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

    IDF

    Arielle Werner, 21, originally of Minnetonka, Minn., is a combat soldier with Israel's co-ed Caracal Battalion. "Women in combat can only bring good things," she said. "Two halves of a whole together can only be good."

    By F. Brinley Bruton, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Even before she moved to Israel, Minnesota-born Cpl. Arrielle Werner was certain she possessed what it took to fight on the front lines. 

    "I realized that I couldn't be the passive Minnesotan," said the 21-year-old member of Israel's majority female Caracal Battalion, a combat unit which patrols the volatile border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. "I knew this was the place for me. My friends back in the States are shocked … now I’m the wild combat soldier."

    The self-described "peace keeper of the family" said she is prepared to "give everything" on the battlefield. 

    That's the sort of gung-ho attitude that military brass appreciate in any soldier -- but it isn't an attitude many expect from a woman.

    There have long been barriers to women at war, never mind those assigned to fight at the tip of the spear. But the U.S. government's announcement on Jan. 24 that it was dropping its ban on women in combat units changed everything. (While not officially in combat units, American women have long served side-by-side with male service-members -- in fact, 152 women died while being deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

    Despite living in a country "where some still think women should stay in the kitchen," Werner feels accepted by male colleagues.

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's decision to lift the 20-year ban on women serving in combat will open some 237,000 combat-related positions to women. Initially, women will be assigned to combat communications, logistics and drivers. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

    "There is a little bit of a glass ceiling (but) ... you see women every day getting higher and higher," said Werner, who is originally from Minnetonka, Minn. "As long as you want to succeed and want to get stronger … you’re able to handle everything."

    While many worry whether society has the stomach to accept women being killed, and being killers, Werner is in no doubt about her place on the battlefield.  And she doesn't mince words about her fellow females in the co-ed Caracal Battalion.

    "These girls are tough," she said.

    Werner, who has been on stationed on the border since October, admitted that she has noticed differences between the sexes.

    "Guys are able to really to put a tough face on things (while) girls really take time to put emotion into something," she added. "Women in combat can only bring good things. Two halves of a whole together can only be good."

    Not practical or not relevant?
    As the U.S. military implements its new and controversial policy ahead of a January 2016 deadline, it will be seeking lessons from Israel and the handful of other countries that currently do not bar women from front-line combat. They include all of Scandinavia, Australia, Eritrea, France, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Korea, Poland and Romania.

    Despite examples set by these countries, one of the biggest worries remains that integration will undermine the essential cohesion of the so-called band of brothers that has long defined the camaraderie among fighting men.

    "(In the British military) the argument always comes down to the pure practicalities of the effectiveness of the unit rather than if a woman can't do it," said Amyas Godfrey, a former infantry officer and associate fellow at British security think tank the Royal United Services Institution (RUSI).

    Atef Safadi / EPA, file

    Israeli female soldiers take positions during clashes with Palestinian protesters from the West Bank village of Nabi Salah on Dec. 28.

    The United Kingdom is almost alone among Western European countries in not allowing women into front-line combat roles.

    "It comes down to 18-to-22-year-old boys not being able to ignore the fact that there is a woman in their midst," he said. Integrating combat units and concentrating on making space for women also "doesn't fit with the practicality of closing with and killing the enemy," he said.

    Norwegian Brigadier Odin Johannessen, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and commanded military units for 12 years, disagreed with the idea that men and women could not be trained to serve together.

    "In mixed units, what is most important is to become a soldier," said the 51-year-old who formerly ran the Norwegian Army Academy in Oslo. "That you are a good soldier tends to be the most prized factor of all, if you are a male or female doesn’t matter."

    "It's called a band of brothers. I would rather rephrase it to a band of brothers and sisters," he added. 

    Johannessen's exposure to military women colored the rest of his career.

    "My first day in the military I met Sgt. Bente Karlsen and she has been present in my mind for my entire service for the professional way she led us," he said.  

    Karlsen had the essential ability to convey instructions and orders, but also clearly cared about the young men under her command, Johannessen said. 

    "She was a brilliant sergeant and showed me that it matters not if you are male of female," he said. 

    Norway has no official restrictions on women joining any of its operational units, although no women are members of its special forces. Nine percent of combat roles in Norway are made up of women, and the armed forces' aim to increase that the proportion of females in military positions to 15 percent.

