Army women honor past, look to future

By Lisa A. Ferdinando, ARNEWSApril 2, 2013

Army women honor past, look to future
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WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 28, 2013) -- From the American Revolutionary War to today, women have served important roles in the Army. They've made history and blazed a trail for the next generation of women who will serve.

From the nurses, seamstresses and cooks who supported troops during the Revolutionary War, to the women who serve in the Army around the world today, women have played a critical role in America's defense, and their impact is expanding. The service of women in the Army is being honored in March for Women's History Month.

Retired Gen. Ann Dunwoody is a part of American military history. In 2008, she became the first female four-star general in the U.S. armed forces.

"Women have made remarkable strides in the military and have done so much for the nation," said Dunwoody, who retired last year after 38 years of service.

Dunwoody said she supports expanding the role of women in the military and welcomed the Department of Defense's decision earlier this year to lift a ban on women serving in combat roles.

"The policy change reflects the reality that women have been serving in harm's way for more than a decade. Some have paid the ultimate price," said Dunwoody. "I think it is the right way forward for women, for the military, and for the country as a whole."

Maj. Gen. Marcia Anderson, Deputy Chief of the Army Reserve, made history in 2011 when she became the Army's first female African-American major general. She credited those who broke barriers in decades past with paving the way forward.

"I thought a lot about people like the Tuskegee Airmen and then all the African-American women who had served before me, first as nurses in World War I and then later in a variety of positions during World War II," Anderson said. "All of them were trailblazers and broke ground for me, so I felt it was my responsibility to continue the good work they had done and try to build on that as much as possible."

Brig. Gen. Tammy Smith, director of Army Reserve Human Capital Core Enterprise, also credits trailblazers of the past for opening doors for later generations of women.

"When I think about myself as a role model for others, I know that I stand on the shoulders of many giants, other women who have become general officers and any woman who had enlisted before the times changed," said Smith. "I know they paved a path for me. That's why I take that responsibility so seriously. I think that as a general officer, I am uniquely a role model for women, but I'm also just a Soldier."

Her proudest accomplishments in her Army career she said are becoming a jumpmaster and a senior parachutist, and being the first openly gay flag officer.

"I feel like I am a role model for Army values and for personal courage and for integrity," said Smith. "I hope that I give other people courage to live their authentic life, because I think that makes them better Soldiers and better leaders."

Retired Maj. Gen. Rita Broadway was the first female cadet to receive an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps commission from Kansas State University. She entered active duty in 1976 and transferred to the Army Reserve in 1979.

"When I first entered active duty, I had some great coaches and mentors," said Broadway. "Of course at that time, there weren't a lot of female officers who could mentor you. You were perhaps one of only one or two female officers in the organization."

Broadway said she was fortunate nonetheless.

"I had great male supervisors and great male [noncommissioned officers] who helped me, counseled me, pointed me in the right direction, who truly didn't see me as a female second lieutenant," she said. "They saw me as a second lieutenant who just happened to be female. I really had some very positive experiences during those early years."

Broadway said those positive experiences continued after she transferred to the Army Reserve in 1979. She retired in 2011 after 35 years of service.

Col. Aimee Kominiak, the commander of the 23rd Quartermaster Brigade in Fort Lee, Va., was a platoon leader who deployed to Panama with her all-male platoon for Operation Just Cause.

Kominiak earned a combat patch for the deployment. She said senior officers and NCOs would often inquire about where she earned the patch, since they weren't used to seeing women with combat patches.

"It was kind of a paradigm shift because I think the Army and the nation were struggling with this idea of women in combat," said Kominiak. "When combat broke out in Panama, women were already there on the ground. They were in the middle of it, whether the country wanted them to be there or not."

Kominiak later served in the early 1990s in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. During those conflicts, 24,000 women deployed to the desert.

"We had women who died, and we had women who were prisoners of war, and we had women who were injured," she said.

OPENING COMBAT ROLES TO WOMEN

A few years after Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the Department of Defense issued a directive barring women from direct combat. In January, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rescinded the 1994 memo and now the Army is examining opening up certain jobs to women.

