Patricia Schroeder

About the Author: Patricia Schroeder, a Democrat from Colorado, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Schroeder has sponsored legislation permitting women to serve in combat.

The latest Army recruiting commercial portrays a female soldier operating a communications van during field maneuvers. Army Sergeant 1st Class Georgiana Cleverley, a communications specialist, told the New York Times that she would have seven minutes to live before the first bomb landed on top of her antenna. In other words, because of the Army’s combat exclusion policy, women can be the first killed in a battle. But they cannot hold a combat job.

For reasons lost in the vapors of legislative history, Congress passed a combat exclusion law in 1948 that prohibited the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps from permanently assigning women to...