WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has revived a debate that many thought had long been settled: Should women be allowed to serve their country by fighting on the front lines ?
The former Fox News commentator has made it clear in his own book and in interviews that he believes men and women should not serve together in combat units. If confirmed by the Senate, Hegseth could try to end the Pentagon’s nearly decade-old practice of opening all combat jobs to women.
“I’m just saying honestly that we shouldn’t have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Didn’t make us deadlier. It has made the fights more complicated,” he said on a Shawn Ryan podcast on November 7. Women have a place in the military, he said, but not in special operations, artillery, infantry and armor units.
Hegseth’s comments provoked a barrage of praise and condemnation. And they asked a question:
“Who will replace them? Gentlemen? And we’re having trouble recruiting men into the military right now,” said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who works with the Service Women’s Action Network.
The military services have struggled for years to meet recruitment goals and faced stiff competition from companies that pay more and offer similar or better benefits. And a growing group of young people are not interested in participating or cannot meet the physical, academic and moral demands.
Removing women from the competition for jobs, according to Manning, could force the services to lower standards to bring in more men who have not completed high school, have criminal records or score too low on physical and mental tests.
Lawmakers are divided over Hegseth’s positions.
“Where do you think I lost my legs, in a bar fight? I’m pretty sure I was in the fray when that happened,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., snapped in a CNN interview last Wednesday after Trump’s selection was announced.
Duckworth, who served combat missions in Iraq and lost both legs when her helicopter was hit, added: “It just shows how out of touch he is with the nature of modern warfare if he thinks we’re putting women behind that kind of imaginary can maintain boundaries. .”
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., praised Hegseth and said the reality is that certain military jobs “just require brute force. But he added: “Women have served incredibly well and honorably in combat roles, and I don’t think the policy is going to change, but we’ll leave it up to him.”
Others, including some military wives, disagree.
“Pete Hegseth’s views on women in the military are outdated, biased and ignore more than two decades of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of women in combat roles,” said Erin Kirk, a Marine Corps combat veteran. She said women have served honorably and effectively as pilots, logistics personnel, intelligence operatives and infantry grunts.
“Hegseth’s positions are not only regressive, they pose a direct threat to the readiness of the Department of Defense, and by extension, to our national security,” Kirk said.
Hegseth has said he’s not suggesting women shouldn’t be fighter pilots, but that they shouldn’t have jobs like SEALs, Army Rangers, infantry, armor and artillery, where “strength is a differentiator.” He insists the military has lowered standards to get more women into combat roles. The services have said they have not lowered standards for any of the combat lanes.
Hegseth’s views on women in combat reflect much of the debate over the past nine years, in the wake of then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s order in late 2015 that the Army open all military jobs to women. That change followed three years of study and argument and was a formal recognition that thousands of women had served – and many were wounded or killed – on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Carter said then that the military can no longer afford to exclude half the population from high-risk military posts and that any man or woman who meets the standards should be able to serve.
The Marine Corps strongly opposed the idea and requested an exemption, but it was denied. Special Operations Forces surveys conducted in 2015 and more recently show that women do not have the physical or mental strength to serve in elite commando units. This could affect the effectiveness of the units and lower standards.
The numbers are small, but women have gone through the grueling qualification courses to join special operations units. Two serve as Navy Special Warfare combat crew members, three in Air Force special operations units and fewer than 10 are Green Berets.
More than 150 women have completed the Army Ranger Course, and hundreds more serve in Army Special Operations Command jobs such as civil affairs, psychological operations and helicopter pilots, including in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
And more broadly, thousands of women have served or are currently serving in jobs that until 2015 were reserved for men, including in the artillery, infantry and armor units of the Army and Marine Corps.
Lowering standards has been a major talking point for Hegseth.
By opening combat spaces to women, “we’ve changed the norms by putting them there, which means you’ve changed the capabilities of that unit,” Hegseth said in the podcast interview.
Both male and female troops have spoken out against any lowering of employment standards since the debate began.
Manning, the Navy captain, said Hegseth is conflating two separate standards issues.
The services adjust requirements for the annual physical fitness test based on a service member’s age and gender, but they do not adjust requirements for specific jobs.
Every job, Manning said, “has a set of occupational standards that must be met.” These range from physical strength and abilities to things like color blindness or academic testing. “By law, they must be gender neutral. And they are, and they have been for years,” she said.
Monica Meeks, who lives near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, spent 20 years in the military and served in Iraq. She said she served with women in several infantry jobs, including being the first female platoon sergeant in the 18th Airborne Corps.
“When people say that women should not serve in a combat zone, such as an IED (improvised explosive device), this can happen at any time. So there is no front line in these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Meeks said.
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Associated Press writer Kristin M. Hall in Adams, Tennessee contributed to this report.
