I understand what you mean more than you might think — remember, before I arrived on the Lincoln, I was dead-set against women on ships, too. But once I arrived on board, I couldn’t deny what I saw.

In your defense, I would say that the Army and Navy are apples and oranges, or maybe bayonets and pipe wrenches. They can’t really be compared to each other. More than once I met sailors who had been prior service in the Army or Marines, and to a man they said that the level of disrespect they saw in the Navy would not be tolerated in their prior service. My personal theory is that the Navy’s demand for technical skill — and the rather common instances of juniors being in charge of seniors due to watch qualification — makes the Navy less “military”.

What’s more, we’re not really taught to personally fight — not like those in the Army or Marines. The closest equivalent you have might be your heavy artillery units, where it’s a few who are doing the actual firing at some distant and unseen target, but there are many, many other soldiers who are involved in enabling that piece of artillery to be moved, assembled, supplied, fired, and repaired at need. What’s more, while the artillery can dominate the battlefield, in a firefight, those assigned to artillery units probably don’t compare very well to front-line infantry, just as our ships can dominate the seas and the littoral…but the sailors on those ships simply can’t compare with the Marines in a firefight.

So I’d have to ask you if my suspicion is correct that the mindset of the heavy artillery units is different from that of the front-line infantry or armored units.

That doesn’t make the Navy better or worse than the Army, just different. And between that difference in mindsets — and the difference in the kind of work environment — maybe that’s what makes Navy ships a place where women can not just serve, but excel.