Women Seabees Hope to Nail Down Combat Role : Military: Navy officials at Port Hueneme expect the Pentagon to loosen its gender restrictions on battlefield personnel.

Although the Navy has opened the skies to female pilots flying combat missions, it still draws a line on the ground barring women Seabees from combat duty.

The Seabees’ Naval Mobile Construction Battalions at Port Hueneme--which build barracks, clear airfields and defuse mines for the Marine Corps on ground combat missions--continue to be closed to women.

Although the units are not assault forces, their mission is to directly support the Marines and to defend themselves if necessary.

“They go in with the second wave of Marines,” said Lt. Dan Bates, a Navy spokesman in Washington. “They are right at the front lines.”

And the law banning women from all forms of ground combat still holds, despite the Pentagon’s lifting of various other restrictions on women in combat roles.

So, while women Seabees at Port Hueneme help train male recruits in construction, plumbing and other jobs, they cannot join the men when it comes to doing the actual work on ground combat missions.

But the eight Naval Mobile Construction Battalions, which have 630 men each, are the only Seabee units closed to women.

Women Seabees may work at U.S. Navy bases around the world building hospitals, repairing plumbing and doing other jobs.

They may also serve on the amphibious battalions that build portable piers to help Navy combat ships get forces to shore.

And Navy officials at Port Hueneme said they expect the Pentagon to gradually loosen its restrictions on women in ground combat in all of the armed forces, just as it has for women aviators.

Cmdr. Len Dillinger, head of the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Training Center, said the Seabees will probably be among the first ground-combat forces allowed to add women, possibly within two years.

“We’re preparing for it,” he said.

Some women Seabees at the base said the change will come none too soon. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Phyllis Thomas, 33, one of the two women instructors at Port Hueneme’s training center who train men for jobs that are closed to her. “There’s a lot of other women I’ve met that want to go.”

Of the 10,000 Seabees stationed at Navy bases around the world, 620 are women.

At Port Hueneme, the 274 young Seabees now in training include only seven women.

One of these is Holly Goucher, 21, who said she did not learn that the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions were off-limits to her until she arrived at the base from boot camp about two months ago.

A native of Oregon whose family owns a construction company, Goucher said she enlisted in the Navy with the dream of joining a big construction battalion on military missions overseas.

She is disappointed not only that she will not see ground combat duty, but also that she will miss the battalions’ training exercises, which are more interesting and diverse than other Seabee units.

“Battalions get to do all kinds of things,” Goucher said. “They go on field excursions. They train and camp in tents. They get to shoot all their guns. It’s kind of exciting.”

Dillinger, the training center commander, agreed that shutting women out of the battalions has a larger effect than just keeping them off the battlefield.

“They aren’t allowed to be a full partner in the organization,” he said.

Lifting the combat restriction would be the best thing that could happen to the Seabees, Dillinger said.

“My experience working with women in the Seabees is that they’re exceptionally good,” he said. “They’re technically very qualified. They want to do the work. They’re just like any other Seabee.”

One Seabee who served in a battalion in Saudia Arabia in 1990 during the buildup to the Gulf War said putting women with men on the front lines may present some small logistics problems.

“We take showers,” Chief Petty Officer Daniel Lothamer, 35, said. “Sometimes, depending on where you’re at, they don’t even set up a tent. You’re just out there showering.”

Except for such difficulties, however, Lothamer said, he is in favor of women Seabees serving in combat-duty battalions.

“I’ve met quite a few who could probably outdo some of the guys,” he said. “I don’t care if they’re men, women, black, white, Filipino, whatever, as long as they do the job they’re assigned and you don’t have to carry them.”