ROME (AP) – Defense Secretary Ash Carter sounded like he’s nearly made up his mind about opening all combat jobs to women, as he told U.S. troops in Sicily on Tuesday that limiting his search for qualified military candidates to just half the population would be “crazy.”
Meanwhile, in memo obtained by The Associated Press, Carter gave the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until the end of October to forward his review of the services’ recommendations on which jobs – if any – should remain closed to women. The chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford, was commandant of the Marine Corps until recently and was the only service chief to recommend that some front-line combat jobs stay male-only, according to several U.S. officials.
Speaking to a crowd of troops that included a large number of Marines, Carter said he hasn’t decided on the recommendations sent to his office and to Dunford. He pledged to thoroughly review the recommendations, particularly those of the Marine Corps, but said that generally he believes that any qualified candidate should be allowed to compete for jobs.
“You have to recruit from the American population. Half the American population is female,” Carter told the troops at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, in response to a question from a Marine. “So I’d be crazy not to be, so to speak, fishing in that pond for qualified service members.”
For that reason, he said the military should recruit women into as many specialties as possible.