Military women edging closer to combat roles
| • | American women at war |
By Siobhan McDonough
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Two months after settling into her dream job at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Nina Augustine got her gun and shipped out.
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She had thought she would be around awhile with her husband and 2-year-old son, guarding the general's office. Then the call came last month asking if her bags were packed.
Senior Airman Nina Augustine went from her job of providing security at Langley Air Force Base, Va., to the Middle East as part of the U.S. buildup for war in Iraq.
"I'm conflicted," Augustine said. "When you have a family, everything is conflicted." Yet she also thought, "Any woman who feels she can go out there with a big, heavy gun, the more power to her."
And off she went as part of the U.S. deployment against Iraq — the new face of the female American soldier, this one carrying an M-16 rifle.
Launching Tomahawk missiles, piloting F-18 fighter jets, returning fire if ambushed — all are possible in a day's work for American servicewomen nudging their way to the front lines if the United States invades Iraq.
The war could expose many more women to combat than previous conflicts, despite restrictions on what they can do.
Women now can command combat military police companies, fly jets and Apache helicopters, work as tactical intelligence analysts and more. If called, female chemical specialists will go to contaminated areas and female helicopter pilots will land infantry in combat areas, or evacuate them, during assaults.
After the Gulf War, Congress eased rules excluding women from combat, opening thousands of new opportunities. Still, they are not allowed into positions where they are most likely to see ground combat — infantry, armor, artillery and Special Forces units.
As women flowed into the civilian work force and overcame other limits through the generations, the arguments for holding them back in the armed forces have largely endured: They are physically weaker, they might ruin the cohesion of an all-male unit, Americans just could not bear to see women killed.
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"In the Gulf War, they thought if a woman came back in a body bag, everyone would freak out," said Linda Grant DePauw, president of the Minerva Center in Maryland that studies women and war.
Airman Yvonne Bailey was aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt last month as the ship cruised in the Arabian Sea. Women — 200,000 of them serve on active duty — make up about 15 percent of the active-duty force.
"But women are embedded in the functioning of the entire military. You can't just pull people out on the basis of gender anymore. It's a different way of thinking about war."
More than 200,000 women serve in the active-duty forces, about 15 percent of the total.
Despite combat limits, American women have found themselves in plenty of firefights and danger.
More than 400 died in World War II, most of them nurses. In the 1989 invasion of Panama, women flying choppers landed infantry under heavy fire and women in military police units conducted infantry-style missions to search neighborhoods for guerrillas.
The question of how Americans would react to large-scale deaths of women has not been tested since the ban was loosened. In the Gulf War, 13 U.S. servicewomen died from causes including Scud attack, mines and crashes and two were taken prisoners of war.
In recent years, the Navy and Air Force have begun allowing women to fly fighters and bombers.
Lt. Cmdr. Pauline Storum, a Navy spokeswoman, said women are assigned to all units except coastal patrol boats, Navy SEALs, submarines and units directly supporting Marine Corps ground forces.
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Except for submarines, Navy women can be assigned to all combat vessels, including aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. They can fly all aircraft.
"It's a level playing field because now any service officer can do the same job, can compete," Storum said. "Whoever is best will rise to the top, be promoted and do well."
The Air Force has also opened doors once limited to men.
"There are not many fields that women can't be in," says Augustine, a senior airman who guards military bases and planes.
"It's kind of exciting and a little scary being my first time," said Air Force Capt. Kimberly Purdon, 26, a weapons system officer based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. She has trained aboard the supersonic B-1 bomber for two years. By first time, she meant war. She was preparing for deployment.
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Air Force women, however, cannot be paratroops or become air combat controllers, whose job is to take over runways so military planes can land.
Aviation Boatswain's Mate Jamie Cole refuels an airplane during a night combat mission aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea.
Other services, too, have lines women cannot cross.
For example, women in the Army cannot be assigned to combat units at the battalion level and below. A battalion goes near the front lines.
They can serve in infantry, armor, artillery and other units at the brigade level and higher; these units are behind combat battalions on the battlefield.
Female soldiers are likely to see their share of combat as truck drivers, MPs, signal specialists and aviators if the United States launches a ground war.
"They're not on front lines, not in trenches, not in foxholes, but they do supportive missions," said Army spokeswoman Dottie Vick at Fort Benning in Georgia.
In the Marines, women are not allowed in the infantry, artillery, armor, amphibious assault and certain intelligence jobs, said Capt. Joe Kloppel. But many women have become Marine helicopter and jet pilots, a departure from the Gulf War, when there were none.
Researchers say women have made up about 6 percent of the force in the Afghan war serving on warships, flying refueling planes and deploying with infantry as military police.
