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No real objection

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By Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. and Worth H. Bagley WASHINGTON-Old sea dogs and some young pups, too, are grumbling all over again about the issue of women on warships.

The occasion for the new round of disapproving comment is U.S. Dist. Judge John J. Sirica's recent ruling that a law prohibiting assignment of women to combat ships is discriminatory. He has told the Navy to make its ships ready and able to receive female sailors and officers.

Basically, there are three reasons for the opposition to women aboard Warships:

Male chauvinism.

2 Technical problems involved in adapting ships and aircraft to Women, and

3. The realities of sexual attraction.

Male chauvinists believe that the performance of women in combat operations will be less skillful or, at best, more erratic than that of men. We have had to learn the hard way that that theory is wrong. We fought against Viet Cong women. We found them to be every bit as tough, cunning skilled and ruthless in combat as Viet Cong men. And they were able to bear incredible physical hardships.

This performance is not unique to Vietnam. Women in Russia, China, Israel and in our own frontier past have served in combat roles with great distinction.

More pertinently, tests in the U.S. Navy show that women held their own with men in air and sea operations.

In 1972 women were assigned to seagoing jobs in the hospital ship USS Sanctuary. This was the one naval ship to which the law just struck down by Judge Sirica permitted their assignment. On board

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ZUMWALT

BAGLEY

Strategic View

Sanctuary women naval officers, women boatswain's mates, women electrician's mates and so on served as capably as their male counterparts.

And in the air women naval aviators withstood the rigor of flight training and graduated, to fly `naval aircraft with great competence.

The male chauvinist category of opposition to women in combat is simply without foundation and wrong.

There are technical problems in adapting naval ships and aircraft to women. One set of problems arises from the need for privacy between the sexes. With all-male crews, the Navy has never had to give up precious dollars or space to provide privacy in washrooms or toilets.

If the Navy were to assign allfemale crews to some ships, perhaps the same economies would apply. But segregation of sexes by ship would very probably violate Judge Sirica's ruling.

Naval ships have never had to provide space or equipment to dispense products for female hygiene. In the smaller carrier-type aircraft, where aviators are confined to cockpits for long flights, flight suits are presently equipped to permit male aviators to relieve themselves. The advent of women aviators will require different equipment.

But we know from our Navy's technical experience and from the experience of other nations that these technical accommodations are not difficult to make. If one truly believes in equal opportunity, the costs and time involved are small compared to the gain.

On the other hand, the Navy must deal with the reality of sexual attraction when men and women are both assigned to a ship.

Until now when it came to sex, captains had only to worry about the sexual temptations and triangular jealousies of that minority of these crew members who had homosexual

SEAMAN-

WE DO NOT REFER TO THE WOMEN'S QUARTERS AS "BROADSIDE"!

tendencies

Svarten

perhaps accentuated by the all-male environment.

Under Judge Sirica's ruling, captains will need to be concerned about the sexual temptations and triangular jealousies of the normal majority of their crews.

But women have served with men in isolated bases overseas. And the same problems exist in every envi'ronment when the sexes are brought together. Further, in a society where fighting forces are drawn from among young people who have grown up in an undisciplined drug and alcohol culture, the problem of sex will not be the toughest that naval commanders will face..

Another reality of bringing men and women together on warships is that their spouses back home will be likelier to feel the pangs of jealousy as their loved ones go overseas in company with the other sex.

Indeed, when we first assigned women to the USS Sanctuary, a number of wives of Navy men on board picketed the ship in protest.

But that problem, too, as a major concern, evaporated almost as soon as it was raised.

The law barring women from combat ships is an old one. Judge Sirica once again has served justice --and his country-well by striking it down.