Army Women Assigned to Combat Units: Perceptions of the Military Equal Opportunity Climate

The U.S. Army has been assigning women to serve in “combat service support” units since World War II. These units provide service support (such as medical, finance, signal, transportation, etc.), or administrative services to the Army. For the most part, combat and combat support units in all of the services were formerly closed to women until the late 1990s.1 Since 1993, some 259, 199 additional military occupations have opened to women. This process began in April, with a Department of Defense (DoD) directive removing barriers that had prevented women from serving on aircraft that engage in combat. In November 1993, Congress repealed the naval exclusion law, which opened 136, 000 new positions to Navy women. In 1994, DoD rescinded the “risk rule, " thereby opening new career fields and jobs to women in all of the services.