Pete Hegseth, a military veteran, is being considered for the position of Secretary of Defense under President-elect Donald Trump. The potential appointment has generated a lot of interest and criticism, particularly regarding Hegseth’s opinions on women serving in combat roles.
Hegseth’s nomination has brought back the contentious issue of whether women should be allowed to engage in frontline combat. Despite the widespread belief that this topic had already been settled, the debate has been reignited due to his stance on the matter.
As a former Fox News commentator, Hegseth has been vocal about his belief that men and women should not serve together in combat units. His views, expressed in his book and various interviews, suggest that he may push to reverse the current policy that allows women to hold combat positions in the military if he is confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” he said in a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7. Women have a place in the military, he said, just not in special operations, artillery, infantry and armor units.
I happen to think Pete Hegseth is right, and I could give you many reasons. I am, however, a man, and while that shouldn’t make a difference, it does in some quarters; so, instead, I thought I would leverage the opinion of a woman who has served in a combat zone. The woman I refer to served in the Army Reserve/National Guard for eight years and deployed for Operation Desert Storm, where, as a First Lieutenant, she set up and ran a novel medical facility on the airhead at King Khalid Military City; for this, she was awarded the Bronze Star. She was also, somehow, according to the VA, exposed to a low dose of a nerve agent which causes chronic pain in her left leg and hip, along with balance issues; for this, she has been on disability for over 20 years. They told her that she would be in a wheelchair by the time our youngest went to kindergarten; she said, “No, I won’t,” and she is still walking, and that kid is now 28 years old.
She agrees with Pete Hegseth and is adamantly against women serving in combat-arms roles. I know this because I happen to have been married to this woman for 32 years.
My wife is, of course, all in favor of women serving in the military. Her service in a medical unit gave her great insight into the behavior of banged-up soldiers and refugees returning from the field. As she put it, on many occasions, when these young men came in hurting and saw a woman leading the litter teams, one could see the stress bleed off them; they were still hurting, but the presence of a woman meant they were away from the shooting and out of danger. But there’s much more to the issue than just that.
There are physical issues involved, of course. We have been over this time and again; men are not only stronger, faster, and with more endurance than women, but they are also more resistant to traumatic injury. There are, as my wife points out, also hygiene issues women in the field deal with that men do not. There are also psychological issues, not the least of which is a certain rather visceral response some people have to danger; this issue has destroyed marriages and resulted in scandal upon scandal.
But there are even larger issues: As, again, my wife would point out (we’ve discussed it), consider the nature of the foes American troops have been facing in the last few years. Consider the likely fate of women soldiers who are captured by those foes. Men, of course, suffer from capture by barbarians, but women? The physical and psychological trauma of women being, let’s be perfectly honest, gang-raped is something that has to be taken seriously, as does the likelihood that men will do reckless things to protect the women; that’s how we are wired. That’s what men do.
Pete Hegseth is correct. Women should not serve in combat-arms roles. Support roles, yes, medical units in particular. I’ve seen for myself the reaction of banged-up young men being unloaded from an ambulance and being greeted by a young woman, and seen how their relief is palpable.
It’s bad enough that we men have to serve in direct combat. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be necessary. But we don’t live in an ideal world; to quote a famous movie scene, in this world there are walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. That is the role of a man, and that is for good reason. My wife understands that. It’s too bad that Lloyd Austin doesn’t.
