One of the most significant events in the Cold War-dominated years of the 1950's and early1960's was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It not only has been reputed by most authorities as a major turning point in the Soviet Union-American struggle, but it dramatically illustrated the critical dimension of thermo-nuclear weapons in international relations. In addition, and of particular interest to one directly involved, it showed that firmness in policy and proper application of military power are key factors in obtaining favorable and peaceful settlements of international disputes.

This paper examines newspaper portrayals produced by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times of women in the military from Sept. 11, 2001, to Sept. 11, 2009. The purpose was to identify how the three nationally recognized U.S. newspapers depict women’s expanding combat roles on contemporary battlefields that lack definitive front lines. Because the news media are the primary vehicle to update the general public on military matters, how the news media portray military women can play a role in shaping audience perceptions of military women. In turn, this relationship can influence the public debate on issues pertaining to women in the military. For my research method, I employed a longitudinal, qualitative content analysis of news articles that revealed three distinctively themed portrayals of U.S. servicewomen. The thematic findings include: "Tip of the Spear," a largely laudatory category portraying the "new" or "first" generation of servicewomen filling historically uncommon (particularly direct ground combat) roles for women; the "Combat Debate," with coverage listing arguments for and against military women’s expansion into "direct ground combat;" and the "Sexual Assault" category that exposed women as continued victims of sexual assault across the U.S. Armed Forces. The portrayals of women in the "Tip of the Spear," and to a lesser extent in the "Combat Debate," reveal how these three particular newspapers are applying a new formula to represent military women. Rather than portraying military women in stereotypical support roles—or castigating them for transgressing gender norms—the stories from these papers cast the servicewomen performing traditional masculine military activities in a positive light. However, following objective reporting protocol, the reports in the "Combat Debate" category also covered conventional patriarchal concerns to include protecting women from harm, particularly military mothers. Overall, these two categories comprised the greater part of the coverage of military women among the reports in this study, with only a handful of reports covering women as victims. I propose that the many positive portrayals that describe women fulfilling nontraditional masculine roles and activities demonstrate a revised blueprint in how the news media report on military women. Furthermore, while these research results cannot be applied universally outside this study’s sample, I contend that these types of images representing today’s servicewomen on contemporary battlefields increase public acceptance of women in the military and their expanding military assignments.

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The lack of system capability, budget, and schedule robustness against technology performance and development uncertainties has led to major setbacks in recent acquisition programs. This lack of robustness stems from the fact that immature technologies have uncertainties in their expected performance and development times and costs that translate to variations in system effectiveness and program development budget and schedule requirements. As such, the objective of this thesis is to formulate an assessment process that better informs acquisition decision-makers of program requirements robustness against such uncertainties. To meet the stated research objective, a conceptual methodology for assessing acquisition requirements robustness against technology performance and development uncertainties was formulated. This general approach provides a structured process for integrating probabilistic and quantitative forecasting, multi-criteria decision-making, and decision-support techniques to generate the statistical data needed to quantitatively predict requirements robustness. The results of the robustness assessment indicates to the decision-makers whether or not the technology or set of technologies being developed for the program will result in system capabilities and program budget and schedule that meet decision-maker requirements and preferences. This results in a more informed and justifiable selection of program technologies during initial program definition as well as formulation of program development and risk management strategies.

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An estimated 22,000 children were born in England during the Second World War as a result of relationships between British women and .American GIs. Of these children, around 1,200-1,700 were born to African .American servicemen. These figures are estimates only; the actual number of births will never be known. / The research study is based on personal interviews with eleven members of this cohort. The interviews explore their life experience and examines their sense of identity as ex-nuptial children, of mixed-race parentage, who had no contact with and usually little information about their GI fathers. Of the eleven mothers, over half were married with at least one other child at the time of the birth. Nine participants/respondents were raised by their mother or her extended family. Two were institutionalised. At the time of the interviews all of the respondents were either searching for, or had found, their black GI fathers. / This is a qualitative study which aims to bear witness to the lived experience of this cohort and to analyse the meaning individuals gave to their experience. Data collection involved personal interviews with the eleven participants. The data was then subject to a thematic analysis and the major themes and issues identified. Content analysis was undertaken using a constructivist approach. / The interviews are presented as elicited narrative relayed through an interpretive summary. Consistency was maintained by using common questions organised within a loose interview framework. The findings were organised around the major conceptual issues and themes that emerged from the case summaries. Common themes, including resilience, racial identity, self esteem and stress were identified. / The researcher has professional qualifications as a social worker and clinical family therapist. She has ten years experience in the field of adoption, including the transracial placement of Aboriginal and overseas children in Australian families. She is also a member of the researched cohort. Issues arising when the researcher is also a member of the researched cohort are discussed in the methodology. / The experience of this cohort suggests that despite the disadvantages of their birth, they fared better than expected. The majority demonstrated high levels of resilience, successfully developing a sense of identity that incorporated both the black and white aspects of their racial heritage. However, for some this success was only achieved at considerable personal cost, with several participants reporting relatively high levels of stress and/or stress related symptoms, such as anxiety, mental illness and heart disease.

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This study explored factors that lead to adaptation among married women in the military during the stressor of deployment. The Double ABCX Model of Family Stress and Adaptation (McCubbin & Patterson, 1 983a, 1 983b, 1 983c) provided a strong theoretical model for this study, on which the empirical model for this study was based. In this study's empirical model, the variables that led to adaptation include the stressor event of military deployment, pile-up of demands (marital pile-up, family pile-up, financial pile-up, and job pile-up), resources (personal resources, family system resources, and social support resources), and perception (perception of deployment and perception of all). The 1999-2000 United States Air Force Community Needs Assessment was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling and Multiple Hierarchical Regression. The Structural Equation Modeling Analysis did not yield a path model and a Multiple Hierarchical Regression was executed in order to determine which variables in the path model contribute to adaptation. In this analysis, the independent variables were entered according to the theoretical consideration of the Double ABCX Model of Family Stress and Adaptation (McCubbin & Patterson, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c) and the proposed path model. The results Multiple Hierarchical Regression indicate that pileup of demands and resources provided a significant contribution to adaptation. However, deployment and perception did not contribute to the variance in adaptation, which was incongruent to previous findings. The most significant limitation of the study is the disadvantages of conducting a secondary analysis since measures available are less than ideal for the variables in the model. There were several benefits of the study, including the inclusion of women in the military, improvement of the Double ABCX Model of Family Stress and Adaptation (McCubbin & Patterson, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c), and potential early evaluation and intervention of families during periods of stress. Future research is indicated, focusing on extended deployments, qualitative studies exploring the role of perception in adaptation, other understudied population in the military (civilian husbands, men in the military, and dual military couples), and additional model improvement. / Graduation date: 2004