ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is once again drawing scrutiny for his personal behavior. His ex-sister-in-law has told senators he was abusive to his second wife. But Republican support for the former Fox News host remains strong, and he is expected to be confirmed.
One of his most contentious views is that the military has lowered standards to include women in combat. Advocates say they have fought against similar claims since all combat positions were opened to women in 2015. Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk has the story.
STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: During his confirmation hearings, Hegseth pointed to interviews conducted for his book "War On Warriors."
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PETE HEGSETH: I spent months talking to active-duty service members - men and women, low ranks, high ranks, combat arms and not combat arms. And what each and every one of them told me and which personal instances have shown me, is that in ways direct, indirect, overt and subtle, standards have been changed.
WALSH: In 2012, now-retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Haring was part of a University of Virginia lawsuit. The suit eventually led Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to lift the remaining restrictions to allow women to serve in all combat roles.
ELLEN HARING: Not only have standards not been lowered, but when they first decided that - when they were going to open combat jobs to women, the services were given three years to actually set standards because up until that point in time, standards had been very loosely defined. They had changed over time.
WALSH: Haring also led a study which followed the careers of two dozen Army infantry officers and enlisted soldiers as they made their way through the process. She says leadership sets the tone.
HARING: One young enlisted woman that we talked to not too long ago - and she wasn't even part of the study - she said she would show up at formation, and they would chant - the men in her platoon would chant, kill yourself, kill yourself.
WALSH: She remains in contact with women currently serving in combat roles. Haring says they are watching the comments made by Hegseth and senators who question whether they are bringing down the performance of their units.
HARING: They feel like they've been sucker-punched, essentially. You know, they've struggled to earn their place in these occupations and units, and many of them have been very successful, and they're afraid they're going to lose their jobs.
WALSH: In recent weeks, Hegseth walked back comments made while promoting his book, where he said women did not belong in ground combat units. Without citing specific examples, he continued to say quotas were imposed on commanders to pass women. Kate Kuzminski studies women in the military for the Center for a New American Security.
KATE KUZMINSKI: If this were truly just a social experiment where we were lowering standards to let more women through, I think we would see much better data than what we're seeing, which is actually the upholding of these immensely difficult standards.
WALSH: Thousands serve in Army infantry roles, but women remain a fraction of the overall combat roles, she says.
LORY MANNING: He is right that not many women do pass a lot of these tests, but the ones who do are very darn good at what they do.
WALSH: Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain, says all services are required to make occupational standards gender neutral since 1994. For several years, the Army did experiment with a neutral standard for the physical fitness test that all soldiers are required to pass, but by 2022, the service reinstated gender and age standards because the failure rate was too high. She says a woman who could make it through the grueling Ranger School should easily pass the male version of the Army's basic fitness test.
MANNING: A lot of it is just, you know - it's the same sort of gossip that goes around on anything. It's not fair I flunked out and she didn't.
WALSH: The Senate is expected to vote on Hegseth's nomination as soon as this week. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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