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Booby traps at the Pentagon: Charmaine and Jack Yoest introduce you to the Pentagon''s babes in arms. What do they want? An "open dialogue" on breastfeeding.

Article Excerpt
ON SEPTEMBER 10TH, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, the group most responsible for promoting women in combat, gathered in Pentagon Conference Room 5C1042. This civilian advisory committee, whose members have the protocol status of three-star generals, monitors the concerns of women in uniform. And what was the topic on the eve of the worst attack in U.S. history?

After briefings from representatives of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard, DACOWITS, as the committee is known, issued a formal request for more information on what they deemed a matter of paramount military significance: breast-feeding.

As the terrorists prepared to hit the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon itself, our military leaders were directed "to engage in open dialogue" on lactation tactics.

The Defense Advisory Committee on Women celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last April. At the birthday party, President Bush's deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, a man well regarded for his level-headed and conservative approach to military issues, lauded DACOWITS in his address as an outstanding organization" and told the assembly of earnest women that he "looked forward to [their] advice."

DACOWITS was established by then-secretary of defense, General George C. Marshall, with a mission of advising the secretary on how to cruit, retain, and best use women in the armed services. The committee is composed of thirty to forty civilians appointed by the secretary of defense and is responsible for visiting military installations to talk to women in uniform and to formulate recommendations.

The latest round of appointments to the committee was announced in the final days of the Clinton administration on December 21, 2000, by then-Secretary William Cohen. Cohen's eight appointees, who serve three-year terms, had their appointments ratified in January 2001--after President Bush's inauguration--by a Clinton holdover in the Defense Department cleverly using Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new autopen, according to the Center for Military Readiness, which is led by former DACOWITS member Elaine Donnelly.

One of these Cohen legacies, Silvana Rubino-Hallman,...

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