"Women May Yet Save The Army"

A hopeful view of the change sweeping all the armed forces

It is one of the strangest remodeling jobs undertaken by the U.S. Navy. Inside the aging repair ship U.S.S. Vulcan, anchored at Norfolk, Va., aluminum sheeting is being stretched from floor to ceiling to divide the sleeping quarters. Near by, urinals are being ripped out, while extra electrical outlets are being provided for hair dryers.

When work on the Vulcan is completed next month, the Navy will be able to pipe aboard the first women crew members ever to serve on its ocean-going vessels (other than a transport or hospital ship). The service had been barred by law from so using women until this summer, when a federal district court ruled that sex cannot be used as a criterion to prevent volunteers from serving on combat-related vessels. To comply with this ruling, the Navy is refitting the Vulcan and four other support ships to take on 16 female officers and 375 enlisted women. Fifteen more ships are expected to be remodeled in the next five years, and it is estimated that women will constitute 25% of all support ships' crews by 1983.

Ten years ago, a mere 35,000 women were in uniform, making up 1% of the nation's military personnel. In fact, they were limited by law to a maximum of 2% until that ceiling was abolished in 1969 because of the shortages caused by Viet Nam and the expanding role of women in the labor force. Today some 110,000 women constitute 5.5% of the services' 2 million uniformed members. Some 15,800 of the women are officers. It is projected that five years from now nearly 220,000 women will provide more than 10% of the armed forces.

In no other country do women assume such major military responsibilities. In the U.S.S.R., for example, although 1 million women were mobilized during World War II and some flew bombers and drove tanks, today's 4 million-strong armed forces contain only 10,000 women. Even Israel, which has used women as soldiers from the beginning, has only 5% and keeps virtually all of them out of combat.

American women share in control (as of two months ago) of the mighty Titan II intercontinental missiles at bases in Arkansas, Kansas and Arizona. They are undergoing the Marine Corps' rugged boot-camp training in the forests at Quantico; are in charge of the Army's firing range at Fort Jackson; are chief instructor pilots at Williams Air Force Base; are overhauling U.S. tank engines in West Germany; and are helping create the new MX missile at the Strategic Air Command's missile design center outside Omaha.

So integrated into the regular structure of the armed services have women become that the WAVES and WAFS have been disbanded and the WACS are about to be. The only remaining restrictions on women warriors, all of whom receive combat training, are the 1948 statute forbidding them to serve on combat vessels and planes and the formal Army policy barring them from combat branches such as infantry and armor.

But even this may change, since the Pentagon has requested Congress to repeal the ban. The lawmakers are expected to consider the issue next year, and there will undoubtedly be a lively debate. Phyllis Schlafly, leader of the fight against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, has declared that "America is entitled to better protection than women's physical strength can give us." The Pentagon responds that it will take no action that weakens the nation's defenses, and General David C. Jones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is quick to say: "I don't see women in a foxhole in combat right now." There are other unofficial limitations too. Says Jones: "I don't foresee a woman ending up in my job, at least not in my lifetime."

The military life is not an easy one, and women are encountering many of the same problems that have traditionally confronted men. Explains Brigadier General Mary Clarke, commander of the Army's Fort McClellan: "Both the women and the men come from an easygoing civilian life into a regimented environment. They suffer homesickness; they find it hard to get up at 5 a.m. Some of the women have not been accustomed to eating three meals daily and are required to do so here. Thus they tend to gain weight at first. But they are soon in good shape."

Women, of course, have had some special problems too. Because McClellan is an Army military police training camp, its recruits practice the techniques of making arrests. Says Sergeant Jimmie Sue Williams, a four-year veteran: "At first women are shy about learning how to search each other. When they have to do a crotch search, they say, 'I can't. She's my friend.' But I just tell them that they've got to do it, and they finally do." (Women are limited to searching women, however.)

