Many veterans, service members and officials in the Defense Department worry that decades of progress could be unraveled in a matter of months if Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, is confirmed by the Senate.
Army veterans who spoke to CBS News are concerned Hegseth would seek to reinstate a ban that would bar women from serving in ground-based combat units. Hegseth contends he wants tougher standards that both men and women would have to achieve and maintain, but he has written about and spoken extensively against the inclusion of women in ground-based direct combat roles.
“I would love for him [Hegseth] to look into the eyes of the loved ones of the women who were killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq and tell them that they were not in combat or that their loved ones were not worthy of putting it all on the line or putting themselves in the line of fire to serve our country,” said Allison Jaslow, a former Army captain and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the post-9/11 nonprofit veterans organization.
After the Gulf War in the early 1990s, Republicans and Democrats in Congress recognized the role women played in the conflict by repealing an exclusionary statute from 1948 that barred women from positions where they potentially could be exposed to combat, and lawmakers did so over the objections of most senior military leaders and Pentagon officials at the time. The rescinded ban in 1993 opened the door for women to serve in air and naval combat units.
Eleven years ago, the direct combat exclusion rule was lifted and by 2015, women began reporting to ground combat units, including infantry and special operations.
Allowing women in combat roles has been widely embraced in the U.S. The majority of voters from both major political parties and independents supported the change and said it would not harm military effectiveness, the Pew Research Center found in 2013.
Hegseth — an Army veteran-turned-Fox News host — and his defenders contend the criticism and concern expressed by Jaslow and others is baseless. Over the past few weeks, Hegseth and his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, also a Navy veteran, have sought to clarify his position.
“Everybody is taking the initial click-bait headline of ‘I’m straight-up saying no women in combat,’ and they’re just stopping there. [They] don’t listen to the rest. What does he mean by that? It doesn’t matter, we’re offended by the broad sweeping statement, and you don’t see there really is more nuance to it,” Parlatore told CBS News by phone.
Following Trump’s announcement that Hegseth was his pick for defense secretary, a video clip of Hegseth on former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan’s podcast lit a firestorm about the issue of women serving in combat roles.
“I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” said Hegseth on the podcast in early November. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
He added, “I’m not even talking about pilots…I’m talking about the physical, labor intensive-type jobs … [Navy] SEALs, [Army] Rangers, [Army] Green Berets, you know, MARSOC [Marine Forces Special Operations Command], infantry battalions, armor, artillery … I’m talking something where strength is the differentiator.”
In his book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published in June, Hegseth details myriad reasons he believes women should not serve in ground-based, direct combat roles in a chapter titled “The (Deadly) Obsession with Women Warriors.” Hegseth elaborated on his views of women in combat and suggested what his approach to the issue would be if he’s confirmed by the Senate.
“Dads push us to take risks,” Hegseth wrote. “Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”
Hegseth, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, contends that the integration of women into ground-based combat units that have historically been male-dominated, combined with “our loss of a Christian ethos for God’s creation,” have incorrectly reduced men and women to a state of parity, despite the difference between the sexes in physical strength. Hegseth believes this integration is “dangerous” when it comes to direct combat roles.
Moreover, Hegseth argues that training women to kill in war runs counter to a woman’s “core instincts” of motherhood. Here’s what he wrote about this idea:
Women are life givers, regardless of what the abortion industry might want us to think. This role was embedded in human beings and was one of the clear reasons why the only, even mythologically articulated, successful women in combat narratives involve separatist societies of nonchildbearing women who live apart from men. To create a society of warrior women you must separate them first from men, and then from the natural purposes of their core instincts.
He says allowing women to serve in combat roles subverts the norms of a civilized society where men are “trained to treat women differently than we treat men.”
“Women in combat forces men to ignore those civilized instincts. If you train a group of men to treat women equally on the battlefield then you will be hard pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home,” Hegseth said in his book.
Hegseth does not seem to object to women serving in the military in general or in supportive combat roles, such as those in the medical or aviation fields. At one point, he celebrated Army soldier Leigh Ann Hester, who received the Silver Star for her actions in Iraq, making her the first woman in the military to receive the third-highest award for combat valor since World War II. However, he also said another woman was awarded the Silver Star because of “an agenda.” Hegseth stressed that soldiers like Hester are outliers when it comes to ground combat.
