Allen West comments from this morning...
On SecDef Leon Panetta's statement re: opening up direct combat billets to women. First of all, women in combat zones are serving in combat and the new 21st century battlefield means anyone outside of their FOB( Forward Operating Base) will potentially be engaged in a combat situation.
However, to make the insidious policy decision that we shall now open up combat billets to women is something completely different. GI Jane was a movie and should not be the basis for a policy shift. I know Martha McSally, have known women who are Apache and Cobra helicopter pilots, and served with women who were MPs, but being on the ground and having to go mano y mano in close combat is a completely different environment.
I completely disagree with this decision and can just imagine all the third and fourth order effects and considerations for implementation, such as standards for training. Unless the Obama administration has not noticed we are fighting against a brutal enemy and now is not the time to play a social experiment with our ground combat forces. President Obama, as Commander-in-Chief, should be focused on sequestration and the failure of his policies in the Middle East. This is the misconceived liberal progressive vision of fairness and equality which could potentially lead to the demise of our military.