Karan Engelkamp, an Air Force veteran, wouldn’t hesitate to serve in a combat situation.

“When you sign up, you sign up for the whole package,” she said while at the VFW Post 7670 in Overpeck on Thursday. “We’ve come so far with women’s roles in the military, I think it’s only right that if you sign up, you do your fair share.”

The announcement Thursday by the Pentagon officially rescinded the ban on women — 152 of whom already have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — from participating in direct ground combat.

The decision will allow women to fully take the fight to the enemy by Jan. 1, 2016. It came on the heels of a recommendation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fully integrate women into occupational fields to the maximum extent possible. Women previously were barred from serving in artillery, armor, infantry and other combat units by a 1994 rule.

“It’s a landmark victory,” said Kathy Platoni, an Army Reserve colonel and Centerville psychologist who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “It’s about time and in many ways was long overdue because there is no rear echelon. Everybody is on the front-line in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Women make up about 15 percent of the U.S. military’s 1.4 million active personnel, but not everyone is ready to see them in combat, including some local veterans.

Sitting Thursday afternoon in the American Legion Post 218 bar in Middletown, World War II veteran Jay Holman said he “never dreamed” he’d live to see a time when women would be allowed in combat.

Acknowledging the generational differences, the 86-year-old feared the worst.

“They would create distractions and probably get both them and the men killed,” he said.

Larry Reynolds, 86, also was at the American Legion Post 218. He served in the Army during WWII and said while some women may pass the physical tests that shouldn’t qualify them for combat.

“Bad idea,” he said, shaking his head.

Meanwhile, Mardis Parker, an Air Force retiree and ROTC program instructor at Lebanon High School, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that lifting the ban was a good idea, as long as it’s implemented smartly. He said he’s not surprised by the decision, he just hopes the process goes slowly and doesn’t include certain missions.

“It could work,” the 45-year-old said. “The way I look at it, it’s more about the caliber of the person; more of a character issue than a male-female, black-white issue.”

Women have served as gunners, medics, truck drivers and combat helicopter pilots in the Army, Platoni noted.

“We’ve been in those combat roles for a very long time so this kind of validates what we’ve been doing all along,” she said.

Lifting the ban will remove obstructions women face to the highest ranks of the military, the colonel added.

“I’ve been fortunate to have served with an awful lot of gutsy women who will not balk at anything thrown their way,” she said.

Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the only four-star female general currently in the U.S. military, said Thursday the policy change provides an even greater pool of airmen to select from to fill jobs.

Ninety-nine percent of all Air Force positions are open to women, and the change will open the remaining 1 percent — jobs such as special operations and pararescue.

“In order to remain the world’s premier Air Force, it’s important that we continue to embrace diversity by attracting, recruiting, developing, mentoring and retaining the best possible talent — male and female,” Wolfenbarger said in a statement.

While in Iraq, the perpetual barrage of mortars didn’t take Stephanie Cameron’s sex into account.

“The enemy doesn’t see a gender,” the Springfield resident and Army reservist said. “They just see the uniform.”

Thursday’s decision seemed inevitable to Cameron, who noted that the traditional boundaries of war have changed.

“It was bound to happen,” said Cameron, a sergeant and a veteran of two tours in Iraq. “Whether I was going to see it in my lifetime is a whole other story.”

“We can stand up and handle any fight and any battle,” she added.

Staff writers Richard Jones and Barrie Barber contributed to this report.