NARRATOR: Daughter. Wife. Mother. Warrior.

ADMIRAL GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."

For many years, women have served honorably in the armed forces of the United States and there's very little dis-agreement as to whether or not women should serve in the armed forces. But there is very little agreement whether or not women should serve in combat, aboard ships, in aircraft, and on the ground in battle.

Our program is about that subject today and I think you'll find it very interesting.

NARRATOR: More than 40,000 American women and nearly 500,000 men served in the war against Iraq. This was the largest military deployment of women in American history.

Women comprise 11 percent of the US active duty mili-tary today. However, women are barred from serving in combat positions on the basis of gender. Federal law bars women from serving aboard Navy combat vessels. The Army and the Air Force may legally assign women to combat positions. However, they continue their policy of excluding women from combat.

Should that change?

General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seems to think that it will. He told midshipmen at the Naval Academy, "I think we have to open up more places for women to go in our cockpits and aboard our ships. I think the American people expect that."

When you think of women warriors, you might think of Joan of Arc. In 1429, at the age of 17, Joan of Arc successfully led French troops into battle against the English. Then there's Boadicia, who led an army of 120,000 Britains in revolt against the Romans in the year 60 A.D.

American history has its own women warriors. Margaret Corbin fought in the Revolutionary War, firing her husband's canon after he fell wounded. In 1779, she became the first female veteran to receive a military pension. Hundreds of women, including Deborah Sampson Gannet, alias Private Robert Shurtleff, disguised themselves as men to fight in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Despite women's historic role in combat, the debate over the proper role for women warriors continues today in the United States.

Master Sergeant Sarah White is an 18-year veteran of the Air Force Ready Reserves. She speaks here for herself and not as an official representative of the military.

INTERVIEWER: If they were used in combat, what effect do you think that would have on American culture and society?

MASTER SGT. SARAH WHITE: It would be a radical departure from where mainstream America believes that good men protect women and that women enjoy being protected by men.

NARRATOR: Commander Rosemary Mariner, a 20-year Navy veteran, disagrees. She spoke with us in her capacity as the president of Women Military Aviators, an international associa- tion of more than 600 female pilots.

CMDR. ROSEMARY MARINER: Today you have young men and women that grew up together. They played soccer together. They're used to have women in leadership roles in sports. Their sister may be a cop. Their mother may be a brain surgeon. They do not look at women as some kind of helpless creature that has to be protected, as did their grandfathers.

NARRATOR: Historically, women's place in the military has been ministering to the wounded. Dorothea Dix, a nurse in the Civil War, founded the Army Nurses Corps, which officially became part of the US Army in 1901. Military nurses did not receive rank, pensions or veterans rights. They did, however, get badges. The Army Nurses Corp badge, introduced in 1901, was the first official military insignia for American women.

In 1917 during World War I, before women had even won the right to vote, the Navy recruited women for its Reserve Force Yeomanettes. These women served as administrative personnel. The Marines and the Coast Guard followed. "Free a man to fight" was the recruiters' call. In total, 34,000 served in the First World War.

By World War II, rapidly evolving weapons and communi- cations technology had changed the nature of warfare. For the first time, support troop requirements outnumbered the need for combat soldiers. Beginning in 1942, separate military services for women were established, including the Army WACs, the Navy WAVES, the Air Force WASPS and the Coast Guard SPARS.

More than 400,000 female volunteers served during World War II. Some, like this postal unit, followed allied troops throughout the European theater of war. Others took up support specialties, such as supply, maintenance, transportation, and even training others in combat arms.

Women did not gain professional military status until 1948, when President Truman signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act into law. The law allowed women to serve in the regular and reserve forces, but limited their number to 2 percent of the military's total force. This restriction was repealed in 1967. The 1948 law also restricted women from flying combat aircraft. This was repealed in 1991, but the 1948 law still bans women from serving on naval combat vessels.

In addition to repealing the combat aviation ban, Congress established a presidential commission to study the role of women in the military. Its report was released in November, 1992.

KATE WALSH O'BEIRNE: The majority of commissioners felt that, no, women should not be assigned to aircraft. On the other hand, the majority felt that combat ships would be appropriate, some combat ships, and by quite a large plurality, the commission recommended that women not be assigned to ground combat.

NARRATOR: Kate Walsh O'Beirne of the Heritage Foundation served as a member of the commission. She voted against expanding roles for women in the military.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any circumstances under which you personally could see them engaging in combat?

MRS. O'BEIRNE: I certainly could see American women engaging in combat, like they have historically and traditionally in America as a last resort, last line of defense. I assume, like pioneer women did in their day, like the women of Leningrad did in their day, when you're protecting your home and hearth, when men are not available, women will defend.

