That the secretary of defense has ordered the pentagon to let women serve besides men on the. Ront lines of battle that experiment is under the defense secretarys order. We will come back to that story throughout this first 45 minutes of the washington journal. Our phone lines are open to you. Also open is our twitter and facebook page. You can follow the conversation on facebook at facebook. Com face facebook outcome cspan. We want to talk about this morning. Like i said, we have a special line for active and retired military. I especially want to hear your thoughts on that. Some active and retired military members were interviewed last wate in in knoxville tennessee. Interviewed was u. S. Air force veteran ashley oughts. She was a utilitys apprentice doing Water Purification there. That is one of the veterans interviewed for that story on start with john in hot springs, North Carolina. John, good morning. Thanks, he made a lot of good points in your previous intro and came to fiscal capability. By look at this physical capability in combat, i have to think about some of the positions on homosexuality as to why we perpetuate humanity through male and female gender. Now,f i was a father right i would not encourage my daughter to join the military. If the commanderinchief that we have in the white house now and possibly Hillary Clinton as commanderinchief is an example of what would happen with regards to benghazi, that is for people at a diplomatic post that were left hanging out in the wind. I would not have my daughter join the military, because i would not have faith in this command structure, because i believe the Upper Echelon due to politics would lead my daughter would leave my daughter hanging out in the wind and would get her killed. To have his son as well would you say that about a son as well, john . Yes i would. Only the strongest on the playground are respected. Weaklings get it down. On. Et picked heres a little bit more from that wate interview from out in knoxville. We are asking our viewers to weigh in on this topic. Lets go to the tour in cedar hill, texas. A line for democrats. Victoria, good morning. I am very fortunate. I was not a man during the vietnam war. I would probably have gone in and come out in a box a month later. Women are driving the transports and theyre dying. They dont even have an opportunity to fight for the country. The transporting men who were going to do that very it if you are woman out there, we will create something around them, some sort of mechanical device that would support everyone. I do believe women should be able to go anywhere, because anywhere we are going now, were going to die. Sterling, virginia. Lee is a republican. Lee, good morning. I was a navy core man. I served in the marine corps and various platforms. Served with women i would go to battle with them any day. I think we are in a progressive society. Looking at countries like israel, they have proven that andn can be very capable serving alongside men. Caution, i think we need to make sure that the make sureonent we are training them right. The last caller got it right from the perspective that we have women right now doing serving in convoys. My concern is always been, ok, in this type of war, when there is no defined line with the good guys and bad guys are, essentially everything is battlefield. The entire area is a battlefield. There is no front line. In world war ii, everyone knew where the front line was. Does one of the problems with our veterans coming back, your awesomely hypervigilant. Youre in a state of hypervigilance. My point is we are sending women into combat whether we know it or not. My worry is that we are not training them well enough. We need to do is face the fact that women can absolutely serving combat. We have had a couple of women who have one silver stars for incredible valor. We need to make sure to invest in the women that want to. Serve, theyant to want to prove that they can do it, we should provide them the capabilities to do that. Some stats from the Defense Department on women in active duty in the military. This is total overall numbers. Again, we have that special line for folks in dave and retired active and in retired military. Military. Am retired my only concern about the issue , likeemales in combat is so many other caller say, we are not training them towards the idea of combat. , in mymean by that is career, i worked between victor units and training command. What you see is there are two different standards, one for males and one for females. Even in our physical readiness testing, there are two different standards that people are held to. You cannot sit there and say were going to make everything equal on the battlefield, but we are meant to train them different and hold under different sets of standards. If youre going to let everyone be equal, that everything has to be equal. What ends up happening, im afraid of, is you lower the ys because ar the guide women cant count to the same standards. That is my biggest fear because ive seen it happen before. The Associated Press not to fort bragg during training. 