Columnist Dellamalva's treatment of military policy incomplete and unfair

In her recent column ("Tolerance for sexual harassment in military is more than zero," Wednesday), Jill Dellamalva focuses her light on a topic of the highest concern to all branches and ranks of U.S. military service- sexual harassment. As she notes in the beginning of her column, headlines and catch phrases can hardly convey the complexities of such serious situations. Unfortunately, she uses exactly that "TV Generation" logic to conclude that the U.S. Military can protect neither the security of all Americans nor its own members.

While hundreds of sexual harassment cases have been reported, investigated, and resolved in courts martial (and serious punishment) in the years before and since Tailhook, she spouts misinformation gleaned from the "quickie, choppy, oily words" seen briefly on those half-hour news shows and tabloid front pages. I invite her to truly research the resolution of the two cases she mentioned and to contact myself or any service member on campus to discuss the facts of sexual harassment in the military.

The service is an enormous sub-set of society and while it strives to maintain America's highest standards, it sometimes suffers from all its ills as well. Sexual harassment and other crimes do occur- but are treated with much more than lip service and a new slogan. The military in fact regularly instructs its members- in far more detail than any other organization- as to the bounds of acceptable behavior. Violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice are aggressively pursued- as is borne out in the facts of the cases she skimmed before writing her column.

Finally, to associate in any way the antics of the "good old boy" Citadel (and Virginia Military Institute) with the United States Military is ignorant at best and insulting at worst. Neither their backwards administration and alumni nor their immature and criminal students have any association with the Department of Defense. Most of their graduates realize that they are not up to the military's standards and do not pursue careers in the service as the "officers" they claim to be.

By Koichi Takagi (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 26, 1997