Survey shows strong consumer interest in BlackBerry 10, but few are willing to buy just yet

The good news for RIM (RIMM): Lots of people are interested in checking out its upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. The bad news: Few are willing to commit to buying a BlackBerry 10 device at the moment. According to a new online survey of more than 1,100 Americans commissioned by mobile application specialist BiTE interactive and conducted by reputable pollster YouGov, 47% of Americans find “at least one of BlackBerry’s new features appealing,” although only around 13% say they’ll consider buying a BlackBerry 10 device.

[More from BGR: Apple’s 128GB iPad shows the world exactly what Apple does best]

[More from BGR: Apple unveils new 128GB iPad]

The survey found that the new Time Shift Camera, which lets users rapid-shoot multiple pictures of the same subject and then choose the best one from the bunch, was the most popular new BlackBerry feature, followed by BlackBerry 10′s new predictive keyboard. But as BiTE operations executive vice president Joseph Farrell notes, there’s a big difference between interest in new features and a commitment to spend money acquiring them. Farrell also thinks that RIM will still struggle to be relevant as long as app developers neglect BlackBerry in favor of iOS and Android.

“RIM’s much anticipated BB10 launch is a major, and much needed overhaul for the one-time smartphone leader and all indications are that it has, at very least succeeded in convincing Americans to give BlackBerry a second look,” he says. “However, it is clear that while all the new features can catch the interest of Android and iOS owners, the key chink in RIM’s armor remains its apps ecosystem. RIM has made great efforts to catch up with iOS and Android in this regard, but it, like Microsoft, is likely to find this far easier said than done.”

BiTE’s full press release is posted below.

BlackBerry 10 Captures Attention of One in Two Americans

But only one in eight will actually consider buying a BB10 device

Los Angeles, January 29, 2013 – Ahead of the launch of Research in Motion’s long-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system and two new smartphones this week, nearly one in two Americans online (47 percent) finds at least one of BlackBerry’s new features appealing.

Despite interest in the new features only one in eight Americans (13 percent) will consider buying a BB10 device, and only one in 100 plans to get one immediately. The findings are according to a report from BiTE interactive, the native mobile application specialist for Fortune 1000 brands, which commissioned YouGov to poll the views of a representative sample of 1,127 American adults online.

Time Shift Camera wins most American hearts, especially with Android owners

RIM’s Time Shift Camera is the most compelling new BB10 feature for 16 percent of Americans. The Time Shift Camera takes multiple shots of a subject in a single picture and lets you choose the best composite image. 46 percent more women than men identify it as the most attractive new feature of BB10, while it is most appealing for one in five (21 percent) 18-34 year olds. The same age group is also the most likely to find one of the BlackBerry 10’s features appealing (66 percent). RIM’s new predictive keyboard feature is the most compelling new feature for only six percent of Americans while only one in 100 picked the new ‘flow’ interface.

The new BB10 features appeal to more Android (65 percent) than iPhone owners (56 percent).

“RIM’s much anticipated BB10 launch is a major, and much needed overhaul for the one-time smartphone leader and all indications are that it has, at very least succeeded in convincing Americans to give BlackBerry a second look,” said Joseph Farrell, EVP Operations, BiTE interactive. “However, it is clear that while all the new features can catch the interest of Android and iOS owners, the key chink in RIM’s armor remains its apps ecosystem. RIM has made great efforts to catch up with iOS and Android in this regard, but it, like Microsoft, is likely to find this far easier said than done. A lot of eyes will be on the new BlackBerry World from day one, as its success is pivotal to that of the BB10 devices as viable mainstream consumer handsets.”

iPhone owners least likely to jump to BlackBerry

According to BiTE interactive’s report, iPhone owners are the least likely to buy into BB10. Only around one in 10 (11 percent) have any interest in owning one of RIM’s new phones compared with around one in five (21 percent) Android owners. Overall, almost one in two (44 percent) Americans definitely will not get a BB10 device while a further one in four (27 percent) say they will likely not get one.

Joseph Farrell added, “RIM’s challenge is compounded by the fact that Google and Apple have already built up huge mobile user bases who, for the most part, have invested lots of time and money learning and using their platform of choice. To switch to any new platform, even between the two, means a new investment of time and resources that many do not wish to spend, let alone taking a perceived risk on the new BB10 platform, no matter how impressive some of the new technology is.”

Research methodology

BiTE interactive commissioned YouGov to poll the views of a representative sample of 1,127 US adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between January 23-25, 2013. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+).

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Randy Houser and Son Bond over Bedtime Routine

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/28/2013 at 03:00 PM ET

Courtesy Randy Houser

It’s been a big week for singer Randy Houser: Within days of releasing his new album How Country Feels, the title track is already steady at the top of the charts.

