Women in combat good to go if they meet standards

WASHINGTON -- Women in the military must have the same opportunities as men to take on grueling and dangerous combat jobs, whether loading 50-pound artillery shells or joining commando raids to take out terrorists, defense leaders declared Thursday.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, signed an order opening up a quarter-million positions to all service members regardless of gender.

The military services said they would begin a sweeping review of the physical requirements. The leaders said no physical standards will be lowered just to send more women closer to the battlefront.

"I fundamentally believe that our military is more effective when success is based solely on ability and qualifications and on performance," Panetta said at a Pentagon news conference. "Not everyone is going to be able to be a combat soldier. But everyone is entitled to a chance."

The Pentagon leaders acknowledged that women have been fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. Women make up about 14 percent of the 1.4 million active U.S. military personnel. More than 280,000 women have been sent to Iraq, Afghanistan or neighboring nations in support of the wars. Of the more than 6,600 U.S. service members who have been killed, 152 have been women.

Dempsey did not rule out women serving even as members of elite special operations forces, including the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's SEALs, whose members killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Dempsey said that because of the particularly punishing physical standards and training required for those teams, it might be years before they include women.

But he added: "I think we all believe that there will be women who can meet those standards."

Representatives of the military services said they will look at each job and military specialty that is currently closed to women and examine the requirements that troops must meet.

As an example, a loader on a tank crew must be able to lift a 50-pound, 2-foot-long artillery shell, spin 180 degrees and load it into a tank's cannon. Because of space constraints in the tank, it requires a great deal of upper body strength to hoist the shell.

Troops asked about the change said they just want comrades who can do the job.

"This gives us more people to work with," said Sgt. Jeremy Grayson, assigned to field infantry at Fort Bliss, Texas. "But they would have to be able to do the physical stuff that men do."