Top enlisted leaders from each service told lawmakers Wednesday that they support women serving in any role in the military, including combat arms, if they meet the established standards.
Enlisted leaders from the five services, as well as the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that they have yet to see any indication that women serving in combat units have caused standards to lower.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent call for a review of the effectiveness of women in combat roles prompted Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, to question the service leaders during a Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee hearing.
“This is an attack on women to call for this kind of review,” Hirono said during the hearing focusing on troops’ quality of life. “I think that he is laying the groundwork to reverse the policy allowing women to serve in combat arms positions.”
Hirono added that she plans to introduce legislation to codify the DOD policy allowing women to serve in combat arms positions as long as they meet required standards.
The six-month assessment, first reported by NPR in January, requires the Army and Marine Corps to submit data to assess the operational effectiveness of ground combat units. It will also analyze how women have integrated into these ground combat roles over the span of more than a decade.
“I’ve seen no data that supports that there is any lowering of standards or that there’s lowering of the readiness of units with those females in the units,” Navy Master Chief David L. Isom, senior enlisted adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the hearing.
“I’m not seeing anything that leads me to believe there’s an issue with meeting the standard or affecting readiness,” Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer added.
Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe said he has served with “some of the best warfighters that the world has ever known” in the Air Force. “Some of them happen to be men, some of them happen to be women. Absolutely not, I’ve not seen any erosion.”
From the Space Force, the service’s Chief Master Sgt. John Bentivegna noted that “we have not seen any erosion in the readiness based on any of the administration’s positions.”
Hegseth’s review, Hirono added, “undermines the sacrifice of thousands of female service members who have already met the rigorous gender neutral standards and have served in combat with distinction.”
She said everyone who wants to serve their country should have the opportunity to do so, to include LGBTQ members.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book “A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families.” She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.