US military branches are under orders to allow women to serve in all frontline combat units from 2016.

If you’ve spent any time around members the US Armed Services, you know there is something special about the Marines. Or so they like to tell you. It’s the smallest of the four branches of the military and generally the first to respond in a crisis. In my experience, they are the most competitive people alive, always trying to outdo each other with their feats of strength and derring-do. Hence the slogan: the few, the proud, the Marines.

Like all of the branches, they are under orders to allow women to serve in all front-line combat units for the first time starting in 2016. Any exceptions to the policy will have to be justified. So the Marines are putting women to the test in a $25m experiment known as the Ground Combat Unit Integrated Task Force.