Army colonel: Physical strength not the end-all, be-all of combat service

Article here. Excerpt:

'An Army officer writing in a prestigious journal says the services should not overemphasize physical strength when deciding whether a woman qualifies for direct ground combat.

Col. Ellen Haring, on the staff of the U.S. Army War College, says commanders need to downplay obstacle courses and judge a service member’s ability to stay calm and think quickly.
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“Perhaps it is time to take a hard look at what really makes a competent combat soldier and not rely on traditional notions of masculine brawn that celebrate strength over other qualities,” Col. Haring says in the current issue of Armed Forces Journal.

She cites World War II hero Audie Murphy and North Vietnamese insurgents as examples of small people who came up big on the battlefield.
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Col. Haring, who had sued the Pentagon over its old exclusion policy, said that Murphy perhaps could not have passed the Marine Corps’ infantry officer qualification course.'