But the country crooner isn’t the only one putting his powerhouse voice on display. According to Houser, his 10-month-old son West has also been busy exercising his vocal chords.

“The biggest thing he’s doing right now is hollering ‘Dada,’” Houser, 36, tells PEOPLE.

Already planning for his family’s future on the road, the doting dad is looking forward to the day he can bring his baby boy on tour — after he can secure a bigger bus.

“Right now there are 11 guys on the bus so it makes it hard to bring a baby on the road,” he explains.

But while he waits for his dad to accommodate his growing entourage, West is working hard at home meeting his milestones.

“He’s pulling up on everything,” Houser shares. “He also learned to crawl. He can pretty much get on his horsey [toy] by himself.”

And although West has formed an incredibly strong bond with his mama, Jessa Lee, the new dad admits he prefers to tackle baby boy’s bedtime routine on his own.

“My favorite thing is to rock him at nighttime when he’s going to bed,” he says.

– Anya Leon and Katie Kauss

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on wheeling himself into the room, using an elbow from one of his new transplanted arms to turn the wheels of his wheelchair.

Then the former soldier pushed his hair aside, using the thumb of his new left hand.

Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.

After being wounded in 2009, the former soldier said, he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.

"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at a news conference at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.

That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.

"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could provide much of the function of his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.

Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."

Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.

Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.

Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.

For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.

The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.

Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.

The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.

"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."

Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.

A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.

"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.

He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.

Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.

And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.

"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.

Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.

Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.

His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."

"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."

___

Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.

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Wall Street advances as defensive stocks extend rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Tuesday, led by defensive sectors, in a sign the cash piles recently moving into the market are being put to use by cautious investors to pick up more gains.

The S&P 500 is on track to post its best monthly performance since October 2011 and its best January since 1997 as investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record. [ID:nL1N0AX45Q] The Dow Jones industrial average has been flirting with 14,000, a level it hasn't seen since October 2007.

Shares of Amazon.com jumped nearly 7 percent in extended trade after the world's largest Internet retailer posted fourth-quarter revenue that jumped 22 percent to $21.27 billion. The stock closed down 5.7 percent at $260.35 in regular trading.

Among rising defensive shares, which are companies relatively immune to economic swings, were drugmaker Pfizer , up 3.2 percent to $27.70 after posting earnings and AT&T , 1.6 percent higher at $34.68.

"Cyclical were moving very nicely, now you see balance with some of the defensive. Many managers use that as an internal hedge in equity portfolios," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

She said the market is cautious ahead of Wednesday's statement following the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting. In addition, defensive stocks would hold up better if Friday's payrolls report surprises on the downside.

The S&P hovered near 1,500, and market technicians say the benchmark is at an inflection point which will determine the overall direction in the near term.

"The public is pouring in now," said Carter Worth, chief market technician at Oppenheimer & Co in New York. "It reflects complacency and that typically leads to hubris, and hubris leads to trouble. Everyone's buying."

The top performing sectors on the S&P 500 were healthcare <.spxhc> and telecom services <.splrcl>, so-called defensive sectors, both up more than 1 percent.

The energy sector also advanced, on the back of strong earnings from Valero Energy Corp and a hedge fund move to break up Hess Corp to boost investor returns.

Valero shares jumped 12.8 percent to $43.77 and Hess gained 9 percent to $68.11.

The equity gains have largely come on a strong start to earnings season, though results were mixed on Tuesday with Pfizer rising but Ford Motor Co down after its report.

Both companies reported profits that topped expectations, but Ford also forecast a wider loss in its European segment. Ford dropped 4.6 percent to $13.14 as one of the biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 72.49 points, or 0.52 percent, at 13,954.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 7.66 points, or 0.51 percent, at 1,507.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.64 points, or 0.02 percent, at 3,153.66.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 174 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 68.4 percent have been above analyst expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Disappointing outlooks from Seagate Technology and BMC Software pressured their shares. Seagate lost 9.4 percent to $33.91 and BMC fell 6.3 percent to $41.71.

D.R. Horton Inc's quarterly profit more than doubled as it managed to sell more homes at higher prices, leading the No. 1 U.S. homebuilder to forecast a good spring selling season. The stock jumped 11.8 percent to $23.82.

U.S. home prices rose in November to rack up their best yearly gain since the housing crisis began, a further sign that the sector is on the mend, but consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in more than a year in the wake of higher taxes for many Americans.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Senate Approves Kerry for Secretary of State

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Senator John Kerry as secretary of state, filling a key job in President Obama’s second-term national security team.

The nomination was approved by a vote of 94 to 3. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Republicans of Texas, and Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, opposed the nomination. Mr. Kerry voted “present.”

Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who has served in the Senate since 1985, had strong support on both sides of the aisle. Earlier in the day, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the panel he has led for the past four years, gave his nomination unanimous approval.

Mr. Kerry, 69, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, is the son of a Foreign Service officer. He will succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose last day at the State Department is Friday.

Mr. Obama has also named former Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, to succeed Leon E. Panetta as secretay of defense, and John O. Brennan, currently his counterterrorism adviser, as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Both will face more questions than Mr. Kerry did from senators of both parties when their confirmation hearings are held, though their nominations are expected to be approved. Mr. Hagel’s hearing is scheduled for Thursday, and Mr. Brennan’s for Feb. 7.

Mrs. Clinton, who was participating in a global forum at the State Department, expressed her hope that Mr. Kerry could make headway on the Middle East.

Taking note of the recent Israeli parliamentary elections, in which a centrist coalition made significant gains, Mrs. Clinton said that the shifting political landscape might facilitate progress.

“I actually think that this election opens doors, not nails them shut,” she said. “I know that President Obama, my successor, soon to be Secretary of State John Kerry, will pursue this.”

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TSX little changed, RIM positioning offsets banks

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index finished little changed on Monday, as gains in the financial group were partially offset by Research In Motion Ltd shares, which sagged ahead of its critical BlackBerry 10 launch this week.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> was down 0.72 of a point at 12,815.91. Half of the index’s 10 key sectors climbed higher.</.gsptse>

(Reporting by Solarina Ho)

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'Lily' from Modern Family: A Precious Pose on SAG Red Carpet

By Mike Fleeman

01/28/2013 at 05:30 PM EST

Aubrey Anderson-Emmons – all of 5 years old – is barely bigger than the statue she'd later win Sunday night at the SAG Awards.

But the girl who plays Lily on Modern Family was right out there on the red carpet Sunday night, posing ever so delicately, almost too tiny small for all the hoopla.

Backstage, after the cast won for best ensemble for a TV comedy, Aubrey's proud mom Amy Anderson told PEOPLE what went into getting the pint-sized actress ready for such a big night.

"She borrowed this dress from a neighbor," says Anderson. "The neighbor has a first-grader and she said she kept everything. I asked if she had a dress we could use for the SAG Awards. So she brought over a bunch, and [Aubrey] loved the ruffles."

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Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

The first soldier to survive after losing all four limbs in the Iraq war has received a double-arm transplant.

Brendan Marrocco had the operation on Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday. The 26-year-old Marrocco, who is from New York City, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009.

He also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military is sponsoring operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in the wars.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive" from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there have been four others since then, said Brendan Marrocco's father, Alex Marrocco. "He was really excited to get new arms."

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Surgeons plan to discuss the transplant at a news conference with the patient on Tuesday.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins, and is the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States. Lee led three of those earlier operations when he previously worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms, Lee said.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the novel immune suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants. Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it.

Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new minimal immune suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been living with his older brother in a handicapped-accessible home on New York's Staten Island built with the help of several charities.

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from a tube in his throat during the long surgery, decided that he sounded like Al Pacino, and started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

___

AP writer Alex Dominguez contributed to this report.

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S&P 500 eases, ends longest winning run in eight years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eased slightly on Monday after an eight-day run of gains, while the Nasdaq edged higher as Apple shares rebounded.

The index remained above 1,500, however, after closing above that level on Friday for the first time in more than five years. The S&P 500's eight sessions of gains was its longest winning streak in eight years.

Caterpillar shares helped cap losses in the Dow industrials even as the company posted a 55 percent drop in quarterly profit due to a charge connected with accounting fraud at a Chinese subsidiary and weak demand among its dealers. Caterpillar's shares, down 2.2 percent in the past three sessions, rose 2 percent Monday to $97.45.

"I think this multi-year high is really something that's in play both for shorter-term traders and with folks with money on the sidelines," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

Bargain hunters lifted Apple after the tech giant's stock dropped 14.4 percent in the previous two sessions. With Apple's stock up 2.3 percent at $449.83, the iPad and iPhone maker regained the title as the largest U.S. company by market capitalization as Exxon Mobil fell 0.7 percent to $91.11 and slipped back to second place.

On the down side, Boeing fell 1.4 percent to $74 on worries about the potential hit from delays in its 787 Dreamliner program.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 14.05 points, or 0.10 percent, at 13,881.93. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 2.78 points, or 0.18 percent, at 1,500.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 4.59 points, or 0.15 percent, at 3,154.30.

Investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record, research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said.

"What we have seen this year is, it appears the individual investor is allocating some 401(k) money to equities. Hopefully that's a decision that will be with us for a while," Hellwig said.

Data on Monday pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand.

