Community Corner
You Said It: Should Women Serve in Combat in the Military? (With Joe Flacco)
While the Pentagon knows that women account for 14.5 percent, or 1.4 million, of active-duty service members in the military, it's also hanging on to some old-fashioned ideals: None of them are allowed to participate in direct combat.
A majority of Americans believe women in the military should be allowed in combat, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Yet in Iraq and Afghanistan, 25,000 female soldiers, or about 10 percent of the United States' entire forces there, have not been assigned below brigade level. Those units are assigned primary objectives that usually involve direct combat, according to the Post report.
A commission recently recommended that the Pentagon lift the ban in a report called"Representation to Inclusion: Diveristy Leadership in the 21st-Century Military."
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