[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, we continue our WNYC Centennial Series, a 100 Years of a 100 Things. It's thing number 89, 100 years of women in the military, including your oral history. Stories of women in your family who served anytime from World War I, let's say, until now. Who wants to tell any story of a woman in your family who served in any branch of the military as far back as you want to go, even before World War I, if there were any.

Let's try for some generations ago stories first. Let's say, World War I through Vietnam, the first 50 years of the 100, and we'll open it up for more recent ones later. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Of course, we're doing this as we have a new defense secretary, who famously said, "We need moms, just not in the military." We're doing this today on the actual 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. That was April 30, 1975, so your women in the Vietnam era military stories, very much invited.

Who wants to tell a story about your service as a woman during Vietnam, or that of anyone you know, or knew about what you did, or what they did, about barriers, or opportunities, or sexual harassment, or anything else in your experience then, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Here's a clip from that era to start us off. This is from a video that was made in 2020 by the United States of America, Vietnam War Commemoration, or the video was a commemoration, and this is retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis.

Bobbi Hovis: I was the first Navy nurse to volunteer for Vietnam, and the first Navy flight nurse to volunteer for Korea. Winston Churchill said one time, "There's nothing so exhilarating in life than to be shot at, and missed." [chuckles] That's what happened to me.

Brian Lehrer: Shot at and missed. Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis during Vietnam. That from the Vietnam War Commemoration video released in 2020. Who has a story of your own? 212-433-WNYC, call or text. Our guest for this is Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Professor of History, and Director of the Pioneers Oral History Project at Texas Woman's University, and author of the book The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II, and we will certainly talk about them in this conversation. Professor Landdeck, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to WNYC, and our 100 Years of 100 Things series.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: When were women first allowed to serve in the US military in any capacity?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Well, you have women that are serving in the American Civil War for certain, and doing it in a variety of roles, mainly as nurses, but officially, in the military, World War I is the real turning point.

Brian Lehrer: 100 years ago was 1925, not that long after the end of World War I. What did women do in the US military in World War I?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: You have women doing a number of things. Of course, you have nurses, which were so important to the war. Women serving in the Army Nurse Corps. You have women serving in the Navy. There was a loophole in the Navy Yeoman Law, where they said, a person could be a yeoman, and they didn't say that person had to be a man, so they were able to fit some women into those positions. Over 12,000 women, as a matter of fact.

Brian Lehrer: Was it controversial? Was it political? Was there a Pete Hegseth of 1915, or anything like that?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: [chuckles] Well, there were always concerns about women serving in the military, and about women not stepping out too far outside of that role of being feminine, being the mother, the nurturer. The roles they were in were limited. Even the Hello Girls who worked for the US army Signal Corps during World War I, they all had to look a certain way and they had to be. All of the women had to be safe. Women were not going to serve in combat. Women were going to be in those support roles, helping and not being in too much danger. That was the idea anyway.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take what might be a long ago story before we move up in time to World War II. Let's see what Amy in Sea Cliff has for us on Long Island. Amy, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Amy: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. You have a story about your grandmother?

Amy: Yes, so my grandmother, my mom's mom, they lived in Brooklyn, and during World War II, when the air raids would go off, my mother would tell the story of how my grandfather, who was, she described the scaredy-cat would be down in the basement sheltering with the children, while my grandmother would be running through the streets, because she was the neighborhood air raid patrol officer, so she would be running through the streets with her hard hat, making sure that all the neighbors were safe, and where they were supposed to be sheltering in their home, or in their basement, so it's a cute story.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say this already? Where was that?

Amy: Brooklyn.

Brian Lehrer: During World War II.

Amy: Downtown-- During World War II. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Amy, thank you.

Amy: The air raids would go off, so [unintelligible 00:06:09]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. I think we have another World War II ancestor story from George in-- Is it Waccabuc, New York? Hi, you're on WNYC.

George: Yes, hi. Yes, it's Waccabuc. My mom was one of about a thousand women in World War II who were among the very first female military pilots in the world, and she grew up in New York City on the Upper west side, and watched the George Washington Bridge being built, but didn't ever have a-- She didn't have a driver's license when she served the nation as a pilot.

