European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 8, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday october 8, 1991 the stars and stripes commentary David Hackwo Thwe need to know facts on women in combat Congress will decide very soon whether to set up a commission on women in combat. I believe such a commission is absolutely essential. It is needed to determine whether women could be drafted and whether combat assignments for women could be kept voluntary when they Arentt voluntary for men. More than that though the commission is needed to take Stock of what we be Learned so far about women in the military and to look ahead. As a Newsweek reporter assigned to the persian Gulf during the War i watched firsthand As american servicewomen performed splendidly there. A few years before that i was a proud papa when my own daughter received three commendations for valor for her work on coast guard choppers plucking people from angry seas. 1 understand americans sense of gratitude to its women warriors and i know How important our nations ideals such As Equality and Opportunity Are to the whole sense of Why we fight. But As an experienced combat Soldier i have to say that in direct combat there a something More important than gratitude More important even than Equality and Opportunity. Its life and death. Often life and death for dozens of soldiers can come Down to How fast a Pace you can maintain with a Hundred Pound pack on your Back to a split second command to the fighter aircraft at your Wing tip to whether the Grunt next to you is Strong enough to carry you off the Battlefield if your legs been blown apart to whether your platoon is operating at full fighting strength or is three soldiers Short and to whether your unit is moving faster than the enemy. Under modern conditions of fast Man Euver warfare stamina and Speed matter even More than they did a generation ago. Its not that a women can to do  its rather that our information Isnit Good enough yet to risk lives on. Double standards for judging the physical strength and stamina of servicemen and women have become pervasive. At West Point for example women practice handling an m-14 Rifle whose Spring has been modified to make it easier for them. The obstacle course has been eased for them. Running shoes Are used because female cadets were getting too Many foot injuries running in army boots. Army physical fitness standards Call for men to be Able to do 80 push  women must do 56. Men 17 to 25 years of age must run two Miles in 17 minutes 55 seconds or better women Are allowed 22 minutes 14 seconds. Marine men must climb 20 feet of rope in 30 seconds Marine women Are Given 50 seconds. A we Are told to evaluate women on a different Standard than men a an air Force Trainer told me. A a woman who is adequate is rated As outstanding or who is unacceptable is rated As acceptable. We lie to the Public we lie to the air Force and most of All we lie to each  in the thousand plus interviews of servicemen and women that i did for a Newsweek Story on women in combat these double standards were the top complaint. With women excluded from combat such double standards Are a a Only morale busters in Battle  Cost women and men their lives. We need to know the truth about How Many women would be capable and qualified under genuinely equal standards a and we need to know before we Start assigning women to combat specialities and bullets Start flying. A commission should also help the military accurately project How Many soldiers would be available Tor combat in a future conflict. How Many soldiers deployed to the Gulf were out of action a and for How Long a due to non combat related accidents and to pregnancies what percentage of the men and women called up had custody of Small children they could not leave such information tells us a lot about How Many Active and Reserve personnel Well need and How fast to keep the front lines at full strength. If we done to know or we re seriously wrong we re going to lose Battles and lives. The biggest unknown though is what the soldiers who will be most affected by the proposed changes think. The ones 1 interviewed from Buck privates to generals raised detailed concerns that no one in Washington seems to be publicly discussing. And the closer one gets to the soldiers who will do the bleeding and dying the More concerns they raise. Our country s leaders have a High moral responsibility to talk to these soldiers to hear them out and to consider their views carefully. Incidentally these issues have not been a studied to  i asked senators and representatives Pentagon officials think tanks service medical and training commands and 45 years Worth of military contacts for any studies they had. What 1 got was anecdotes opinions about what the facts show and random statistics. But no studies. The achievements women have made in the services will not be lost or forgotten if Congress and the american people Reserve judgment on women s roles in the military until All the facts Are in. Women themselves will see to that. The greater danger is that mistakes made now in haste to get women into combat could Lead to needless fatalities. If that happens there will be hell to pay politically and militarily. The backlash could set military women Back decades. Let a commission of civilian and military leaders bring As much expertise As possible to these decisions. Now is not the time for our political leaders to Duck and weave but to look this Issue dead in the Eye and act responsibly. Hackworth a retired army colonel with eight years combat experience is a contributing editor of Newsweek special to the Washington Post David Bro Derbush s school reforms deserve close look Between the craftiness of the White House publicity machine and the cynicism of the press an important Opportunity for debating education policy is being lost. President Bush a political advisers love to plop him Down in classrooms to show his concern about the future of our children. And reporters so despise the manipulative setting that when Bush drops in on eighth graders As he did again last week they pretty much ignore what he says. That a too bad because what the Bush administration is attempting to do with its America 2000 education initiative is worthy of careful examination a if not the adulation the White House would like to hear. The National goals set Forth by the president and the governors two years ago have won Broad acceptance. National measurements enabling parents to know How their schools and children Are really doing seem to be coming despite some initial toot dragging by evaluation shy educators and their friends in Congress. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander says that a one Way or another a by act of Congress or interstate compact Well have the first phase tests by 1993-94.�?� blot neither National standards nor National tests by themselves guarantee that students will do better. How to improve education is still unclear. To that vital question the administration is giving not one. But three different answers. One is summed up in the catch phrase a parental Choice which bluntly put is about 90 percent politics. More and More Public school systems Are offering students options the spread of Choice programs in Public schools is in the words of Michael Timpane president of Columbia teachers College a the great untold Story of the past 20  it will continue and accelerate. What the administration is promoting a a Brand of a a choices that allows Public funds to go to private schools a is a non starter. The real debate is Between a strategy that Aims at improving the standards and performance of the existing 110,000 Public schools and one that would replace them As fast As possible with radically different models. The administration ostensibly favors both the overhaul and replacement strategies. In Congress especially in the House where the education lobby is powerful. A bipartisan Bill is taking shape that guarantees that today a educational professionals have a Strong hand in the overhaul of existing schools. The administration is not frontally opposing that. But it is putting its bets on the replacement strategy. That is Why president Bush met for an extraordinary 5vi hours at Camp David with two dozen business leaders who form the Board of directors of the new american schools development corp. They Are charged with raising $150 million or More in private funds to finance the work of design teams that will help build a learning environments totally different from today a  they foresee such new generation schools arising in some 504 communities initially and eventually they Hope in thousands More. Former new Jersey gov. Thomas ii. Kean who Heads the Board said that after his eight year struggle in Trenton he concluded that a to move the existing education bureaucracy where it has to go will take an extraordinary length of time. It moves like a Glacier. Unless we leapfrog Over that we re going to lose an entire  that kind of talk alarms not just the teachers unions friends in Congress but leading governors such As Colorado Sroy Romer who has not been afraid to Challenge the school bureaucracy in his Home state. A that View May be applicable to certain Urban areas he said. A but in Colorado we can get where we need to get from where we Are without dismantling the whole system. In a also afraid that starting Over Means we Privati a and that is the end of Thomas Jetterson a dream. Alexanders political antennae warn against any Clear Cut clash with Congress on this fundamental strategic Issue. But he clearly leans to the Kean approach. And so docs the president of lie would t have spent All that time on it. What Alexander told me is tins a my personal conclusion is that its easier cheaper and quicker to Start Over the same a n was to build interstate 40 rather than Unpi Ose . 70. He. A Riff Imu