For this episode, we're taking a break from our 50th anniversary podcasts to dive into some current events in important ways. Our 50th podcasts will pick back up in the next two weeks with interviews with women from '94 and '95.

Women in combat - specifically, women in previously-closed combat occupations and combat arms units - have been in the news recently. Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced that it was launching an "independent review" of the "effectiveness" of women in combat arms units. As so many of us have been part of integration in various forms - from the opening of the service academies to women in the 80s through the removal of restrictions on women in combat aircraft and on combat ships in the 90s and through the opening of previously-closed specialties in the 2010s - we felt this topic would make a fitting one for us to cover in the leadup to the 50th anniversary. (Here's another article about the review underway and the response of some military and veteran women to the news: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/women-react-review-combat-jobs/).

Please join us as Jeannette and Jenn meet and speak with Beth Wolny, LtCol USMCR (Ret.), who led research for the Marine Corps in the buildup to the opening of ground combat specialties a decade ago. Beth is a wealth of information - our conversation covers the scope and scale of research that the Corps conducted over those years, the absence of standards before integration and how integration has allowed strong, gender-neutral standards to be set, and what the impacts of integration have been. Beth is working on a book about her experiences -- if you want to learn more about her work and gender integration in the Corps, you can visit her blog, where she covers a wide range of topics: https://breakingintothebrotherhood.com.

Thank you! And thank you to the USNA AA&F for the support, Chris Servillo '99 and Natasha Schleper for editing our work, and the USNA Women's Glee Club for lending us your voices