The Lawfare Podcast: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on ‘Ashley's War’ and the Role of Women in the Special Ops

The fourth Hoover Book Soiree, held this week in Hoover's beautiful Washington, D.C. offices, featured Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on her newest book, Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield. At the event, Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Lawfare’s editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes discussed the growing role of women soldiers in special operations and beyond, examining the story of a cultural support team of women hand-picked from the Army in 2011 to serve in Afghanistan alongside Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. Their conversation dives into how the program developed, the lessons learned in the process, and why its success may provide critical insights for future force integration. Former Marine and current Lawfare contributor Zoe Bedell, who served in a similar capacity in Afghanistan, joined them on the panel to discuss her own experiences.