Women Cop The Flak On Frontline Manoeuvres

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday May 16, 2001

There are no hairdressers in combat zones and camouflage paint rarely comes with foundation make-up.

The question of women in the front line is best explained by the highly decorated American Colonel David Hackworth in his book About Face (Macmillan, 1989). He claimed that if a female were wounded, it was natural for her male team members to help her instead of getting on with the job.

If a man were down, then it would take more than four females to carry him to safety, whereas two men could usually move him.

Another factor was the propaganda leverage the enemy could exert if a woman soldier were captured. No country likes to see its females abused.

Hackworth said that what usually happened was that the females ended up back at base making eyes at senior officers and getting promotions while the blokes did the dirty work out in the scrub.

Also, I think women would be at a disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat, and would not fare well in a bayonet fight.

No, the Defence Force is not the place for a social experiment very likely to jeopardise the lives of males at the sharp end.

Keith Allen,

Edgecliff, May 14.

The Democrats' position on females in the armed services creates a new high in crass populist media grabs.

Natasha Stott Despoja needs to understand there are no hairdressers in combat zones and camouflage paint rarely comes with foundation make-up. And after going for three weeks without a shower, personal hygiene isn't an issue.

As for the changing role of military assignments such as peacekeeping, we need to remember the number of men shot in East Timor. As a society, are we ready to have our service women come home in body bags, as happened after a US warship was bombed in the Middle East a few years ago?

If my daughters decide to join the services, I feel sure they will do so out of a sense of Australian national pride rather than swimming the populist tide for which the Democrats are becoming famous.

Wayne Brown,

Queanbeyan, May 14.

Opinions by senior members of the RSL that women should be denied combat roles in the Defence Force are not necessarily shared by all returned servicemen.

After serving with some of the nation's finest soldiers and officers, many of them women, while peacekeeping last year, I found it easy to form the view that women should be provided with the same opportunities in the armed forces as any man.

So long as strict benchmarks for fitness and arms proficiency are set and adhered to, there seems no logical reason for opposition.

Indeed, the only reason I can think of is that the sexist boys' club mentality of defence policy-makers, most of them men, remains in control of the defence steering wheel in Canberra.

Women are just as likely to face the same type of personal threat whether they are police officers patrolling in Cabramatta or soldiers on the borders of East Timor.

David Elliott,

Oatlands, May 14.