The headline should read. "To officially allow women I'm combat. They've already been in direct combat since 1991.

I've always had a little concern about women in combat. I was listening to NPR the other day when they were discussing this topic. They had several current and ex military women on the show. They all admitted there were different physical standards for women.

Southern Beale also brought up something on this topic.

One question: will women register for the Selective Service now? If not, why not? We should. Not saying I’d want to, but fair is fair.

Back in the day, that was a huge sticking point to garnering support for ratification of the ERA--even among women who were otherwise supportive.

Just stumbled across this link and look how much litigation on this question (whether or not women should register with the Selective Service) has historically been decided on the basis of women having previously been excluded from combat.

The familiar adage, of course, is that "rights carry responsibiities," so...?

I think psychologically women are more than capable of holding their own in combat.

That said, most women don't have the physical build "capable" of shouldering heavy packs, say about 60 pounds that is almost always required now for long periods of duration in ground combat operations. Nor are they really "capable" of building such strength in those areas. If they could this might make a little more sense.

But this has to be the only government policy I've heard of where they're basically saying

"People die doing this, so let's make it where MORE can die,you know, for equality's sake."

Now I'm not saying women can't deal with burdensome, physical challenges. Yeah, I'm thinking of the one lasting nine months. But as currently structured is it possible for enough of them to be used as men are in combat?

.. that was an outlier point of disciplinary/leadership failure. Taken them out, that means 22 women got pregnant in six weeks.

There were roughly 45,000 women in theatre, so that's a pregnancy rate of 0.05%. It's not known from the statistic whether they were pregnant before going into theatre, and they found out they were pregnant in theatre, there being a little time delay for those familiar with the process. We also don't know how many of those pregnancies were related to sexual assaults, which was a bit of a problem there in 1991 (estimated 8% were sexually assaulted)... and still is. One woman soldier was quoted about the combat knife she carried: "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."

And, for the record, a woman was more likely to be killed or wounded in action in the 1991 Gulf War than impregnated (and that was the "safe and easy" Gulf war). And if they were impregnated, given over 3000+ sexual *assaults*, I'm guessing a good number of those are categorized as true rapes, so is the problem really with the WOMEN in the military????

That's like me going to the hospital after beating my kid and breaking her arm, and me trying to explain to the doctor how it's my kid's fault. I don't think so.

Because the argument in the thread makes it sound like "combat" only means army infantry. I would think military combat encompasses a lot of different situations. For examble, are submariners not considered to be in "combat" situations, because they're not infantry? Are fighter pilots not considered to be in "combat" situations, because they're not infantry?

The main reason I've heard for opening up combat positions to women is because the promotion track practically required combat experience. But I don't know if that's true or not, or whether that's limited only to the Army promotion track. Can anyone elaborate?