NARRATOR: In practice, the line between combat and support forces is often unclear. Support soldiers bear arms, cross into enemy territory, engage the enemy, are taken prisoner and are killed.

Despite their "noncombatant" status, two Army women were taken prisoner of war during Operation Desert Storm. Thir- teen American women were killed, five from hostile fire. One of these women was Major Marie Rossi, an Army helicopter pilot who carried troops behind enemy lines in the early days of the ground war.

Casualties also occurred behind the lines. Stationed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, three women and 25 men were killed when their barracks were hit by an Iraqi Scud missile.

Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender is the highest ranking woman in the United States Army. She was the chief of the Army Nurse Corps and currently commands Fort Belvoir in Virginia. As the surgeon general's director for medical personnel during the Gulf War, General Adams-Ender was responsible for the more than 25,000 military health care professionals who served in the region.

GEN. CLARA ADAMS-ENDER: From the accounts that I received from Desert Shield and Desert Storm -- and those are our latest accounts, of course, of where those nurses were -- the battle is really kind of like all over. It can be at any place at any point in time. And I suppose that's one of the issues in terms of where women find themselves. If you'll recall, we had a couple of women who were prisoners of war in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and much of that had to do with where they were located.

NARRATOR: Despite women's direct and indirect involvement in combat during the Persian Gulf War, the debate continues to rage over whether women should serve in combat.

Colonel David Hackworth is the Army's most decorated living veteran and a special correspondent for Newsweek.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think women should be in combat?

COLONEL DAVID HACKWORTH: I think it's what role you play. My daughter was in the Coast Guard as an aviator for four years. I'm quite sure she could fly a gunship. My daughter is five foot two; she would not make a very good grunt. I think that women should have the opportunity to do what they're capable of doing.

NARRATOR: Many people that we spoke with believe that women should serve on the basis of their ability, not their gender.

MAN-on-the-Street: If they can serve in the military, they can serve in combat.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Each situation should be identified separately. I think women flying planes is okay, but I don't think they should be on the battlefield, you know.

MAN-on-the-Street: Even in the Luftwaffe there were women who flew, so I wouldn't object to that.

COL. HACKWORTH: Why can't a woman fly an F-15, if she's capable? I know women that have flown gunships -- that haven't flown them in combat but have flown them at Rucker and so on, I've interviewed them -- that are fully capable. So, I think each according to their ability.

SENATOR WILLIAM ROTH (R-DE): "Military effectiveness must be our first priority. With today's technology, the only true distinctions are skill, reflexes, nerves and brains. We want our best, our brightest and our most skilled pilots in the air, not on the ground."

NARRATOR: Senator William Roth of Delaware is a World War II Army veteran. He co-sponsored the amendment killing the ban on women flying combat missions.

SEN. ROTH: "Women are so qualified as combat pilots that many of them teach our male combat pilots how to fly. Women are so qualified in the rigors of high performance aircraft that many of them test our newest generation planes. Women are so qualified in modern aircraft technology that they fly the space shuttle. Women are so qualified that they have flown just about every plane that the Pentagon has built in the past three decades."

NARRATOR: Sergeant Sarah White argues that although women are capable of flying these planes, they should not be assigned to combat in them.

SGT. WHITE: We have to remember that even if you are at a high altitude in an airplane at a distance from the enemy, if you crash, then you automatically become an infantry or Special Forces-type of person. It is your mission then to survive, to escape and to evade, and you have to have all of the skills and the capabilities as the men throughout history have had. And clearly women don't have those as a rule.

NARRATOR: General Adams-Ender reminds us that female prisoners of war are nothing new.

GEN. ADAMS-ENDER: We certainly have the evidence of the nurses who were caught up in combat in World War II and were prisoners of war for -- 67 of them -- for about two-and-a-half, almost three years. And I think the history shows us from that that they managed that very well and suffered some of the same kinds of hardships that men did during that period, and I might also add at the same time had to work.

NARRATOR: Sergeant White was also a member of the presiden-tial commission. She contends that most women have no desire to serve in combat positions which may lead to their capture or death.

SGT. WHITE: The vast majority of enlisted women do not want to be in combat and a great many of the female officers do not want to be in combat. It's a small minority that promote that and most of the rest of us would rather not have them dictate what our future jobs will be in the military, or those women who may be in interested in enlisting or going for a commission in the future.

NARRATOR: Commander Mariner disagrees.

COMDR. MARINER: I think in many of the Navy surveys and other surveys we saw show that -- that while men and women don't necessarily want to go into combat, just like many men and women don't necessarily want to go to Diego Garcia or perform other less-than-fun duties, they understand that it is what the institution is all about, that it is your duty to do so, and that in order to be professionally accepted, to have equal opportunity, they have to share equal risk.

