Not everything the military did that was stupid was laughable. Some things were downright awful.

There were some things about the way women were treated in military service when I was serving that were beyond stupid and discriminatory.

When I served, women attended boot camp at a single location, Orlanda Naval Training Station. I was there in the summer. It was hot, muggy, and insect-ridden. All recruits had similar summer weight uniforms. All recruits suffered in similar fashion.

After Boot and a short stint at Basic Electricity and Electronics (aka BEE) school, also in Orlando, I was sent to Electronics Technician (ET) Training School at Great Lakes Naval Station.

And that’s where things got…let’s say interesting since that’s the most polite word I can think of at the moment. It was late fall when I arrived and already quite chilly at the edge of Lake Michigan.

For anyone who doesn’t know, it gets cold in Illinois, especially on the lake and because of the wind coming in off the water the temperature dropped down to 70° below zero with the chill factor. The area was also prone to snowstorms and blizzards.

 And the only uniform I had was what all women had; summerweight wool uniforms with lightweight short-sleeved white cotton blouses. The only coat I had was a dress coat also a lightweight wool with no liners. The scarf that was officially allowed with our dress uniform was a piece of white polyester fabric and say it was about 20 inches long maybe 8 inches wide at the most and the gloves that we were issued the only gloves we were allowed to wear lightweight stretchy polyester dress gloves. The women’s hat we were allowed to wear with our dress uniform, which was required for attending school, was the standard white hat that sat on the top of the head above the ear. We did have lightweight sweaters that we could wear under our coats and over our little short sleeve blouses FWIW. Which wasn’t much.

On the other hand, the men had both summer and winter uniforms and they were already allowed to wear their winter uniforms because it was technically going on winter. This included thicker wool uniforms, including a thick, long-sleeved shirt,heavy pea coat with removable liners that could be added, thick leather gloves, watch caps that could be pulled down over the ears, and a nice, long knit scarf that could be wrapped around the neck a couple of times and then tucked inside the coat. Oh, and then they let them wear earmuffs under their watch caps. I bet that was toasty.

Just imagine being out in the cold freezing weather standing a four-hour watch at the back gate, with no gate guard house or even overhang, in a lightweight uniform with nothing to cover the ears in below freezing temperatures, gloves that did nothing to keep in warmth, a coat that barely broke the wind and in a flimsy lightweight scarf, made of polyester that was designed for looks, not comfort, and certainly not warmth and barely wrapped around the neck once. It was freaking cold and miserable.

The inequity was clearcut.

But of course that wasn’t good enough for some individuals because there was a group of male staff who started making noise suggesting that women should be required to wear skirts and pumps instead instead of our flimsy-enough-as-it-was summerweight wool pants with socks and dress shoes.

Luckily for a lot of women, some things have changed since then, including the uniforms, but back then, the unfairness was off the charts. And it sucked.

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