    'Masculine warrior culture'
    With its "no-exclusion policy," Canada is also recognized internationally as one of the few militaries to have officially removed all barriers to women. Canadian women have served and died on the front line in Afghanistan, and make up four percent of the roles in Canada's so-called combat arms divisions, and 14.8 percent of military roles overall. 

    Getty Images, file

    Canadian Master Corporal Tera Avey of Edmonton, Alberta, a mother of two and one of three female combat soldiers, wakes up on March, 2002 in the rocky Shahi Kot mountains in Afghanistan. Hundreds of American and Canadian troops were lifted into the mountainous region at high altitude to search and destroy Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

    Karen Davis, a gender integration expert for Canada's armed forces, acknowledges that women have to adapt to the "masculine warrior culture" of combat units.

    But when Canadian men and women were sent to fight on the front lines in Afghanistan, fears that women's presence would hurt all-important unity did not bear out, she said.

    "What we learned when we went into Afghanistan is that Canadian soldiers are trained to do a job, no matter if they were men or women," Davis said, adding that proper and rigorous training before deployment helped make this happen.

    Whether women can or should be treated and tested differently from their male counterparts is at the heart of any discussion on how to integrate military operations, especially front-line combat troops.

    In Israel, where women have formed part of the military since before the founding of the state and face conscription, the training process "accepts differences between men and women and just deals with them," according to Capt. Eytan Buchman, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.

    "Everybody comes in with their own baggage and physiological differences," he added.

    Johannessen, for his part, advises trainers and commanders to not give women under their command special treatment. 

    "Say there are two females in the unit. If you want to do it wrong, pay special attention to them," he said.  

    To this end, gender-neutral physical standards are also essential, he said.

    According to Davis, Canada's success at integrating women also came about as a result of a rigorously enforced non-fraternization policy. And the onus for making sure relationships don't happen lies not just on the women, but also the men throughout the chain of command, she says.

    But beyond policies and rules, Norway's Johannessen says that more women make militaries better and smarter.

    Slideshow: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    View images of the women deployed as the second Female Engagement team in Afghanistan

    Launch slideshow

    "Men and women are looking at a problem from different positions," he said. "Having the possibility for a different view is many times better."

    While integrating women into combat can be down to well-thought-out polices, effective leadership and rigorous training -- natural attributes for any well-run military organization -- an important lesson is that change will most likely not come quickly or implemented uniformly.

    Gender integration expert Davis admits that even her own thinking changed radically from the time she joined an all-female land-bound unit in the Canadian Navy in 1978. At the time, she agreed that women did not belong in many roles in the military. But in 1985 that changed: Davis was asked to be one of two women to go to sea for 12 days on a formerly all-male ship.

    "I came back questioning everything," Davis said. "I had joined and completely accepted everything I had been told, but in fact none of it was rational, it could all be dismantled." 

    Related:

    Female veterans cheer new era: 'It's about time!'

    Women in the infantry? Forget about it, says female Marine officer

     

     

  • Push for all younger women to register with Selective Service gaining steam

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    Ladies, for the first time ever, Uncle Sam soon may be pointing at you.


    Days after the Pentagon cleared women to take certain combat roles, advocacy groups for military women say another new hour has arrived for all young female adults to register with Selective Service, the giant pool of names collected by the government should America ever opt to revive the draft.

    The movement to require women ages 18 to 25 to sign up for Selective Service — mirroring the law for all U.S. men in that demographic — is rooted in both active-duty and veteran circles.

    The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), which strives to represent all women in the armed forces, believes such a change is simply the logical next step to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s decision last week to erase the long prohibition on females in combat.

    “SWAN advocates for the inclusion of women into Selective Service,” said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of SWAN and a former Marine Corps captain. “Lifting the ban on women officially serving in combat is about giving qualified women the opportunity to serve and making our military stronger, and that would include having women register for Selective Service."

    “If you are going to say ‘total equality’ in the military, that has to include Selective Service registration,” agreed Cassaundra StJohn, founder and CEO of F7 Group, which provides resources, training and mentoring to female veterans. StJohn served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve between 1985 and 1998, reaching the rank of staff sergeant.

    Amid his historic announcement last week, Panetta alerted administrators of the Selective Service System “to exercise some judgment based on what we just did.”

    Selective Service officials heard that remark. Since then the agency — an independent office within the executive branch — has been conducting a "what-if drill" in case a Defense official or Congressional member asks what adding women to agency's workload would cost the country, said Pat Schuback, spokesperson for Selective Service.

