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Now that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has decreed that women may not be excluded from front line combat positions, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey ordered a review of the standards applied to personnel in these positions. Dempsey's order specifically requires all commanders to justify any minimum standards that would tend to disproportionately impact women. “As it stands now, many of the physical requirements imposed on combat troops are beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of female soldiers,” Dempsey said. “This makes the standards inherently discriminatory and denies these female soldiers equal rights. The...

The makeover is already underway. The armed services are “now developing gender-neutral standards for all of their jobs,” reports the New York Times, replacing the less demanding physical standards for women that each branch has been using heretofore (oh, you mean you didn’t know about those lowered standards?) with a single standard for men and women. The Pentagon “has vowed” that the new gender-neutral standard will not be crafted in order to make it easier for women to join combat units. If you believe that, you probably also believe that colleges hire professors on a race- and gender-blind basis. Here’s...

No one should be surprised at the announcement that women are now going to be serving in combat roles in the U.S. military. This has been heading toward us for a long time, and the only thing surprising about it is that so many people are surprised. Now the only thing that stands between your daughter and involuntary combat service is a determination by some president (or other) that we need to return to conscription, followed by one court decision. There are three points to be made about this in response. First, opposition to this monstrosity is a function of...

When she heard that women would be allowed to serve on the frontlines of battle, former Camp San Luis Obispo garrison commander Lt. Col. Nicole Balliet’s first reaction was, “Well, it’s about time!” The Atascadero native then had to better understand the announcement and its implications. “It’s very overwhelming,” she said of the decision. “It’s a huge validation for all the hard work women have done serving in combat for the past several decades.” The official announcement came after initial reports Wednesday of the Pentagon’s reversal of the 1994 ban on women serving in small frontline combat units. In his...

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's announcement that the military will remove its ban on women in combat drew criticism from several Southern Baptist leaders, who expressed concern over privacy and military effectiveness and also warned the move is part of a larger societal effort to blur differences between men and women. Panetta made his announcement Thursday (Jan. 24), saying the removal of the ban had unanimous approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With the removal, about 237,000 positions on or near the front lines of combat are now open to women. "If members of our military can...

With little discussion or fanfare, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the ban on women in combat that has been in effect for as long as there has been a U.S. military. Feminists and some women serving in the military are applauding the move as a victory for equal rights. They claim that justice requires nothing short of opening all positions to females, regardless of the consequences to combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, or military readiness, factors whose importance they minimize in any event. What is perhaps most striking about Secretary Panetta's action is that it reverses the combat exclusion policy that...

When outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that he had lifted the Pentagon’s ban on allowing women to serve in front-line combat roles, one of several questions it raised was: Is that unusual? Do a lot of countries allow women to serve in combat? The answer is that many Western, developed countries have women on their front-line forces. But outside of the West, it’s rare. The map at the top of this page shows in red which countries formally permit women in combat positions. Shown in orange are countries that allow women to serve in military roles that involve...

When I heard the inevitable, that Obama, Leon Panetta, and General Dempsey  finally caved into the ACLU, which sued to push women into hot combat zones, I thought back to my tour in Vietnam, when we would fly our Marine helicopters into Landing Zones which were north of the DMZ, and inhabited by Marine grunts - for months at a time. The guys were, quite remarkably, in good spirit, but hadn't bathed, of course, for weeks or more, and  many people  would say they were living like animals in an outpost far, far out there in the boonies of, literally, no...

Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal Women can conduct and lead combat operations; that is not the issue. Author: Capt Katie Petronio The Marine Corps Times recently published a handful of articles in regard to opening Infantry Officer Course (IOC) to females and the possibility of integrating women into the infantry community. In mid-April the Commandant directed the “integration” of the first wave of female officers into IOC this summer following completion of The Basic School (TBS). This action may or may not pave the way for female Marines to serve in the infantry as the results...

If you want to stop these pro women in combat lunes dead in their tracks ask them this hypothetical question: You are a General of an Infantry division and your Commander lets you choose one of two enemy divisions to fight. The first enemy division that you could choose to oppose in the upcoming battle is all male. Or you could instead choose to fight the second enemy division that was mixed faggot, women and men. So which enemy division would you choose to fight?

Women can now officially serve in ground combat roles. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order rescinding the 1994 rule that prevented women from being permanently assigned to combat units. Women have been allowed to serve in some combat roles for years, but this new announcement means women could eventually serve as Navy SEALs. Retired Admiral George Worthington served more than 30 years as a SEAL, and says he supports women serving with SEALs. But, when it comes to women being SEALs , he doesn’t believe they can make the cut. “A lot of the men can't do...

The decision to open up ground combat, front-line roles to women should not be viewed in isolation from a number of significant military policy changes during President Obama’s administration. Some changes have made headlines — the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” women in combat roles, and planned troop reductions– while others, like the ever-increasing influence of international human-rights law in combat operations, have not. There is a common theme, however, and it is decidedly not one of increased combat effectiveness. Following the collapse in morale after the Vietnam War, our nation has labored long and hard to create a...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that whether they are male or female "everyone is entitled to a chance" to become a combat soldier in a military that will now adopt "gender netural" standards. “If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job--and let me be clear, we’re not talking about reducing the qualifications for a job--if they can meet the qualifications for the job then they should have the right to serve,” Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference. The Defense Department announced today that it would rescind its 1994 policy restricting women

Do you believe women should be allowed to serve in combat? Yes No

Sen. John McCain supports allowing women in combat, but says it remains critical for the military to uphold the same high standards that made it the strongest in the world. On Wednesday, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that women will be permitted in combat, potentially opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and elite Special Forces jobs to women as well as men. … “I respect and support Secretary Panetta’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat,” McCain said. “The fact is that American women are already serving in harm’s way today all over the world...

Military-readiness advocate Elaine Donnelly warns that the Obama administration’s decision to put women in ground-combat roles amounts to “social engineering to achieve a political end in the name of diversity.” She adds that the policy shift means “lives could be lost unnecessarily, not just women, but men.” Donnelly’s organization, the Center for Military Readiness, released a 42-page report earlier this week exploring the unintended consequences of putting women on the front lines. “It will do great harm to women in the military, especially those who will find themselves in the infantry—something there’s no indication they wanted,” Donnelly said Wednesday in...

We have apparently arrived at the Golden Age, free from strife and the threat of foreign enemies. Little else can explain so gratuitous a decision as to place women in combat units. The downsides to such a policy are legion and obvious; the only reason to pursue it is to placate feminism’s insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes. Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. The number of women who are the equal to reasonably well-developed men in upper-body strength and who have...

Reacting to reports that outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is lifting the Pentagon’s long-standing ban on women serving in combat, former DOD Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz tells Newsmax that he believes the decision will lead to a “degradation of good order and discipline” and may even be unconstitutional. Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is removing the military's ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war. “Introducing mixed gender combat units in my experience and judgment will inevitably lead...

America has been creeping closer and closer to allowing women in combat, so Wednesday's news that the decision has now been made is not a surprise. It appears that female soldiers will be allowed on the battlefield but not in the infantry. Yet it is a distinction without much difference: Infantry units serve side-by-side in combat with artillery, engineers, drivers, medics and others who will likely now include women. The Pentagon would do well to consider realities of life in combat as it pushes to mix men and women on the battlefield. Many articles have been written regarding the relative...

Panetta removes military ban on women in combat, opening thousands of front line positions.