Here they admit that standards will be lowered:

FTA: If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that women couldn’t make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the Secretary why is it that high, does it really have to be that high, Dempsey said.

If I was the mother or wife of someone going into harm´s way I would be livid. I am the father but luckily my son is back in one piece.

The result will be fewer women in the military. But then again there goal is to destroy the military.

agree with poster #2. The perfumed princes of the pentagon and their fellow lambs just don´t have to stones to dissent. They are just concerned about how many stars they can wear on their shoulders. This is a damned obscenity

Another d***less wonder.

There is no such thing as "gender neutral" in human nature. The liberal Democrats will want to see big results from this policy change to sooth the very liberal advocacy groups who have been pushing for this. In order to reach that level of desired result they are going to have to lower the physical fitness standard for females there is no way around that.

If females really could keep up with men physically you would see women playing baseball in the major leagues, basketball in the NBA, football in the NFL, and hockey in the NHL. The reason that women are not in those professional sports leagues is that their physical fitness would break down pretty quickly. It will be the same during sustained infantry type combat operations. If they would keep the standards up I would say give the woman a chance to show what they can do, but that´s not the way it works with the liberal Democrats.

Very few women want to go in the infantry. for the women who do, this will give them the chance to punch their ticket to qualify for higher rank. That´s really what all this is all about.

With the current crop of so called leaders that are at the top in the military, there is no way that our country can defend itself. Everyone will be having to explain themselves lest they might insult the enemy.

I say do it- do it now, before we get into something really big and really ansty. I have been in combat, some of the worst in modern warfare and was fortunate enough to be among the few survivors. Let me be the first to say, there is a reason the women are not playing NFL football. There is a reason women are not out there on the pro hard ball fields. and there is a very good reason women should never be brought onto the full scale battle field. Before folks get to shouting "Sexist" at me, they had better take in a huge dose of reality- leave their idiotic Angelina Jolie movies behind in the kiddies in childhood locker. The real world is full of horror and tough stuff. Putting women in the Chosen Reservoir, on Guadalcanal, or in the swampland battlefield of Vietnam will do a whole lot to get Americans killed in wholesale lots! AS in Desert Storm warm up in the navy- on the carriers, in two week of the run-up, the women on board began reporting to sick call claiming pregnant – doing all they could to get out of it when everyone though Saddam had ship killer missiles and lots of them. Very quickly, critical sections were left undermanned as the gals were taken off ship. I know how the mind reels when you get orders to go to a combat zone and you have a combat MOS! This Panetta thinking is nothing but liberal fantasy BS!

"Oh, my non-balls! They got my non-balls!
Corpse-man! Corpse-man!!"

Thank GOD I grew up in the era that I did. You poor kids.

To Dimocrats the military is just another jobs program. Real ground combat is messy and expensive, and will be avoided at all costs. So in their minds, the ´Gender Neutral´ Military has no downside. This is where the real world will come crashing in.

Don´t forget to make room for the transgendered, too. In any stage, thereof.

But what Panetta forgets is that not everyone is entitled to get someone killed because they just aren´t up to the job that is required especially one that involves combat in the military. It ain´t just about shooting a gun.

Somewhere, Pat Schroeder is doing her little ´squinty smile´ at this. Barf.

Somewhere else, General George Patton is either weeping or cursing a blue streak. Probably both.

"Gender neutral" ? WTH is that ?!

There are several agendas and lots of confusion on this topic. There is nothing new in the idea - the Soviets, among others, were there long ago. So was Plato in the Republic. It is the logical extension of radical egalitarianism, which ultimately fades into totalitarianism. It is an interesting and perhaps fatal internal contradiction of democracy that it results in the abolition of the individual. Everybody is equal, nobody is different, difference is forbidden. Ridiculous scenarios ensue.

But there is an even deeper, if unacknowledged issue. Does America want to become the kind of society that sends its women -wives, daughters, mothers- to do its fighting for it? What are the implications of such a policy? More is involved than the ability to do the job and the inevitable consequences of putting young men and women together in close quarters. Have people really thought through the notion of gender neutrality?

Ironic, indeed, that the males of the Sixties skedaddled in large numbers when their country called them - and now the same crowd is all in favor of putting women on the front lines.

So when do women start registering for the draft?

The administration is good at handing out goodies, lousy at carrying out its duties.

The formerly required physical standards have already been changed & the bar has been lowered throughout law enforcement in order to accommodate unrealistic social experimentation, and now the military is being forced to do the same, which presents an even more ominous threat to the security of the entire country? This will not work out well.

Enlistments have been at an all-time low since Obama became President.
Proof now that the dems have a war on women!

Hmmm - - I wonder how many "gender-neutral? men will become pregnant in the combat zone?

By the way, Leon - - "gender" is a grammatical term. What you really meant to say is "sex neutral" - - isn´t it?

Yeah - - that´s what I thought.

These people have truly lost their minds! Any woman who wants to be on the front lines against the Islamists has lost hers too.

I wonder how many men will lose their lives trying to protect their female counterparts because of this idiotic policy. I am sooooo tired of this administration, the feminists and the liberal/progressives. They all disgust me.

And I´m a woman.

They´ll love taking a dump in a foxhole.

The obamanation is doing everything possible to ruin this country.

I am woman and believe in all kinds of "equality" and people who have the skills to have an opportunity to prove it. But not on this point. But lower standards to accommodate a privilege group has no place in our domestic and national defense.

I understand the argument regarding the rank system and the ways to fast track to advancement, but not at the cost of our soldier´s lives and our defense.

Any one who believes in gender neutrality is utterly ignorant of human nature.

Every day, the Islamists´ day is made by the USA. They can not believe their luck.

Obama is systematically weakening our military.
He is turning it into the USPS for jobs.
Obama sent Amb. Stevens to Benghazi to be sodomized and murdered.
Why should women be any different?
He truly is The Lord of the flies.

How many gang rapes by enemy combatants and women who didn´t know they were pregnant coming home in body bags will it take before this insanity ends?

A soldier is entitled to honor among his leaders.

That´s the only entitlement in the military.

Nex t high priority exercise and budget allocation will be implementing wheel chair ramps to all combat zones so absolutely nobody is left out. After making all accomodations and access points comply with ADA, a special task force will design battl filed accommodations for the blind.

Why have any priority other than "fairness" however it might be defined.

The military is now thoroughly politicized. You cannot get rank without passing the PC tests. They will dumb down the tests, just like they did for firemen and policemen. But the politicizing has far more ominous threats, because top officers are now being pressured into thinking about firing on US citizens.

Obama and his liberal crew are micro managers when it comes to implementing liberal social policies in the military and elsewhere. In that respect the admirals and generals that Obama has put on the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been relegated to being nothing more then yes men when it comes to liberal policies like this.

Has Panetta ever served? The Sec. of Defense and, most importantly, the Prezdent, should be required to have served. It gives a better perspective.

According to Wikipedia, Panetta served two years as a Lieutenant in Army Intelligence.