Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs, 29

Graduated from Airborne School 

Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs (left) with fellow soldiers during military training. She graduated from Airborne School and was among the first women to serve in combat roles after the ban was lifted in 2015. (Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs)

When 29-year-old veteran Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs heard the Pentagon was going to review the effectiveness of the military with women in combat roles, she initially felt “sorrow and fear” for her friends who are still active-duty and serving in these roles. Then, she felt anger but not surprise — she knew that Hegseth had criticized women’s participation in the military. 

“We’ve done the studies, and we have the data,” said Dempsey Beggs, who is currently running for Congress as a Democrat in Virginia’s 1st District. “He could take that time, energy, money, effort and actually make the lives of service members better, but he’s choosing to go down a witch hunt because women have done what he can’t.” 

Dempsey Beggs completed Airborne School and was one of the first 50 women to serve in combat roles after Congress lifted the ban in 2015 — and the first from Kentucky. She was an acting company commander at Fort Benning in Georgia during the COVID-19 pandemic. She and her husband, also a company commander at the time, had two daughters. 

One morning, Dempsey Beggs had to leave at 4 a.m. to lead a training event.  Her husband was supposed to watch their 6-month-old but unexpectedly had to take an injured service member out of state at 3:30 a.m. Dempsey Beggs — who was pregnant with her second daughter — strapped her baby on her chest and put her rucksack on her back and hiked five miles.  

“I just kept doing my job,” Dempsey Beggs said. 

She sees the review as designed to push active-duty women to leave the armed forces and not try for combat roles. 

“These combat roles already have physical fitness standards that are gender neutral,” Dempsey Beggs said. “Women and men fail them. No one is arguing that every single woman should be able to fill these roles, just like we never want every single man to be able to fill these roles. Everyone who is qualified and who is willing to serve is who we want in these roles.”