Defense Secretary Ash Carter has ended gender-specific limitations on military jobs, effectively opening all combat roles to women and providing them greater opportunities for career advancement.
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Carter said as long as they qualify, women can apply and contribute in ways they were not able to before.
Mr Carter’s order opens the final 10% of military roles to women, and allows them to serve in the most demanding and hard jobs, including as special operations forces, such as the Army Delta units and Navy Seals. Only the commandant of the Marine Corps – at the time Dunford – recommended keeping some positions closed to women, including infantry and reconnaissance positions.
In remarks from the Pentagon, Carter said he is directing all the military services to open all military occupational specialties to women within 30 days.
Carter said Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Paul Selva will oversee the decision’s short-term implementation, ensure there are no unintended consequences to the joint force, and periodically update Carter and Dunford. “They’ll be able to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat”. Being unable to officially serve in combat roles created a “brass ceiling”, since official recognition for combat service is crucial for being promoted into senior military ranks. Among other things, it is an acknowledgement that American women have risked, and often sacrificed, their lives in every war since the Revolution. “Mabus is not only insulting the Marine Corps as an institution, but he’s essentially telling Marines that their experience and judgment doesn’t matter”, Hunter said. While Carter has long said all qualified candidates should be allowed to compete for these jobs, “qualified” and “compete” are (and must be) the operative terms. But the noteworthy factor in making my decision was to have access to each one American who could add strength to the joint force.
In a joint statement, the chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees said Mr Carter’s decision will have a “consequential impact on our service members and our military’s warfighting capabilities”.
Three women became the first to take and pass the Army’s hard Ranger course.
In January 2013, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a timetable for the military services to submit plans for how they would lift restrictions in place since 1994 that banned women from serving in combat units.
But Carter has overruled those objections, saying the US military is “a meritocracy”, meaning the most qualified soldier should get the job, regardless of sex or gender.
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Carter acknowledged the Marines’ resistance, but said he’d made a decision to set a policy that covers the full department.
