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COLUMBIA -- When Jonathan Proffitt, a 28-year-old infantry drill sergeant, first joined the military in 2003, if a woman was present, “we’d just get real cautious.” Nearly a decade later, he said the division’s culture is still unique. “Infantry is its own little world inside the military.” But that world is changing. And even talking about it changing is making people cautious. On Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced an end to the ban on women in direct combat. Fifteen percent, or nearly 202,400, of the U.S. military’s 1.4 million active personnel are women. And more than 280,000 women...

Yes, Dear, I Mean Yes, Sir, I mean Yes Ma’am, I mean Yes, Ms., I mean… It’s absolutely stunning that we’re even talking about this. Have we taken total leave of our senses? --snip-- Opening combat positions to women, our clueless commander in chief says, is an “historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens.” If Obama imagines that one woman in a hundred has what it takes to be a kick-butt, infantry ground-pounder, he’s led a more sheltered life than I ever imagined. Obama ends his statement with this howler: “Today, every American can be...

The head of Special Operations Forces (SOF) says he supports the integration of women into the elite force. “It’s time to do this,” says the organization’s top officer, Adm. William McRaven. “We’ve had women supporting direct Special Operations for quite some time,” he added in remarks Tuesday morning at the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict conference in Washington. The necessity, he said, is ensuring that all special operators are in peak physical condition. “The one thing we want to make sure [we do is] we maintain our standards,” McRaven said. .... McRaven said that he has been reading recent Pentagon guidance...

This week, the administration that rode to a second term decrying a fictitious war on women by the opposition, opened real fronts on the war on women, perpetuating feminism's worst inconsistencies through its contradictory programs and in the words and deeds of the avatar of these inconsistencies, Hillary Clinton, the "Athena" of low information women voters. Only CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson by her persistence and competence keeps me from burying my head in shame. As the Weekly Standard's Daniel Halper noticed, there was a serious disconnect this week in the administration's approach to women. On the one hand, the president's...

Last Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other U.S. military leaders lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions. I, for one, think this is a great idea and have a few modest proposals, if the brass inside the beltway is open to suggestions, on how they should deploy the dames (and whom they should deploy). First off, if you truly want to eviscerate the enemy—namely Muslims—then I propose sending the most nerve grating and foul women Hollywood has to offer straight into hot zones as our forward armies. I’m a thinkin’ starting off with Roseanne Barr, Joy...

Since delusional liberals think that there is no difference in men and women, that women can do anything a man can do, and they want them in the army infantry, Navy Seals and other Special Forces, here is what REAL EQUALITY is........ The NFL will now be 50% females, at all positions. The WNBA will be abolished, women will have to play in the NBA. The NHL will be 50% female. They will play with men. Professional boxing will be for both men and women. The MMA (extreme fighting) will be for men and women, they fight each other. All...

(CNSNews.com) - Gen. Martin Dempsey, President Obama’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that the U.S. military could figure out ways to preserve the privacy of young ladies serving in frontline combat units, including special forces combat units such as the Navy Seals and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force.

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