Combat

WASHINGTON -- One of the Navy's first female combat pilots was killed Tuesday when the 32-ton F-14 fighter she was flying plunged into the ocean on a landing approach to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Southern California.Lt. Kara S. Hultgreen, 29, a native of San Antonio and a member of Fighter Squadron 213 -- the Blacklions -- died while trying to land on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the Navy announced yesterday.The plane's radar intercept officer, Lt. Matthew P. Klemish, 26, of Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, was saved by helicopter rescue teams that were already in the air when the jet crashed at 3:01 p.m. He suffered minor injuries.

WASHINGTON -- After earlier rejecting a proposal that he found too restrictive, Defense Secretary Les Aspin now has approved a new general policy that will allow women to serve in some ground units during combat, say Pentagon officials.Kathleen deLaski, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said yesterday that the new policy will be announced later this week -- coming just before Mr. Aspin is scheduled to resign from his post this month.Throughout his yearlong tenure, Mr. Aspin has pushed hard for opening up more combat opportunities for female soldiers and last April announced that women would be permitted to serve in combat aviation jobs and on warships.

WASHINGTON -- The Persian Gulf war helped to change a lot of men's minds about women in combat, but one of the most influential minds to have been changed may have been a woman's -- that of Representative Beverly B. Byron, D-Md.-6th.Last year, Representative Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., introduced a bill that would require the U.S. Army to open combat positions to women for a four-year trial period.The proposal sparked quick criticism from the Pentagon and from Mrs. Byron, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who shared the conservative view that women should not be allowed in combat.

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Bill Clinton is in no rush to join the battle over whether to allow American servicewomen in combat, according to one of his senior transition aides."

WASHINGTON -- Congress, emboldened by public acceptance of women's role during the Persian Gulf war, is lTC about to eliminate the last statutory barriers to allowing women to serve in combat.With the backing of the Pentagon, the House Armed Services Committee has approved legislation that would give the Department of Defense a broad mandate to expand women's roles in the military, but would leave it to the armed services to decide where to draw the line.The Senate Armed Services panel is expected to consider the measure in mid-June, in time for final passage by both houses by the end of the summer.

Washington. -- Here's a paradox: If women are to be assigned to combat units under the same standards as men, there might not be many who qualify to get in, and if the standards are relaxed for women but not men, then by definition the assignment policies are not ''gender neutral.''In the ongoing rush to equal opportunity, this is the dilemma that Defense Secretary Les Aspin left hanging, unresolved, when he announced recently that women will be allowed to fight in the air, at sea and perhaps soon on land as part of mixed-gender gun crews in Army and Marine Corps artillery outfits.

William C. Wilburn, a retired career naval officer, engineer and World War II combat pilot, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Wednesday at Roland Park Place. He was 87. He was born in Selma, Ala., and raised in nearby Hale County, Ala., where his father was a principal and later superintendent of schools. After earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Ala., in 1941, he briefly taught school. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942.

WASHINGTON -- In a series of narrow votes with potentially far-reaching political significance, a presidential commission has recommended barring women from serving in most combat roles, including flying combat aircraft.The 15-member commission, however, said the Navy should consider opening its surface combat ships to women, who currently are restricted to just 66 non-combat ships in the 450-ship fleet.The panel voted 8-6 yesterday with one abstention to recommend the repeal of existing laws and the modification of military service policies on women serving on combatant vessels.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Les Aspin plans to order all branches of the military this week to begin putting women in the cockpits of combat aircraft -- including everything from Apache helicopters to B-2 stealth bombers, senior defense officials said yesterday.And in an effort to clear the way for women to serve on Navy combat ships, he will also announce that the Clinton administration will ask Congress to repeal the long-standing combat exclusion law affecting naval assignments.Mr.

WASHINGTON -- The military's four service chiefs yesterday offered opposing views on expanding combat roles for women.Gen. Carl E. Vuono of the Army and Gen. Alfred M. Gray Jr. of the Marine Corps told a Senate panel that they opposed repealing a ban on female soldiers serving in combat with infantry, armor and other ground-combat units.Adm. Frank B. Kelso Jr. of the Navy and Gen. Merrill A. McPeak of the Air Force said that they would support broadened roles for women if existing law were changed to permit it."