Leadership Quote by Susan Davis

A sentence like this is engineered to do two things at once: praise women’s service while keeping the speaker safely inside the bipartisan language of “supporting the troops.” “Brave and capable” pairs valor with competence, a subtle corrective to the old, still-lingering suspicion that women in uniform are either symbolic mascots or logistical add-ons. Davis isn’t only admiring; she’s staking a claim that women belong in the category of war-making professionals, not exceptions who require special pleading.

The phrase “served in Iraq and Afghanistan” carries a lot of political freight, and the sentence strategically sidesteps it. No mention of why those wars were fought, how they were conducted, or what they cost. “Performed admirably” is the kind of assessment you’d use in a performance review, not a moral reckoning. It shifts attention from the wars’ contested outcomes to individual conduct, a classic move for politicians navigating polarizing conflicts: separate the soldier from the policy.

The subtext is also about legitimacy and inclusion. Women’s military roles expanded dramatically in the post-9/11 era, even before formal restrictions on combat positions were lifted. Davis’s wording affirms that reality while smoothing over the cultural fights that came with it: gender integration, military sexual trauma, and the double bind of being asked to prove toughness without losing “respectability.”

It’s praise, but it’s also positioning: a compact argument for recognition and, implicitly, for resources and reforms, delivered in the safest vocabulary Washington has.