Brian Lehrer: She was a military pilot, you're saying in World War II?

George: Air Force service pilots, they did their training in Texas, in Sweetwater, Texas. They did a variety of things. One of the main things was ferrying planes from the European theater to the Pacific theater, and vice versa, because they didn't want to use the men for that kind of work, so they could be doing combat.

Brian Lehrer: Combat, because this was transport work. Yes. Did she ever--

George: Exactly. They also towed targets. My mom towed targets which the guys were using live ammunition. They were the drones of their day.

Brian Lehrer: Did she ever tell you a story about, I don't know, a particular day on the job, or any barriers she faced, harassment or anything else? Anything you would say, "The time that mom," fill in the blank.

George: Well, I just think a lot of opportunities opened for women at that time. She got to go to engineering school, because there weren't any guys going to engineering school at Penn State. Then, she enlisted, and her dad taught her to fly a plane, because he was a World War I pilot. He had six girls. He taught them all to be, what he called aviatrixes, which was a female aviator back in the day. I remember she told me that some guy pulled up next to her on a plane, and asked her out for a date using the inter--

Brian Lehrer: In the plane flying next to her plane?

George: Yes, and asked her out on a date.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] How romantic. George, thank you very much. By the way, I apologize for not knowing where Waccabuc was. I thought I knew every town in Westchester. Probably, been in every town in Westchester, I thought, but not that one. I didn't even know there was such a name, and I see that it's near the Connecticut border, near Katona. Well, her mom is in the group. That's the subject of your book, Professor Landdeck, right? This is Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes, exactly. I'm just so thrilled to have that call, and didn't catch the name of his mother, so I'm curious if I knew her. Yes, these women pilots were so interesting. I spent about 30 years studying them, and getting to know them, and it's just been such a great privilege. These-- He's quite right that there was a shortage of pilots in World War II in the United States.

We got involved in the war late compared to the rest of the world, and we just weren't ready, and needed pilots, and so, in September of 1942, the Army Air Forces decided to have this great experiment, which the women didn't like being called that, but all the paperwork [chuckles] says, "Experiment", to see if women could fly. These are women who came right out of that golden age of aviation of the 1930s.

They listened to Lindbergh's flight. Some of them met Amelia Earhart, and a lot of them, like your caller, had family members, fathers, or uncles who'd served as pilots in World War I, and they just wanted to fly, and it was just amazing the opportunities they had.

Brian Lehrer: Did you ever hear a story like the one that he told, where apparently a male pilot was flying in a plane next to his mom's plane, and used the intercom to ask her out?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: [chuckles] You'd be surprised how many of those stories I've heard. [chuckles] It was quite a boon to the young men pilots to meet a woman who loved airplanes as much as they did. They could talk about the same things, and they understood when bad weather kept them from getting back for a date, and things like this, it was great for the women too to be accepted. You have a lot of marriages that come out of the war between the men and women pilots of the day.

Brian Lehrer: Those women were known by the acronym WASPS. Is that right?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes, WASP Women Air Force Service Pilot, and they would want to say that that term was around before White Anglo Saxon Protestant. [chuckles] It was first, but, yes, they-- The initial job that they had was ferrying those aircraft, as your caller mentioned. That was, you have all these factories. We think of Rosie the Riveter, and all the factories building planes, and you have to get them to both coasts.

We're fighting in two theaters of war, and so you needed pilots to do that, but you also need combat pilots and bomber pilots in both theaters of war, so they saw this opportunity to have women doing this work, but then there were other jobs that needed to be done. There was a class of pilots called service pilots, and they did all the domestic work that needed to be done.

The towing of targets to train the gunners on the ground. They test flew aircraft after they'd gone through maintenance, whether from a crash, or just regular maintenance. They flew non flying personnel around. There was one WASP, who her job every Sunday was to fly the army chaplain from base-to-base to all the area bases. She said she didn't go to church for five years after the war, because she'd gotten enough church in flying that chaplain around, but they just did all the jobs that needed to be done, but they were separated as women. Where you have the men who were just called service pilots in the Army Air Forces, these were the women service pilots, and the General Hap Arnold really liked acronyms, so they became the Women Air Force Service Pilots.

