Who Needs the ERA?

USA Today has an interesting story today about a number of female soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan as amputees. Aside from a human interest story about soldiers coping with the consequences of battle, it drives home the point that women now serve in combat zones and are put in harm's way every day, regardless of their exclusion from "dangerous" positions in the military. Practicality, and the realities of modern warfare, are modernizing the military in a way that laws never have.