The truck carrying the women was always inadequately armored, with makeshift metal shielding that only rose to their shoulders, leaving their heads and necks dangerously exposed. They had neither weapons of their own, nor a sufficient number of male escorts on their truck or in Humvees to protect them. They traveled the same predictable route at the same times, morning and evening–allowing rebels to use an IED to suicide-bomb the women’s vehicle. “If screening Iraqis did not constitute a combat job, the daily commute between camp and city would amount to one,” a New York Times investigation of the incident concluded.

That’s what Hegseth wants to restore to the military: more danger for male and female service members alike, say the many critics of his policy. “He’s trying to turn the military into a white male Christian nationalist force,” Goldbeck says. “We will be less safe. It’s embarrassing and saddening.”

Former Marine captain Maura Sullivan served as senior adviser to the Secretary of the Navy in 2015 and 2016, and worked on implementing the policy of opening combat roles to women. (She is running for Congress from New Hampshire, as a so-called “Hell Cat,” four female Democratic veterans trying to flip purple seats or hold blue ones in the midterms.) Sullivan served in Iraq in 2005, and clearly recalled the deadly Fallujah attack. “If [the female Marines] could have bunked on the base with the men, there wouldn’t have had to be that twice-daily convoy to get them [to the checkpoints and back],” Sullivan said.

Conservative former Representative Duncan Hunter, chair of the House Armed Services Committee at the time, “threatened to introduce legislation that would have removed women from forward support units in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is exactly what our jobs were,” Sullivan recalled. “We were in a combat logistics battalion in direct support of an infantry regiment. When our commander heard [Hunter’s take], he just kind of scoffed and he goes, ‘I might be mission incapable if they did that.’” So many women were already serving key roles running convoys and security patrols, “where you are exposed to the dangers of small arms fire and roadside bombs, very much in combat,” Sullivan recalled. Hunter’s move failed, and within years military leaders were beginning to explore the possibility of training and equipping women to serve in combat roles.

As female members of the military and their advocates in the Pentagon and Congress ramped up pressure, military leaders articulated two main points of opposition. “What needed to happen was to show [military leaders] that this policy was not going to lower standards, and that there were no quotas involved. That was key,” Sullivan recalled. “All people had to meet the same physical standards. And these standards were incredibly high.”

In fact, Janessa Goldbeck shares that she tried out for a Marine infantry position but didn’t make it. “And there were men who didn’t make it either,” she adds. While the Marines were the most recalcitrant to integrating women, trying to get a waiver from Carter’s integration order, “my male peers were very encouraging,” Goldbeck recalls. “The lack of enthusiasm came from higher-ups and some instructors.” Attrition rates for Marine combat training and certification skyrocketed in those transitional years, Goldbeck notes. “Yes, a reasonable person might assume they increased the standards to make it harder for women,” she adds wryly, “but it affected men, too.”

“I remember standing with the secretary of the Navy in Quantico, Virginia, and saying to an infantry officer,” Sullivan tells me, “‘Look, if two women make it a year, if zero women make it a year—that’s OK. That’s fine. A standard is a standard.’” That happened in certain early training courses, and still happens in the most elite forces. Women serving in demanding Special Operations roles are still scarce. As of the end of 2024, there are no women Navy SEALs and single-digit Army Rangers and Green Berets (accounts vary). Strict standards may not be the only reason why. Women have complained of sexism in Special Ops training, noting that many are equipped with inappropriate, ill-fitting uniforms and face sexual harassment and a lack of equal bathroom facilities.

The initial pushback to integrating men and women in combat roles has historical precedent: It echoes the reaction when President Harry Truman integrated the military by race in 1948. Black soldiers had been kept from leadership and most formal combat roles, even in World War II, but many had wound up in direct combat, just as women would later, and served heroically. “Whenever there’s been significant changes to our fighting force, when Truman integrated the armed forces, when ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed, the initial argument from skeptics was that this would make our military less safe and degrade small-unit cohesion,” Sullivan recalls.

“And change can be hard,” she agrees. “But all these changes were good and positive, and they ultimately gave access to a greater number of people in the talent pool for the Department of Defense and made our military more lethal and effective and made our nation safer.”

Former congressman and Army captain Max Rose agrees. Though he served before women were formally serving in combat roles, he says, “I saw women heroically serving on the front lines every day. Members of ‘female engagement teams’ would do whatever they needed to do, they’d take the gunner position on an armored vehicle if [the male gunner] was wounded. They’re now serving in combat with excellence and heroism. This is just Hegseth’s false nostalgia.”

I asked critics of the Hegseth review, the results of which are due in the summer, whether they expect pushback if his findings try to limit the role of women in combat. “I certainly expect pushback from members of Congress,” Sullivan tells me, where a growing caucus of Democrats, men and women alike, are military veterans. Indeed, House Armed Services committee member Pat Ryan, who served two Army tours in Iraq, expects the same. But he notes that House Democrats have been pushing back against comparable nonsense in Defense Department budget battles, where current UN Ambassador and former Texas Representative Mike Waltz used to try to push amendments related to women in combat roles.

“Yes, we’ll have pushback from Congress,” he says, pointing to female combat veterans like Senators Elissa Slotkin and Tammy Duckworth, and Representative Chrissy Houlahan. “What makes me optimistic is this year we’re seeing another wave of women combat veterans running for Congress,” he adds, not just the four Hell Cats but several more. In a Democratic wave election, the House will have even more muscle to block Hegseth’s agenda.

“Hegseth owes the country an explanation of what will be different from the rigorous and very expensive reviews of a decade ago,” Goldbeck adds. “This is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Another so-called Hell Cat congressional candidate, Arizona’s JoAnna Mendoza, trained and served as a Marine drill instructor, a role some men didn’t qualify for, before her retirement in 2016. “And those were all my ‘kids.’ I worry about their safety.” Mendoza reminds me that the military is “an all-volunteer force,” and recruitment is already tough. How can the country give up on half its potential recruits? “One of my biggest concerns under this administration is that we are going to put our sons and daughters in harm’s way unnecessarily.” If Hegseth succeeds in sending the military back in time and preventing qualified candidates from holding some of the military’s most demanding positions, that’s exactly what’s likely to happen.