Brian Lehrer: There was no Air Force then. It was the Army Air Corps.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Which later split off and became the Air Force. I know that because my father in law was in the Army Air Corps.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a text which builds on the caller story about being asked out. This says, "My Aunt Catherine was in the Women's Army Air Corps during World War II. She was so beautiful, that they also used her in their ads as a model. She met her future husband while flying back on leave, sitting in the back of a cargo plane." Then, the listener adds, "I don't have any stories, I'm just her niece, but she was a wonderful person, and eventually, married and had 12 kids."

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Oh gosh.

Brian Lehrer: Even Elon Musk would be proud, I guess. Another one, World War II, listener writes, "I'm proud to say that my mother served in the WAVES as a Morse code operator stationed in Hawaii, communicating with the ships in the Pacific. Every day they changed the codes to avoid enemy discovery. Although they could only volunteer, she was decorated. Always very humble, like most people back in the day." You talked about the WASPs. How about the acronym WAVES, and also WACs in World War II?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes, acronyms were the thing, and the WAVES, of course, they went in, and knew they had to have an acronym, and all of these women's forces were competing with one another. They needed women. They all had quotas they were supposed to meet of the number of women, and had to compete, and so the WAC, the Women's Army Corps were first, and everybody made fun of that name.

They'd say, "WAC like a duck. Quack-quack." It was this whole making fun of them, so with the Navy, it's like, "No, we're going to have a good acronym." We need women in it, and we need a V, a W, and we need a V for volunteer, because all these women are volunteers. They came up with WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.

That "emergency" in the name was part of the political savviness of the leaders at the time. In that, again, there was a pushback against women serving in the military, and we don't want to look too desperate, and we don't want women to be too masculine, or to be in in danger, so by putting that Emergency Service into the WAVES name, it suggested this is just temporary. Don't worry. It's just for the duration, and not any further.

Brian Lehrer: All those social role needles that they had to thread.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're in our 100 Years of 100 Things series. Thing number 89, a 100 Years of women in the military with Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Professor of History, and Director of the Pioneers Oral History Project at Texas Woman's University, and author of the book The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II. I think, it looks like we have an amazing World War II story coming in from Santa Monica. Caitlin in Santa Monica, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Caitlin: Hi, yes, former New Yorker, so my great aunt, that's my grandmother's sister, Helen Hull Jacobs, she was a commander in the United States Navy Intelligence in World War II, and she was one of just five women that made it to that rank, so that was the highest rank a woman could achieve back then. That was actually her second career, so before that, she was a tennis champion. She, I think, won 11 grand slam titles.

Brian Lehrer: What?

Caitlin: She-- Yes, there were two Helens. There was Helen Wills and Helen Jacobs, so my great aunt is Helen Jacobs. Yes, there's interesting stories about her in The New York Times. If you have time, I can tell the one story that I read in The Times that she never shared with me.

Brian Lehrer: Please do.

Caitlin: She played in Wimbledon in the '30s. According to The Times, she was playing against a German woman, and she actually beat her. This was not known to me, but my great aunt, apparently, was Jewish, and the crowd at Wimbledon, who's normally extremely reserved, got up, and hooted and hollered and cheered for her, because she beat the German. Because at that point there was already tension with Germany from World War I, and that it was close on the heels of World War II--

Brian Lehrer: Wait--[crosstalk] Oh, go ahead.

Caitlin: She led a very interesting life.

Brian Lehrer: Well, this would never happen today. I mean, maybe it would, if a person was-- Had particular fervor about the military, but you win Wimbledon and then you go into the military. Today, you win Wimbledon, and you start making enough money not to have to worry about another career.

