As reported in today’s New York Times, a woman has been appointed for the first time to head the training of drill sergeants for the Army. All over America, there are women drill sergeants. They’re in schools and homes, bossing men and barking orders. So is it any surprise the Army would acknowledge reality?

The problem is a woman drill sergeant just ain’t the same as a man. She’s not as big. She’s not as scary. Her voice is not as booming. That doesn’t mean a woman can’t do it and be pretty good at it too, as is proved by Sergeant Maj. Teresa King.

When women start barking orders at grown men, the delicate balance of power between the sexes is disturbed. Women are mothers and wives, lovers and friends to men. These roles are damaged by domineering bossiness. Male psychology is radically different from female psychology. After all, mothers are women. There is no more significant fact than that.

Interestingly, King has not been able to establish a normal personal life. As the Times reports:

For a time in her 30s, she was married to another soldier. She got pregnant but lost the baby, and eventually divorced. The failure of her marriage, she said, brought on a period of soul-searching that led her to study the Bible. She was planning to retire and join the ministry when her appointment to the drill sergeant school was announced over the summer.

“On the other side, the military life, I was doing so good,” she said. “But my personal life just stunk.” Since her divorce, she added, “I just pour my heart into these soldiers.”

Most women tend to “pour their hearts” into their work. But to pour one’s heart into soldiers?

Photo by Nicole Bengiveno, The New York Times

Michael S. writes:

You wrote: “Most women tend to “pour their hearts” into their work. But to pour one’s heart into soldiers?”

Well, the evidence suggests that she can’t even construct a grammatically correct sentence.  Such higher considerations as you suggest are likely to escape her entirely.

But to say that implies that these considerations are trying to escape, or that they have a natural tendency to escape, or that they at least have an inherent tendency to go away, to move out of reach.  Wisdom does not actively flee us, but we have to be ready, and seek it.

Apparently this woman isn’t ready.  Apparently the results of the soul-searching didn’t have enough time to sink in.  (This is, alas, an all-too-common story.) So now she has another chance to “be all she can be,” and she’s gonna take it.  Does she think that this is better than a ministry position?

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