Military will open all combat jobs to women, Defense secretary announces

WASHINGTON — All U.S. military combat jobs, including infantry units, will be open to women beginning next year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday.

Carter said the decision was part of his commitment to build a force of the future. The ban will be lifted in 30 days, he said.

“In the 21st Century, that requires drawing strength from the broadest pool” possible, he said.

We can’t succeed to defend the nation by eliminating half of the U.S. population from combat roles, Carter said.

The decision was immediately blasted by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and a member of the Armed Services Committee as a politically motivated move that will erode the ability of the military to fight. Hunter pointed to a study done by the Marine Corps that showed that infantry units with women performed worse than all-male ones.

“No. 1, this is being done for political reasons,” Hunter said. “What is it going to do to our ability to be lethal at the small-unit level? It degrades that ability.”

The armed services had been given a Dec. 31 deadline to allow women into all of its units, including elite special operations ground combat position, or to request a waiver. Those exceptions had to be backed by data showing why women would not be able to accomplish the necessary tasks.

Carter acknowledged that the Marines asked for some exceptions, Carter said, “but we are a joint force.”

“?There will be no exceptions,” Carter said.

Carter appeared alone at the Pentagon briefing room to make the announcement. Absent was Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who had been Marine Corps Commandant prior to his promotion. Under Dunford, the Marines had made the request for a waiver. Dunford was not at the briefing, Carter said, because the decision to open all jobs to women was his.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Congress will use the 30 days to review the implications of the decision.

“Secretary Carter’s decision to open all combat positions to women will have a consequential impact on our service members and our military’s warfighting capabilities,” McCain said. “The Congress has an essential constitutional role to make rules for the government and regulation of our nation’s armed forces.”

There are about 240,000 male-only jobs in the military, most of them in infantry units in the Army and Marine Corps. Many fields have been opening to women in the last year, including the Army’s elite Ranger school, its premier light infantry course. Three women have passed the grueling tests and have earned coveted Ranger tag.

Carter’s decision comes almost three years after his predecessor Leon Panetta announced that he had lifted the two-decade ban that prevented women from most combat jobs.

Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 290,000 women have served in those combat zones out of a total of almost 2.5 million troops, Pentagon records show. In both wars, 152 women have died from combat or noncombat causes, records show, and 958 have been wounded in action.