Caitlin: Oh, yes. It was-- I mean, I think she had some fun, but, no-- From there, she went on to write. She was a productive- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Helen Hull Jacobs

Caitlin: -citizen. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Tennis Hall of Fame member. Caitlin, thank you very much. I guess it was a different time. Professor Landdeck. There were certainly Major League Baseball players. I think maybe Joe DiMaggio. I'm not sure if I have that right. Among them, who were baseball stars, and then they volunteered because World War II was happening.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes, exactly. This was a global emergency. It was all hands on deck, literally, and so that's a part of why so many women were needed. You have between 350,000 and 400,000 American women who serve in World War II, just because they were needed. It wasn't an option. They had to participate and made a huge difference in the war. Yes, people gave up successful careers and jobs, and obviously, victories at Wimbledon, which is an amazing story, and served their country, because it needed them.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a clip from a documentary about a corps of all Black or almost all Black women in World War II. Let me get this exact reference right. It's Lieutenant Colonel Patricia Jackson Kelly, who's retired from the National Association of Black Military Women, and this is a clip of her talking about the Black women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion from a video in 2022.

Patricia Jackson Kelly: Recently, they've discovered that there were, at least, one person from Puerto Rico, and one person from Mexico, so they're no longer identified as the all Black unit that went overseas, but the Six Triple Eight were the unit of 850 women, who were mobilized to eliminate a backlog of mail. Well, if anyone has been in the military, you know the significance of receiving mail, and especially, if you've been overseas. It's just-- It's like your lifeline when you hear from your family. That's the only connection that you have to your family back home, and their slogan was, "No male, low morale."

Brian Lehrer: No male, low morale. Does that resonate with you? Any thoughts hearing that clip? I mean, the marginalized role of Black Americans in the military through World War II was, of course, such an issue. You've been talking about women as a group, and that whole history, we hear very little, I think, about Black women in the military per se from those days.

Were some of the issues we discussed today of sexual assault and harassment, or other forms of discrimination, or debates over whether they belong, prevalent at the time? Are you familiar with anything that, that clip sparks in you?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes, exactly. The Black women wanted to serve their country as much as any other group of women. The opportunities were even more limited because of their race. You have a number of Black women who applied to be the women pilots. They were qualified, they'd had the training, and were pilots, and they were turned down, because they were Black.

They were quite often-- Jacqueline Cochran was the leader, and said, "Look, we're fighting to get women to fly these airplanes. A desegregated group is going to be next to impossible," and sent them, and said, "Thank you for wanting to serve your country, and the Women's Army Corps is taking women." It's one of those pieces that opportunity is missed for sure, but, yes, the Women's Army Corps had 145,000 women total, and over 6,500 of those women were Black women, but it's one of those things where those-- The structure of the military was set up to discriminate.

The Women's Army Corps had a limit. Only 10% of them could be Black women, so they were already limited. Then, the type of work they did was limited. Of course, they placed-- Faced both racism and sexism. Yes, this group, the Six Triple Eight had the opportunity to serve and go to Europe, over 850 of them, and they did this fantastic job twice as fast as everybody thought they'd be able to get through this huge backlog of mail.

It was an incredible job, and it was incredible determination. They were discriminated against when they were in Europe. They weren't allowed into the enlisted clubs, and had to create their own, that kind of thing. We've just had a film that has come out about these women, the Six Triple Eight, which is highly regarded. Then, just this week, which I think is very significant that you're having the show this week, just this week, the Six Triple Eight women were recognized with a Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service during World War II, so I'm so happy that you played that clip, and we were able to recognize those women in their service.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and to be accurate, that was from a film called Black Women In World War II, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. By the way, I was right about Joe DiMaggio. He had his record breaking 56-game hitting streak in 1941, a record that will probably never be broken in Major League Baseball. Then, he joined that Army Air Corps in 1943, and served until the end of the war. Sergeant DiMaggio then went back to baseball. We're going to continue with 100 years of women in the military. More of your stories. Stay with us.

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue with 100 Years of 100 Things, segment number 89, 100 years of women in the military. We're doing this on April 30, 2025. This is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. That was April 30, 1975, and so we're going to do part two on the phones. In part one, I asked for people from Vietnam up to hold your calls for the second half, and we were looking for stories that went back even further than that, and thank you for the marvelous World War II era stories that have been coming in, but we're done with those in this segment.

