Yes he did … I forgot if he meant in combat arms or just combat period. The USA is not Ukraine … However, many females have performed very well in US units. But since Obama opened up all branches of the military to females. If I understand it correctly, there are females in Infantry or maybe Armor, or FA.
Hegseth has a CIB and two Bronze Stars. Served at Gitmo, in Iraq and A'stan as an Infantry officer. DEI that as Obama started it before it was called DEI. Of course, his daughters will never serve in the military and certainly not in combat.
It won't be very DEI, woke, progressive, etc. if US, etc. female soldiers are ever captured by radical moslem terrorists, e.g. ISIS, AQ, the Taliban, etc. We will see that the flawed concept of DEI does not mean anything to moslem terrorists. If Obama or anyone else doubts that listen to the reports or watch the Go-Pro footage of what the moslem terrorist did on 7 Oct. to Israeli females especially if they were in the IDF. They'd be lucky if they were just killed.
Woke, DEI, CRT, LGBTQ, etc. means 0 to moslem fanatics. They see females as 2 class sub-humans. And if they are infidels, it is that much worse. What ISIS didn't rape and kill of the Vazidi women they sold into slavery. Just ask a Yazidi female … if you can find one.
Not a lot of woke progressive DEI, CRT, LGBTQ, etc. in many molsem countries. Ask the women of A'stan … they will tell you the same.