AP, you have an awful lot of faith in statistics and biomedical research in light of this:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefi...it-not-trouble

In any event, even if one were to stipulate that your various research/numbers are true... why does the military need to be an instrument of societal change? To be specific, why impose women into combat arms fields as adults, when instead, you could impose them into coed sports from an early age?

Again stipulating that your research is true, choosing coed sports as your entry vehicle for change would a) bring a generation of women up from an early age raised in the environment that you seem to be perturbed that they have missed out on, b) physically prepare them for more rigorous activities as adults, and c) impose the cost of change on society in general, rather than on the military exclusively.

Would that not be better than imposing this on the military as an experiment, in which the lives of people may well be on the line?