U.S. Military Women Closer Than Ever to Combat Zone

By Zlatica Hoke

A growing number of American women are joining the U.S. Armed Forces to serve in an ever wider array of duties. In the past decade, they have eroded 1 one of the last remaining barriers in the military by entering the combat zone. Zlatica Hoke reports there is strong support for women in this role, but there is also resistance.

The capture and rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in the earlier stages of the Iraq War and subsequent involvement of Private Lynndie England in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal brought the world's attention to American women in the military. Chris Hanson, professor of journalism 2 at the University of Maryland, says the media coverage 3 of the women in service is usually unfair.

"Women in the military are shown to be either too vulnerable and too weak or somehow too strange and aberrant," says Professor Hanson. Too much focus on sex scandals, rape 4 and other difficulties gives the impression that women hinder rather then contribute to the success of the armed forces. He says such reports feed the stereotypes 5 which slow the progress of service women.

Yet American military women have come a long way since World War Two when 150.000 joined the Women's Army Corps 6. These were the first to serve in the US Army in posts other than nurses. Today women make up 15% of the armed forces, says Chris Hanson, and can serve in most areas.

"When the draft ended in the early 1970's, the military needed person power," says Professor Hanson. "And they went out and started to recruit women and they opened up a lot of jobs to women that earlier had been closed to them in the military. So women ended up by now doing all kinds of specializations, many of them combat related, although they are still kept out of infantry 7, tanks, artillery 8."

Until the Iraq War, scant 9 public attention was paid to this progress. But the close-up television coverage of Iraq battlefields has drawn 10 attention to the number of women soldiers. Roughly one in seven Americans serving in Iraq is female. Close to 30 have died, most in combat.

"We have never seen so many female soldiers, we know that many of them are married. They are mothers. Some of them are single mothers - great numbers of them. And we are sending them to fight our wars in a way that is unprecedented 11, not just in American history, but in history around the world."
Ms Donnelly says many Americans are understandably upset to see women so close to enemy lines. She knows that specially 12 appointed presidential commission examined the issue of women serving in close combat in 1992 and found that their presence may indeed hinder rather than improve troops' readiness.

"In every test that's ever been done in Britain as well as the United states and in Israel it has been found that the physical differences really do put women at a disadvantage, and it is unwise to have them therefore in land combat units."

Elaine Donnelly, who was a member of the presidential commission, says the case for women in combat is based on the concept of equal opportunity, which is an important American value, but not applicable to the armed forces.

"I can summarize a huge body of information by saying this simply: female soldiers do not have an equal opportunity to survive or to help fellow soldiers survive in a combat environment," says Elaine Donnelly. Still, some countries, including the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark have lifted all restrictions 13 on women serving in the military. Chris Hanson says a similar trend will continue in the US armed forces.

"Their controversies 14 now are what other types of jobs they'll be allowed to have," says Professor Hanson. "Will women be allowed to be in the artillery, which requires less physical strength than being in the infantry? Will they be allowed to be in tanks, which in theory could be operated by someone with less physical strength just as an airplane can? I think special forces in the infantry are going be the toughest nuts to crack and they might never be cracked."

But as Elaine Donnelly points out, countries that have removed all restrictions on women in service have not engaged in combat substantially since World War Two. The United States has. "We are the nation that has taken on the bad guys. Careers are important, but when there is a conflict with the needs of the military, then military necessity should come first."

When national security is at stake, most Americans would agree that the need to maintain a strong military must take precedence over concerns about equal opportunity. Some believe that one does not exclude the other, citing historic examples from medieval French heroine to modern day women veterans. The argument will, no doubt, continue as long as there is a need for an armed service.

For focus, I'm Zlatica Hoke.

注释：
combat zone 战区
rescue 营救
scandal 丑闻
journalism 新闻业
in service 在军中服役
vulnerable 易受攻击的
aberrant 异常的
rape 强奸
stereotype 陈腔滥调
recruit 征募
specialization 特殊化
infantry 步兵
artillery 炮兵
roughly 概略地
unprecedented 空前的
hinder 阻碍
applicable 可适用的
engage in 使从事于，参加
substantially 充分地
at stake 危险
heroine 女英雄