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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Four female military service members have filed a lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's ban on women serving in combat. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco Tuesday and is the second such federal challenge filed by female service members this year.

Two trailblazing women who became the first female participants in the notoriously brutal Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course have dropped out of the program, according to the Stars and Stripes. The two female lieutenants failed to complete the combat endurance test portion of the program, as did 26 male Marines.

A local soldier killed in Afghanistan on Saturday died in a suicide bomb attack, U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young told the Tampa Bay Times on Monday night. Earlier Monday evening, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a news release saying that Army Spc. Brittany B. Gordon died from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The military provided no other details. Contacted by phone later that night, Young, R-Indian Shores, told the Times that military officials had advised him that the IED came from a suicide bomber. "It is not one that was planted as a mine....

WASHINGTON — Army leaders have begun to study the prospect of sending female soldiers to the service's prestigious Ranger school — another step in the effort to broaden opportunities for women in the military. Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, said Wednesday that he's asked senior commanders to provide him with recommendations and a plan this summer. And while he stressed that no decisions have been made, he suggested that Ranger school may be a logical next step for women as they move into more jobs closer to the combat lines. "If we determine that we're going to allow...

WASHINGTON D.C. - Calling for an evolution of policy, Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is asking for changes that would allow women to serve on the front-lines in military combat. Brown's push comes on the heels of a Department of Defense report calling for changes to the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule which barred women from certain roles in the military, including front-line ground-combat positions. The report to Congress concluded that changes were needed so policy doesn't prevent enlisted female military members from rising to their potential. But Brown, in a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon...

The Pentagon made big news last week when it announced it was opening up more combat positions to women in the U.S. military. These 14,000 positions include tank mechanics and front line intelligence officers. However, about one-fifth of active-duty military positions, including the infantry, combat tank units and special operations commando units, will remain off-limits. ... Last week’s rule change in the United States was largely a reflection of the fact that women are, to a large extent, already participating in combat. Despite the restrictions in place, 144 American women have been killed and 865 wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq...

Rick Santorum, in an interview with CNN's John King a bit ago, was asked whether he thinks it's a good idea or a bad idea for the Pentagon to relax some of the rules about women taking frontline roles in combat, "perhaps opening the door to a broader role for, ultimately, women in combat." His answer was both praising of women serving the country, and as a part of the armed services, but he went on to explain why he would take issue with women on the front lines. "Look, I want to create every opportunity for women to be...

Just as the U.S. military is indoctrinating troops to accept open gays in their ranks, a federal commission is pressing the Pentagon to make the force more diverse by, among other ideas, opening infantry and armor units to women. With the Military Leadership Diversity Commission’s report out this month, its leaders have briefed Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn and plan to deliver its 162-page report to every member of Congress. The commission says it wants the military to resemble the ethnic makeup of America. It is urging the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force to “validate” the standards...

Heather Pfleuger -- an exuberant, all-American, girl-next-door -- was transformed when she arrived in Afghanistan. She'd shrug into her body armor, strap on her helmet, yank on gloves, goggles and scarf, and slide down behind her turret-mounted Mark-19, a 40mm grenade launcher. From there, she could kill an armored vehicle and everybody in it a mile away. When she whooped with glee and led a convoy outside the wire, local Afghan fighters, hard men who'd faced down the Russians and the Taliban, fell respectfully silent. "Specialist Pfleuger can hit anything," her squad leader. Sgt. Kevin Collins, told me proudly. "I...

WASHINGTON – A pair of reports due in coming months will offer a new look at the role of women in combat units and whether female troops could serve in front-line fighting in the near future. On Thursday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said he expects to see next month the results of a periodic review into the service’s military occupation specialties, which includes discussions about the possibility of opening more jobs to female troops. Casey, speaking at an Association of the U.S. Army event in Virginia, did not say whether the role of women should be expanded,...

