it, of the women that took part in this marine infan industry officer training, only two. one failed day one with other guys. the failure rate for men is 25%. you don t see a lot of the women in the programs already. there is not a lot of interest in it. do you see more women getting in to it? andrea: colonel ralph peters who is a military analyst was on my radio show this morning and he said there is probably not a huge influx of women trying to get the combat positions. they are tougher than the guys i know. they re my heroes. kudos to them. at the joint chiefs think they should be in. if military officials think it will make us strongest and the best military in the world, i am for it. who am i to question it? however, the aclu does not
what about that? as i said, there are men who cannot qualify. that has never been a point. mostly because it is how it was related to how the american ment uses the draft. every man that was drafted was drafted for a combat position and there were other positions that became available. but there was never a discussion about are all men qualified for combat now there is a discussion about whether women are qualified for combat positions. but in 2003 there was no discussion about deploying women to iraq for this combat situation about whether they would be physically capable
of thousands of front line positions possibly to females, but even veterans really are split on what they think about this decision. list to some of this. lifting this restriction is going to allow those women who want to fight in combat positions to try and try out for them. if they can make it, good for them. there s a lot of women who won t make it. you know what? there are a lot of men who can t mack it either. what you said, bill, if they re not physically capable of that doing what a man would do, a wounded soldier or marine needs to be dragged off, medevaced, needs to be pulled can i count on the female soldier to do the same thing? if we look at women in combat we have to make certain standards are not eroded. that is interesting point. martha: that is hot one. juan williams joins me, fox political analyst. mary katharine ham, editor-at-large of hotair.com, fox news contributor. what is your gut reaction, yuan? seems to me, i live near the old walter reed here in
about your strength or weight, even when it comes to hauling somebody off the battlefield, it is a matter of look, we re all warriors, and nobody gets left behind here. martha: the sensibility issue here, i want to put this quote to mary katherine, there is sensibility issue here. let s look at this quote from president obama. it really struck me when i saw these words. every american can be proud our military will grow stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters playing a great he will role in protecting the country we love. it put an image in mind, our mothers, our daughters, our sisters? it conjures up a lot of things. and i wonder when they re out there and in these combat positions, whether, you know, men feel this protective instinct to some certain extent that might change the dynamic out there. i don t know if that is the case. mary katherine you take that on and then juan. i do think it is not something we can entirely
combat. shepard: few people can speak to that better than tammy duckworth, the first female double amputee of the iraq war. we were hit by an hpg. it ripped through our aircraft t took off my legs, most of my right arm. shepard: she supports the decision to lift the military combat restrictions. lifting the restriction is going to allow those women who want to fight in combat positions to try and to try out for them. if they can make it, good for them. there is a lot of women who won t make it. but there is a lot of men who can t make it either. shepard: no question there. president obama responded to the pentagon s change with a statement that reads in part: today every american can be proud that our military will grow even stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters playing a greater role in forgetting the country we love: jennifer griffin with the news at the pentagon. first, explain how this will work. no positions have been opened to women as of today, shep