Pentagon reassigns women-in-combat review, extends timeline

The Marine Corps declined a request from Okinawa government officials to meet over a precautionary helicopter landing near a youth baseball practice last month.

Representatives of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly had planned to hand-deliver a protest letter adopted March 27. According to a copy posted on the prefecture’s website, the letter urged the U.S. military to disclose the cause of the incident, describe steps to prevent a recurrence, and ensure safety.

The assembly requested a Monday meeting through Marine Corps Installations Pacific’s Government and External Affairs office, a spokesman for the assembly’s Political Affairs Research Division said by phone Tuesday.

A UH-1Y Venom landed at about 8:20 p.m. March 6 in a grassy area about 50 feet from Kyoda Baseball Field in Nago after an onboard warning during routine training, according to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. No injuries or property damage were reported, but a youth baseball team was practicing on the field.

“In this case, the aircrew executed the landing in accordance with established procedures and training,” Maj. Pawel Puczko, spokesman for the installations command, said Tuesday. “Because the landing was conducted properly and in line with standard operating procedures, it was not appropriate to accept the protest letter.”

The site is about 100 feet from homes, and because children were present, the landing “caused strong anxiety and fear among local residents,” the letter said.

The letter also asked the military to review aircraft maintenance and inspection requirements and called for revising the Status of Forces Agreement to prohibit flight training over residential areas.

Copies were mailed to U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass, U.S. Forces Japan commander Air Force Lt. Gen. Stephen Jost, and U.S. Consul General Andrew Ou, the assembly spokesman said.

A Pentagon-ordered review of women in combat roles has been reassigned and expanded to include field testing, Military Times reported.

The review, commissioned in December by Undersecretary of Defense Anthony Tata, was initially assigned to the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit research organization in the Washington area supported by federal funding. A Pentagon official said the study had been expected to begin around the 10-year anniversary of then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s 2015 decision to lift the ban on women in ground combat roles.

The official said the review was “in line with standard [Department of War] practice for evaluating the effects of significant policy changes.”

After revising the study requirements, the Pentagon transferred the work to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, effective April 2026. The official said the department determined the review needed “to incorporate combat-relevant field tests, based on established tasks, conditions, and standards, into the independent review to produce the comprehensive data required for this effort.”

According to the official, Johns Hopkins will analyze existing personnel and operational data and conduct field tests. The work will now continue over the next 12 months as part of what the Pentagon calls the “Performance, Readiness, and Integrated Mission Effectiveness Assessment.”

The official said the assessment will use established analytical methods “to identify the dominant drivers of combat performance variance in ground combat units and provide evidence-based findings to inform force design, training, physical standards, and readiness decisions.”

Pentagon officials said such reviews have followed other major policy changes, including a 2021 internal assessment of the 2010 repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and studies by Rand Corp. on the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 and the Blended Retirement System of 2015.

In a December memo first reported by NPR, Tata said the review would examine “the operational effectiveness of ground combat” units and the effects of allowing women into those roles. Army and Marine Corps leaders were asked to provide data, including training performance, command climate, and service members’ deployment readiness.

At the time, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the department “will not compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda — this is common sense.”