Vienna, Austria—The opinion piece offered below is authored by GySgt. George Bottorff, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.). He opines on why it is unreasonable for the current administration to unnecessarily continue attacking female service members and why this is ultimately taking an un-American political position. George is a California UOCAVA voter, resident of Austria, and a member of the Democrats Abroad Global Veterans and Military Families (VMF) Caucus.
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At the beginning of this year, with no credible evidence or explanation as to why, it was revealed that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth planned to push the Pentagon to review the performance of women serving in combat roles. This should raise an alarm for us all.
Today’s female service members already meet the same physical standards as their male counterparts. Not only have women been doing this successfully over the past decade, but they’ve been mission-critical and involved in combat-related roles one way or another in all of America’s wars. And despite the mountains of evidence and data showing the benefits of mixed-gender integration among our troops, it’s clear Secretary Hegseth hasn’t done his homework when it comes to recognizing the vast contributions of female service members over the past three centuries, and especially those women who served during combat.
For example, all of the below studies—and dozens more—show positive results when analyzing women allowed into U.S. military combat roles:
● Miller, C.A. 2026, “Perceptions of Women in U.S. Army Combat Units: A Mixed-Methods Study Post-Gender Integration”, Armed Forces & Society, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 395-431.
● Lamb III, R. 2025, “An Equal Right to Combat: Why Banning Women from Ground Combat Positions Would Violate the Equal Protection Clause Today”, Boston College Law Review, vol. 66, no. 8, pp. 2653–89.
● Goldstein, A.N. 2018, “Why are you trying to destroy the last good thing men have? Understanding resistance to women in combat jobs”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 385-404.
● MacKenzie, M.H. 2012, “Let Women Fight: Ending the U.S. Military’s Female Combat Ban”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 91, no. 6, pp. 32-[ii].
[For VMF members wishing to view any of the above studies, they are available upon request in a .pdf format by reaching out to [email protected].]
In short, Secretary Hegseth has yet to justify to Congress why the Pentagon “needs” to revisit the effectiveness of female service members serving in combat roles. There has been zero evidence demonstrating why this is needed, as opposed to him, as the Defense Secretary, simply empowering all of our service members to serve however they’re able to in order to assist with the mission. The secretary often promotes “lethality” and a “warrior ethos” within the Defense Department, but, disturbingly, he hasn’t yet realized that America’s service members have always had a passion for these characteristics, which is why the U.S. Armed Forces was indisputably the world’s finest military well before the secretary was even born in 1980.
To be clear, not only have women service members made a positive impact in America’s defense missions when it comes to combat, but they’ve also been difference-makers in combat support roles as well.
For instance, countless male service members would have perished from combat if it were not for the brave women in the U.S. Army Nurses Corps—many of whom served in combat but weren’t recognized as such.
In a previous post, I touched on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem from 1857, which spotlighted the importance of military nurses. Historically, this was a female-only role in U.S. military contexts, but modern-day nurses include both men and women. But regardless of gender, the role they play is absolutely critical in treating our wounded warriors, and they themselves even occasionally perform their sworn duty in hostile zones.
As a reminder, when the U.S. entered WWII after the events at Pearl Harbor, military nurses went from 7,000 personnel to 57,000. And after the fall of Corregidor in the Philippines, 67 Army nurses were sent to Japanese prison camps, where they endured horrific conditions but still spent the next three years caring for the ill and injured. It would be hard for Secretary Hegseth to find better examples of what it means to be a patriotic American than the women service members described above.
Let’s also take a quick look at America’s recent military conflicts as an example. Twenty years ago, a special call went out to female service members. The Marines and the Army looked at women taking up roles that male soldiers could not do, such as entering villages and searching female locals. These U.S. service members were known as “Lioness” teams. They were also trained in combat tactics because these teams would be deployed outside the wire. Some teams were also given Special Operations Training to deploy with Green Beret units for Village Stability Operations, which was the central part of counterinsurgency efforts. Many of these uniformed women heroes came back from the Middle East with PTSD, and, unlike their male counterparts, shockingly, they could not be treated by VA hospitals because women under the law weren’t recognized as being “combat veterans.”
