Defense Secretary Austin Addresses Hegseth’s Comments on Women in Military

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin praised female members of the armed forces, while his potential replacement, Pete Hegseth—who has said women have no place in combat—tries to shore up confirmation support among Republican senators.

In a West Point address Wednesday, Austin recalled one experience while serving in Iraq in 2003, in which he positioned his command post near the action.

“I told my team, ‘Look, we need to win this fight, so I need to be at the front,’ Austin told the audience. ”‘I know what will happen to me if I’m captured. I have no intention of being captured, and I will fight to the last bullet. But the risks are serious. I am enormously proud of all of you, and that won’t ever change. So, if anyone here thinks that they can’t deploy forward, I fully understand, and no one will ever think any less of you.‘"

Austin continued: “The women and men of that incredible team looked at me, and finally one of the women popped up and said, ‘Sir, what are you talking about?’”

The women on his team “didn’t flinch,” he said, even though the risks to them in some ways were greater than to the men.

“That is who the women of the United States military are. Everywhere I’ve gone on a battlefield, I’ve seen women fighting for America. They are incredibly capable, incredibly accomplished, and incredibly brave.”

On his official social media account, Austin posted a similar message.

“The women of the U.S. military face the same dangers, show the same courage, and deliver the same excellence as their male counterparts,” he wrote on X. “Any military that turns away talent makes itself weaker.”

Austin didn’t mention Hegseth directly in this address, but the context was obvious.

Just last month, before Donald Trump nominated him as defense secretary, Hegseth told a podcaster, “I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

“We’ve all served with women, and they’re great,” he argued. “It’s just our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where traditionally—not traditionally, over human history—men in those positions are more capable.”

Women were banned from combat roles until 2013. By the end of 2022, they comprised 17.5 percent of the active duty force, according to the Defense Department.

Austin said that reinstating such a ban would be moving backwards.

“If I get a little fired up about this, it’s just because this isn’t 1950. It isn’t 1948,” he said, alluding to the desegregation of the military. “It is 2024, and we need each and every citizen who steps up to wear the cloth of our nation.”