美国有线新闻 CNN 2013-01-31

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To have women serving in infantry¹ though, could impair² the mission essential task of those units, and that's been proving in study after study. 

When I first got back from Iraq, I had people asking me if I was allowed to carry a gun because I was only a girl. 

We are moving forward with a plan to eliminate all unnecessary gender³-based barriers to service.

It's * nature upper body strenth and physical movements and speed and endurance and so forth⁴. 

Here's the short version. The U.S. military is changing it's policy to let women serve in combat units. And this is not going to happen immediately, those jobs will open up over time. And some military units can request an exception although officials say they have to explain why. You might think "wait a minute, don't women serve on the front lines". The answer to that is yes. In Iraq and Afghanistan female soldiers ended up in fire fights. They were serving in front line units. But they weren't officially serving in combat units. That's what we are talking about here. Still, that fact hasn't some women in the past from fighting. Back to the American revolution and civil war, some women disguised themselves as men so they could fight on the battle field. Now, obviously the opinions on this are split. And one of the big  the critics are pointing at is the ability for women and men to meet the same training standards.

We are going to see, as we have already seen, as the expansion of roles of women, steady downward pressure on military qualification, reduction, then strength, redurance requirement in order to get numbers up.

While it is certainly true that not all women can do all of the requirements, neither can all men. The import thing here is to make sure that right people in the right jobs, and any body who have the qualifications can serve in whatever positions they are best suited for. 

When you look through some of the comments on CNN.com, you can see how divided people are on this. For example, one commenter said "warfare⁵ is not a gender-neutral playing field, this is going to get a lot of people killed". Someone on the other side said "this is good, everyone should be able to fight for their country no matter the gender". 

If you live in the mid-western or north-eastern U.S., we don't have to tell you how cold it is. For the rest of you, yes, it's freezing. On top of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, the tempreture 22 below zero, the wind chill- minus 85. The winter weather has caused some crazy events out their. Chicago fire-fighters were hosing down a burning warehouse⁶. Now if you look at these pictures, you are going to see what looks like an ice palace. The water from the hoses ended up encasing the place in inches of ice. Check this I-report from Minnesota, you've heard about frying an egg on the sidewalk to prove how hot it is, this pretty much exact oppsite.

Just to prove how cold it is, even here in the backyard a little shield from some of the elements. We did a couple things. We brought a damp T-shirt outside and it took less than five minutes for it to become this rigid⁷. That's one example to show how quickly things can freeze out here. We also put * in a little cup of water, it won't come out now, it is frozen in there solid. Less than 90 minutes that one took, we set that in 90 minutes ago.

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