Anderson said the Army benefits from putting women in roles in which they want to serve; so long as they have the necessary skills and physical ability to do the jobs. That includes infantry as well, she said, adding that it is important for an organization to use all the talents of all its people.

"We're all Soldiers, we go through training that prepares us to be a complete Soldier," she said. "We don't just go to training to be a finance person or a signal person. We all learn how to fire our assigned weapon. We're all taught how to work as a member of a team, a squad or a platoon. We might as well not waste that training."

Retired Capt. Dawn Halfaker was a military police captain who was wounded in an ambush during a combat patrol in Iraq in 2004.

"I do think that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped to validate the ability of women to perform under combat," said Halfaker, now a business owner and who advocates on behalf of wounded veterans. She is the president of the board of directors for the Wounded Warrior Project.

"I don't think anyone questioned my ability to lead because I was a woman and I definitely never hesitated to send one of my female Soldiers out on a mission. In fact, one of my platoon's best .50 cal gunners was a woman," she said.

WOMEN ARMY LEADERS

Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, a chaplain with the rank of colonel in the Army Reserve, was the first female rabbi in the U.S. military. She is currently the Command Chaplain for the 807th Medical Command, Deployment Support, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

"There are more and more women in leadership roles," Koppell said. "I think the Army does a fantastic job of training people with ongoing, continuing education to help people to develop leadership skills to give people opportunities to serve as leaders.

"There are just a lot of very strong, powerful, competent, confident women out there leading the way now," said Koppell.

Women made up 15.7 percent of the total Army in 2012. As of 2012, 95 percent of Army military occupational specialties were open to women.

"I think the role of women in the Army has just gotten better and better because the Army learns more and more all the time," said retired Col. Shelley Richardson.

Richardson was a part of history herself. In 1976, she was in the first class of women admitted into West Point.

"There were people who were certainly on board with the integration and there were also those who weren't sure it was a really good idea, so we got a lot of many different attitudes there," she said. "Probably the best attitudes were [from] those who just treated us as other plebes. That's really all we were hoping for."

She said her overall Army experience was positive and she welcomes the expanding role of women.

"The Army still is going to go through a transition period with the new decisions about women in combat roles," said Richardson. "I really feel that especially in the field that I entered in, logistics, operations and research, women are well-integrated in those fields, and even at West Point, I've gone back and visited and it's just such a difference and women are so well-integrated now. It's just really great to see."

Command Sgt. Maj. Mary Brown has served in a variety of staff and leadership positions, including drill instructor. She advanced through the ranks in the male-dominated 92R Parachute Rigger military occupational specialty, eventually becoming the first female parachute rigger to be promoted to command sergeant major.

"I've always done what I can do to the best of my ability, Brown said. "Whatever opinion you form on me, you form it based on my performance not my gender," said Brown, who is currently the Air Delivery and Field Services Department Sergeant Major at Fort Lee, Va.

"I've given my best. I've never used what my gender is," said Brown. "I'm a Soldier. I've always said that I'm a Soldier first."

Her advice to young Army women: "Be who you are. Don't ever let the gender be the first thing out of your mouth. Be a Soldier first. Be a leader first. Be a follower first. Then everything else with fall in place."

THE ARMY'S FUTURE

Spc. Taiesa Lashley, 25, is with the 436th Civil Affairs Battalion in Orlando, Fla. Lashley, who was Miss U.S. Paradise World, was also the first U.S. veteran to compete at the Miss World pageant.

"It's an evolving role, women within the military," said Lashley, who served a combat tour in Afghanistan. "I have male Soldiers who I don't think treat me any different when it comes to the task at hand or my physical capabilities or anything like that. It's definitely something evolving and I think for the better."

Lashley, who is working toward her Master's degree and aspires to become an Army officer, supports opening combat roles to women.

"I do think it's a great thing because women can do anything that men can do," she said.

Related Links:

VIDEO: Women can now serve closer to the front line

VIDEO: Women in the military

VIDEO: Odierno discusses evolving roles of Army's women

Army.mil: Human Interest News

STAND-TO!: Women's Equality Day

STAND-TO!: Celebrating Women's History Month

Army.mil: Women in the U.S. Army

2013 Presidential Proclamation

Wounded Warrior Project