lied for the second time that night.

“Good. You’re the kind of man who sees detail. Any ass can draw arrows on a map, but what I want is attention to detail. That right, Al?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know about Tae and the chopsticks, Norton?”

Norton looked blank.

“Well — never mind. I think you’ll work out fine.”

As he was getting into his Humvee, Freeman could hear the rumble of Russian artillery in the Oden Wald to the east. Like the bad weather also to the east, it was getting closer. Driving out of Heidelberg to catch his plane to Arnhem, he said to Banks, “Al, I want all aerial photographs for the last twenty-four hours at Arnhem HQ.”

“You’ve got that look again, General.”

“Have I? Well, I’ll tell you what else I want — a plan for a fighting retreat. Regimental level.”

Banks wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “Retreat, General?’

“What’s the matter — you got sand in your ears?”

“No, sir, but — well, sir, you’ve never pulled back before.”

“I’ve never been surrounded by four thousand Russian tanks before. And, Al, when we do start using women in the tanks, I don’t want anyone playing Sir Galahad and getting out of the tank for a leak. That’s an order, and I want it circulated to all commands. Northern, Central, and Southern NATO commands — what’s left of ‘em.”

Al Banks tried not to smile, but Freeman caught him. “Think I ‘m a rude son of a bitch?”

“No, sir, I just don’t think the men are going to obey an order that involves unzipping in front—”

Freeman’s voice grew cold. “Any man or woman who leaves a tank to urinate or defecate in action will be fined five hundred dollars and I’ll flail ‘em alive. Those Russian thermal detectors’ll pick up a ‘hot shimmer’ at a thousand yards.” He paused. “You know how I know? Because I bought one of the sons of bitches. On the black market when the Berlin Wall was getting holes punched in it and all the goddamn liberals and fellow travelers were having orgasms over ‘Gorby’ and thought it would be peace ever after. I’m not losing a single Abrams, not a goddamn one of ‘em, because some joker’s too embarrassed to piss inside his helmet. That clear?”

“Yes, sir.”