The death of Sergeant Sarah Bryant, the first female British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan, has reignited the long-running debate over women’s role in modern warfare.

The existing rules that exclude women from situations where the primary duty is “to close with and kill the enemy” are irrelevant in Afghanistan and Iraq where there is no single front line, according to some commentators.

Instead, British forces are engaged in a “360-degree war” where all soldiers, male or female, could be in the line of fire at any time, Catherine Philp wrote in the Times.

“In times gone by, rules like these kept women far behind the men,” she writes. “In the heat of the Iraq insurgency, however, all that began to change. In reality, the rules are already stretched to breaking point.”

The old arguments that women are not physically capable to fight or might disrupt “unit cohesiveness” no longer hold water, she added.

The Ministry of Defence says there are now about 18,000 women in the armed forces, just under 10 percent of the total. The Sex Discrimination Act (1975) allows the armed forces to exclude women from some posts.

That’s the right approach, according to one contributor to an online military forum.

“I’ve yet to see a woman who could withstand the mental and physical pressure of infantry work,” he wrote.

Not so, said Jo Salter, the RAF’s first female fighter pilot. She said society’s attitudes have changed over the years and the sex of a soldier is no longer the issue it once was.

“It’s always so sad when there’s any death at all. Gender isn’t the issue,” she told the Daily Telegraph.

That view was echoed by the parents of Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, who died in Iraq in 2006.

“Sarah did not distinguish between herself and the boys she served with,” her father Terry told the Daily Mirror. His wife Sue added: “There were four others with her and their families’ grief is equal.”

A quick look at the front pages after Bryant’s death suggests newspaper editors may not see it that way.

Pictures of Sgt Bryant in her wedding dress were splashed across several front pages under headlines such as “Our Afghan Heroine”. Most ran long stories on inside pages about her life and career in the army. The deaths of male soldiers typically receive far less coverage. There were few details of the three male colleagues killed with her.

Whether the media coverage of Bryant’s death reflects the wider views of society is hard to tell.

The last word goes to an unnamed military source who told the Herald newspaper: “Every man - and woman - is born equal under the 7.62mm gun law”.

He argues that at the moment an individual soldier gets paid less than a traffic warden, and a failure to address this state of affairs would affect motivation.

Britain’s armed forces have become increasingly stretched to cover conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last year Dannatt said troops were feeling undervalued and other senior commanders have complained in the past about under-funding and neglect.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised the government will do “everything it could” to help the armed forces. However, the Ministry of Defence points out troops benefit from tax breaks, housing, food and other benefits while last year the armed forces receieved the biggest public sector pay rise.

Do soldiers, who put their lives on the line for their country, deserve more generous pay rises? Or is the army chief being unreasonable? Send us your comments

The recommendation comes in a report commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

It says the public is growing dangerously divorced from the military because of falling awareness of what it does.

For example, RAF personnel were told not to wear their uniform in parts of Peterborough because of abuse from members of the public.

An annual day to celebrate the armed forces as well as veterans could include parades, and special events, with sports matches taking on a “military flavour”, the report, by Conservative MP Quentin Davies says.

And it would ideally be held on a Saturday at the end of June so that children and working adults could attend events.

A good idea? Or an anachronism we can do without? What do you think?

A motion at the National Union of Teachers annual conference

Last year, Scotland’s biggest teaching union, the EIS, also voted to call for such a ban, claiming the military was trying to boost its falling numbers — caused by the unpopularity of the Iraq and Afghan campaigns — by targeting impressionable teenagers

The ministry says it is invited into about 1,000 schools a year and that it goes to inform rather than recruit.

The Conservatives call the NUT campaign “a kick in the teeth for our boys in the front line” and say the teachers should be concentrating on education.

Do you think the MoD should be going into schools? Would you be happy if your child attended a talk outlining the advantages of a military career?