And after bullets whizzed over former President Donald Trump's head on Saturday and female agents rushed to protect him, critics blaming sexism have been heartbreaking for female military veterans who have vowed to take a bullet for their leader.
“This is ridiculous. Why are we talking about this now?” said Melanie Burkholder, 52, who is fed up and in disbelief at the skepticism toward women in the Secret Service.
Burkholder climbed the rope and rang the agent's training bell while other members were unable to arrive.
They watched in awe as she did 20 pull-ups without breaking a sweat.
She won awards for her shooting skills, and with her 5-foot-7-inch height and athletic build, she protected presidents “from President Carter to President Bush 43.”
I don't want to go into too much detail about male and female chauvinists on social media, but here's a shocking fact. Let me give you an example.
“Wearing a smaller person's figure to hide a larger man's figure is like wearing an undersized Speedo at the beach – it doesn't cover the subject,” Elon Musk posted on his social media platform, X. (I won't post a link to a photo of him in a swimsuit here, which might illustrate Musk's keen understanding of the dilemma he poses.)
“I stood eye to eye with a couple of other men, and I'm 2'2″ tall,” Burkholder said. “The fact that this conversation was even happening seems hysterical to me, considering there have been women in the Secret Service since 1971, when I was born.”
Because it's not all about height and build.
Women must pass the same physical fitness tests as men: strength, endurance and shooting ability.
Cheryl Tyler, the first black female agent to serve as a presidential security officer, was so successful in protecting President George H.W. Bush that she went on to serve with the Secret Service for 15 years and become a trainer for other agents.
“Women are trained just like men,” said Tyler, who worked for the Secret Service for 15 years, joining in 1984. As a girl growing up in the Midwest, she wanted to become a Secret Service agent, but a career counselor told her to look for a job instead of college.
“They become proficient with any weapon we have to work with. They can take it apart and put it back together in a timely manner,” said Tyler, who now runs his own security company and has written a book about his experiences as a pioneer for one of America's most famous police agencies. “They know bullets. They know guns. They know what to do.”
The edited video, which has drawn some of the most vitriolic comments online, focuses on the female agent who momentarily removes her gun holster.
But Tyler pointed out that in one scene, a blonde agent with her hair in a bun helps Trump down the stairs, she lies on top of him and then he jumps on top of her for a photo op.
As the investigation into Saturday's assassination attempt progresses, the focus is now on the advance guards, local police and why the gunman gained access to a rooftop overlooking President Trump's rally, former investigators I spoke to said.
The way the female agent beside him reacted leaves no room for question.
This is a question only for people who are not used to seeing women in this job.
“Maybe I'm naive, but I had no idea there was even one woman in the Secret Service, much less so many?” Mary Claire Amsellem, a stay-at-home mom who used to work at the Heritage Foundation, wondered in an X post. “Let's be a serious country. It's completely insane to have female Secret Service agents.”
Now let me tell you about my sister, Mary Ann Gordon.
In 1981, Special Agent Gordon was a member of President Reagan's personal security force, the first woman to serve in that role. Although she was not with President Reagan on the day he was shot outside the Washington Hilton, Special Agent Gordon led the advance party's transportation planning.
“In preparation for his mission, Gordon drove all possible routes the motorcade might take, from the Hilton to the White House and even to George Washington University Hospital to ensure the roads were clear and unobstructed,” the Secret Service wrote in honor of Gordon's work that day. “This allowed Gordon to become familiar with the various routes.”
When Gordon heard the gunfire, he abandoned his patrol car and motorcade plans and hopped in a spare limousine, redirected the presidential limousine for the fastest route, and transported the president to the hospital in just three minutes.
Let's go back even further.
In 1861, a widow named Kate Warne worked with Allan Pinkerton as America's first female private investigator. I've written about her most famous assignment in Baltimore, when she befriended Southern secessionists at a celebration and then learned of a plot to kidnap and kill President Abraham Lincoln while traveling in a carriage through the city to catch a train to Washington.
Warne went undercover, disguised as the sister of a very tall and sickly man, and outwitted the kidnappers by eliminating Lincoln's regular bodyguards (whose answer to this plot was simply to give Lincoln a weapon) and guiding the shawl-covered Lincoln to his bunk.
“I don't think the Presidency has ever been qualified to have a more attractive and capable female companion,” Lincoln told her as they boarded the train together.
Her report's portrayal of the president-elect was less generous.
“Mr. Lincoln was very ugly and too tall to lie upright in bed,” she wrote.
He arrived safely at the Capitol four years before signing the bill creating the Secret Service, the same day he was shot.
Lincoln's bodyguard that night, John Frederick Parker, a Washington DC police officer with a questionable record, left the presidential box and joined the audience to watch the play, then left the theater for a drink at the Star Saloon next door during the intermission.
The president's principal bodyguard, William H. Crook, who was off duty that night, blasted Parker in his memoirs.
“Parker's absence is [John Wilkes] “Booth's objective was not accomplished,” Crook wrote. “Parker realized he had failed in his mission. The next day he looked like a convicted criminal.”
What would have happened if an experienced female detective like Warne had been on the scene that night?
