Editorial: Ready, willling, able to fight

Saturday, March 4, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

Later this year the Defense Department must submit to Congress a report about the roles women play in the U.S. military, particularly those serving in the Army.

The report is required under a law, signed in January, that says the Defense Department must provide justification to Congress and wait 30 days before opening any new positions to women.

According to a story by The Washington Post, women make up about 15 percent of the military's active-duty members, and tens of thousands of them have served in the war in Iraq. Of those women, 48 have been killed and more than 350 have been wounded in action. America's women fighters serve mainly in supporting roles, such as cargo convoy escorts or military police.

Military policy still bars women from direct combat roles in armored, infantry or Special Forces units - restrictions that seem based in perception more than reality, given the nature of current warfare. Combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is waged on 360-degree battlefields against insurgents who treat all troops as frontline warriors. Women in so-called support jobs face plenty of enemy fire.

Others work as helicopter pilots who fly reconnaissance missions or wage air assaults on enemy forces attacking American ground troops, the Post reports. Some women also work as gunners atop Humvees or serve in the armored Stryker vehicles used in combat.

Despite these skills, women soldiers told the Post they still are barred from the kind of combat service that can help them move up through the ranks and face rules that keep them from integrating fully into their mostly male units. For example, Army aviators are not allowed to enter the quarters of aviators of the opposite sex.

"If all the guys hang out and play poker in one of the guy's rooms and I'm not allowed in there ... I'll always be on the outside," one of the female pilots told the Post. These could be the some of the same men whose backsides that pilot saved during combat earlier in the day.

Male soldiers serving on the ground in Iraq told the Post they trust and revere the abilities of the women aviators overhead. But the women say there remains a tendency for superiors to defer to male aviators during mission briefings, even though the women may have higher ranks.

This doesn't seem at all fair. Women who choose the military profession should be allowed to hold any job for which they possess the physical ability and skill, without the interference of old policies and outdated traditions. The fact that women are piloting combat support missions shows that they are one step closer to the equal footing they seek - and deserve.