at BP, we're delivering on our downstream plans, achieving 96% refining operating availability,

the best first-half performance in our historical portfolio since 2001,

helping to drive efficiency, reliability, and production to safely deliver for customers.

Learn more at BP.com forward slash strategy at work.

If you're in traffic right now, look around. You'll see empty car seats.

Nobody loves sitting in traffic.

We don't. And neither do ESSO.

Every filled passenger seat in this jam could mean one less car on the road. And ESSO want to help with that. Carpooling could mean less traffic. Split fuel bills. And new friends. Are we friends? Oh, I added you on social media. We don't have social media. We're bobbleheads. Oh, I've got social media. More journeys made together. That's thoughtful driving.

Esso.c.com.uk.

Hello and welcome to Conflicted. The history podcast where we talk about the struggles that

shaped us, the hard questions that they pose, and why we should care about any of it.

I'm your host, Zach Cornwell, and this the United States Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, issued an announcement.

Beginning in 2016, the United States military would allow women to serve in all combat roles

without exception.

They'll be allowed to drive tanks, he said, to fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat.

They'll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers,

and everything else that was previously open only to men.

This was not a universally lauded decision.

In the United States, the case against women's serving in combat was, and in certain circle still is,

a well-documented and ferociously argued position.

Before Carter's announcement, some said women lacked the mental constitution to deal with combat and posed a higher risk of developing PTSD. Others worried

that a gender-integrated military would become a minefield of sexual misconduct, as if that hadn't

...