Subject: combat Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 11:26:24 -0500 From: ephost@epnet.com To: _____ Record: 10 Title: Women's combat role debated as chiefs denounce sex bias. Subject(s): SOLDIERS -- United States -- Government policy Source: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 8/1/92, Vol. 50 Issue 31, p2292, 2p, 1bw Author(s): Towell, Pat Abstract: Notes that the uniformed chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps outlined during a House hearing on July 30, 1992 training procedures and disciplinary measures that they said could end discrimination and violence against women in the military. Their denouncement of the assaults on more than two dozen women at the Tailhook conference of naval aviators in Las Vegas in 1991; Details. AN: 9208172306 ISSN: 0010-5910 Full Text Word Count: 1171 Database: Academic Search Premier Notes: This title is not held locally MILITARY PERSONNEL WOMEN'S COMBAT ROLE DEBATED AS CHIEFS DENOUNCE SEX BIAS Contents A Litany of Problems The uniformed chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps outlined during a House hearing on July 30 training programs and disciplinary measures that they said could end discrimination and violence against women in the military. They denounced as disgraceful the assaults on more than two dozen women at the Tailhook conference of naval aviators in Las Vegas last year. They insisted that women - who make up about 11 percent of the active-duty force - are a vital part of the armed services. And they pledged to wage the campaign against sex discrimination with the same top-level attention the services used to root out racial discrimination in the 1970s and to reduce drug use in the 1980s. (Tailhook, Weekly Report, p. 1977) "Until Tailhook, we dealt too often with sexual harassment at the local level, one case at a time, rather than understanding it as a cultural issue that had to be addressed throughout the Navy," Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, chief of naval operations, told the House Armed Services Committee. "This incident has galvanized us to re-examine the whole treatment of women in uniform." The routine evaluations of all personnel, which are the key data used in the Navy's promotion system, will now include an assessment of whether the member supports the "zero-tolerance" policy on discrimination against women. "A low mark in this area will kill a career," Kelso said. However, some of the chiefs rejected the argument that discrimination could be ended only if women were given equal status through assignment to combat roles, which is currently barred by law or by Pentagon policy. Retired Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, the Navy chief who broke the back of the Navy's race problem through aggressive actions in the early 1970s, insisted during an Armed Services hearing July 29 that the combat ban helped shape the attitude of male service members toward women. NS Testifying alongside Zumwalt, Retired Maj. Gen. Jeanne M. Holm, who in 1971 became the Air Force's first female general, made a similar argument. "The exclusion of women from the full range of shipboard assignments hurts Navy women's careers, morale and acceptance within the sea service," she said. Summing up this theme, House Armed Services Chairman Les Aspin, D-Wis., said, "The combat arms are the essence of each service. The whole promotion system and prestige in the service is oriented to the combat arms." In the July 30 hearing, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. McPeak and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. acknowledged that women's service careers were handicapped by their exclusion from assignment to front-line combat units. Nevertheless, each reiterated opposition to putting women in combat roles. "Combat is about killing people," McPeak said. "Even though logic tells us that women can do that as well as men, I have a very traditional attitude about wives and mothers and daughters being ordered to kill people." Kelso took a more flexible stance, noting that younger Navy members agreed that combat exclusion was part of the service's problem in gender relations. While insisting that other factors also should be considered in deciding the issue, Kelso told the panel, "you have to look at . . . the combat exclusion law." Currently, women are barred by law only from serving on warships, though they serve as crew members on supply and repair vessels. They are barred from serving in ground combat units by Pentagon policy. As part of the fiscal 1992 defense authorization bill (PL 102-190), Congress repealed the statutory ban on assigning women to fly combat planes in the Navy and Air Force. The bill also established a presidential commission to make recommendations by the end of this year as to whether women should be assigned to other combat roles. (1992 Almanac, p. 414) A Litany of Problems The Armed Services Committee's three senior women lambasted the services for being slow off the mark to deal with the mistreatment of women. Reciting a litany of previous incidents in the Navy, Personnel Subcommittee Chairwoman Beverly B. Byron, Md., said, "This is the end of the line." Byron noted that there were no women among the senior aides seated behind the service chiefs. Each of the four pointed out women in his entourage, few of whom held high rank. "Men must accept women as human beings, not as sex objects," Marilyn Lloyd, Tenn., angrily told the service chiefs. Like Byron, Lloyd is a relatively conservative Democrat who typically backs the Pentagon. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., long one of the Pentagon's most outspoken liberal critics, made no reference to two incidents in recent weeks in which she has been the object of obscene comments by Navy and Marine Corps personnel. But when Air Force chief McPeak said he opposed assigning women to combat roles even though he could not articulate a logical reason, Schroeder audibly sighed. "Where do women go?" she asked. "There just doesn't seem to be the respect, even among the top leaders." The three committee members are drafting a resolution that would urge the services to adopt policies aimed at rooting out abuse of women. These include keeping better records on allegations of sexual harassment, weighing a service member's sensitivity to women's concerns as a factor in promotion and creating stronger education programs on proper behavior between service members of opposite sexes and procedures to protect women from reprisal for filing complaints of harassment or abuse. Several Republicans insisted that the effort to end discrimination and abuse had no connection with the debate over whether women should be assigned to direct combat. "Speaking from a Southern exposure, I tell you it would not be popular at all to mandate that women be in combat roles, particularly . . . in infantry or special forces combat," said Bill Dickinson, Ala., the panel's senior Republican. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., a retired Navy pilot, insisted that it would be especially intolerable to assign women to warships. "You cannot confine men and women in a close space . . . for months at a time, and not have something happen," said Cunningham, who added that he saw no objection to assigning women to fly Air Force B-2 bombers operated from land bases. But a different view was expressed by Arthur Ravenel Jr., an independent-minded but relatively conservative Republican whose South Carolina district includes the Charleston Navy Yard and the Parris Island Marine Corps base. Ravenel said an end to the combat-exclusion rule was inevitable. He invoked an old-fashioned Southern metaphor to make his point that allowing qualified women in combat billets was a good idea that the public would support. "It's not the size of the dog in the fight," he said. "It's the size of the fight in the dog." PHOTO: Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeanne M. Holm and retired Navy Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt talk before July 29 hearing. (R. Michael Jenkins) ~~~~~~~~ By Pat Towell _____ Copyright of Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report is the property of Congressional Quarterly Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Source: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 8/1/92, Vol. 50 Issue 31, p2292, 2p Item: 9208172306 Top of Page _____ This email was generated by a user of EBSCOhost who gained access via the PLYMOUTH STATE COLLEGE account. Neither EBSCO nor PLYMOUTH STATE COLLEGE are responsible for the content of this e-mail.