Tech. Sgt. JoAnn Makinano

Former Air Force videographer Adrienne Brammer in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008 where she was attached to U.S. Army infantry units and found herself in "sticky" situations.

The Pentagon has moved beyond merely talking about placing women into combat and is actively mapping how, when and where servicewomen eventually will be assigned to far more dangerous duties — including, perhaps, special forces operations, senior U.S. defense officials tell NBC News. 

While the blueprint for dual-gender U.S. combat units continues to be sketched — and remains subject to change  — military brass are contemplating a stunning first: allowing women to begin training as Army Rangers and Navy SEALS by 2016, Pentagon officials said on Monday. 

The branches have been studying how best to deploy women in combat roles since Jan. 24, when then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cleared the way for women to serve in some of the military's 237,000 combat-related positions, ending a 20-year prohibition. Initially, branch commanders were given until May 15 to tell Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel how they will integrate women into combat by 2016. 

The latest strategy discussions signal that servicewomen soon may be handed vocational roadmaps to complete full combat careers. But Pentagon officials are quick to add that as their internal study proceeds, the services can, at any time, request "exceptions" to admitting women into specific combat categories. Further, the strenuous physical standards required for entry into special-forces jobs and combat-infantry assignments will not be lowered for anyone, they say. 

In fact, the immediate focus among military leaders involves opening certain positions for women in combat-support roles — as soon as possible, U.S. defense sources tell NBC News. That could include jobs like communications, intelligence and mechanics in forward combat deployments. Women already are deployed as combat pilots and flight crews for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Women now comprise about 14 percent of the armed forces. 

From Capitol Hill to the female-veteran community, some observers lauded the branches' work to zero in on female-combat jobs as a move toward a more robust American force — with one frequent Pentagon critic, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, calling it "another step in the right direction." 

"Women are already fighting and dying for our country, shoulder-to-shoulder with their brothers in uniform on the front lines, but without the formal recognition that is essential for them to advance and obtain the benefits they have earned," said Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who led and lost a recent fight to reform the military justice system as a way to stem a rape epidemic in the ranks.

"By officially opening combat roles, more women will be able to advance their careers to the senior ranks and increase the diversity of our military leadership," Gillibrand said. "I have no doubt there are qualified women who can serve in any role in our military. And when all of our best and brightest serve in combat our country is stronger for it."

Courtesy of Adrienne Brammer.

Adrienne Brammer in Afghanistan in 2011. She supports the idea of opening up roles for women in combat — after she experienced combat situations.

In more than 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan — where there have been no defined “front lines” — women were often drawn into combat and suffered casualties as medics, truck drivers, convoy security and female-engagement teams that serve as liaisons with local women and children. In all, 150 women have been killed in the two wars.

Former Air Force videographer Adrienne Brammer acknowledges "I was scared" when, in 2008, she was attached to Army infantry units in Mosul, Iraq. In 2011, she headed again to combat operations, then attached to a multinational unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan, to help fulfill Army missions. 

Tech Sgt. JoAnn Makinano

Adrienne Brammer in Mosul Iraq, 2008.

"I'm excited that the Department of Defense will finally have us ladies down in the books, on paper, under contract, as doing the combat jobs that we've been doing for decades," said Brammer, adding that she occasionally got into some "sticky situations that could have gone worse," but never had to discharge her weapon.  

"But I was given a great partner to work with, another woman, who was on her third combat deployment and I had a great time," said Brammer, 33, who today lives in New York City. "She was such a bad-ass — someone I thought I could either trust to save my life, or get me into real trouble. I thought, if she's scared, I'll be scared. I never saw her scared. 

"We trusted the men we were out with every day. They looked out for us, we made them look good on camera and everybody went home with all their bullets," Brammer said. "We know they weren't thrilled to see us — women, photographer/videographer, and Air Force, to boot. But we proved ourselves daily and to a different unit every time we were outside the wire."

Bill Briggs is an NBC News contributor; Jim Miklaszewski is NBC News' chief Pentagon correspondent; Courtney Kube is an NBC News producer at the Pentagon.

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• Defense Chief Panetta to clear women for combat roles 

• Female vets cheer new era for women in combat: 'It's about time!'

• How the US military can become a 'band of brothers and sisters'

Women who rode into Iraq during the 2003 Coalition invasion or who withstood on-base mortar attacks that killed other U.S. troops raucously cheered news of the impending lift of the female-combat ban, shouting the same three spirited words.

“It’s about time!” said Laura Cannon, a 2001 West Point graduate who rolled into Iraq with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, spending seven months there. “Women have been on the ‘front lines,’ per se, for years. Now they're getting credit and authorization that is long overdue. The landscape of combat has changed so much that front lines are ambiguous, and frankly, what I believe to be an obsolete concept.”

“Yes!” added Julie Weckerlein, a Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2007, she sought cover and was not far from Army Sgt. Trista Moretti, 27, who was killed when mortars exploded on their base in Nasir Lafitah, Iraq. “There is definitely a sense of ‘it's about time.'

“This decision means the military is finally removing that useless ‘attached, but not assigned’ verbiage that meant absolutely nothing on the field, with the boots on the ground,” she added. Weckerlein worked as an Air Force combat correspondent, traveling throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, documenting the missions of Air Force joint terminal air controllers and Army infantry soldiers at remote provincial reconstruction team locations and at forward operating bases. In other words, she shadowed military men who were doing “male only” jobs.

Women now compose about 15 percent of the U.S. armed forces. 

Placing American women in combat is “a great idea,” especially because "my gosh, women have served in the military since World War I," said Terri Kaas, an Air Force veteran who spent time in Bahrain and Germany.

“Women in the military should be able to do the same jobs as men, whatever the mission is. Though the military has desegregated, women are still treated differently,” in part because they have been held back from combat, Kaas said.

“I know, you still hear: 'It’s a man’s military.' But we are all service members,” she added. “Look at the Marine Corps — they have equal standards of fitness for both genders. If the men can’t respect women for the job they’re doing maybe these men shouldn’t be in the military.”

In fact, argued Cannon, the policy and political path is now clear for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to eliminate “gender-based restrictions on military jobs and career paths altogether.”

“I think every branch should have its own set of criteria and physical requirements, instead of the basic, existing standards that say: men need to do this and women need to do that,” Cannon added.

“Pilots in the aviation branch certainly don't need to physically perform to the same levels as that of infantrymen. So have new standards applicable to every job. Then, if a woman can achieve all of the requirements necessary to enter the infantry — by all means — let her!”

Related: Defense chief Panetta to clear women for combat roles