Do You Support the Allowance of Women Into Combat Positions Essay Example for Free

Do You Support the Allowance of Women Into Combat Positions EssayOutgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced Thursday a lifting of the ban on female service members in combat roles, a watershed policy change that was informed by womens valor in Iraq and Afghanistan and that removes the remaining barrier to a fully inclusive military, defense officials give tongue to.Panetta made the decision upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a senior defense official give tongue to Wednesday, an assertion that stunned female veteran activists who said they assumed that the brass was still uneasy about opening the most physically arduous positions to women. The array and the Marines, which make up the bulk of the militarys ground combat army, pass on present plans to open most telephone circuits to women by May 15.The Army, by distant the largest fighting hurl, currently excludes women from nearly 25 percent of active-duty roles. A senior defense official said the Pentagon expects to open many positions to women this year senior commanders will take aim until January 2016 to ask for exceptions.The onus is going to be on them to justify why a woman cant serve in a particular role, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plan before the official announcement.The decision comes after a decade of counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where women demonstrated heroism on battlefields with no front lines. It dovetails with another seismic policy change in the military that has been implemented relatively smoothly the repeal of the ban on openly gay service members.Lawmakers and female veterans applauded Wednesdays news, saying the ban on women in combat roles is obsolete.This is monumental, said Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of the Service Womens Action Network, which has advocated for the full inclusion of women. Every time equality is accepted and meritocracy i s enforced, it helps everyone, and it will help professionalize the force.Critics of opening combat positions to women have argued for years that integration during deployments could create a distracting, sexually charged atmosphere in the force and that women are unable to perform some of the more physically demanding jobs.Advocates and experts say women are unlikely to flock to those positions, such as roles in light foundation and tank units and Special Forces although some may. More substantively, they say, lifting the ban will go a long way toward changing the culture of a male-dominated institution in which women have long complained about discrimination and a high incidence of sexual assault.Changes long soughtLawmakers and advocates have long pressed the Pentagon to create a more inclusive force, yielding incremental changes. The American Civil Liberties Union recently sued the Pentagon over its policy, calling it discriminatory.Last year, military officials opened numerou s job categories to women after a study concluded that the Defense Department was ready for greater inclusion in combat units. That made it easier for women to be assigned, for example, to combat brigades as radio operators. It also gave commanders a sense of how a broader integration process could work, said an Army general who played a key role in last years effort to open new positions for women.The average professional will say, Ive served with women at all levels, and based on my experience, women have done a phenomenal job, said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the change had not been formally announced.Ads by GoogleAMU Military UniversityChoose from 87 online degrees at American Military University. www.AMU.APUS.edu/AirForce The consult over the supposed pitfalls of women and men sharing close quarters has been rendered moot by the recent wars, he said, adding If you were having this debate in peacetime, it might be more emotional.The fact that w omen have excelled in de facto front-line roles in Iraq and Afghanistan has proved such concerns unwarranted, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.The reality is that so many women have been, in effect, in combat or quasi-combat, he said. This is catching up with reality.In a statement, Sen. pile M. Inhofe (Okla.), the leading Republican on the Armed Services Committee, voiced a measure of concern, saying last years study raised heavy practical barriers that, if ignored, could jeopardize the safety and privacy of service members.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another member of the panel, said he supports the decision, but he alluded to some of the thorny effectuation issues that have yet to be addressed.It is critical that we maintain the same high standards that have made the American military the most feared and admired fighting force in the world particularly the rigorous physical standards for our e lite special forces units, he said in a statement.