40 think about some the issues brought up in that report . Perspective,my own we do 30 mile forced march with full gear. ,very female that goes on that about five miles into the march gets on a vehicle because they cant keep up. They physically cant keep up where there put in a vehicle and ride rest the rest of the way. Says i takemander the hit for having these people ride. It is a timed event. You have so long to get there. That is why i am saying about the training evolution. People, weined the go from range to range. You go from rifle range to grenade range, and in between these ranges when we are thening females, because of weight that you physically have to carry, they would fall down and look like turtles on their backs because it could not get up. They had too much weight to carry. You cant expect somebody was 90 pounds to carry 90 pounds of gear with ammunition and machine guns and everything else. It is just physically impossible. John talking about his experiences. We have about a half hour left to discuss this topic. Some of the lines are still open, but i want to bring our viewers up to date on what is happening this week on capitol hill. To do that we are joined by Christina Marcos a staff writer with the hill newspaper. The house is expected to come in tomorrow and the first vote is expected for tomorrow night. What is on tap this week . When theis will be house is expected to hold former irs official Dennis Lerner in contempt of congress over her role in the allegedly pardoning by the irs of conservative nonprofit applying for tax exempt status. The house will also vote on a resolution to press attorney general eric holder to create a special counsel to investigate the case. We will also consider a standalone bill to expand the research and Development Tax credit as championed by the business community. Later, we will go to a charter by ericeform bill cantor. Lerner vote in particular. The gop subject sets up tough votes for democrats. Loyalties to obama and constituents are at stake. You ran through the house for us, what is on the senate side this week . The energy bill will likely take up the bulk of the week. It essentially would expand efficientodes, Energy Building technology. However, the biggest hurdle for this bill will be senator david fitter, a republican from louisiana, who is insisting we vote on his measure that would repeal subsidies for Congressional Staff to buy health care on the federal exchange. That is causing a lot of controversy. He insisted he will pull his measure if the senate votes on a binding measure to build the keystone pipeline. Keystone issue looms as senate takes up energy bill. Talking about that issue that Christina Marcos of the hill was just talking about very it Christina Marcos, before we let you go, what is going on in the benghazi investigation this week . Speaker john boehner and also friday that the house of vote to create a special committee to investigate benghazi attacks in september 2012. It has been put on how schedule, but there is no official vote set at this point. The house may or may not vote on resolutions created. It is certainly on the agenda. Host Christina Marcos is a staff writer at the hill newspaper. Benghazi also the subject of yesterdays sunday shows. Heres a clip from Fox News Sunday in which democratic congressman adam schiff and republican senator kelly ayotte were discussing the benghazi investigation. We have to get to the bottom of this. I call for the creation of a select committee right after this attack. Im glad that the speaker has t. Why is it that we areigate just receiving this email that really shows where the idea from the videocam . That video is not in the talking points, and yet that is what ambassador rice pushed on your show and every sunday show. You have said that the conspiracy theories are terrible distraction. Is this House Committee part of that distraction . How certain are you that democrats will participate and that select Bipartisan Committee will put those members on the committee. It is a colossal waste of time. It is driven by a couple of things, a republican conference that is so fractured that they only agree on two things. They dont like obamacare and they do like talking about benghazi. Sense forink it makes democrats to participate. I think it is a tremendous red herring and a waste of taxpayer resources. I hope the speaker will reconsider, but it looks like he has vowed again to those from the farthest right of his conference. Host that was Fox News Sunday. Theres another note on what is happening on capitol hill. The appearance by Federal Reserve chairwoman janet yellen. She is expected to speak on wednesday at the congresss joint Economic Committee meeting in washington. According to fox business, yellen will not likely lead to fireworks, but undoubtedly avoid the fed chief. Hold off on raising Interest Rates for the foreseeable future. Were talking this morning about this in combat, which front page cover story from the Christian Science monitor, this weeks edition. When youre in, about women in combat. We want to hear from our viewers. Ron is calling in from eagle river, wisconsin on our line for democrats. Ron, good morning. My question concerns an earlier caller who said he wouldnt let his daughter joined the service. Perhaps he wouldve preferred letting her join the service in a Previous Administration that got us into a war under false pretenses. Why this isnt being investigated by the congress, i have no idea. People wake up. The people in office right now are not concerned with us at all. We are learning the truth. , doeshat would happen this mean women in combat, are they going to be required to sign up for the draft right now . Men are required to do that. At the age of 18. Are women going to be doing the same . This is another concern. I would benk that worried have a woman next to me in combat. Just because my first thoughts would be about guarding her, not taking care of the rest of whats going on. They are more of a distraction than anything else. Jan ness rates in on twitter. Writes in on twitter. Most iraqi men were reticent to speak with him. Iraqi women often set up the finalists in the neighborhoods could be persuaded to provide information. First we had to bridge the gender gap and build trust, all of which build valuable time. Having women in our platoon with graduate wouldve to radically increased our ability to collect intelligence. Again, william dent who served in iraq and wrote his piece for the Washington Post last month. Genie calling in from ohio. There is no way i would want a woman to protect me. Men and women are not the same. I am against that. I like what that man said if he was in combat he would be looking out for that woman. Host what if a woman met the same physical requirements as a man. If a woman were able to do that, would you still be concerned . Caller than they would have