The United States Veterans Administration (VA), despite over half a century of experience in taking care of veterans, suddenly finds itself in unknown territory. That's because the last decade has produced, for the first time, a large number of female combat veterans. There are nearly a quarter million of them, including over 5,000 receiving disability benefits (for injuries received in combat, or non-combat, operations). The female veterans do not respond to the stresses of military service, or the physical injuries, the same way as men do. This has forced the VA to adapt, or at least try to. For example,...

Nobody wants to buy them a beer. Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home. More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn't completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield. For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.

The image of young women in a hot , dusty combat zone toting automatic weapons is still startling to some. But right now there are 10,000 women serving in Iraq, more than 4,000 in Aghanistan. They have been fighting and dying next to their male comrades since the wars began. "I can't help but think most Americans think women aren't in combat," says Specialist Ashley Pullen who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in 2005 for her heroic action in Iraq where she served with a military police unit. "We're here and we're right up with the guys." Technically...

<p>This photograph from Afghanistan recently made rounds on the Facebook and e-mail accounts of folks whose work centers on military women's issues.</p> <p>The image itself didn't surprise them. It showed four Marines resting at a makeshift patrol base, their guns and helmets propped up against the familiar dusty backdrop of an Asian battlefield. Two of the Marines seemed to be snacking. One picked at her foot.</p>

There is no mistaking that the dusty, gravel-strewn camp Warhorse near Baghdad is anything other than a combat outpost in a still-hostile land. And there is no mistaking that women in uniform have had a transformative effect on it. They have their own quarters, boxy trailers called CHUs (containerized housing units, pronounced "chews"). There are women's bathrooms and showers, alongside the men's. Married couples live together. The base's clinic treats gynecological problems and has, alongside the equipment needed to treat the trauma of modern warfare, an ultrasound machine. Opponents of integrating women in combat zones long feared that sex would...

AUSTRALIAN female soldiers are already serving on the front line and here is the photograph to prove it. As the debate rages about lifting the ban on women serving in combat roles, small numbers of female soldiers, such as army medic Jacqui de Gelder from Canberra, are already doing the business. She was on her first combat foot patrol in the village of Chora in Afghanistan just two weeks ago. The younger sister of navy clearance diver Paul de Gelder, who lost his foot to a shark attack in Sydney Harbour, spent the previous day treating victims of a suicide...

WOMEN should be able to serve in all frontline combat units of the Australian Defence Force, including the SAS and commando units, under a controversial plan that could avert a looming recruitment crisis. The push by Defence Personnel and Science Minister Greg Combet would remove gender as a criterion for selection for specialised categories of military service. The Rudd government wants to lift the proportion of women serving in the defence force from the current level of 13 per cent, as demographic pressures bear down on defence force recruitment over the next decade. Removing any gender discrimination for serving in...

Before 2001, America’s military women had rarely seen ground combat. Their jobs kept them mostly away from enemy lines, as military policy dictates. But the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, often fought in marketplaces and alleyways, have changed that. In both countries, women have repeatedly proved their mettle in combat. The number of high-ranking women and women who command all-male units has climbed considerably along with their status in the military. “Iraq has advanced the cause of full integration for women in the Army by leaps and bounds,” said Peter R. Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as executive officer...

Capt. Dorothy Watkins and Spc. Joshua Watkins, both of Hazleton, Pa., are deployed to Camp Taji, a base camp north of Baghdad, with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard. Photo by Jon Soles, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. TAJI — One Pennsylvania National Guard Soldier has two ways he can address Capt. Dorothy Watkins. He can call her ma'am or he can call her mom. Spc. Joshua Watkins and his mother, Capt. Watkins, are both serving here with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division. The mother and son from Hazleton, Pa., are...

European Union directive forced the Ministry of Defence to review their "close-combat" role. Under the Equal Treatment Directive, the MoD said it had to carry out the study despite a similar review in 2002 concluding that the policy to employ only male personnel in close combat roles should remain. Lance Corporal Amy Thomas, is thought to be the first British woman to fire on the frontline in Afghanistan Servicewomen are currently excluded from roles where they are likely to "deliberately close with and kill the enemy face-to-face". Brigadier Richard Nugee, the Army's Director of Manning, is leading the review that...