This is a groundbreaking announcement due to the ban on women serving in the roles of infantry, armor and artillery.
Even with this announcement some say women have already been taking part in combat, it just depends on how it's looked at.
Lt. Colonial Retired Barbara Bevins joined the military in 1971 but through that time she's noticed that battle lines have become blurred over the years.
When she joined the military she said only four percent of the soldiers were women. She said when she joined her mom wasn't too happy about it.
"She was afraid that I would be killed," said Bevins.
That fear was common with many Americans and military leaders. However as years went on , what society deemed acceptable for women has changed.
Bevins said, "Now it's kinda out of necessity, we need the man power."
Although woman can now "technically" serve in combat roles, they say this change won't change anything as far as recruitment is concerned. Bevins said, that announcement, while important for history, it isn't anything new.
"Even in Vietnam women were in career fields that took them near combat or near enough that they could be killed. It's just that we didn't advertise that to the American public," said Bevins.
She went on to say, just because a woman isn't in hand to hand combat some still find themselves in combat because when the enemy strikes there isn't always an agreed upon location to commence battle. She gives the examples of Pearl Harbor and 9-11 for instances like that.
"Women are being killed, woman are coming back without legs and arms and eyes and maybe we are getting a little bit more desensitized to it then we were back in the 60," said Bevins.
She looks back on her time in service and recalls hearing a female artillery trainer speaking to a group of male trainees.
"I can't go into combat with you, but you better be paying attention to what I have to tell you, cause the training I'm giving you will save your life someday," said Bevins.
She said those trainers wanted to go into battle, "They had the training and they knew what the capability of these weapons were and they were ready to go."
Bevin admits, unlike those women, straight combat isn't something she would signed up for, but she also said she'll be up for the job if she would have been called upon.