Now, we're going to invite explicitly women who served during the Vietnam era, or any time since to tell us any story of yourself as a woman in the military, or of anyone else you knew who's been a woman in the military during Vietnam, the Gulf, or Iraq wars, anytime up through today. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, as we continue with our guest, Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Professor of History and Director of the Pioneers Oral History Project at Texas Woman's University, and author of The Women with Silver Wings: Inspiring True Story of the Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II. Professor Landdeck, continuing on the timeline, 1948, President Truman signs the Women's Armed Services Integration Act. What was that?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes. This is a very big deal, and thank you for bringing it up. The Women's Armed Services Integration Act shifted the ability of women to serve in the military, where all those women who served in World War II, they were limited in what they could do. They were limited to the duration. Remember, we talked about that "emergency" being put in the WAVE's name.

With that Act being passed in 1948, women now had the opportunity to have permanent status in the armed forces, where they could continue to serve. They could make a career out of serving in the military for their country, so this was a big deal. They could serve in the regular military, and in the reserves, so this gave this opportunity, especially, for those women who'd gotten a taste of military life in World War II, and wanted to continue to serve their country.

Remember, this is a serious Cold War period. We're talking about 1948. Nobody really knew what was going to happen. The Russians-- The Soviets are gathering up Czechoslovakia and the Eastern Bloc, and so the idea that maybe we need women to stay active, was a part of it, but you still had that same pushback from opponents of this, who didn't want women to do too much, and didn't want women to become too masculine, or be outside of the home.

As you mentioned, at the top of the hour, the idea of, "We need mothers, not soldiers," kind of thing. The law was amended to limit women to only 2% of each service branch, so it's going to keep their numbers very small.

Brian Lehrer: 2%?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: It's going to limit--[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: 2%. You're not saying 22%?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: 2%. No. 2. One, two. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: 2%.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: 2%, and f those women who served, only 10% of them could be officers, so it was very limiting on the careers, and very limiting on the number of women, but it's still seen as a step forward, because they were allowed to serve permanently.

Brian Lehrer: There's all this backlash against potential quotas for inclusion. Quotas for exclusion, we're perfectly okay.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Moving ahead in the timeline, let's go to the Vietnam era, and let's launch this with a phone call. Kelly in the Thousand Islands area, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kelly. Thank you for calling in.

Kelly: Hello, Brian. Hello, Kate. I'm very happy to be with you today. In 1973, I joined the Air Force, and at that time, they would not allow us to fly, even though I was already a civilian pilot, and had wanted to be a pilot with the military. I became a maintenance officer, and then became a pilot. Once they opened pilot training up, I graduated 1978, so that was basically five years to get to that point, and in those five years, it was a lot of work, and a lot of conversation with folks to ensure that the doors would open, and the laws would change, but we were, of course, a test. Always considered a test.

Brian Lehrer: Why'd you want to go into the military in 1973? I think a lot of people who would have been your age at the time, were trying to figure out how to get out of going into the military. At least, the guys who were subject to the draft.

Kelly: My father was a 20-year Air Force pilot. My brother was in Vietnam at the time. I wanted to go and serve my country, and I wanted to do it in a way that I felt I was most qualified, which I wanted to do it as a pilot. I became, as I say, a maintenance officer initially, but the idea of being able to serve my country. The secondary part was, I was a college graduate, and had basically been told, "You are not going to get a job as anything, but as an administrative person, so you might as well just forget about it."

Those jobs that I did have, were not competitive pay. I looked at the military and said, "Wait a minute. Qualification based on merit, get promoted, make good money." Three times what I was making in the civilian population, looked very attractive to me.

