Couple things: 1) Physical strength requirements are, like all things military, carefully and concisely laid out for all specialties within the military. That hasn't changed. No one has said it has, no one has said it will. 2) "Combat roles" are not related to strength, they are related to an expectancy of being shot at. Jessica Lynch wasn't in a "combat role" when an RPG blew up her truck in an ambush - she was an equipment specialist in a combat maintenance battalion that was part of a convoy that got lost. So riddle me this: how is a system where women can get blown up by RPGs (Pvt Lynch lost her best friend Lori to a head wound in the same engagement, in which eleven were killed and six were captured) is A-OK by you, but a system in which the "combative" nature of their enrollment verboten? Because that's what we're talking about here - not whether or not women can serve in the military. Not whether or not women can be deployed to a hostile theatre. Whether or not women can: Source This is literally a discussion of whether or not women can be special forces - which already have stringent physical fitness requirements. Rather than a flat "no" the answer is now "you'll have to work for it." Just like everyone else. TL;DR you're not even asking the right questions PS. Armor? Try and tell me women can't drive tanks because they aren't strong enough. Soviet tankers were limited to 5'9" because Soviet tanks were smaller as part of their strategic battlefield plan.be assigned below the brigade level -- a unit of about 3,500 troops -- to fight on the ground. Effectively, that has barred women from infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers and special operations units of battalion size -- about 700 troops -- or lower.