U.S. durable goods orders jumped 4.6 percent in December, a pace that far outstripped expectations for a rise of 1.8 percent. Pending home sales, however, unexpectedly dropped 4.3 percent. Analysts were looking for an increase of 0.3 percent.

Corporate earnings so far have mostly been stronger than expected. Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 150 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 67.3 percent have beaten analysts' expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Stocks have also gained support from a recent agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power. On Monday, Fitch Ratings said that agreement removed the near-term risk to the country's 'AAA' rating.

Hess Corp shares shot up 6.1 percent to $62.48 after the company said it would exit its refining business, freeing up to $1 billion of capital. Separately, hedge fund Elliott Associates is looking for approval to buy about $800 million more in Hess stock.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal and Nick Zieminski)

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At War Blog: On the Job in Afghanistan, Female Soldiers Reflect

KABUL, Afghanistan — In the shadow of transport aircraft, rows of helicopters and supply pallets, women in uniform are a well-established part of the fabric of military life on bases and near the front lines in Afghanistan — a minority, to be sure, but one so common on the job that it’s hardly seen as an issue.

For active-duty military women in Afghanistan, the news of the end of the combat exclusion for women seemed far less momentous than it may have back in the United States. Not that it wasn’t seen as good news, and an important moment, but the talk here quickly turned to practicalities: what the change might mean for them, for their friends, for the women who will come after them.

The one thing soldiers wanted to make clear was that women had been there already — doing at least some of the jobs that they will now be able to do as full members of combat units rather than in external groups attached to them. And no doubt there will gradually be more of them making the shift.

“The biggest issue that America needs to understand is that we have been out there in the field, on the front lines,” said Sgt. Natasha Nelson, 23, a signal communications specialist. “There’s one of my best friends, and she’s a medic and she’s been out there on the front lines forever. From my experience, now I’ve only been in for four years, but it’s not new to us, it’s new to them,” she said, referring to the American public.

Capt. Jessica Kirkendall, 32, an intelligence officer, echoed that thought: “To an extent, it’s a reflection of what’s already on the battlefield.”

And, said Sgt. Maj. Micheal Horton, 48, it’s a natural progression. When she entered the military 24 years ago, the job of being a sapper had just opened to women. Sapper, a term popularly associated with demining, actually covers most combat engineering tasks that are done in support of combat infantry units.

“They had just opened up engineering work to females, so I got to be a heavy equipment operator,” she said. Then a few years ago the job of being a bridge crew member opened, and “that was a major thing.”

So the next step – opening all combat units to women –  seems logical, especially since the realities of the 21st-century battlefield demand that women work alongside their male counterparts. Sergeant Major Horton pointed to members of “female engagement teams,” who are attached to infantry units and tasked with gathering intelligence from female civilians, among other things, as examples of women who are already in combat situations.

“The female engagement teams are embedded with infantry — they can talk it, they can walk it, they can carry their load,” she said.

Sergeant Major Horton did, however, sound a bit regretful that the exclusion had not been lifted sooner so that she could have risen to be a commander in a combat unit. Will she benefit? “Not at my echelon – I can’t apply for any more jobs,” she said. “I could be nominated probably for some of the positions, but I still wouldn’t have had the experience as a junior commander.”

The change will make the greatest difference for young women who are just now choosing their military occupational field or are still at a fairly junior level and could switch into a combat unit and still have time to build a career.

For Sergeant Nelson, who loves her work as a signal communications specialist, there’s the opportunity to become part of an infantry unit now and go to the front lines. She’s not sure she will do that, but finally it’s at least a real prospect.

These women played down the numbers of women who would be likely to take advantage of the new opportunity. “Do I think the floodgates will open? No,” Captain Kirkendall said.

Lt. Cmdr. Laura Reshetar, 33, who formerly served as a naval surface warfare officer and is now a future operations planner at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul, sounded palpably excited about the decision. But she agreed with Captain Kirkendall that only a small number of women would seek combat slots at first.

“Personally I think it’s awesome, but I don’t think there will be tons of women rushing to do those jobs,” she said. “It will be the alpha females: highly athletic, highly motivated.” She added that she would not choose a combat specialty in part because she eventually wants to be a mother and would worry that she would not be able to give her all to the job if she were worrying about a child.

Above all, these women felt that at last, military policy was catching up with women’s aspirations.

“It seems very undemocratic of us to say, ‘Hey you want to serve your country, great, but you can only do these certain jobs because of your gender,’” Captain Kirkendall said. “In a country that espouses this whole idea of choosing your path in life and pursuing that path to the best of your ability, it just doesn’t seem very American to say ‘except for 20 percent of you.’”

She added, “As time progresses, people will see that women are very proficient in these roles.”

Related Coverage:

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