    Slideshow: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    View images of the women deployed as the second Female Engagement team in Afghanistan

    Launch slideshow

    "We're not the policy-making group. We're kind of like mechanics. We just do what we're told to do. We have the mechanism. We don't hold a position on whether to draft women or not," Schuback said. 

    Should that change occur, Selective Service — which has about 130 full-time employees across the country — would "need to be probably resourced a little bit," Schuback added. "But we don't anticipate that it would be a lot because the machinery's the same. It would be in the man hours of answering the inquires, handling questions and doing direct mails out to people to remind them" to register. 

    Panetta also set a May 15 deadline for each service branch to provide “detailed plans for implementation” on how female service members will be placed into combat duties, said Nathan Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman.

    “Following that, a formal notification to Congress will be made, detailing (combat) occupations that will be opened to women,” Christensen said. “Selective Service requirements are determined by law, and we can't speculate on any changes to law.”

    However, federal law does require DOD — after making such sweeping policy changes — to provide a breakdown of the impact those shifts may have on the Selective Service Act, senior Defense officials said in a briefing last week. That analysis, they added, “will be part of the notification to Congress” made by DOD after each branch reports back to Panetta in May.

    One female veteran who was attached with an infantry team in Ghazni, Afghanistan, argues that with the female-combat ban gone, women should now be Constitutionally guaranteed the right to be eligible for Selective Service — and a possible military draft.

    “It can be hard to adapt to new customs. There will be some feathers ruffled,” said Courtney Witt, a former Air Force senior airman, who also served in Iraq. “... It is a little difficult, for some, to see our daughters, sisters and wives go off into war.

    “I can’t explain the feeling you have when you have fought alongside brothers and sisters in arms. It’s a bond that can never be broken ... It’s an amazing patriotic feeling,” Witt said. “Shouldn’t any man or woman be a part of that?”

    The drawdown of U.S. forces and the pullout from Afghanistan make the chances of a draft reinstatement far less likely than, say, even eight years ago when Coalition forces were battle-thin and bogged down in Iraq, experts say.

    But there are some in Washington who still favor bringing back the draft — as a deterrent to war.

    In 2010, Rep. Charles Rangel, D.-N.Y., reintroduced a bill that would require all U.S. men and women between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either in the military or in a civilian service that helps national defense. The bill died in committee.

    At least four times before, Rangel has written similar bills that would have restored the draft.

    “There's no question in my mind," Rangel told the New York Times in 2007, "that we wouldn't be in Iraq ... if indeed we had a draft, and members of Congress and the administration thought that kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way."

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  • Do women have mettle to qualify for special forces?

    By Tracy Connor and Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News

    The Pentagon has given women the go-ahead to be grunts, but will they also be joining elite special units such as Delta Force or Navy SEALs?


    The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he believes there are women in the military today who would meet the rigorous screening requirements for special forces.

    That's no easy feat — for man or woman.

    To become a Navy SEAL, for instance, the ideal candidate will swim 500 yards in nine minutes, do 90 push-ups in two minutes, 85 curl-ups in two minutes, 18 pull-ups in two minutes, and run 1.5 miles in under 10 minutes.

    Marine Special Operations wannabes need to swim 300 meters in a utility shirt and trousers, tread water for 10 minutes while clothed, and hike 12 miles with a 45-pound load in under four hours.

    Delta Force, which is so secretive that the Army doesn't even acknowledge its existence, recruits members of other special forces units who have already proven their physical mettle.

    Then, according to the book "Inside Delta Force," it makes them complete land-navigation courses that include an 18-mile nighttime trek with a 40-pound backpack and a 40-mile march over rough terrain.

    Women who've passed the Army's grueling Sapper Leader course say they're well-prepared to enter combat, and in some cases, better prepared than men. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

    No problem says Kate Wilder, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the first woman to qualify for the Army's Special Forces in 1980.

    "Just to get into the course, I had to pass the male advanced PT class, which was the toughest class at the time," she said. "I was in my 20s, in top condition.

    "If I could do it, these young women who are so in shape today can do it," she said.

    Wilder said she got into the course but was told just before graduation that she failed a field exercise. She filed a sex-discrimination complaint and a judge found she was unfairly denied qualification.

    Now 61, Wilder said many of the physical screenings for the Green Berets and similar units are are tests of endurance and agility, not brute force.

