Ernest Graves
So I feel there is a role for women in the military, very definitely. But I don't think it's
at the academies. But I shan't belabor that any more.
Q:
It's an important point. What advice would you give to young families setting out on
a military career?
A:
Do you mean setting out on a military career with one of them or two of them?
Q:
Well, either way.
A:
Well, maybe it's the same either way.
I feel definitely that the man's career should be first. I do not think that in any situation
you can have two determining factors. There has to be one. Something's got to give.
I never felt I was second class by being an Army wife who deferred to her husband's
career. That was part of it. But I always felt that his career and his assignments were
the driving force.
I think that's true in civilian life. You can't have two careers where neither is taking
precedence over the other. I just don't see how it can ever work--and especially in this
more mobile world we have today in the civilian world. Moving there is now certainly
equal to what the military do--numbers of moves.
Q:
You're not kidding.
A:
And always there's got to be one that has to be dominant. I also don't think you can
shift back and forth. I don't think one can say, "This time we're going to make the best
move for your career, but the next time we're going to make the best move for my
career." I just don't see how logically this can ever work. I'd be very willing to be
proven wrong, and I'm sure in some cases, it is made to work. But I don't think it's the
optimum.
I feel this is also true in the two-military-careers family. My family knows how I feel
about this. My daughters-in-law know how I feel about this. I feel that the man's career
should be the determining factor because I feel that, really and truly, what life is all
about is family and having children, and I think only women can have children.
Somehow, I have been raised to feel that only the woman can have a child. Therefore,
that is her primary role. And her career is second to that. Now if people choose not to
have children, that's their choice, but I feel they are missing life's purpose.
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