A few nights ago a headline stopped my scroll: 28-Year Women’s Veterans Ceremony Canceled After Military Branches Decline Participation. When I told my husband, he shrugged. Neither of us knew, nor expected such a low.
Another day, another loss. The more loss we experience, the more desensitized we become. Current events are not normal, though, and to accept them as such is not healthy.
For 28 years the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus has hosted a wreath-laying honoring women in Military service. This year’s event was cancelled because military branches declined their invitations. Without servicemembers to perform a military honor guard, it could not logistically continue. The Army noted a scheduling conflict. Other branches cited Pentagon guidance (“Identity Months Dead at DOD”), which stems from efforts by the Trump Administration (Executive Order 14185) to proscribe “events related to cultural awareness months” and DEI programs.
Women in Military Service has taken place on June 12, Women Veterans Recognition Day. Although women veterans are acknowledged and celebrated on Veteran’s Day alongside men, Women Veterans Recognition Day is a nod to the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, signed on June 12, 1948. Where women were limited to auxiliary roles at that time, the Integration Act made it possible for women to have permanent, robust military careers.
Stopping women in military event part of broader pattern
Crippling the Women in Military Service ceremony is part of a broader pattern of disgraceful behavior by the Administration. Trump removed Admiral Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead the US Coast Guard. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has followed suit. Since his appointment in January 2025, Hegseth has fired or replaced multiple women military leaders, to include:
Hegseth’s ill behavior continued. In April 2025 he stated he would end the Department’s Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) program, created to help commanders plan operations that consider the impact of gender on local populations and military forces. He called it “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops.” Fact: President Donald Trump enacted WPS in his first term. His daughter Ivanka supported it, too.
More of the same followed in September 2025 when Hegseth moved to eliminate a group formally known as the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. Press Secretary Kinglsey Wilson wrote on X that it “focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness.”
Started in 1951, the committee provided research-based recommendations for women in the military. Issues included health care, physical fitness, domestic abuse support, body armor — even acquisition policy in military aviation. Family planning and parental leave were also addressed by this committee, “which is a top reason both men and women cite for why they leave military service.”
This is a major concern given the increasing number of women in the military. Recent federal data indicates women make up 17.7 percent of the active-duty force (231,741 members) and constitute 21.4 percent of the National Guard and reserves (171,000 members). Women are also a fast-growing demographic among veterans, at more than 2.1 million strong today.
Hegseth will not change how he sees women
Hegseth is a known — and decidedly unsavory — quantity for women. We witnessed his January 2025 confirmation hearings, rife with misinformation about women in the military and reports of his own debauchery. At one point Hegseth recalibrated, saying he respects “every single female service member that has put on the uniform.” New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand later told him: “You will have to change how you see women, and I don’t know that you’re capable of that.”
Pete Hegseth willfully chooses to target and degrade women. His behavior aligns with his troubling support for a religious ideology that believes women should not vote, confirmed after he reposted and praised a video of nationalist pastor Doug Wilson saying the same. In that CNN interview, Wilson called women “the kind of people that people come out of.” Hegseth and his family attend Wilson’s DC church. This is an appointed leader with a dangerous worldview.
It is 2026. We need to reorient on reality. The reality is that current events are not normal. To simply accept them without question is not healthy, for us.
Another unwavering reality is that women matter. We have only ever mattered. And we can vote. Ohio’s Representative Emilia Sykes said it best: “In plain terms, the very women the ceremony was created to honor were pushed out of it. Honoring veterans should not be controversial. Recognizing the service and sacrifice of women who wore our nation’s uniform should be one of the easiest things for us to come together around. Yet, because of the decisions made by this administration, we are defending the basic act of honoring women veterans.”
Bethany Rentsch is from Rosendale.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hegseth’s ‘anti-woke’ agenda hits women’s veterans ceremony | Opinion
Reporting by Bethany Rentsch, Special to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Bethany Rentsch, Special to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
