NAVY MIGHT LET MORE WOMEN SAIL INTO COMBAT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 4, 1993                   TAG: 9304040128
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
NAVY MIGHT LET MORE WOMEN SAIL INTO COMBAT
In a bid to keep female sailors in the service, the Navy has proposed putting women aboard some of its men-only warships - a move that could put more military women into harm's way and spark a wider review of women's roles in the service, Pentagon officials say.
Fearing that the planned decommissioning of several support ships will reduce job opportunities for female sailors and drive them out of the service, the Navy asked Secretary of Defense Les Aspin for clearance to open to women two classes of fleet replenishment ships and a key class of amphibious ships.
Pentagon sources said that if Aspin approves it, the initiative would put women aboard ships that steam into battle alongside aircraft carriers, further blurring the distinction between non-combatant ships, on which women are permitted to serve, and combatant ships, from which they are still barred.
Aspin is considering the proposal as part of a package of initiatives designed to expand assignments for women in the military. Pentagon spokesman Vernon Guidry said last week that Aspin has been "signaling his thinking" that he favors the change on combat ships and wants to readdress the issue of assigning women on the crews of combat aircraft.
"He's going to take a hard look at it," Guidry said. Aspin has set no timetable for such decisions, however, Guidry added.
The Navy's proposal also would allow women sailors, for the first time, to serve on the prestigious staffs of the Navy's Middle East fleet as well as its Second, Third and Seventh Fleets, which oversee the movements of ships in the Atlantic, eastern Pacific and the western Pacific. That would mark a small but highly symbolic advance for Navy women, who frequently believe their careers are stunted by their lack of experience on key fleet planning staffs.
Chief of Naval Operations Frank B. Kelso II, in budget hearings, told the House Armed Services Committee that as the Navy retires many support ships on which women have been permitted to serve, "we're trying very hard to open up additional opportunities."
Women are permitted to serve on 64 of the Navy's 456 vessels; 8,900 of the Navy's roughly 220,000 women serve on ships. The new proposal would open roughly another 15 ships to women, with a potential of as many as 2,000 female positions on board.
A Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces recently recommended that all of the Navy's surface ships except amphibious vessels be opened to women. But neither the Bush administration nor the Clinton administration has responded to the proposal. The Navy's proposal falls far short of the commission's more sweeping recommendation, but several Pentagon officials portrayed the Navy proposal as an interim step.
Kelso was responding to concerns raised by Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., during Wednesday's meeting of the House panel. "Downsizing is crowding women out in a lot of directions," Schroeder told Kelso. Aspin's proposed budget blueprint calls for the retirement of 14 ships on which 1,700 women serve.
Schroeder and others have pressed Aspin to open other combat spots for women, including on Navy warplanes and Air Force fighter jets and bombers, as well as Army positions that often operate near battle lines. The Presidential Commission recommends against opening any such positions to women. But the findings of the panel's majority have been widely criticized as being too conservative.
The Navy has been eager to win Aspin's approval for its proposal so that it can take the formal step of opening the ships before the public release of a damaging report on the 1991 Tailhook Convention.
That report is expected to detail allegations of sexual assault by Naval and Marine Corps aviators at the 1991 convention of the naval boosters group - an event that has prompted the Navy to undertake a sweeping reassessment of its policies toward women.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB