Huckleberries Online

More Jobs For Women In Combat?

Posted by DFO

Feb. 9, 2012 8:28 a.m. • 6 comments

Pentagon rules are catching up a bit with reality after a decade when women in the U.S. military have served, fought and died on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the Pentagon is recommending to Congress that women be allowed to serve in more jobs closer to the front lines. The change would open up about 14,000 additional jobs to women. According to defense officials, the new rules are expected to continue the long-held prohibition that prevents women from serving as infantry, armor and special operations forces. But they will formally allow women to serve in other jobs at the battalion level, which until now had been considered too close to combat/Associated Press. More here. (AP file photo: U.S. Marine Sgt. Monica Perez, of San Diego, left, helps Lance Cpl. Mary Shloss of Hammond, Ind., put on her head scarf before heading out on a patrol in Afghanistan)

Question: Do you support increased exposure of women in the U.S. military in combat roles?

Six comments on this post so far. Add yours!

kamm on February 09 at 10:53 a.m.
Yes.
Norther on February 09 at 12:48 p.m.
If they pass the same requirements, there is absolutely no reason they should not be given the same job as men. I had a female medic who wanted nothing more than to be a combat flight medic. I always thought it sucked that she was unable to fulfill that role. I knew she could pass the PT portion and her medic skills were far above par.

I know that everyone likes to point out the idea that women lack upper body strength of men. I can tell you from my own two eyes that it can be overcome. I say if the requirement is 60 push ups in 2 minutes, 60 sit ups in two minutes and a mile in 11 minutes and a female can do it, she gets the job just like a man would. The requirements have to even though, in my book. “girl” pushups don’t count either.
Kage_Mann on February 09 at 1:04 p.m.
“Do you support increased exposure of women in the U.S. military in combat roles”?

No. For obvious reasons.
alisonb on February 10 at 7:44 a.m.
Whoever continues to flag the comments about High Speed Universities and Penny Medical — THANK YOU. These spammers have been tenacious with those two institutions.
Alison Boggs
Online producer
duroc on February 10 at 7:55 a.m.
@alisonb: They usually come in the wee small hours of the evening, and I usually check the news around 5 am. I try to flag those obnoxious spam comments whenever I see them. They’re pretty clever about creating new usernames with regularity.

THANK YOU for caring enough about the quality of spokesman.com to actually do something about such spam, rather than just allowing it to pile up and clutter these really great community forums.

Keep up the good work!
Dennis on February 10 at 8:01 a.m.
Ditto what duroc said!!!

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.