CONTACT: Lauren Gray, Communications Director, (215) 983-3099, lauren@servicewomen.org
 
Statement from Service Women’s Action Network Policy Director and Former Marine Corps Infantry Officer Greg Jacob
on the One-Year Mark After Lifting the Combat Exclusion Policy
 
“One year ago today, the Defense Department announced the end of the combat exclusion policy, an outdated policy prohibiting women from serving in units in which the primary mission was to engage the enemy in ground combat,” said Greg Jacob, Service Women’s Action Network Policy Director and former Marine Corps Infantry Officer. “This policy failed to acknowledge the reality service women faced on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and resulted in a brass ceiling, limiting career opportunities for women and harming retention. Yesterday, the Army announced that it will open 33,000 more jobs to qualified women. However, thousands of military jobs, including combat arms jobs, still remain closed. We will not rest until standards become job-specific, not gender-specific, and women can compete for every school, assignment, and job in the military.”
 
SWAN (www.servicewomen.org) is a national nonpartisan civil rights organization founded and led by women veterans. SWAN’s mission is to transform military culture by securing equal opportunity and the freedom to serve in uniform without discrimination, harassment or assault; and to reform veterans’ services to ensure high quality health care and benefits for women veterans and their families. You can follow Service Women’s Action Network on Twitter at http://twitter.com/servicewomen, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/servicewomen.
 
###