NARRATOR: Retired Air Force General Jeanne Holm argues that any women interested in joining the military must be willing to serve in combat.

GENERAL JEANNE HOLM: "Being in the military is not about uniforms or parades. It's not about benefits or adventure. The military is about going to war and a war is about killing and maybe dying for your country. And as the entire nation learned during Operation Desert Storm, being a man or a woman, or being designated a combatant or a noncombatant has very little to do with who lives and who dies in modern war.

"Anyone not willing to accept that fundamental reality of military service should find another line of work."

NARRATOR: Women and men serve side by side in the civilian workforce in jobs such as fire fighting, which were once con- sidered solely man's work. Even "Barbie" reflects the changes in American culture. She's joined the Navy and also served with the Marines in Desert Storm.

MRS. O'BEIRNE: There are also important cultural issues that this commission addressed. Men protect and defend women from physical threats. This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be fully prepared to compete with us in courtrooms and be beaten, to compete with us in medical schools and be beaten, to run against us for Congress and be beaten. The fact remains that most Ameri- can men want to protect and defend women from the physical threat.

COMDR. MARINER: After 20 years, one of the most noticeable changes that I've observed is that young men are not protective of women. That is a generational issue. My generation -- and I'm 40 years old now -- men were kind of at a crossroads. If they looked at you as a sailor first, they wouldn't be very protective. If they looked at you as competition, they were not protective at all.

NARRATOR: The presidential commission studied pregnancy rates, among other things, to determine what effect women have on the military. This pregnancy uniform was recently displayed as part of an exhibit on Women in the Military at the Smithsonian Institution.

Kate Walsh O'Beirne, a commission member, argues that pregnancy rates do impair military effectiveness by keeping women from being deployed with their units.

MRS. O'BEIRNE: I became persuaded over eight months that mixed gender units, the record is clear, have higher attrition rates, lower deployability rates owing to pregnancy rates and whatnot among women.

NARRATOR: Commander Mariner disagrees.

COMDR. MARINER: All the studies -- and these have been looked at over and over again for 20 years -- show that men as a class have more lost time than women do, including when you take pregnancy into account.

NARRATOR: In addition to pregnancy, the commission examined what impact assigning women to combat would have on troop morale and cohesiveness.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: The only thing I keep hearing is there's -- men and women are going to be in foxholes together and there's this big sexual issue. And I think if someone is doing their job, regardless of where it is, that shouldn't be -- there should be no issue there.

MRS. O'BEIRNE: If the military tried to pretend we could be gender blind and that young men would view women in a gender blind way living in close quarters with them, serving in life threatening situations with them, it would have a devastating effect. I don't think young men are capable of it. We saw already in Desert Storm and Desert Shield high sexual activity rates in mixed gender units.

NARRATOR: Commander Mariner contends that the presence of women does not impair the military's effectiveness.

COMDR. MARINER: In Desert Storm men and women shared tents together. They shared the desert together. And the idea that somehow their presence degraded the unit cohesion or the mission effectiveness wasn't even discussed or thought about until people in Washington within the beltway decided to make it a political issue.

NARRATOR: Six NATO nations assign women to at least some combat positions. Colonel Guido Van Oppen commanded the Dutch armored battalion, in which women were fully integrated. We asked him what impact women had on his unit.

COLONEL GUIDO VAN OPPEN: The men basically act normal. It makes no difference whether it's a man or woman, don't act -- act as a soldier, as a professional. That's it.

NARRATOR: Some question whether women are actually capable of ground combat.

COL. HACKWORTH: My experience of a bunch of years on battlefields as a grunt is it ain't a place for a woman. The physical demands are just too mindblowing. You got to have a lot of upper body strength and you live in horrible conditions. And I don't think that women are that dumb to want to be grunts.

MRS. O'BEIRNE: You can't fight city hall and you can't fight human nature. We're certainly able to compete in virtually any sector of the economy, virtually any job available. But give the unique demands, physical demands, of combat jobs, women are at a severe disadvantage, which in turn puts their male colleagues at a severe disadvantage.

NARRATOR: Colonel Van Oppen says that the women in his combat unit had no problems handling the physical demands of the job.

INTERVIEWER: How about carrying heavy packs?

COL. VAN OPPEN: Oh, it's no problem. That's no problem. I've seen them performing much better than males sometimes.

NARRATOR: General Adams-Ender agrees that some women, just as some men, are up to the job.

GEN. ADAMS-ENDER: I do remember having walked in 1980 a hundred miles in four days without a blister or a corn, you see. So that -- And I was a little bit determined to get that done.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think women effected military effec- tiveness at all?

