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

DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993                   TAG: 9305030257
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

COMBAT JOBS

IN ADDITION to lifting the Pentagon ban on women in combat aviation, Defense Secretary Les Aspin this week told each service it must justify why any job is kept off-limits to women. This is expected to lead soon to having women in such battlefield jobs as rocket artillery, combat engineering and brigade-level artillery.

Specifically excluded from reconsideration, however, is the absence of women in front-line infantry and armor units.

Modern warfare has blurred the line between combat and non-combat, but the line is clearest with infantry and armor, still the shock troops of ground combat. The fact that their continuing all-male status is currently not at issue is probably a factor in the military's apparent readiness to open other combat slots to women.

But that in itself is not a good enough reason to bar women from such units. If sound reasons can be shown for keeping the restriction, it should be kept. But sound reasons do not include a macho assumption, absent other evidence, that women aren't good enough to be there.

by CNB