Armed Forces News

Speaking to an audience of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the Navy and Marine Corps need to bring more women into the ranks. “We need more officers, and women represent 57 percent of college graduates in America,” Mabus told the audience on May 13. He cited the Naval Academy’s class of 2019, a quarter of whom would be women, and the increased number of female accessions among enlisteds, as examples of progress – but said more needed to be done. In time, all billets would be open to women without compromise to physical benchmarks, Mabus said.