Women In Combat Plan Nixed

BBC – Republicans in the US Congress have ditched a flat ban on women in combat.
The House Armed Services Committee watered down proposals which would stop women from serving in support teams which back up front-line combat troops.
Advocates of the plan say the women get too close to the fighting, but the US army, facing problems with recruitment, was opposed to the move.
Senior officers said they would have had to pull 22,000 female soldiers out of their jobs to replace them with men.
They also warned of damage to morale, with the army’s vice-chief of staff saying in a letter that the plan “would cause confusion in the ranks”.

On an earlier post about this proposal a female commenter and Iraq war veteran laid out the case against this rule change:

I believe Congress needs to take a step back and rethink this. Define “combat” for me, please? I was stationed in Iraq, as a squadron commander of a unit that is traditionally provides combat service support. Until Iraq, such a unit would have been “behind the lines.” Instead, I found myself in the midst of rocket & mortar fire every day as we did our job of resupplying the force, repairing vehicles, refueling aircraft, moving cargo on/off airplanes, etc. Don’t believe our military or political leaders ever imagined that my type of unit would experience combat. But we did! So”if we take women out of these units, what’s left for them to do in the military? Are we going to tell the Air Force to take their women out of the fighter jets they’re flying? Are more of you guys ready to volunteer to join the military and fill the job vacancies that will be created if women are not allowed to serve in this capacity?

To be honest with you, I don’t know why women who are capable of passing the same training requirements as men aren’t allowed to engage in full combat in our military.