At McClellan, where they live in the same barracks as men, some women complain of crowding. When to use cosmetics has also taken some learning. Says one woman: "I took makeup with me the first time we went on bivouac. I didn't touch it the whole time; I never took it along again."

One of the women's major problems has been male hostility, especially from older military men, who are shocked by the idea of females as potential warriors.

Says Lance Corporal Deborah Genest, a bulldozer driver at the Marines' Camp Pendleton: "It's a macho thing. There's a lot of resistance to us, but we can do more than some of the puny guys." Retired Major General John Singlaub, former chief of staff of the Eighth Army in South Korea, argues, however, that "it's a silly idea to put women in combat. To say that they are physiologically equal to men is to defy reality."

Aside from the question of whether women are capable of serving as equals in the armed forces, much of the male uneasiness about women soldiers is obviously based on sex. And women naturally share some of that uneasiness. "Men get girl crazy on land," says Airman Suzanne Gurule. "Can you imagine how much worse that's going to be on board ship?" Indeed, the idea of women on sea duty worries a number of sailors' wives.

But Corporal Jann Smith, 23, a communications specialist at Pendleton, advises that wolf whistles are easily handled by "waving at the guys and acknowledging it. All that the men want is a little attention." She feels, however, that the Marine Corps could have prepared her better by giving a class in the psychology of the sexes. "All we got," she explains, "was a lecture by a chaplain on being careful: 'Don't get pregnant and beware of lesbians.' "

There are cases, obviously, where sexual entanglements do occur. It appears, however, that even intraservice marriage can be penalized. At the Army's Fort Devens, Captain Michael Jalinsky, a West Pointer with an impressive record, was abruptly relieved of his command of a company and made the "alcohol and drug officer," a post that will not enhance his military career. The reason for his setback: he married Sergeant Sue-Anne Pierce and thus violated his post commander's dictum against "fraternization" between officers and lower ranks.

Some officers, on the other hand, fret about women soldiers' time lost because of menstruation, pregnancies and abortions. Pentagon statistics, however, indicate that healthy women are very rarely incapacitated by menstruation and that abortions are comparable to minor illnesses, averaging 4.8 days of leave. Full-term pregnancies do cost the military an average of 105 days, but only about 8% of the women get pregnant in any given year. Besides, while women need more time off for gynecological reasons, men lose 10% more time because of drinking, 80% more time because of drug abuse, and have an AWOL rate five times that of women.

While hostility from some servicemen seems unabating, a recent poll indicated that two-thirds of the men at Pendleton felt perfectly comfortable with the opposite sex serving on the base. Observes Corporal Smith: "When they get to know you, the men are nice. Those in our barracks look out for us." There also appears to be a growing respect for women's martial abilities. Private David Fisher, 19, a member of Shirley's platoon, confesses: "I felt that this was no place for girls. But after they outshot me on the firing range, I changed my mind."

Despite the complications, women have served, in some manner, with the U.S. armed forces from the earliest days of the Republic. Molly Pitcher, who was said to have snatched up and continued firing her disabled husband's musket during the Battle of Monmouth, was a legendary heroine of the Revolution. Some 350,000 of the 16 million armed forces mobilized during World War II were women. They served as airplane mechanics, pilots ferrying bombers, parachute riggers and gunnery instructors, as well as in the more "traditional" roles of nursing and administration. In 1948, however, the Women's Armed Forces Integration Act limited women to 2% of the nation's total military strength and barred them from rising higher than the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Part of the growth since these two ceilings were removed has been caused by the nation's changing attitude toward women's roles. But demographics play a further part. Because of the sharp drop in the U.S. birth rate in the 1960s, the number of 18-year-old males will peak at 2.1 million next year, fall to 2 million in 1983 and hit its projected nadir of 1.7 million in 1988. These projections threaten the military with a shortage of qualified men. The armed services will have to offer increasingly costly incentives to attract educated and motivated volunteers. Otherwise the draft may have to be reinstated, which would be politically difficult, if not impossible.

