Starting in September, female Marines will be allowed to participate in the Combat Endurance Test, one of the last male-only entities of the U.S. military as well as one of the most grueling. Including volunteer female officers in the 86-day course is an experiment to see whether female Marines can and should engage in more intensive combat roles. The study could take at least a year, and the Marine Corps is not expecting many volunteers—women make up only 6 percent of the Marines, and many male Marines avoid the labor-intensive course as it is.
