The Case for Women Leading in the Military

By Lindsey Sin, CalVet Deputy Secretary for Communications

The tradition of women serving in the U.S. Armed Forces is woven into the storied history of this nation. From the country’s founding, through various wars and conflicts to modern times, women steadfastly answered the call to serve, with increased participation in new roleswhenever and wherever possible.

Women have always exceeded the expectations of their military service; they now serve in more roles and in higher numbers than at any point in our history. In the next decade, we should expect to have the first woman Secretary of Defense, Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and woman Secretary of the VA; three barriers women have yet to break through.

History makes a clear case for the military skills and abilities of women; today, you don’t have to look far to find a woman who is breaking down barriers in military service.

Women have exceeded expectations throughout our nation’s military and wartime history

Even though they served in auxiliary roles throughout most of the country’s existence, women proved their courage and capability in a wide range of roles during wartime, including serving as cooks, clerks, couriers, nurses, and spies.

According to the Military Women’s Memorial, women providing medical care and triage of wounded troops in the Spanish-American War was so highly valued that it led to the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901 and the Navy Nurse Corps in 1908.

Further proof is evident in the long list of intrepid women who contributed to military intelligence and spycraft. Women such as Underground Railroad conductor and escaped slave Harriet Tubman, who spied for the Union Army; or famous entertainer Hedy Lamar, whose World War II era invention became the foundation for classified communications equipment and cellular phone technology.

By the end of World War II, women had already proven themselves indispensable to the war effort

The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, passed in 1948, officially established women as part of the U.S. military and entitled them to veterans’ benefits, but heavily restricted their participation by capping the total percentage of who could serve, restricting the rank they could achieve and the jobs they could perform. In the decades that followed, women took every opportunity to enlist or commission into the armed forces, all while experiencing gender-specific restrictions on their promotions and job opportunities.

During the first Gulf War, women again demonstrated their abilities during wartime, including as helicopter pilots. In 1991, Congress voted to repeal the 1948 restriction on women flying combat aircraft, though other combat restrictions remained. It should also be noted that the brave women serving in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, primarily as nurses, volunteered to serve, since women have never been included in the U.S. Military Draft.

All military occupations are now open to women

The 2013 repeal of the ban on women in combat, which opened all military occupations to women by 2016 was yet another opportunity that women quickly seized. To date, over fifty women have graduated from the U.S. Army Ranger School, which only began admitting women in 2015. According to the Department of Defense, among all women on active duty in 2019, 16 percent graduated from a military service academy, first opened to women in 1976; thousands of women have since graduated from the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy, and West Point.

The list of accomplishments and milestones achieved by military women over the last decade alone is significant and their numbers will continue to grow both in active duty and reserve units, and then as veterans. Throughout our history, women have demonstrated time and again their courage and dynamic abilities. We should expect nothing less than women at the helm of our military organizations in the years to come.

Contact the California Department of Veterans Affairs to learn more about state and federal veterans benefits, and to learn how we support California’s 1.6 million veterans and their families. - www.calvet.ca.gov