    She remembered trouble she had with a course of overhead bars she had to complete. "My trainer told me, 'It's not strength, it's technique," she recalled. "And one day I just got it. But there were a lot of men who couldn't master the bars.

    "There is nothing today's women physically can't do and if she can't do it right away, she can be trained to do it," Wilder said.

    Slideshow: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    View images of the women deployed as the second Female Engagement team in Afghanistan

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  • 'She'll kick your butt': Experts say women fit to fight

    Slideshow: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    The biggest hurdle to women serving in combat roles is the same obstacle for men, experts say. They need to be fit, not fat.

    Launch slideshow

    By Maggie Fox, Senior Writer, NBC News

    Women don’t have enough upper-body strength. They can’t run as fast. Their monthly cycle will interfere with being on the front lines. All the arguments against letting women serve in the military are being made again as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted restrictions on women serving in direct combat roles.

    But experts on fitness and on women in the military say the past two decades have shown that being female is not the biggest barrier to serving on the front lines. Being fat is.

    “I don’t think gender is a factor at all,” says retired Navy rear admiral Jamie Barnett, who is now at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. “I do think there are physical requirements and not all men or women will be able to meet those physical requirements. Those physical requirements should be tied specifically to making sure the job gets done.”

    Just as with men, women selected to combat roles will be “a select few”, says Edward Archer, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Carolina. “When it comes to physical capacity, I think without any question there will be females who will be able to exceed and excel and to perform as well as the average male, in that setting.”

    The various branches -- Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines -- already have differing requirements for physical fitness, by branch and by gender. All have a minimum standard, calculated using three exercises that include running, either pull-ups or push-ups, and sit-ups. Women's requirements are lower in some cases, but the Marines doesn’t give females a break at all when it comes to minimum physical fitness.

    Scott Olson / Getty Images file

    Marine Corps recruit Megan Shipley (C), 17, of Kingston, Tennessee lets out a yell during hand-to-hand combat training at the United States Marine Corps recruit depot June 23, 2004 in Parris Island, South Carolina. Marine Corps boot camp, with its combination of strict discipline and exhaustive physical training, is considered the most rigorous of the armed forces recruit training.

    Barnett notes that these are general fitness measures that may mean little when it comes to completing a specific task or mission. “You can be a football player and if you go out with your mom on a half marathon and you haven’t trained for it (and she has), she’ll kick your butt,” Barnett said.

    There is a problem with fitness that affects the military, but it doesn’t reflect on women alone. It reflects on Americans in general, says Barnett, who as a member of a group called "Mission: Readiness" signed a report on the dangers posed by obesity to U.S. security.

    “We are too unfit to fight, is the term. We are definitely an unfit society,” Archer added in a telephone interview. “They need basic training to get ready for basic training. This is true of both males and females,” Archer said.

    “Already we see only one in four Americans between ages of 17 and 24 who can join the military,” Barnett said in a telephone interview. “The single biggest reason is that they are overweight.”

    More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and experts agree that both poor diet and a lack of exercise is to blame. The military needs men and women alike who are in the best possible shape, argues Barnett.

    “Once you establish objective criteria for what the requirements are for a military job, then I say let women compete for those and let the best man or woman get the position,” says Barnett, who served in Iraq and who was deputy commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, with sailors serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    “I think what we’ll find is there will be a lot of women who will be able to meet even the hardest positions.”

    Experience shows this happens, says Lorry Fenner, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who is now at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University.

    “Example after example can be found of women exceeding the expectations of their physical capabilities, finding work-arounds for heavy tasks, or teaming with their co-workers to complete their assignments to best effect,” Fenner writes in her book, “Women in Combat”.

    “Obviously, not all women are strong enough for all jobs -- just as not all men are,” Fenner adds -- then describes how women recruits mastered tests to show whether they could scale walls and carry heavy equipment.

    “When we study history, we find that women have coped with every aspect of war. Women have demonstrated the emotional courage to withstand the brutality of war, including during lengthy imprisonment as POWs under very harsh conditions in the Pacific and in European work and death camps; in very dangerous and stressful resistance fighting; in the face of rape and mutilation; and at the moments of their deaths,” Fenner writes.

    The average woman is indeed weaker and has less heart, lung and blood oxygen capacity than the average man, says Archer. “But an elite female athlete can outperform the average male soldier easily in many ways,” he adds.

