THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411270048
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
A silver coffin. A gray sky. And a cemetery where American military heroes are laid to rest.
That was last week's final setting for pioneer aviator Lt. Kara Hultgreen, who pushed the envelope of equality for women in the military.
Hultgreen, one of the first two women to qualify for Navy carrier operations in the F-14A jet fighter, flew to her death as she tried to land on a carrier off the coast of Southern California.
In the days after the crash, her death answered a question constantly raised in the debate over women in combat: How will it feel when mothers and daughters come home in body bags?
Now we know it feels lousy. Almost exactly how it feels when sons and fathers die.
But why do we even ask the question? Women dying in uniform is nothing new.
Their service dates back to the American Revolution, when Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man and fought under the name of Robert Shurtleff. She treated her own wounds before dying of a fever.
Since then, thousands of women have served in military conflicts, and hundreds have died overseas. People like Genevieve Smith, killed on her way to an assignment as an Army chief nurse in Korea. Or Sharon Ann Lane, a nurse who was killed by shrapnel in Vietnam. Or Cindy Beaudoin of the Connecticut National Guard, who died during Desert Storm when a jeep she was in hit a land mine.
But rarely do you hear about women in the annals of military history. Why? Because they were few in number. Because they were serving in behind-the-scenes positions. Because their support and healing of heroes rarely gained them recognition.
For years, female veterans have fought not just for recognition, but for benefits and opportunity.
That's why Hultgreen's brief page of history is so important. She died on equal footing with the men she trained next to, shoulder to shoulder.
Maybe that's the reason for the sniping that came even before taps was played for Hultgreen. Anonymous faxes from faceless detractors played a refrain all too familiar to women breaking new ground:
She wasn't good enough. She was mere window dressing for a Navy anxious to promote women. She didn't know what she was doing.
But the rumor-churning faxes that questioned Hultgreen's qualifications were less about reality and more about a desperate effort to resist change. A last-ditch attempt to say women don't belong here. Keep out.
Hultgreen's mother might have responded by retreating. She might have asked the country to leave her alone to mourn. Or asked that the American public give her kid a break.
Instead, Sally Spears reacted in much the same way her daughter would have. She proved the critics wrong. She released copies of Hultgreen's flight-training records, which showed an above-average rating, ranking Hultgreen third out of seven pilots in her class.
Proof positive that Hultgreen was good enough and then some.
Spears, better than anyone, knows how lousy it feels for a daughter to come home in a body bag.
But she also knows the pride only mothers of pioneers can know. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Lt. Kara Hultgreen died in a Navy plane crash.
KEYWORDS: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY FATALITY DEATH COMBAT by CNB