A 70-year-old Defense
Department panel focused on women's personnel issues that has advocated for
expanded opportunities for female service members must be preserved, say the
six female veterans currently serving in Congress.
The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services
(DACOWITS) has been suspended temporarily and its membership dissolved as part
of a cost and efficiency review of the Defense Department's 42 advisory
committees that began in January.
But six members of Congress, led by Rep. Elaine Luria,
D-Virginia, and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, say the committee's work is too
important for the panel to be dissolved or rolled into the newly formed Defense
Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.
“We are the faces of what DACOWITS has meant for women in
the military,” wrote the lawmakers. “As women veterans in Congress, we know the
value of expanding opportunities within the services for women and the value
that, in turn, has brought to our Armed Forces.”
In January, the Pentagon asked for the resignations of the
21 volunteer members of the committee, a group that included eight retired
generals and admirals. The move was part of a larger review of all DoD advisory
committees in the wake of last-minute appointments by former President Donald
Trump to several boards and committees, including the Defense Business Board.
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