COMDR. MARINER: I think individual women enhanced it, just like individual men did. There are also some who are not good enough, just like some men are not good enough. And I go back to the performance standards. As long as the performance standards are the same, then the best people have the best effect on readiness.

NARRATOR: Colonel Hackworth argues for a single fitness standard.

COL. HACKWORTH: I don't think there should be double standards, one standard for a woman and one standard for a guy; a woman has a 60-pound pack and a guy has a 120-pound pack. That's not fair. What we need is one system.

NARRATOR: The military does have two standards for measur- ing general physical fitness. However, when it comes to assign- ment to a particular job, Commander Mariner argues that there is only one standard.

COMDR. MARINER: The issue that is gender neutral already is strength. In most tasks that require strength, you are considered strong enough by virtue of doing it. And aviation's a perfect example of that. You go out and you fly that airplane, do every-thing in that airplane all by yourself that any other pilot does, then you're strong enough to do it.

SGT. WHITE:So, you have to remember throughout all of this that women have approximately 40 percent less muscular strength than men do. They're shorter and they're lighter and they're smaller. And it's very significant when you're in a combat environment.

MAN-on-the-Street: I think if they're physically capable, there's no problem with it.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: And I think they can perform just as well some duties as a man. But for combat purposes, no, I don't -- I feel -- I don't think they should.

MAN-on-the-Street: Some of the women I know would do fine in combat, you know.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: If they get in the military, they know they take that oath; that's a part of it.

COMDR. MARINER: I think these women have come into the military from day one expecting to go into combat. When you go through these training programs or when you first put this uniform on, you cannot escape the identity that you are a soldier, an officer, or a sailor, a Marine, or aviator first. We train the same. We have the same value system.

GEN. ADAMS-ENDER: I believe that it would be important for women to have an opportunity to be all that they could be. That is our motto as far as the Army is concerned. However, right now the policy is such that that is not possible.

I tell women to keep them out of a conflict with themselves about this is just do the job that you are assigned and make sure that you do that well. And very often people will decide that you are ready for other kinds of responsibilities.

NARRATOR: General Jeanne Holm asserts that the military would be best served by dropping this artificial line between "combat" and "noncombat" positions.

GEN. HOLM: "As the forces draw down over the next few years, it will be more important than ever to have personnel policies that will ensure the highest quality military estab- lishment possible with the resources available. It will boil down to tapping the best talents available from a shrinking pool of young potential recruits to do the jobs required by the mili- tary that grow more technologically demanding each day.

"That goal can only be served by a gender neutral, best qualified personnel systems that match individual talents and aptitudes with the legitimate, validated requirements of the jobs that have to be done without artificial or unrelated constraints."

NARRATOR: Kate Walsh O'Beirne cautions that lifting the ban on women in combat would have many ramifications.

MRS. O'BEIRNE: Once the combat exemption was done away with, women would have to be assigned involuntarily, just like men. They would have to, those few who could, meet the same physical standards as men and they would clearly, legally then be subject to the draft on the same basis as men.

GEN. HOLM: "There is also a question of equity, or reverse equity, if you will. The question is: Is it right to expect military men to face the risks inherent in the military profes- sion, while attempting to protect or shield the women who take the same oath and draw the same pay, get the same training and where the same uniform? Today, increasing numbers of men and women are saying no."

COMDR. MARINER: The question was really first asked in the 400 years before the birth of Christ in Plato's Republic, in which he talks about defense of the "just city" and the guardian class. And Socrates, in his Dialogues, decides that the identify-ing characteristic of the warrior or guardian class was a quality called "thymos," which is loosely translated as "spiritiveness." We might call it "warrior spirit" today.

And if that quality is not unique to men, not all men have it and some women did have it, and therefore, he concluded that it was in the best interest of the "just city," because it was just and because it provided for the best defense, to have men and women march side by side as warriors.

NARRATOR: More than 2,400 years after Plato's recommenda- tion and more than 200 years after Margaret Corbin fired a cannon in America's war for independence, the role of women warriors is still in question.

ADM. LaROCQUE: Well, it's pretty clear, I think, from the attitudes expressed by the many people interviewed during this program, that we are divided. The battle lines have been drawn. Many feel that women ought to go ahead and serve in combat roles, just as the men do, and of course, many are opposed to that.

But it does seem to me, in the manner of fairness and equity, that everyone who serves in the military, men or women, ought to serve in combat. It's not fair to women to have them in the military and deny them the opportunity to serve in combat. Nor, is it fair to the men. I think the doors have to be open for both men and women to serve equally and honorably in the military.

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.