Marine General Rejects Added Women’s Roles

The commandant of the Marine Corps has rejected or narrowed many of the recommendations of a task force that urged sweeping efforts to open new jobs to women and equalize recruiting standards for both sexes.

Some top Pentagon officials have rebuked Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Alfred M. Gray for his actions and even before the report’s release Monday, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci overruled Gray on one issue--whether women can serve as security guards in U.S. embassies.

While approving some recommendations aimed at improving women’s rights in the Marine Corps, Gray rejected other controversial proposals, including allowing women in pilot, security force and embassy-security guard units and permitting women to participate in offensive combat training.

Sexual Harassment

At the same time, Gray acknowledged that sexual harassment is a serious problem in the Marine Corps and has issued new orders to all of its officers declaring that “sexual harassment, even in its most subtle form, will not be condoned.”

Gray and top Pentagon civilian officials have been battling privately for months over the Marine report on women in the service.

Less than 5% of the Marine Corps is female, about half the average for all the services.

Former Navy Secretary James H. Webb Jr. said earlier drafts of the Marine report failed to adequately address issues such as sexual harassment and homosexuality and sent the report back to the Marines for more work, according to Navy officials who said the Marine report originally was scheduled to be released with the Navy survey last December.

Gray said Carlucci’s order to allow women in the embassy guard units irked him and was made without consulting him.

‘Hustled Along’

“I’m getting hustled along here,” Gray, a four-star general, Monday told a women’s military committee holding its annual spring conference in Alexandria, Va. “I’m having the opportunity to do what’s good for my people taken away from me.”

He continued: “There’s only one person that’s responsible for the total well being of your Marines. It’s not Mr. Carlucci, it’s not Mr. Ball (Navy Secretary William L. Ball III).. . . It’s me. I am the one that will make these kinds of decisions, always--or you can get another commandant.”

Gray said he believes embassy guard duty should be “performed by fully prepared, combat-ready Marines drawn principally from the combat arms occupational fields.” Those combat fields are not open to women.

Besides ruling the women can serve in embassy guard units, Carlucci has ordered further evaluation of Gray’s decision to keep women out of the corps’ security force.