    Fenner and Barnett say the U.S. military needs to be able to pull from a pool of the best recruits for all jobs, including front-line combat.

    “My view is you can get the job done better if you can draw on the best talents that America has to offer, regardless of gender,” Barnett said. “If you have to be able to swim 3 miles in a certain amount of time, then it doesn’t matter what gender you are.”

    Critics of the new policy also raise the issue of feminine hygiene -- something women in the military will hoot at. Women worried about monthly cycles can use oral or injected hormonal contraceptives to suppress ovulation and bleeding and studies show there is no additional danger to health from using birth control in this way.

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  • 'Valor knows no gender': Pentagon lifts ban on women in combat

    Women who've passed the Army's grueling Sapper Leader course say they're well-prepared to enter combat, and in some cases, better prepared than men. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

    By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Declaring that it would strengthen both the military and the country, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday lifted a ban on women in combat and said that it was “the responsibility of every citizen to protect the nation.”


    Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, the secretary vowed that the decision would not compromise military readiness and pledged that the armed forces would not lower standards for service, such as for physical fitness.

    “If they can meet the qualifications for the job,” he said, “then they should have the right to serve.”

    President Barack Obama said in a statement that the decision would “be another step toward fulfilling our nation’s founding ideals of fairness and equality,” themes that he sounded three days earlier in his second inaugural address.

    The deaths of more than 150 American military women in Iraq and Afghanistan, the president said, demonstrate that “valor knows no gender.” Another 1,000 women have been wounded in the nation’s two most recent wars.

    The decision replaces a 1994 military policy memo signed by Les Aspin, a defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, that excluded women from assignments to units below the brigade level if the unit would be engaged in direct combat.

    The change is expected to open 230,000 front-line positions to women.

    Nearing the expected end of his own time as defense secretary, Panetta spoke of visiting Arlington National Cemetery and seeing no distinction between men and women who had given their lives in defense of the country.

    Slideshow: All-female U.S. Marine team in Afghanistan

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    View images of the women deployed as the second Female Engagement team in Afghanistan

    Launch slideshow

    “They serve, they’re wounded, and they die right next to each other,” he said. “The time has come to recognize that reality.”

    The secretary said that there would be a review period for each of the armed services to see if there are any jobs that should be excluded. He wants recommendations on his desk by May 15.

    But Pentagon officials said it might be next year before specifics are worked out and women can begin applying for the newly opened positions. 

    Asked specifically about special operations units such as the Navy SEALs and Delta Force, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon briefing that he believes there are women who would meet those standards.

    For years, women in the military, and outside groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that women already serve on the front lines but are not recognized for it. Women constitute 15 percent of the active-duty military.

    Panetta said repeatedly that he had been impressed by the role of women in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    “We are making our military stronger, and we are making America stronger,” he said.

    Critics of Panetta’s decision had expressed concern that allowing women to serve in combat roles could harm unit cohesion and weaken military readiness. Others said they worried about lower standards for physical fitness, leading to a weaker fighting force.

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said earlier Thursday that lifting the ban was “the right thing to do,” but he stressed that the military should make sure physical standards are met.

    Reaction on Capitol Hill appeared mostly positive. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, congratulated Panetta for the decision in an interview on “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC.

    “I think this is a very positive step, and it reflects the reality of what’s happening, obviously, in defending our nation,” she said.

    Related: Women on front lines 'distracting,' critics say

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey announce that the military is lifting the ban on women serving in combat positions. Watch their statements.

  • Not so fast: Women on frontlines 'distracting,' say critics

    By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Critics of the Pentagon’s decision to allow women to serve in many combat positions accused the military of putting social experimentation and political correctness ahead of the fighting power of American troops.


    The decision, announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, appeared to be met mostly with approval on Capitol Hill — and jubilation among women who have served in the armed forces.

    But others, including some combat veterans, Republicans in Congress and culturally conservative groups, expressed deep reservations or outright opposition.

    One former Marine infantryman, Ryan Smith, said that combat readiness could be harmed by the decision. In an Op-Ed article published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, Smith focused on some of the more unseemly aspects of combat service.

    During the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he wrote, his unit went more than a month without showering and then was lined up naked to be pressure-washed.

    “It would be distracting and potentially traumatizing to be forced to be naked in front of the opposite sex, particularly when your body has been ravaged by lack of hygiene,” Smith wrote. “In the reverse, it would be painful to witness a member of the opposite sex in such an uncomfortable and awkward position.

