A CALL TO NURSE

By Mark Thompson/Washington

For Army Lieut. Emma Cuevas, there used to be nothing to compare with the thrill of skimming the treetops of Panama at 160 m.p.h. in a 10-ton, 50-ft. Black Hawk helicopter. That was before she discovered the slower-motion joy of nursing her 21-lb., nine-month-old daughter Isabella. Since then Cuevas has twice asked the Army to let her leave the service, arguing that a pilot's demanding schedule has made it impossible for her to breast-feed her daughter properly. The Army says no, explaining that Cuevas made a deal when she became a cadet at West Point. U.S. taxpayers spent $500,000 educating her at the academy and at pilot training school in exchange for her pledge to stay in uniform until May 2000. In the recent downsizing years, the Army has let many in her 1993 class renege on that deal, but not the pilots. That's because when it comes to these soldiers, who are in short supply, the Army is holding on just as tightly as Isabella.

This week Cuevas' husband, Jeff Blaney, also a lieutenant, who graduated from West Point the same year as his wife, plans to sue the Army on behalf of Isabella in federal district court in Washington. The draft of his complaint asserts that his daughter is being denied nothing less than "a constitutional right to breast-feed by having her mother impounded by the government." Attached affidavits from pediatricians say Isabella will grow up healthier if she drinks her mother's milk until she is two. Cuevas doesn't want her baby drinking formula and is unable to pump enough breast milk to feed her. "Breast-feeding is the healthiest way to feed a baby," Cuevas says. "Isabella's not in the military, so why should the Army deny her this?"

This clash between childbearing and choppers is the latest wrinkle in the military's painful efforts to integrate women into its ranks. Yet unlike the recent Army sexual-harassment charges that seek to squash boorish and sometimes illegal behavior, this case will test just how far the Army can stretch the rules for women--and whether that's a good idea. Any ruling that forces the Army to show more flexibility to its new mothers could also bring changes in the way the military deploys them--changes that could be a setback for hard-won gains in the fight to make women full partners in military roles, including combat.

With the blessing of her male commander, Cuevas, who served 15 months ferrying troops around the Panamanian jungle, is working these days as a trainer at Panama's Fort Kobbe, where her husband is also stationed in an engineering unit. Cuevas goes home from work for 2 1/2 hours at midday to nurse her daughter. But when Isabella becomes hungry earlier than usual, she cries until her mother, alerted by the baby sitter, rushes home to feed her. Cuevas has begun feeding her baby solid food, but Isabella obviously still needs to suckle. "When I have duty or fly at night," Cuevas told her commander, "the baby cries for hours." Distraught over such episodes, Cuevas recently paid a colleague $50 to take her place on a 24-hour duty shift.

Many military couples in demanding posts practice birth control until they are reassigned. Emma and Jeff, both 25, concede they didn't. While both were driven to succeed in the military--they fell in love at West Point and married in 1994--Cuevas says the focus of her life shifted from chopper to child after she became pregnant. Cuevas says she joined the Army to "defend the country" in event of war but isn't willing to forsake her child during peacetime. Her husband agrees. "It's real neat that my wife flies helicopters," he says. "But the Army would be better off by giving Emma a break so she could take care of Isabella the way she feels she should."

The Army today has a simple maternity policy: six weeks off and it's back to work. Unlike the Coast Guard, the Army does not give a new parent the option of an unpaid leave. Cuevas wants to finish her commitment in the reserves, but if the Army won't allow it, she wants to transfer out of her pilot's slot.

Military officials say Cuevas' request is unprecedented, and fear that granting it will seriously undermine the military's system of mandatory commitments. Surprisingly, that's also the view of most of Cuevas' female colleagues. "Her selfishness," says Major Mary Finch, an Army helicopter pilot who attended West Point a decade before Cuevas, "is a disgrace to women in the military." Finch too is married to an Army officer and is the mother of two daughters, ages five and three. She breast-fed them during her six weeks' maternity leave and then put them on formula. "This is playing right into the hands of those who believe there is a natural conflict between motherhood and military service," Finch says.

But Cuevas doesn't see it that way. "Just as women deserve maternity leave, they deserve to be able to feed their children," she says. "The more we sacrifice our families for the military, the weaker our families--and our country--become." The question is whether Isabella's claim on her mother weakens the Army's budding claim on future female flyers everywhere.