THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, July 4, 1994                   TAG: 9406300006
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   37 lines

WHY NOT FEMALE WARRIORS?

I request some clarification on ``West pulls a fast one'' (editorial, June 20). My understanding of the opinion put forth in that editorial has come upon an insurmountable obstacle: Why is it more tragic for a female soldier to die in combat than for a male?

I happen to be of the opinion that it is tragic whenever any soldier dies in combat, so tragic in fact that I cannot bring myself to mutter what would apparently be your comforting words of, ``Well, at least it wasn't a woman.''

You opened your editorial with the image of ``female bodies . . . scattered across the sands of Omaha Beach,'' and again I ask: ``Why is that more terrible than the actual image of the men whose bodies were ``scattered across the sands''?

Perhaps if you had taken the time to read Wayne Dize's letter, which appeared on the same page as your editorial, you would have had second thoughts about expounding ``traditional values'' that, in Mr. Dize's words, ``deny women opportunities based solely on their gender.''

By what right do you argue against a woman's right to defend - even to the death - her nation? The right of the male authority figure? Why is it that an attribute heralded and trumpeted in males - the patriotic duty to defend one's country - is open to patronizing ridicule when possessed by a female?

I wonder if perhaps those coed basic-training sessions failed in the late 1970s because the male soldiers were of your misguided, misogynistic opinion.

LESLIE A. ROY

Virginia Beach, June 21, 1994 by CNB