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Lynsey Addario for The New York
Times
Lance Cpl. Stephanie Robertson of the Marines in Afghanistan in 2010. |
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military’s official ban on women in combat, which will open up hundreds of thousands of additional front-line jobs to them, senior defense officials said Wednesday. The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles, even though in reality women have frequently found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 20,000 have served. As of last year, more than 800 women had been wounded in the two wars and more than 130 had died.
The highly controversial 1994 ban was brought under scrutiny this past November when four female service members challenged the Pentagon's ban on women in combat.Defense officials said Mr. Panetta had made the decision on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Panetta’s decision came after he received a Jan. 9 letter from Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated in strong terms that the armed service chiefs all agreed that “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”