United States lifts ban on frontline combat roles for women

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
1/24/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Announcement could open up hundreds of thousands of combat posts to women

The announcement was expected as just part of the Obama administration's sweeping changes to the military. United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says that he has decided to lift the military's ban on women serving in combat. A senior U.S. defense official says that thousands of frontline war fighting jobs may shortly become available to female service members.

Ten years of combat had made it clear that some of the military's gender-based restrictions were obsolete, defense officials noted. This conclusion was reached as battlefields faced by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan had no clear frontlines and no obvious ways to limit exposure to the fighting.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, "are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," the anonymous official is quoted as saying.

Officials say that the announcement was expected. The decision would give the individual military services until 2016 to seek an exemption if they believe any jobs should remain closed to women.

The head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Carl Levin welcomed the news, saying it reflected the "reality of 21st century military operations." The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a suit last November to force the Pentagon to end the ban.

"This is an historic step for equality and for recognizing the role women have, and will continue to play, in the defense of our nation," Senator Patty Murray says.

The decision effectively overturns a 1994 policy that prevented women from serving in small frontline combat units.

The Pentagon unveiled a policy last year that opened 14,000 new jobs to women, but had continued to prohibit them from serving in infantry, armor and special operations units whose main function was to engage in frontline combat.

Questioned as to why women who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan that had conducted security details and house-to-house searches were still being formally barred from combat positions, the Pentagon said the services wanted to see how they performed in the new positions before opening up further.

Two percent of U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women. About 280,000 women have been deployed to the war zones over the past decade, about 12 percent of the U.S. total.

Ten years of combat had made it clear that some of the military's gender-based restrictions were obsolete, defense officials noted. This conclusion was reached as battlefields faced by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan had no clear frontlines and no obvious ways to limit exposure to the fighting.

"This policy has become irrelevant given the modern battle space with its nonlinear boundaries," the Defense Department said in a report to Congress.

More than 200,000 women serve as active duty members of the military, including more than 37,000 officers.

� 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: frontline combat, women, Leon Panetta, Afghanistan, Iraq

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1 - 10 of 14 Comments

Rob
3 months ago
Seems to me that if less than 1% of the population is willing to step up and fight resulting in some of these guys having upwards of 16 tours, then maybe they had no choice but to open the doors.

Too many young men are too busy playing video games than willing to step up and serve. To me that is sad.
American firefighter
3 months ago
so if everything is equal, could a pregnant woman even be ordered out of a combat zone?
don't think they can be ordered off the job in the fire service-just sayin
abey
3 months ago
That 'ole Scythian way.
Stefanie
3 months ago
Congratulations, America. Your daughters can now be drafted.
Sad.
Joseph
3 months ago
And so yet again the 'compassionate' liberal left gets its way and the result is? - All women will now be liable for the draft. It's official, the Pentagon admits it, on the QT. So a radical, fundamental change in social structure is achieved on behalf of a handful of individual women at the expense of the entire female gender - and none of this is discussed, debated, aired in public. And they call this democracy? I think not. And neither will the great mass of women when they finally wake up to what has just been implemented in their name. Only by then of course it will be too late: they will be being force marched to the front line in what has now become the war of everyone against everyone. Welcome to Hobbes' world, ladies, in which life, including your life, suddenly becomes 'nasty, brutish and short'.
DLL
3 months ago
Men and women are different. Women and men cannot fight on the front lines together. They are of different mindsets and if a man rubs a woman the wrong way and vice versa,than because of the weaknesses of there personalities they can become vindictive,which is a detriment to their safety on the front lines. Men try to protect women instinctively and that could become a priority in front line battles,a reason to disobey orders,as it prevents proper deployment of soldiers,so that the enemy could gain an advantage and the whole troop is placed in danger. Obvious physical differences are a problem. What is the next right that politicians will support? Children fighting on the front lines? Our country must not become so politically correct that it becomes insane and the cause of its very own self destruction.
vance
3 months ago
Not a good idea.
mgm.
3 months ago
Like men don't join up to get away from poverty or bad homes , what level of wealth should somebody in their teens or twenties have to join up like they've got any money .I've worked in factories where women upset things or rather the guys that just had to go to lunch ,work the shift or the same production line because they were in love or in pursuit of her or them.
General
3 months ago
Forgive my nickname "general." I was an Air Force Reservist in the 70's. My unit was PRIME BEEF unit- base emergency engineering force. It was a combat ready unit. I was an assistant engineer and my specialty was bombed out runways and making them operational again. I had the option to go into active combat zones. I said I would because that was my training but I had no children, and if you were pregnant you were required to bow out for the sake of the child.

I earned my place but I carried twice the weight the men carried. I did every dirty construction job there was and never complained. I ran twice as far as the men and faster then they did. I learned everything perfectly and never allowed them to treat me as anything but another airman. Some guys hated me because I was a woman in a man's field and some liked my spirit. In the end my unit was honored to have me along and I had the greater honor of working with them, and by God's great grace we were never diploid but those men understood I was there because it was what I did and they depended on me when we were working in the field and they trusted me. I trusted them more than myself and I would have put my life on the line for them, at least I believed with all my heart I would because we were a family and more a unit.
Women if they earn it should be allowed to go into combat zones however I have seen women ruin units. Women should always have the option because of children, and their own inabilities. Not all woman can handle it. I only believe I could but it was never tested. No one knows how they will handle combat until they are there. Many women join the armed forces to escape poverty or a bad home life, do you really want them in the trenches with the men and women who are their to be soldiers? I think this is a mistake.
DarthJ
3 months ago
"Equality" in all its glory. Sad.

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