“If I get a little fired up about this, it’s just because this isn’t 1950,” he said.
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.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.
The women of the U.S. military face the same dangers, show the same courage, and deliver the same excellence as their male counterparts. Any military that turns away talent makes itself weaker.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.”“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.
“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,“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.”
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