to be one of those bodybuilders. Woman could meet the requirements, would you be ok with that, it jenny . I dont think they could meet the requirements. Host what is your biggest concern . Caller i just think that men are men and women are women. Men are stronger. Theyre just not the same. To mike waiting in ohio as well on the line for republicans. Mike, good morning. Caller good day, sir. Well, i think Women Deserve a free choice. If they want to engage in Corporate International fascism and be spearheads, that is their choice. I am against all war. Have a good day. Host all right, mike in ohio as well. Some stories and studies on how those conflicts have impacted female soldiers. Female veterans from iraq and afghanistan have returned from war facing heightened strains compared to their male counterparts. A recent report by the Washington Post looked into this. Nearly one quarter of women who served in iraq and afghanistan reported a sexual assault. That according to the Washington Post. Lets go to that line for active and retired military. Tony is calling from st. Paul, minnesota. I think the whole idea is rather silly. I am a korean war veteran. There will be another war like the korean war. We were dropped off their in a war scene and left there for over a year. We lost 48,000 men in 2. 5 years. Could you imagine that today . Losing 48,000 . One at fighting 10 to sometimes. That, i didnt change my close for eight months. Only socks. Not only wounds, i had body life. Can you imagine a woman with and monthly . The whole thing is silly. Thats good to judge in pennsylvania on our line for republicans. Caller hello, i feel as though homeomen should be at making sandwiches and pushing out babies and having the. And host are trying to have constructive conversation. Lets speak with mason. Caller i have got to say. What is being per trade with these collins is astonishing to me. Callins ise astonishing to me. I was raised with an army major. I wanted to join the military for a long time. At the time, they wouldnt take me as an active member. I know, women can do just as good if not better than men when we are talking about any type of situation. In military, being trained regardless of your gender is actually what it is about. It is a training when youre there that makes a good soldier, not who you are coming in. When you go in, you go through the training, it builds you up as a different kind of person. Theirg about women having periods during war is just ignorant. Their are lots of Different Health care matters that we can situation. Ress that i think it is crazy that in 2014, we havent reached a place where women are equal in the military. Then we have our government and the same people saying that women do enjoy the same equal rights. It sounds like from your callers they dont believe that. Unfortunately, that is a mindset we are going to have to get over. Were going to have to somehow get past that to be a better country and have a better military, quite honestly. One of our earlier cause was talking about training requirements. Here, a little more from the Christian Science monitor piece. It notes lets go to sam waiting in hillsdale, michigan, on our line for democrats. Caller i have a couple of comments. I would be thinking that women would be afraid to be in combat because they would have to worry about their comrades grabbing them from behind while they were trying to fight the enemy. Also, relating to benghazi, yesterday, may 4, we remembered the murder of four americans kent, ohio. In just is not was not done there. They should go to kent and help people there recover from that murder. Goodbye. Host the rain car plans to. Stablish an elite force from according to a story the spring in usa today. The usa will solicit volunteers. The experimental task force will allow the service to compare the performance of interest of an infantry squad of women. , who is on katie active duty in 29 palms. Katie, that morning. Good morning. Caller my husband is deployed in afghanistan. We both believe that women should not be in combat. Men act differently when women are around. If you have one or two women in a battalion, the men are going to compete for their attention. Thingscan to say certain and they will not be as relaxed. On the other hand, marines are marines number regardless of gender. Have one or two females those males are going to instinct really want to protect the females over their male counterparts. Host you think that is something that could be overcome with training or with time . It could, eventually. Duty, youeing active see a lot. There is a lot of homosexual harassment. Thatarines who do think women should stay at home barefoot and pregnant, there are the other ones, there are females who are more capable than their male counterparts. Thanks for calling in, katie. Darrell wrightson on her twitter page. On his twitter page. Lets go to elaine waiting in on the linelorida for republicans. Elaine, good morning. Caller i am a woman and i understand womens capabilities. I have seen some women who have their monthly. , who are so incapable of even walking, let alone fighting. What happens in theyre in a foxhole and they are supposed to protect this other guy . What are we going to do . Were going to start drugging them up . What about the point that there are no front lines anymore and the military and women who are serving in transport units are often involved in combat anyway, even if they are not technically on the frontline . Caller caller women are women. Men dont have. And men dont get pregnant. If this woman gets married and gets pregnant, what do we do with her than . Are we going to send her out fighting someplace . With her stomach big and her baby inside of her . This is ridiculous. There are places for women in the military, but not fighting. I dont believe in that. That is sick. Elaine in clearwater, florida, talking about the 2014 campaign subject of several stories today. Several primary set for the coming week. Set, particularl