1.  What changes is the Pentagon making to women's roles in the military?

2.  What exceptions will be made to this new policy?

3.  What did the ban in place stipulate about women's roles in the military?

4.  Why did the Pentagon make the change in policy?

5.  a)  What reasons do advocates have for supporting a policy which allows women to serve in any area of the military they qualify for?
b)  What arguments do critics make for opposing women in combat roles?

6.  Compare Democratic and Republican lawmakers' responses to the Pentagon's new policy (paragraphs 11-18).  With whom do you agree?  Why?

7.  Review the guiding principals General Dempsey used for making the policy change on women in combat (found under "Background" below the questions). Will this new policy under these guidelines make the military more effective in combat situations?  Explain your answer.

8.  This is a controversial issue, and an extreme change in the way we fight wars. Consider the following and answer at least two:

• Is the policy of banning women from combat roles solely an issue of equal opportunity/denying women the same opportunities men have?
• It is discriminatory to prohibit women from taking part in combat?
• Should only women who WANT to go into combat be sent?  (Is it fair that women can choose, but men have no choice?)
• What adverse effects, if any, do you think opening combat roles to women will have on male soldiers?
• Could a squadron of all female soldiers be an asset or detriment in fighting in Muslim countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, possibly Pakistan or North Africa)?
• What problems are associated with women in combat roles?
• Are there some jobs women shouldn't do? (combat soldier, firefighter, boxer, etc.)?  Why or why not?
• If a woman qualifies to compete against a man, should the Boxing Association permit fights between a male and female boxer?  How about Ultimate Fighting or Wrestling?  Should a woman excluded from certain opportunities just because she's a woman?  Or is there more to it than that?
• Should the fact that many of our enemies are terrorists who come from cultures where women are not considered as equal to men and do not adhere to the Geneva Convention for treatment of prisoners have any bearing on the decision to send women directly into combat?

CHALLENGE QUESTION:  Read the following.  Do you agree with Mr. Johnson's opinion?  Explain your answer.

In an email to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, Kenneth Johnson argues that putting women in combat is a bad idea.  He writes:

As a Marine Corps veteran of three combat tours, the first as a rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War, my concern is what this policy will contribute to further breaking down the already-troubled relationships of men and women in our society.

Friedrich von Hayek wrote that profound social knowledge is embedded in tradition that has evolved through the millennia of human experience. In "The Fatal Conceit," he taught that a society breaks these traditions just because someone has a "good idea" of what would be fair. When these notions are enacted through legislation and court decisions, there is a very real risk of wasting this profound knowledge.

In my view, traditions in the military and civil society are severely broken and the embedded wisdom lost forever where women have combat roles. Totally independent of whether women can physically and mentally contribute to American military effectiveness and efficiency, I am concerned about the broader social implications of a civilization that believes that combat is an appropriate role for women.

For the record, I have ordered men to undertake missions where the entire platoon was at risk. During Operation Dewey Canyon in 1969 (the real one, not the incoming secretary of defense's one), I lost all seven of the Marine casualties I had during my tour. One died five feet from me. We moved on. Others died moments before I got to their position. We moved on. After one firefight, we carried a gut-shot Navy corpsman, who knew how much trouble he was in, for miles up a steep hill out of Laos.

How does a man not give special comfort to a wounded woman? My last Marine died in my arms from a wound I thought he would have survived. Could I have held her in my arms without reservation?

I had to decide how to handle the situation where a new squad leader beat a Marine who fell asleep on watch, the latter punishable by death in time of war. The decision process I went through is captured in a speech I gave to the Valley Forge Military Academy almost a year ago.

My concerns:

What kind of a man is it who can send women off to kill and maim? What kind of society does that?

What kind of men sharing a fire-team foxhole with a woman and two other men don't treat the woman more gently?

What kind of society bemoaning that men don't seem to respect women can't see that part of the respect they demand is predicated on the specialness of the other?

Perhaps it is possible in a firefight to distinguish between how one treats women and men, but I doubt that I could do it. And if I am trained to treat men and women the same throughout my career, can this have no significant effect on how I treat women otherwise?