ABSTRACT
By the end of the twentieth century the All Volunteer Force had been tested on all fronts and proven to be strong and capable. The Armed Forces had conducted a large and successful deployment in the Persian Gulf during which active duty and Reserve members of the AVF had performed skillfully and effi ciently. Over the next decade the nation sent elements of the AVF around the world in a series of smaller contingency deployments. Just as importantly, the AVF was also tried and tested through a series of scandals that affected all the services at every level from trainees through general offi cers. In response to these challenges, the services strengthened their equal opportunity programs and the policies, which discouraged discrimination and harassment based on gender and race. Although far from perfect, the Armed Forces could reasonably claim to be one of the top performance-based institutions in the country by 2000, providing more opportunities for promotion to greater numbers of women and minorities than many corporations. The proportion of women and minorities in the services continued to climb, with 15 percent of the active duty force and 18 percent of the Reserves female. Minority women accounted for 48 percent of active duty women and 42 percent of women Reservists. One of the mantras of the AVF was that in diversity lies strength, through expanded knowledge, greater sophistication and a wider range of abilities. Months into the new century the U.S. Armed Services were called upon to face what may be their greatest challenge yet-the war against worldwide terrorism. On October 12, 2000, the Navy vessel USS Cole, a four-year-old, $1 billion guided missile destroyer, stopped at the port of Aden in Yemen for refueling. The Cole carried some of the most sophisticated military technology in the world, including surface-to-air missiles and advanced radar equipment. The refueling started at 10:30 am. Less than an hour later, a small craft approached the port side of the vessel, and an explosion occurred that put an 80-foot-wide hole in the ship’s side, tearing apart an engine room and a mess room. Seventeen sailors were killed instantly, and 37 others were injured. Two of those killed were women.
