Yes….
You read the above correctly….
During the Trump admin senior Pentagon people held off forwarding promotion choice’s past Trump’s admin people in fear the women would be rejected and their slots filled by men less qualified ….
The American men military leaders where worried about sexism at the higher level’s of their government…
Last fall, the Pentagon’s most senior leaders agreed that two top generals should be promoted to elite, four-star commands.
For the defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the tricky part was that both of the accomplished officers were women. In 2020 America under President Donald J. Trump, the two Pentagon leaders feared that any candidates other than white men for jobs mostly held by white men might run into turmoil once their nominations reached the White House.
Mr. Esper and General Milley worried that if they even raised their names — Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Force and Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson of the Army — the Trump White House would replace them with its own candidates before leaving office.
So the Pentagon officials agreed on an unusual strategy: They held back their recommendations until after the November elections, betting that if Joseph R. Biden Jr. won, he and his aides would be more supportive of the Pentagon picks than Mr. Trump, who had feuded with Mr. Esper and had a history of disparaging women. They stuck to the plan even after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Esper six days after the election.
“They were chosen because they were the best officers for the jobs, and I didn’t want their promotions derailed because someone in the Trump White House saw that I recommended them or thought D.O.D. was playing politics,” Mr. Esper said in an interview, referring to the Department of Defense. “This was not the case. They were the best qualified. We were doing the right thing.”
The strategy may soon pay off. In the next few weeks, Mr. Esper’s successor, Lloyd J. Austin III, and General Milley are expected to send the delayed recommendations to the White House, where officials are expected to endorse the nominations and formally submit them to the Senate for approval.
The story of the two officers’ unusual paths to promotion — General Van Ovost to head the Transportation Command, which oversees the military’s sprawling global transportation network, and General Richardson to head of the Southern Command, which oversees military activities in Latin America — underscores the uncertainty clouding the final weeks of the Trump administration, and the unorthodox steps senior officials took to shield the Defense Department from actions they believed could jeopardize policy and personnel.
Pentagon officials say Mr. Esper and General Milley had good reason to worry….
top image…Credit…Mark Wilson/Getty
bottom image…Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Update….
Biden Promotes Two Female Generals
President Biden nominated two female generals to oversee four-star commands on Saturday, after their promotions were delayed under former President Trump due to concerns that he “would reject the officers because they were women,” the New York Times reports.