Cross-posted here.
On Monday, President Obama hailed the pioneers who in 1848 first fought for women's rights at Seneca Falls.
On Wednesday, Obama's Pentagon sent America's female troops charging up Hamburger Hill, metaphorically speaking.
Leon Panetta, the outgoing defense secretary, has decided that for the first time U.S. women troops will be eligible for front-line combat infantry or artillery jobs that have long been restricted to men -- first by tradition and after 1994 by official Pentagon policy, according to multiple news accounts.