Or the Pentagon will have to use still more women, which it is already planning to do. Even now, it is easier to recruit educated and capable women than similarly qualified men. Studies show, for example, that females like the military's work environment, the security and the opportunity to develop skills, as well as the excitement and the chance to serve the nation. Explains Bambi Hunter, 23, a sergeant at Travis Air Force Base: "I wanted to get away from my small home town and didn't want to go to college." For Lance Corporal Genest, joining the Marines has been a means of "avoiding growing up, getting married, having kids and living down the street in my small Oregon home town from everyone else. I also wanted some adventure." And for Mary Jo Kinney, attending the Army's MP school at Fort McClellan is a way to learn a trade. Says she: "I want to be a policewoman. In three years, I can get out of here and get a law enforcement job."

In fact, the Pentagon now finds that it can recruit what it regards as high-quality females for about the same price as low-quality males. While it costs the Army about $3,700, the Marines $2,050, the Navy $1,950 and the Air Force $870 in advertising and other expenses to sign up a male secondary-school graduate who scores high on aptitude tests, the cost to all four services for an equally qualified woman is only $150. By 1982, the Pentagon estimates, the recruitment of more women will enable it to maintain its standards of quality and still save about $1 billion annually. The long-term economies could amount to even more because a higher proportion of military women are unmarried and thus require less than men do in medical benefits, housing allowances and other services. Observes Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder, a member of the House Armed Services Committee: "Women may yet save the Army."

There are nonetheless some military tasks that women may always find difficult because of physical limitations. According to Government studies, the average man's size, muscle and bone mass, fat distribution and structure of elbow joints and pelvis give him advantages in strength, speed, throwing and jumping. He also is superior in physical endurance and heat tolerance, partly because his heart and lung size, oxygen uptake, hemoglobin content and sweat-gland function differ from a woman's.

What female physical limitations mean, reports the General Accounting Office, is that 62 of 97 Air Force women assigned to maintenance tasks were not strong enough to change aircraft tires and brakes or remove batteries and crew seats. When the Navy posted women on tugboats as boatswain's mates, moreover, few could lift the 100-lb. sandbags or heave boat lines weighing 7 Ibs. per ft.

Such physical disadvantages, however, do not worry Pentagon officials. Explains John White, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower: "We've made the accommodations before, and we see no insurmountable problems." Pentagon psychometric experts are already redesigning equipment for women's use. The Air Force, for example, has introduced dollies, upon which female mechanics can roll heavy tool boxes around hangars. Special oxygen masks have also been made for women pilots, accommodating their thinner faces and nose bridges. There is now even an Air Force maternity uniform: a dark blue, three-piece ensemble of a tunic worn with either a skirt or slacks.

One trend that may sharply reduce most of the impact of women's physical disadvantages is the changing nature of combat. While some troops will probably always be wrestling with heavy mortars and artillery shells, an increasing number of combat tasks will need much more mental than brute strength. Explains Democratic Congressman Jim Lloyd: "I'm an oldtime fighter pilot, and the hard maneuvers of oldtime dogfighting are no longer required. Women certainly seem able to do the job in an age of hydraulic boosts and electronic flight controls." And in firing remote-controlled antitank and antiship missiles, women have been doing as well as men.

Given women's performance in the armed forces so far, Congress may well follow the Pentagon's recommendation and repeal the law barring females from combat units. Even then, however, the extent to which women are assigned to such units will depend on the effect on national security. Pentagon officials clearly are cautious. Defense Secretary Harold Brown told TIME: "I think women are in the armed forces for the better, although it's too early to tell for sure. As a matter of equity and self-interest, they should be there. The key issue is to maintain the combat effectiveness of the armed forces." Adds one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "We must be absolutely sure that the military's basic mission is not compromised by the presence of more females. Men have proved themselves effective in combat since the days of caves; women may prove to be even more effective, more aggressive than men. But we do not know this yet."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.