CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Three enlisted female Marines are reporting to a ground combat unit in North Carolina and are among the first women in the service to do so.

1st Lt. John McCombs, a Marine Corps spokesman with the Second Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, says the three report Thursday to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. McCombs says the unit has three female officers that will assist them.

The Marines are declining to identify the enlisted women. Armistead says they will serve as a rifleman, a machine gunner and a mortar Marine. There are some 40,000 Marines in the Expeditionary Force.

In June, The Associated Press reported the Marine Corps had seven female officers either serving in combat posts or waiting in line to serve, and 167 women with non-combat jobs in front-line units.