Another Trump pick ruffling feathers, decorated military veteran and Fox
News host Pete Hegseth has been nominated for Secretary of
Defense.
Now Hegseth has detailed his plans for In your total
reformation of the Department of Defense.
And those plans include purging what he calls woke generals,
also eliminating diversity goals.
And he has spoken out forcefully against women being in
combat roles.
Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation
more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse.
So for more, I want to bring in retired U.S.
Army Captain Garrett Jordan along with retired U.S.
Army Colonel Ellen Herring.
Thank you both for being here with us.
And and Ellen, in terms of your service, you've also
done a ton of research specifically on women in combat
since those jobs opened up roughly 10 years ago.
What would you initially just respond to Mr.
Hegseth with about his comments?
Well, first of all, I'd like to say that he
probably doesn't have a clue about how many women are
currently serving in those combat roles.
Now we have over 2500 women serving in combat roles.
They serve across the force in all, all military ground
combat units.
We have 152 women who are qualified Rangers and 10
who are in the 75th Ranger Regiment.
I don't think he recognizes or realizes that women have
been doing this for almost 10 years now.
They've successfully integrated.
And furthermore, what's really puzzling to me is that the
majority of this integration or it began under President Trump's
first term in office.
So in from 2016 to 2020, when President Trump was
there and it was his administration who did the initial
integration push for women.
It's just peculiar that now he's bringing in a potential
sect F who now says women shouldn't be in those
positions and they're going to repeal the work of Trump's
first administration.
Well, and Garrett, you have served alongside women in combat.
Can you give us your point of view also on
the training standards and what it looks like in the
real world?
So just to clarify, I I've served along women and
combat arms units.
I was a tank platoon leader as a Lieutenant.
And then once I finished my Lieutenant time, I went
over to a 19K once one station unit training company
as a company commander.
During that time we had the opportunity to roll out
the 1st 22 week program of instruction for 19K soldiers,
which are essentially soldiers that are going to be on
tanks.
It was gender integrated.
Our female soldiers met the standard the same as man,
even though we introduced even more rigor to include a
lot more physical training to be aligned with our Army
combat fitness test, as well as just the overall rigor
and physical meticulousness that comes with maintaining and operating a
tank, which, you know, is a 72 ton machine.
A lot of physical aptitude is required and our female
soldiers met the standard the same way as our males
did as their male counterparts.
I feel that it's really important to highlight that that
diversity and inclusion that we have as a since, you
know, our overall Army is a microcosm of our society
and women have made a lot of headway and they
continue to do so.
So I think it's really good that we continue to
push them and allow them to have those opportunities to
serve.
And Ellen, you heard Garrett there point out some of
the standards that need to be met here.
And and these standards have changed over the years, right?
They've sort of shifted, but have they ever been lowered
to make it easier for a woman to serve?
No, absolutely not.
In fact, when we decided that we were going to
open combat arms to women, they, they had to establish
clearly identified, quantifiable standards.
So in the three years where they studied opening combat
jobs to women, all the services were required to set
measurable standards.
And once they began setting the standards, they realized that
these were pretty tough standards that many of the men
who were serving in these units and occupations weren't able
to meet.
So they they worked on standards over a period of
years, three years to be exact, They finally came to
what they believed were reasonable standards that the majority of
units could meet.
And it was those standards, that defining of standards that
people have called into question, when in reality, the previous
standards were very loose, not quantifiable.
And it was the introduction of women that made the
services come up with clear, quantifiable standards that all soldiers
would make.
And you've have brought up that fact, right, that there
is a standard and all soldiers, Garrett, regardless of of
their gender, they should be able to serve if they
can meet those standards.
But I am, I am curious, Garrett, if there's any
sense here that perhaps Heg Seth was saying this kind
of quiet part out loud that if there is there
any background conversations that are happening that might sort of
reiterate what he said publicly that he does not think
women belong in combat.
So I really can't speak to that aspect specifically.
I know during my time as a company commander, we
were very much focused on ensuring that everyone felt to
be a member of the team.
At the end of the day, being in a tank
unit is a pretty small organization.
Everyone has to be very cohesive and fill us with
their part of the team.
So any type of conversation that made people feel ostracized
was never tolerated for.
For example, when I was a company commander, we actually
were introducing something that was known as a Thunder run.
We were moving away from the shark attack in which
drill sergeants would be all inside of trainees personal space
and really degrading them.
And we wanted to make it more of a team
building atmosphere.
And I feel that that played a huge role, huge
dividends in the success of our trainees.
Well, this has been a very interesting conversation and I'm
so grateful to both of you for being here with
us and thankful to you for your service and your
research as well.
I thank you both for being here with us.
Retired Colonel in the Army Ellen Herring and Garrett as
well.
Thank you for being with us.