Word: combatting
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Inside OMON headquarters, Makutinovich's men go on preparing for a showdown. Some train in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts while others nap in cots, their black berets hanging from posts at their feet. They call each other by nicknames drawn from American action and horror movies: Rambo, Ninja, Krueger. Lieut. Vitali Belkin, commander of one of the five squads that make up the 150-strong unit, says the struggle with the Lithuanian government has already passed the point of compromise. "I don't doubt there will be bloodshed," he says. "Civil war is inevitable...
Under the weight of justice and reason, these barriers have fallen one by one. The armed services were integrated by Harry Truman in 1948. Two weeks ago, the Senate voted to allow female pilots to fly in battle, though women soldiers are barred from serving in infantry combat units. But the discriminatory language and attitudes still echo when it comes to gays and lesbians. According to the Department of Defense, "homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a propensity to engage...
Supporters of the new policy argue that combat missions are an essential stepping-stone to promotions. While, for example, women account for 9.9% of the enlisted personnel and 10.5% of the officers in the Air Force, they are virtually absent at the senior-officer level. Of the service's 333 generals, only three are women. "The opponents talk about sex and toilets, but this fight is really about privilege and power," says military analyst and former Army Captain Carolyn H. Becraft...
Women are not unanimous in supporting the idea of females in combat. Even within the armed forces, combat lust is more widespread among female officers than enlisted servicewomen. "What we're seeing," says Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University, "is a push by female officers and civilian feminists." Moskos and others argue that introducing the notion of combat equality may sharply reduce the number of women who enlist and could cause problems in the future if the draft is ever reinstated...
Fears that the limited measure adopted last week will lead to a major battlefield role for women are probably exaggerated. "I really doubt that it will open the floodgates," says Martin Binkin, a Brookings Institution expert on women in combat. "I don't see a lot of women eager to go." But some women do want to do the job, and in an era in which high-technology blurs battle lines and brains may edge out brawn, there is no good reason to deny them the chance...