Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar, an Air National Guard medevac helicopter pilot, was shot down the by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009 in the midst of a rescue mission. Hegar had been shot earlier in the mission, and Taliban bullets hit the helicopter’s gas tanks. Armed and shuffling around the helicopter, protecting the patients and the aircraft while waiting for their own rescue, Hegar comforted one of her panicked patients. She reassured her that every aircraft in a 100 mile radius had come to get them, and that they were going to be alright. Hegar rolled her eyes at her gunner, who nodded in agreement and said, “Man, that’s why they shouldn’t let women on those conveys,” he said. Hegar, covered in her own dried blood and jet fuel responded, “Are you f***ing kidding me?”
The above story is from Hegar’s new memoir, Shoot Like A Girl, which recounts her time in the Air Force, the Air National Guard, and as a plaintiff in an ACLU suit against the Department of Defense. Hegar received a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor for her service. As a plaintiff, executive coach and speaker, she argues that excluding women from combat is unconstitutional, and harmful to the military. Hegar told NPR Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the rule was often sidestepped, so women would be assigned to combat duty when necessary but did not receive credit for it. Hegar was hoping to apply for a Special Tactics Officer position, but was excluded do to an antiquated ban on women in combat.
For Jennings, the suit isn’t about women’s rights as much as military excellence. Hegar was the victim of cruel and explicit sexism at pivotal points of her military career, and her participation in the suit is her way of petitioning the military to select the best candidate for a combat position, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender. The Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs lifted the ban that same year, but the suit remains open to oversee integration, especially in the new administration to ensure the military is honoring the lifted ban.
When I asked Hegar if she felt she had to work harder than her male counterparts in the military, she responded that she didn’t need to work harder, her male counterparts worked very hard, but she had to be more careful. “When men fail in that career, then that man has failed, when a woman fails in that type of career, women can’t do that job,” Hegar explained. “It’s a subtle difference but it’s very important. When a woman succeeds they’re surprised, when a woman fails it’s, ‘Oh well, she’s a woman.’ My mistakes were amplified.”
Hegar explained that women will face many challenges and obstacles in the military, and doesn't want them to focus on potential sexism, but on their job. “I want the hardest thing for them to be their own competence, and that’s what I want them to focus on, their own competence," said Hegar. "Focus fanatically at being the best at their job, at meeting every high standard, be the best of the best and find something inside themselves that they didn’t even know was there. That’s what will make them successful.”
