Sailors, Commanding Officer Support Women’s Right to See Combat : Tour: A presidential commission on women in the military hears comments from that group and Miramar pilots. The pilots are less enthusiastic.

Women should be allowed to serve on combat ships and have earned the right to put themselves in harm’s way if given the choice, several Navy enlisted men and women told a presidential commission Thursday.

Three members of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces met with eight sailors--four men and four women--at the 32nd Street Naval Station to discuss the the role of women in the military.

The 15-member commission is on a fact-finding tour, visiting military bases throughout the country, to assess the Pentagon’s policies regarding women’s assignments in the armed forces. On Wednesday, the panel visited Miramar Naval Air Station, where members got a different perspective from Navy pilots.

“Top Gun pilots are a little more reticent to see full integration of women into the ranks of fighter pilots,” said commission spokeswoman Magee Whelan.

The response from ship crews was markedly different. The commissioners met with senior enlisted sailors from the Cape Cod and Jason, both repair ships with women crew members.

“Women can do more that just raise kids. . . . It shouldn’t be an issue any more,” said Petty Officer Donald Reed, a 20-year-veteran. “We sailed to the Persian Gulf with women in our crew. The feeling was that we had a job to do, and we performed. You can’t say that men did their jobs better than the women. I think it would be the same thing in combat.”

Capt. Gary Bier, commanding officer of the Cape Cod, acknowledged that he once disapproved of allowing women to go to sea. But that attitude changed after he assumed command of the Cape Cod in Nov., 1990, and inherited a crew of 1,488, including 450 women.

Bier, who fought in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, quickly answered “you bet your ass” when asked if he would take his ship and its women sailors into combat. The 34-year Navy veteran praised the women in his crew, including the 17 female officers.

“My professional opinion is that they (women) can make as good a killer as anyone,” he said.

Bier, who will soon be given command of a destroyer squadron of nine to 14 ships, said he would not hesitate to tell the ship commanders that women deserve to serve in combat.

“It can be done. It’s not a problem. It can happen,” said Bier.

The panel members who met with the sailors and Miramar pilots were retired Army Maj. Gen. Mary E. Clarke, former post commander at Ft. McClellan, Ala.; Army Capt. Mary M. Finch, a West Point graduate and helicopter pilot, and Elaine Donnelly, a civilian and former member of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

Donnelly has opposed opening combat assignments to women in the past. On Thursday, she continued to express reservations about putting women into combat, arguing that some training requirements might have to be “downgraded” to give women an equal chance at combat assignments, such as flying jet fighters.

Finch, however, had no reservations about a woman’s ability to handle a combat role and said that training programs do not have to be downgraded to accommodate women.

“I do believe that physiologically and psychologically, women can handle anything that is also expected of men,” said Finch.

Donnelly and the other two commissioners touched briefly on the subject of sexual harassment in the military, particularly the Navy. Each commissioner said the problem is a serious one, but Donnelly said, “The solution to sexual harassment is not to put women in combat.”

The commission’s findings and recommendations will be forwarded in a report to the President that is due by Nov. 15. The President will forward the report, along with his comments and recommendations, to Congress a month later.