STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have a story of a woman whose job is in the news. Before we get around to just what that news is, I want you to meet her - Jessica Yahn, now a resident of Tampa, Florida.
Where are you from, and how did you get into the military?
JESSICA YAHN: I grew up in a military family. My father served in the Air Force. He was a U-2 pilot. He always thought I would join the Air Force, and then I wasn't his favorite daughter anymore when I went to the Army. But I...
INSKEEP: (Laughter) There is the service rivalry. OK, go on.
YAHN: Yes, absolutely. I commissioned through Army ROTC out of University of California, Santa Barbara.
INSKEEP: ROTC, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, under which students get scholarships on their way to military service. Yahn graduated and entered the Army Signal Corps, working in communications at a base in Iraq. And then she tried for something more hazardous - special operations.
YAHN: It was about a decade into the war in Afghanistan. You know, joint force commanders were like, hey, we haven't been addressing 50% of the population. We need to integrate women onto, you know, all-male special operations teams.
INSKEEP: She trained for grueling marches with heavy backpacks, carrying weapons, and then joined a unit that ventured deep into Afghanistan. On one of her earliest missions, a helicopter placed a few Americans and their Afghan allies into a field near a building they were to attack at night. She climbs out of the chopper and instantly falls on the uneven ground in the dark.
YAHN: You know, my heart's pounding because this was only my second mission with this team that I was assigned to.
INSKEEP: Bad first impression, but she's gaining experience. She gets up. She goes forward. She's in combat. She's gathering intelligence.
YAHN: Once we got on that target building, it was very dynamic. Our role was to really kind of care for, search and question the women and children on target.
INSKEEP: Who, on nights like this, sometimes had valuable information, what she calls the human geography of a place.
I want to underline what I think you're doing there, and you tell me if I'm wrong. The U.S. has some intelligence that a Taliban fighter or an al-Qaida figure or some other person is in that compound. I suppose they could just drone it. They could fire a missile from above and blow something up. But the decision has been made that that is not precise enough, puts too many people in danger. And so Americans are sent in on the ground to get that job done and also to learn further information. Am I right so far?
YAHN: Yeah, that is 100%. While it helps protect innocent civilians, it also, again, can often lead to your next target or fill gaps in your what we call, you know, intelligence preparation of the battlefield.
INSKEEP: What's it like when you're running around unfamiliar territory, it's the middle of the night, you are armed, but you don't know what might come at you from any direction?
YAHN: I felt very focused. And, you know, your heart's pumping, right? You got your adrenaline going, but you're very focused. And I always felt very comfortable. I thought, you know, at all times I was surrounded by the best of the best. And, you know, there was only one mission in which I started kind of doing a little bit of, I'd say, like, downward spiral thinking. You know, you kind of get in your head sometimes. And that was the mission directly after Jenny Moreno was killed. And she was killed with three other Americans that night. It was October 6, 2013.
INSKEEP: Captain Jennifer Moreno had been killed by a suicide bomber.
YAHN: And it was, you know, something that kind of sits with you, obviously, the next night when you're going out. You kind of go back to the basics. And then you're listening, you're moving, you're providing suppressive fire, whatever it is that is required of you in that moment. It's almost like muscle memory. And you react, and then, you know, fight through it.
INSKEEP: That's what Major Jessica Yahn did in Afghanistan on 40 missions. She was promoted, continued her career and recently left active duty, settling in Tampa. By now, some people will have figured out how her story relates to the news. Pete Hegseth, President-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, told a podcast he had served with highly capable women, although he had an opinion.
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PETE HEGSETH: Because I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.
INSKEEP: What did you think about when you heard that?
YAHN: On its face, I disagree with the statement. However, it's not something first heard for me.
INSKEEP: Meaning you've heard it before.
YAHN: Right. And so, to me, this is just, hey, an opportunity to have rich discourse about this topic. I'd love to sit across from Pete and tell him, but instead, I'd rather show him.
INSKEEP: Which she can do because she is one of many American women who did serve in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. She's also executive producer of a forthcoming documentary series featuring women and men who served with them.
YAHN: As long as there's a standard that is agreed upon by the institution, men or women that meet that standard, there should be no question about the lethality because we're saying that is the standard.
INSKEEP: In other words, if you can do the job, never mind the gender.
YAHN: Absolutely.
INSKEEP: Major Yahn takes Hegseth's remark not as an offense but as an opportunity to educate. And she seems no more afraid of the debate than she was in combat. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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