Yeah, it’s hard to see how the Left is not winning. Other than the survival of the Second Amendment, name one social or cultural issue where the Left has not steadily progressed.
You could point to marriage, in that most states have voted to ban gay marriage, but so what? We are a bad day from Anthony Kennedy away from having a Sup Court imposition of gay marriage on the entire nation. And once that happens, it will never be undone, just like Roe.
So it is and will be with the military too. I mean, just look at the mindset expressed by General Casey after the Fort Hood slaughter, when he said that having less diversity (i.e. fewer Muslims in that case) in the military would be worse than the slaugther of all those people. I mean, WTF? But this is the mindset of the top ranks.
It is amazing that front line infantry, armor, artillery, and special forces units have not yet been opened up to women. In that regard you can chalk one up for our side, but it’s just a matter of time. I expect Obama to make this change before he leaves office.
We know that female soldiers and aviators in Iraq were indeed placed in "hot" environments and certainly took fire. The ones I met who regularly travelled the roads were noticeably worse for the experience. There are/were USMC females and female Navy Corpsmen in country, but I am not sure whether, or how often, they got out into it. There are female Corpsmen in Afghanistan now who almost certainly are in it, even if they do not go outside the wire.
I think the only thing that keeps females out of the various special forces branches is the extreme physical training, and the physical requirements set out in the job description. You are right, that may somehow change in the near term.