The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that had restricted women from combat roles. (Representational Image)
In a historic transformation of the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday that the Pentagon will open all combat jobs to women.
"There will be no exceptions," Carter said at a news conference. "They'll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat. They'll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men."
The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that had restricted women from combat roles - even though women often found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 14 years.
It is the latest in a long march of inclusive steps by the military, including racial integration in 1948 and the lifting of the ban on gays in the military in 2011. The decision this week will open about 220,000 military jobs to women.
The military faced a deadline set by the Obama administration three years ago to integrate women into all combat jobs by January or ask for specific exemptions. The Navy and Air Force have already opened almost all combat positions to women, and the Army has also increasingly integrated its forces.
The announcement Thursday was a rebuke to the Marine Corps, which has a 93 percent male force dominated by infantry and a culture that still segregates recruits by gender for basic training. In September, the Marines requested an exemption for infantry and armor positions, citing a yearlong study that showed integration could hurt its fighting ability. But Carter said he overruled the Marines because the military should operate under a common set of standards.
Gen. Joseph E. Dunford Jr., former commandant of the Marine Corps who recently became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not attend the announcement, and in a statement Thursday appeared to give only tepid support, saying, "I have had the opportunity to provide my advice on the issue of full integration of women into the armed forces. In the wake of the secretary's decision, my responsibility is to ensure his decision is properly implemented."
Women have long chafed under the combat restrictions, which allowed them to serve in combat zones, often under fire, but prevented them from officially holding combat positions, including the infantry, which remain crucial to career advancement. Women have long said that by not recognizing their real service, the military has unfairly held them back.
A major barrier fell this year when women were permitted to go through the grueling training that would allow them to qualify as Army Rangers, the service's elite infantry.
Carter said that women would be allowed to serve in all military combat roles by early next year. He characterized the historic shift as necessary to ensure that the U.S. military remained the world's most powerful.
"When I became secretary of defense, I made a commitment to building America's force of the future," Carter told reporters. "In the 21st century that requires drawing strength from the broadest possible pool of talent. This includes women."
Many women hailed the decision.
"I'm overjoyed," said Katelyn van Dam, an attack helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps who has deployed to Afghanistan. "Now if there is some little girl who wants to be a tanker, no one can tell her she can't."
But the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees expressed caution and noted that by law Congress has 30 days to review 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 war-fighting capabilities," Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas said in a statement. "The Senate and House Armed Services committees intend to carefully and thoroughly review all relevant documentation related to today's decision.''
Some in the military have privately voiced concern that integration will prove impractical, especially in the infantry, where heavy loads and long periods of deprivation are part of the job.
"Humping a hundred pounds, man, that ain't easy, and it remains the defining physical requirement of the infantry," said Paul Davis, an exercise scientist who did a multiyear study of the Marine infantry. "The practical reality is that even though we want to knock down this last bastion of exclusion, the preponderance of women will not be able to do the job."
Carter acknowledged at the news conference that simply opening up combat roles to women was not going to lead to a fully integrated military. Senior defense officials and military officers would have to overcome the perception among many service members, men and women alike, that the change would reduce the effectiveness of the armed services.
The defense secretary sought to assuage those concerns Thursday by saying that every service member would have to meet the standards of the jobs they wished to fill, and that "there must be no quotas or perception thereof."
He also acknowledged that many units were likely to remain largely male, especially elite infantry troops and Special Operations forces, where "only small numbers of women could" likely meet the standards.
"Studies say there are physical differences," Carter said, though he added that some women could meet the most demanding physical requirements, just as some men could not.
At the same time, military leaders are going to be required to assign jobs and tasks and determine who gets promoted based on "ability, not gender."
Lt. Col. Kate Germano, who oversaw the training of female recruits for the Marines until she was removed this summer from duty during a dispute over what she said were lower standards for women in basic training, said by creating standards, the military would improve across both genders.
She said that while Marines have long resisted the idea of women in combat units, she did not expect a backlash.
"One thing about the Marine Corps, once you tell us what we have to do, we'll do it," she said. "There was resistance to lifting the ban on gays, too, and when it was lifted there were no issues. We are a stronger force for it."
Carter's announcement came less than a month from the three-year deadline set by the Obama administration to integrate the force.
Some veterans of recent wars say the unexpectedly long period of combat with no clear enemy lines may have been a driver for the change.
"I honestly didn't think about women in combat much until Iraq," said Jonathan Silk, a retired Army major who served in Afghanistan and Iraq as a cavalry scout.
In the fray of the insurgency, he said, integrated military police units near him often faced ferocious attacks. "That is where I encountered female soldiers that were in the same firefights as us, facing the same horrible stuff, even if they weren't technically in combat units. They could fight just as well as I could, and some of those women were tremendous leaders. It gave me such respect."