ABSTRACT
On 24 January 2013, then U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, with the unanimous consent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and with rare bipartisan Congressional support, announced the end of the military’s exclusion of women in combat. Under Panetta’s plan, each branch of the military would assess what would be entailed for implementing these changes and for specifying the reasons for exceptions even as 237,000 new positions would open to women. The policy was to be fully implemented in 2016. On the eve of full implementation, Panetta’s successor, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, expanded the policy’s reach, opening all combat roles to women without exception.1
