on the word of a politician?

The USMC does not ban women from combat MOS. The law bans women from combat specializations. The daughter of a good friend who just graduated as 2LT from Army ROTC at Stanford wanted infantry but was legally unable to be assigned to it.

Since Grenada, U.S. women in the military have found themselves in combat, regardless of their specialization.

To say nothing of the women who have been victims of it, unable to defend themselves.

I expect Captain Aylarab (sorry, I'm sure I spelled her name wrong) will be by soon to set the record right.

the statement that "there are no women Marines" is borrowed from the Marine concept that there are no black or white Marines...we are all Marine Corps green.

than the alternatives.

WM=Women Marine

-Men go through recruit training at either San Diego, or Paris Island, NC. Women are only trained in PI. If you are a PI Marine, you call San Diego Marines, "Hollywood Marines." If you are a San Diego Marine, you say to male PI Marines, "Paris Island is where they train women Marines."

BAMs=Broad Assed Marines.

Yes! There should be no discrimination in the armed forces.

Allow the Deaf to serve.

When I was in high school, I tried to enlist. The benefits seemed great. A paid-for college education. Discounts on many merchandise. The respect of my country. On-the-job training. Too bad I wasn't allowed to join.

I guess for some people, discrimination is okay - as long as it's not their special interest group being oppressed (transcripts for all videos!)

That's "former" Captain Lara B. She's out now. (in more ways than one). Ow!

And I hope she turns up and puts in her two centavos.

She's way cool too.

Could you repeat that please?

I can think of a hell of a lot of good reasons why someone of either sex who is deaf (or hard-of-hearing beyond a certain degree) should not be in the military...and all of them are based off the fact that THEY CAN'T COMMUNICATE AS EFFECTIVELY IN LIFE-OR-DEATH SITUATIONS BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HEAR.

Sorry, that's the good kind of discrimination, the kind that's based on common sense. There are other ways for the deaf to serve their country--I volunteered for Americorps for a year and there were many programs with that in which a volunteer's deafness would not have precluded them from service.

I agree with you on the need for video transcripts. Salon, are you listening?

Not being able to serve in designated combat billets was exhibit A of fundamental female inferiority while I was a midshipman at Annapolis and an officer on active duty. Never mind that the vast majority of men serving in the armed forces aren't in combat billets either.

Former midshipman, marine lieutenant, and Secretary of the Navy turned Senator James Webb used the combat exclusion to rail against female midshipmen in print. Webb's article was slipped under my door routinely and publicly quoted by male midshipmen in leadership class. Their argument was the academy existed to produce warriors and if women couldn't be warriors, we had no place at the academy.

(Note: Annapolis commissions Marine officers as well as Navy and a quick google can yield up the Webb article which is scathing in its woman hating.)

I always thought the combat restrictions were arbitrary b.s. put in place to keep women down. Women who passed the physical requirements for a job should be allowed to have it -- be it infantry or SEALS. Many women won't be able to hang, but then again many men don't have what it takes either.

While I was active duty, the restrictions were partially lifted and previously excluded billets were opened to women. From jets to surface warfare. Nothing horrible happened and women continue to excel. Infantry, SpecWar, Submarines, and other jobs remained inexplicably off limits.

I am in favor of more female marines, sailors, airmen, and soldiers. The quicker women are no longer a minority, the quicker conditions will improve. I firmly believe that women will never have equal pay and equal treatment until we are half of the military, lawyers, judges, police, and elected officials in this country.

On the upside, military service creates feminists. If you didn't realize sexism and misogyny were out there, a few weeks in uniform wises you up fast.

PS -- Mids had their own special slurs for females like the BAM mentioned above. One of our uniforms was Working Uniform Blue Alpha (WUBA) which was transformed into Woman Used By All or Woman with Unusually Big Ass. If you were female and on the crew team, CreWBA.

I just read Jim Webb's tract, and I am appalled. I used to think he was awesome -- no longer.

Well one of my personal heroes is Captain Nichola Godard, died shooting, leading 40 men in combat: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060503/afghanistan_goddard_feature_060517/20060517/

The marines should be so lucky.

Webb has said in recent years that his view has changed, so don't give up on him yet. Change is good. Ditto for generals who were once dead set against letting gay soldiers serve, who have since come out and said either that things have changed, or they were wrong all along.

In fact, the whole leitmotif about women in combat is change, in warfare and in attitudes. The current conflicts have blown away a lot of what remained of attitudinal barriers, as in the 'non-linear battlefield' female soldiers and marines especially have taken on 'real' combat roles, regardless of their MOS.

My own experience followed that arc; I served in all-male SOF units and didn't come into contact with many female soldiers until later in my career. I carried the same biases until three of those soldiers (one officer, two NCOs) demonstrated to me how wrong I was. They were truly remarkable, by any standard, but I figured that odds were they weren't the only three in the force.

Like I said, change is good.