    “The relationships among members of a unit can be irreparably harmed by forcing them to violate societal norms,” he concluded.

    Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a Marine combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq and a third in Afghanistan, said that the question was whether the change would “actually make our military better at operating in combat and killing the enemy.”

    “What needs to be explained is how this decision, when all is said and done, increases combat effectiveness rather than being a move done for political purposes,” Hunter said in a statement. A spokesman told NBC News that the congressman believes the decision was rushed, and that it was unclear how the Pentagon reached its decision.

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, quickly announced his support for Panetta’s decision. But he said Thursday that he wants to be sure “to make sure that the standards, particularly the physical standards, are met so that the combat efficiency of the units are not degraded.”

    For the past 10 years, women in the U.S. military have served at the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan but never as ground combat troops. That will soon change as a ban against women in combat is lifted. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports and retired Col. Jack Jacobs gives his take.

    In remarks as he was entering a confirmation hearing for Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state, McCain said that allowing women in combat was “the right thing to do.”

    When a reporter suggested that American military women were already in combat roles — more than 150 women have died and nearly 1,000 have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — McCain said, “Well, not really.”

    “It’s one thing to be some place where a rocket hits and be wounded, and it’s another thing to be out there on a night raid against al-Qaida,” McCain said. “But the fact is that this is a — I support this decision, and I think that women are fully qualified to carry out that mission.”

    A senior defense official told NBC News on Wednesday that exceptions would probably remain, and that elite special operations positions among the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Delta Force, another branch of the Army, would probably stay closed to women.

    There were about 166,000 women serving in active duty in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available. They accounted for about 14 percent of the active armed forces. Women were most represented in the Air Force, at 19 percent, and least in the Marines, 6 percent.

    There were about 36,000 women among active-duty officers, or about 17 percent.

    Polls consistently show broad support for allowing women in combat roles. Support ran almost 3-to-1 in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted last February.

    Still, a conservative Christian activist group, Concerned Women for America, was blunt in its opposition to the shift.

    “The point of the military is to protect our country,” the group’s president, Penny Nance, said in a statement. “Anything that distracts from that is detrimental. Our military cannot continue to choose social experimentation and political correctness over combat readiness.”

    Some critics of Panetta’s decision expressed concern that women would not be able to meet physical-fitness requirements of the military, or that the standards for physical fitness would be lowered, weakening the force, to make them fair to women.

    Anne Coughlin, a University of Virginia law professor who helped form a group that inspired a lawsuit against Panetta last year, opposing the ban, said that she saw no merit in any of the arguments for the ban.

    Arguments about unit cohesion, she said, rely on a stereotype — that men and women will get up to “mischief” in close quarters. She said that she applauded strict fitness requirements, physical and psychological, and that there was no reason to expect that the military would endanger troops by lowering them.

    “Some women, just like some men, may not be able to satisfy some of those standards,” she told NBC News in a telephone interview. “It seems preposterous to me to think that the secretary of defense and the people who are in charge of designing the military standards would put the nation in peril in this way, and they are certainly not be being asked to do that.”

    Related: 'It's about time!': Female veterans cheer over women's right to fight
    Related: Defense chief Panetta to clear women for combat roles

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

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    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

  • Marine Corps opens combat school in Quantico, Va. to women

    Hadi Mizban / AP file

    A female US soldier escorts Iraqi woman out of the danger zone, after a suicide car bomb exploded nearby in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2004.

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A Marine Corps school that trains infantry combat officers is now enrolling women, the Marine Corps Times reported, marking the first time female members of the front-line fighting force would be specifically groomed for direct combat roles.


     

     

     

    The Corps is seeking out female volunteers to attend the Infantry Officers Course in Quantico, Va., Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Marine Corps' assistant commandant, told the paper.

    According to the Marine Corps Times:

    It’s a monumental — if controversial — move for the Marine Corps, which until now barred female Marines from the program and required instead that they attend other courses aimed at preparing them for assignments in support roles such as logistics, personnel administration and aircraft maintenance, among others.

    It was unclear, however, what the next steps would be after the women complete the infantry training. Marine officials were expected to finalize details on lifting restrictions on women in combat and make an announcement in coming days, the paper said.