In 2015, the federal government finally authorized the VA to start treating these warriors for PTSD. But we must also recognize these warriors who have contributed and also given so much to help our military continued to advance in their training. With what these veteran warriors have accomplished, today’s service members stand on their shoulders, for they have laid the foundation for us to follow. This is but a few of the accomplishments of our women warriors.
However, this issue isn’t exclusive to today’s generation of service personnel. As a veteran, I’ve seen the progress made by inclusionary measures, which have bettered the Marine Corps and the Armed Forces in general. Yet, so much progress has been stifled by this backward-thinking defense secretary.
When I served, I performed recruiting duty for a period of time. For those unfamiliar with how this process works, there are two forms of retention in the military: recruiting personnel from civilian communities and reenlisting personnel already in your ranks. I have done both in my time in the Marine Corps.
I was a Battalion Career Planner for 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines (“Hell in a Helmet” was our motto). I had one week of schooling at Division Schools for Career Planners. At the end of the week, they gave me a diploma, my Marine Corps Publication Manual, and they then told me, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
And so, I was sent to Marine recruiting duty in Lynn, Massachusetts. I was there for nine months, and then it was raised to my attention that they needed a replacement recruiter in Frankfurt, Germany. Only two recruiters, another service memberand I had to cover all of Europe as our recruiting territory. In Career Planning, you had a captive audience who might want to change job fields, and I could perform that function. But with recruiting, this was an animal of a different mindset.
The mission I had in recruiting duty was to enlist three Marine recruits per month. I came to realize that this role basically meant you had to talk to 100 people a month and break them down into 20 who appeared to be good prospects. And from those twenty, narrow it down to three individuals who would likely raise their right hand to start on the journey to the famed yellow footprints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot-Parris Island, South Carolina.
This picture I have just painted for you is free of the stress you are seeing in our streets today. The government is beating the very individuals—women—that we would enlist or try to keep in our ranks. Sadly, the common stereotype during my time in service was that females “should go home and learn how to cook and have babies. We do not need you in our military. You will only speak one language, and that is English.” Time has thankfully changed, but today’s leadership at the Pentagon is taking us backward.
Secretary Hegseth is dead wrong in his poor assessment of female service members and their capabilities. With his type of mindset, it tells us that they “should never have been in the U.S. military,” and that “even though we have over a million military and civilians supporting the mission, and service members and DoD personnel who cover every race, culture, religion, and language, you’re not welcome here under this administration.”
The secretary served in uniform, was appointed by the president, and confirmed by the Senate. However, his actions as secretary have proved, sadly, that he never actually learned how to lead. He and the Pentagon are steering without a rudder – you know, that big thing on the back of the boat that gives it direction.
Furthermore, it’s disappointing that during Pete Hegseth’s time as a “journalist” on Fox News, he didn’t cover important historical facts. For instance, the incredible stories of Diane Carlson Evans, Jackie Rhoades, and other U.S. military nurses who served during the Vietnam War show how these brave service members came to experience PTSD, worked in substandard health conditions such as blood-soaked helicopters, and often without necessary medical supplies or a shortage of pain relief medications. As a result, many of these women weren’t immediately recognized for having served in combat or even as military veterans.
Which brings us back to my original point. One way to address the uneven playing field that female combat veterans have had to face is for Congress to pass the Jax Act. This legislation would at least formally recognize the women who served in combat zones since Operation Iraqi Freedom, which doesn’t cover all women vets, but at least it’s a start. Far too many female veterans are still waiting for proper recognition on their military records, and therefore continue to be denied certain VA benefits until this is corrected.
It is shocking that this administration wants to put women service members back in a box, and that they’re “happy” to want to erase what they have contributed. These women warriors not only contributed countless efforts to our nation, but they also set an impressive path for male and female service members to follow. We owe them a profound debt of gratitude. I am proud to stand in their ranks, for there is no doubt these are our warrior sisters.
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U.S. citizens living abroad, both civilian and military, are highly encouraged to check your voter registration status and request your ballot for any upcoming elections in your home voting state that you are eligible to vote in.
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