Sound Off

A collection of interviews with 300 women in all branches of military service, this survey opens in a singularly disappointing fashion by rehashing cliches about military women as either lesbians or sluts and the insubstantial role of women in what has been essentially a male field. In due course, however, the authors Dorothy Schneider is a former English professor, her coauthor, a political scientistturn to fresher material, considering such questions as whether women view their tour in the military as a job or career, how they react to regulations that bar them from combat andone that forbids fraternization, i.e., socializing among ranks. The interviewees are candid, and young women contemplating a hitch in the military would be well advised to read these observations about the agonies and satisfactions of the experience. (January 12)