MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President-elect Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has a long record of comments as a Fox News host. Among them, he has demanded a purge of what he calls woke policy and leadership at the Pentagon, including reversing the decision to formally allow women to serve in combat. Here's Hegseth speaking on Shawn Ryan's podcast earlier this month.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "SHAWN RYAN SHOW")
PETE HEGSETH: 'Cause 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.
KELLY: But women have been doing combat jobs since long before it was formally allowed in 2015. NPR's Quil Lawrence spoke with a few of them to hear what they think.
LISA JASTER: Yes. My name is Lisa Jaster. I was one of the first three women to graduate Army Ranger School.
ZOE BEDELL: My name is Zoe Bedell. I served in the Marine Corps. I ran a program called the Female Engagement Team, operating in Afghanistan basically in whatever way we could support the mission.
CHARLEY FALLETTA: So my name is Charley Falletta. I also passed Ranger School and served as a mortar platoon leader in Afghanistan as well as commanding a troop of paratroopers in Germany.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Jaster and former Captains Bedell and Falletta - they've heard people say women don't belong in combat jobs their whole careers, often while they were successfully doing those jobs.
BEDELL: It was all managed to be worked out without drama.
JASTER: As long as I could carry my own load, I could keep up with everyone else. I could do my job as good as the man to my left and right.
FALLETTA: It's an existential threat that you're facing that you need to overcome. And you're not really focused on who is - you know, the gender of the person who's, you know, fighting next to you at that point.
JASTER: Could I share a foxhole with you? Would you have my back in a firefight? If we were planning an attack, are you smart enough to know how to shoot, move, communicate and move your troops?
LAWRENCE: Women have served in every U.S. war since the Revolution. But in the counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, male GIs simply couldn't talk with local women and children to gather intelligence, says retired Sergeant First Class Jeramy Smith.
JERAMY SMITH: We were like, hey. We need females to come work with us. Like, we have to have them on target. Not having females on target is just really, really dumb. So we were like, OK, so how can we do this?
LAWRENCE: It wasn't strictly allowed yet, but they did it. And after women did those combat patrols, it was hard to argue that they couldn't. Smith served in the Army's Ranger Assessment and Selection Program, where he watched women qualify for everything.
SMITH: All the stereotypes just literally melted away from there. All the old ideas that people had out there - you know, they can't do this; they can't do it - no, I watched chicks smoke it.
LAWRENCE: The nominee to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, says the military has lowered its standards in favor of diversifying the force. But legally, the standards for combat jobs are the same for any gender. Right now about 70% of men pass them, and about 50% of women do.
FALLETTA: So there's no evidence anywhere that standards have been lower, and there's no evidence that women haven't met the standards that exist once they get into those jobs.
LAWRENCE: That's former Captain Charley Falletta again. She was the 78th woman to pass Ranger School, a grueling physical, mental and emotional test. Having the Ranger tab on your shoulder is seen as a prerequisite for leadership in the infantry and any senior command. Lots of women can't pass it. Lots of men can't either. In fact, Falletta points out Pete Hegseth doesn't have a Ranger tab, which she says makes it pretty rich for Hegseth to say she wasn't qualified to do her job. NPR reached out to Hegseth for comment but received no reply. Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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