Congratulations ma'am!
This is pretty cool. In many ways nearly as big as the first black President.
"Dunwoody becomes first female four-star general"
She used to be stationed here at Fort Sill...we couldn't be prouder.
"WASHINGTON – Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general. At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform and said it was a credit to the Army — and a great surprise to her — that she would make history in a male-dominated military.[..]"
They say that behind every woman who becomes successful in a man’s world is an astonished man.
Now, on to the Joint Chiefs!
Women are still not allowed in combat. I don't know why we can't shake the delicate flower image...that we'll fall over in a faint if we see blood. But think of what female nurses and doctors see on the battlefield.
I think there is something in the female psyche, the sense of protecting your own -- think mama lion and her cubs -- that more than answers any question one could ever have about the ability of a woman to defend this nation. Men just don't want women to be able to kill.
But, get this -- there are women serving in Iraq right now who have been put into ground combat teams as "support personnel" so that the teams have a member who can search Iraqi women. They're drawn from other units such as mechanics, logistics, and so on...and they're really not trained for this kind of work.
Yet, these women are still in ground combat, no matter if you label them "support." Nobody wants to talk about them because the law still says women are barred from ground combat units.
If the Army were to follow the law, they'd have to withdraw almost all of the women...which would cripple the military's ability to perform its mission there.