He proposes a single standard for a given job in the military that both men and women alike must achieve, with additional standards to maintain membership in specialty roles.
In his book, Hegseth complained that the military has quietly made it easier for women to meet its standards, to the detriment of some branches. For instance, he mentioned the Army Airborne School’s daily five-mile run, which had been a staple for its troops (though not a requirement) and once served to weed out weaker candidates. “Too many women were washing out, so the run went away,” he wrote.
The Army dropped the five mile run from airborne school in 2018, according to Task & Purpose, a news website which covers the U.S. military and veteran community. An Army colonel told the news outlet, “Analysis found the physical training requirements did not correlate with meeting any course learning objectives related to static line parachute operations such as safely donning a parachute, exiting a high-performance aircraft, controlling descent, or performing a parachute landing fall.”
Retired Army Command Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Mellinger, who was interviewed for the article, said some service members believe making training less difficult equates to lowering standards. He noted that many soldiers had also protested years ago when the Army allowed soldiers to run in shoes, rather than boots. That change was made to stem running injuries.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment before this report published, but in a speech at West Point in early December, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dismissed the idea that women should not be in combat roles.
“So look, if I get a little fired up about this, it’s just because this isn’t 1950. It isn’t 1948. It is 2024,” Austin said, according to the Associated Press. “And any military that turns away tough, talented patriots — women or men — is just making itself weaker and smaller. So enough already.”
An Army officer who spoke with CBS News said she didn’t object to unisex standards, but she is concerned that Hegseth would work to eliminate equality of opportunity for women in the military who want to be in ground-based combat units.
The Army officer, who’s an artillery operator, spoke under the condition of anonymity because she’s not authorized to speak publicly, due to Defense Department media regulations.
“I’ve thought more about getting out of the Army in the last three months than I ever have in my life, but honestly, they would have to force me out,” the officer told CBS News. “I’m an artilleryman or I’m not in the Army. … I wish we could just be in the Army and have a good time and do our job, but I keep having to defend my existence to people who don’t care if I live or die. … But they’re going to have to drag me out of the artillery field.”
Hegseth’s attorney maintains these fears are unfounded.
“None of Pete Hegseth’s policies would prevent a Second Lieutenant Jodi Ernst from being a combat veteran,” Parlatore told CBS News, pointing to GOP Sen. Jodi Ernst of Iowa as an example. He added, “It’s going to make it a bit more difficult for Second Lieutenant Jodi Ernst to become a Green Beret because she’s going to have to meet the unisex standard.”
Ernst served in Iraq and Kuwait and retired from the Iowa Army National Guard at the rank of lieutenant colonel after 23 years of service. On Tuesday, Ernst seemed to suggest she was more comfortable with Hegseth as a defense secretary nominee and said she looked forward to a fair hearing, and one that she said would not rely on anonymous sources.
Ernst, who is the first female combat veteran elected to the Senate, also said in a statement: “Pete committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the roles and value of our servicemen and women — based on quality and standards, not quotas.”
Army Maj. Gen. Tammy Smith, who retired in 2021, told CBS News that Hegseth seems to be overly concerned with tactical issues over a strategic vision for the Defense Department.
“I find that [views on women in combat roles] to be a tactical viewpoint in a position that is supposed to have the greatest influence on our long term strategy,” said Smith. “I think his approach to some of these tactical issues doesn’t convey a background in experience that is required to lead the largest organization in our government, and so it’s my armchair quarterback assessment that he doesn’t have the background, managerial or character skills in order to lead the institution that he’s being nominated to lead.”
She added, “It really disappoints me in the lack of seriousness that the president-elect is conveying by this particular selection to be our secretary of defense…I know that there are people out there who meet all the conservative requirements that an administration gets to choose from when they win an election.”
For now, Hegseth continues to enjoy strong support from Trump and others, as he continues to meet with the GOP Senate lawmakers on Capitol Hill who will be critical to his confirmation prospects. Reports that Trump was considering potentially replacing Hegseth with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis amid allegations of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement of two veterans’ groups seem to have subsided.
More than 30 military veterans who are House Republicans signed a letter expressing their “strong support” for Hegseth, Fox News reported Wednesday.
Parlatore told CBS News that Hegseth is focused on communicating his defense policy visions to senators: “He’s going to be a great defense secretary for the rank-and-file.”
