When Cadets Vanessa Garza and Sarah Woods first entered the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Palm Beach Atlantic University, serving their country as women meant using their training behind the front battle lines. But a recent Pentagon policy change could bring them closer to the fighting.

Although women still won't be able to serve in the Special Forces, infantry divisions or frontline fighting units, the new policy opens 1,186 of the 13,139 combat unit jobs at the battalion level to women, which puts them closer to the front lines than they have ever been before.

The changes, according to senior Pentagon officials, are a testament to the role women play in today's wars and give them more chances to rise up the military ranks. Although not all female soldiers are anxious to face the heat of battle, Garza and Woods say the increased risk of danger hasn't changed their desire to serve their country.

"I'm excited for us women," said Woods, who feels the change signals increasing respect for women in the military. "We're just as trained and just as prepared as the men are, so why not show that we want to fight and serve our country just as much as the men?"

Woods, who studies nursing at the small Christian school in West Palm Beach, Fla., hopes to serve on a medical team somewhere in the Middle East after she graduates. Although female medics often come close to battle to treat the wounded, they were not, before now, formally assigned to ground combat units, which stay near the fighting.

As a sophomore, Woods has not had much of the ROTC hands-on training yet, and the upperclassmen have warned her it may feel more real than she realizes. As soon as the Pentagon announced the new policy, the ROTC program decided to step up its training, Woods said. Upperclassmen in the program told her the Army wants to make training feel as real as possible, with cadets enduring simulated bomb blasts and dodging "enemy" fire.

"It seems really scary now, but I guess I would rather have fake bombs going off now, then a real one two years from now," said Woods, who wants to make sure she knows how to protect herself and her team.

Garza, also a nursing student, plans to join other nurses in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps when she graduates next year. Despite the Pentagon's policy change, the hidden dangers of warfare still present the most challenges for Garza and cause her the most concern.

"As a nurse in the military, I was always told that more than likely I would not be put in that situation ," she said, referring to the possibility of being caught in battle. "But now, with the new law, and new war tactics, who knows? I could be riding in a jeep to help pick up injured soldiers and we could hit a hidden bomb in the road and that's it."

The Pentagon's announcement, made earlier this month, did not come as a big surprise to those in military circles, said Capt. Carmelo Colon, senior military science instructor at PBA. The new rule changes and expanded role for women at the combat battalion level are not a very significant change in the way the Army does things now, Colon said.

Due to the nature of modern conflict and the lack of a defined front line, women have been involved in combat roles for the last 10 years and have proven themselves capable and ready time and again, said Colon, who graduated from West Point in 2006 before serving in South Korea and Afghanistan.

The changes really only acknowledge the fighting conditions soldiers serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already have encountered. About 280,000 women have been sent to Afghanistan, Iraq or nearby nations - 12 percent of all military personnel who have served in the conflicts. As of Feb. 13, the U.S. Department of Defense lists 4,408 deaths and 31,922 wounded in action as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. At least 124 of those deaths and 450 of those wounded were women.

Although the thought of having to fight or being caught by a roadside bomb scares her, Garza said the realization that soldiers and innocent civilians would die without medical care frightens her more. And feeling a strong call to help the sick and wounded keeps her from changing her mind about going into the Army: "I know this is what God called me to do," she said.