Dunwoody Becomes First Woman Four-Star General
By Fred W. Baker IIIAmerican Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2008 – For the first time in U.S. history, a woman military officer today pinned on the rank of four-star general.
Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody was promoted just hours before taking the helm of the Army Materiel Command, a Fortune 100-sized organization with nearly 130,000 servicemembers at 150 locations worldwide charged with equipping, outfitting and arming the service’s soldiers.
The emotionally charged promotion ceremony was a veritable “Who’s Who” within the Defense Department, as the defense secretary, the Army secretary, the chairman and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two former Army chiefs of staff and other senior military officials attended.
The Pentagon auditorium was standing-room-only, leaving even a three-star general to fend for himself and stand in the back.
“We invited everyone but the fire marshal,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates quipped as he took the podium.
Speaking briefly, Gates heralded Dunwoody’s 33-year career, calling her one of the foremost military logisticians of her generation who’s known among senior officials as a proven, albeit humble, leader.
“History will no doubt take note of her achievement in breaking through this final brass ceiling to pin on a fourth star,” Gates said. “But she would rather be known and remembered, first and foremost, as a U.S. Army soldier.”
Dunwoody’s career as a soldier began, Gates pointed out, in the Women’s Army Corps and at a time when women were not allowed to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Her father and brother, both West Point graduates, sat in the front row of her promotion ceremony.
The general’s father graduated from the academy in 1943, following in the steps of his father, who graduated in 1905. Dunwoody’s great-grandfather graduated from West Point in 1866.
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“Now you understand why people think I have olive-drab blood,” Dunwoody joked later.
In fact, Dunwoody’s father is a combat veteran of three wars and received Purple Heart medals for wounds suffered in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. He wears the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross for valor.
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