To produce effective, efficient and ready armed forces, male and female recruits should be segregated during most of basic training and live in separate barracks, a panel established by the Defense Department recommended Tuesday.
Defense Secretary William Cohen appointed the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training and Related Issues in June and asked the panel, headed by former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker, R-Kansas, to assess the effectiveness of the armed services' training programs.
In the report, the committee emphasized its support of a "gender-integrated volunteer force," but explicitly recommended same-gender barracks.
"The committee observed that integrated housing is contributing to a higher rate of disciplinary problems," the report said.
The report further recommended organizing same-gender platoons, divisions and flights for training purposes, despite the armed forces' motto to "train as we fight."
Kassebaum said the panel believes mixed-gender troops should be together in training only part of the time, in marching and when learning technical and physical skills. "The present organizational structure in integrated basic training is resulting in less discipline, less unit cohesion and more distraction from the training programs," the report said.
The committee's report also recommended decreasing emphasis on monetary incentives in recruitment campaigns, increasing the number of female recruiters and toughening basic training requirements.
Cohen praised the work of the committee. "I don't believe that the report comes to the conclusion that the current system isn't working," he said, "but rather they are recommendations to make it work better."
Cohen plans to submit the report to the services for comment.
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