Brian Lehrer: Kelly, thank you so much for your story. I know just to be fair to a lot of Americans of that era, I was talking about those who were trying to get out of the draft, and figure out how to avoid going to Vietnam. Obviously, there were also many Americans like Kelly, including many men, of course, who did enlist, because they felt it was their patriotic duty, or for economic reasons, knowing they were at risk of being sent to Vietnam, but Professor Landdeck, what are you thinking hearing Kelly's story?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Well, I am very happy to hear Kelly's story, and I just want to build off of your point, Brian, that there were 265,000 women in Vietnam, and these were all volunteers. They were people like Kelly who wanted to serve their country, and do their part for whatever the country needed, and things had changed a little in 1967. That Armed Forces Integration Act that we had talked about, they lifted the 2% restriction in 1967, and so that's partly why women like Kelly were able to see the military as an opportunity for women, because that had been lifted, in part, because of Vietnam and the Cold War.

Kelly's at the leading edge of this group of women that we call Gen 2, the second generation after the Women Air Force service pilots of World War II. Those women, the war-- World War II ended, and they weren't allowed to fly again. They weren't allowed to fly for the military. They weren't allowed to fly for the airlines, because the airlines didn't want women. They had enough men.

Some of them flew individually and privately, and had their own businesses, but they couldn't have careers as pilots in the military, and so Kelly is really at the beginning of this second generation of women who were able to fly in the military, and serve their country. Those women, I mean, the barriers they broke, the--[chuckles] It's just amazing. They fought to get into every airplane, and as Kelly said, to prove that they were capable to do this.

Just as the WASP in World War II were an experiment, Kelly's generation of women pilots were considered an experiment too. Can a-- The language of the day, can a girl fly a jet? Well, Kelly and her cohorts proved that, yes, they could, and they could do it very well.

Brian Lehrer: Well, here's one who apparently could. Here's a clip of Brigadier General Wilma Vaught retired from the Air Force, speaking in the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration video published in 2020. She served in a bomb wing.

Wilma Vaught: Our bomb wing, was selected to go to Guam to be in charge of the B-52 bombing of Vietnam.

Speaker 4: Vietnam.

Wilma Vaught: I was the first woman ever to deploy with a SAC bomb wing. That was in 1966.

Brian Lehrer: 1966. The Vietnam War was so controversial, and again, we're doing this history of women in the military segment on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War today. Did anything about it, or the public's attitude toward it affect policies about women in the military, or was it more the fact that, 1970s feminism was in full flower? How did those two things intersect if they did?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Yes. No, I think that's a great question, and it definitely all came together. It was all happening at the same time, and the backlash against Vietnam, this decade long conflict that caused so much controversy, and so much loss across the country, and in Vietnam itself, you see the shift in the armed forces away from the draft, and to the all-volunteer force, and that's coming on the heels of the Equal Rights Amendment being passed.

We know today it doesn't get ratified, and made a part of the constitution, but in 1973, 1974, everybody thought that the Equal Rights Amendment was going to become law. You add that with that need for more potential recruits into the military with that shift to the all-volunteer force, and the armed services turn to women, and look for this untapped pool of potential service members.

It just all comes together, and so women start to think of themselves in a different way, and start to look at the military as this new opportunity, and your earlier caller was quite right that the 1970s is still an era when women can't get business loans, women can't get credit cards. Women can't-- Are limited in their jobs, and so this was just a great coming together of opportunities.

Brian Lehrer: We could do this for another hour, another two hours, but we're coming to the end of the show. I'm just curious if you think with what happened with Pete Hegseth, where he was ready to roll a lot of this stuff back, but by the time he got to his confirmation hearing, he had to walk back the ways that he wanted to exclude women from combat, or even the military in general, so do you think in our last 20 seconds, really 20 seconds, that this is a moot issue now?

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: No, it's not a moot issue. I think people are still pushing back. You've got women who are being eliminated from Department of Defense websites. You've got organizations, women's initiative organizations that are there to support women being eliminated. The fight continues. Women have volunteered to serve for 100 years, and they continue to fight for the opportunity to serve their country.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Landdeck, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. We really appreciate it.

Katherine Sharp Landdeck: Thanks so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks to our amazing callers. That's our, a 100 Years of 100 Things segment, number 89. Stay tuned for Alison.

 

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.