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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 20, 1994                   TAG: 9407200069
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOMEN WARRIORS

WOMEN IN combat: training, fighting, dying alongside men, asking no special protection, receiving none. Why, even to suggest such a thing in the 1990s produces in some quarters a mass case of the vapors.

Yet, even as the military brass advance cautiously toward the position that woman can train for and serve successfully in combat roles, we are reminded that women have been there, done that - in the bloodiest of America's wars, the Civil War.

Historians have long acknowledged that a handful of women - a mere 400 known among the 3 million who fought for the Union and the Confederacy - passed themselves off as men so they could don Blue or Gray and join that horrific confrontation. They did not have to serve. They were, in fact, forbidden to serve. Why defy the rules of society to expose themselves to the battlefield's dangers and deprivations?

Maybe they wanted to meet guys. But, then again, they couldn't let anyone know they were women. Aside from those who joined to cleave to their husbands, that killed much chance of wartime romance.

Maybe they just wanted to destroy the institutions they were joining. Cut their hair, bind their breasts, put on a uniform and charge into battle - dragging their comrades down to a suitable level of ineptitude where they could keep up with the fellahs. But, then again, ineptitude can be fatal on the field of combat.

Is it possible some wanted to serve for the same reasons as male compatriots who went willingly into the military in wartime? It's a startling thought, perhaps, but historians say the women joined because they needed the pay; they were patriots who wanted to defend their country; they were adventurers who craved the challenge.

Few women had both the desire and the courage to defy convention and fight in the Civil War. Those who did saw benefits that, for them, outweighed the cruelties and hardships of military life.

Is it conceivable today that, in her court action against The Citadel's male-only policy, Shannon Faulkner is simply pursuing her ambitions, the same as male cadets?

by CNB