    “Women are already in combat, except the ones that are not technically on the front lines fighting,” said Karen Kelly of the Women Marines Association, “when they’re in Afghanistan, in Iraq, women are right there with the expeditionary forces.”

    In February, the Pentagon announced that some restrictions on women serving in combat roles would be relaxed, acknowledging the fact that they are fighting, and dying, on the battlefield. But the Defense Department said it would still prohibit women from serving in the infantry, armor or special operations unit. At the same time, the Pentagon said it was developing “gender-neutral physical standards.”

    Critics, including former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, have raised concerns about women in combat. Santorum argued the men fighting alongside women would naturally try to be protective, hindering the mission. Others said commanders would have to worry about women who aren’t strong enough for a particular duty.

    According to the Washington Post, as of Thursday 139 women have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to 6,257 men.

    Australia will become the third country to allow women to serve in front-line combat roles, following New Zealand and Canada.

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  • Report: Growing number of military women see combat, serve in leadership roles

    Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

    US Marine Corporal Jessica L. Williams (L) and Lance Corporal Shawnee Redbear of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines Golf Company patrol in Basabad, Helmand Province, on March 9, 2011. The US Marines deployed about 40 Female Marines in Helmand province and Nimruz for the Female Engagement Team (FET) programme to interact with Afghan civilians, specifically women and children.

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Women in the U.S. military are more likely than ever to see combat, says a study released Thursday.

    Though men continue to make up the bulk of the fighting force, the proportion of women in the military is soaring, says the Pew Research study, which also found a greater share of women than men in the military are black and a smaller share of females are married compared to their male counterparts.

    Female veterans are also more apt to be critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than male veterans, the study found.

    Since 1973, when the U.S. ended the draft and established an all-volunteer force, the proportion of women in the military has soared. The ranks of enlisted females have increased from 2 percent to 14 percent, and the share of female officers has quadrupled, from 4 percent to 16 percent, according to the Pew study, "Women in the U.S. Military: Growing Share, Distinctive Profile." 

    "The presence of women is felt now more than in any other previous era," said Kim Parker, researcher and co-author of the report. "And what we see is that it’s not just in the enlisted ranks, but there are many more women in leadership role. The military has become a place of opportunity for both racial minorities as well as for women to take on leadership roles."

    Women are still less likely than men to go to combat, but their exposure to battle has increased because of long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a policy change in the 1990s that allowed women to serve in a greater variety of combat-related roles, such as flying in combat aircraft and serving on combat ships. Only 7 percent of women service members before 1990 had served in combat zones, according to the study, while after 1990 that proportion rose to 25 percent.

    "The nature of the wars, where the battle lines are often uncertain, has exposed more women to combat," Parker said. "Even though they’re not the same roles as men. And women are reporting some of the same emotional effects of combat, like PTS (post-traumatic stress)."

    More women may see combat in the future. The Pentagon is considering a recommendation by an advisory panel commissioned by Congress that recommends that the military do away with a policy banning women from serving in combat units. That policy is under department review and when complete will be delivered to Congress, Cynthia O. Smith, Department of Defense spokeswoman, told msnbc.com.

    In the meantime, "Women will continue to be assigned to units and positions that may necessitate combat actions within the scope of their restricted positioning -- situations for which they are fully trained and equipped to respond," Smith said.

    According to the Washington Post, 138 women have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Despite their expansion of roles, active-duty women are more heavily concentrated in administrative and medical roles than men. The study found 30 percent of active-duty women are administrators, but only 12 percent of active-duty men serve in that capacity.

    Female veterans, it turns out, are also more critical than their male counterparts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pew study, which found 63 percent say the Iraq war was not worth fighting (men: 47 percent) and 54 percent say Afghanistan has not been worth it (men: 39 percent). Surveys of the general public have shown no significant differences by gender in the share of people who say the post-9/11 wars were not worth fighting.

    And women are also equally likey to have had emotionally traumatic or distressing experiences as men -- 47 percent of women, as opposed to 42 percent of men.

    Still, women and men overwhelmingly say their military experience was positive, and 78 percent of women (82 percent, men) say they would advise a young person close to them to join the military.

    The Pew report draws on two Pentagon studies on overall trends in military participation, as well as demographic and occupational profiles of male and female military personnel. It also draws on data from two surveys of military veterans: a Pew Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,853 veterans conducted July 28-Sept. 4, 2011, as well as a larger July 2010 Current Population Survey of veterans.