About the History of Women in Military Service
||During World War II, Charity
Adams Earley was the first black commissioned officer in the
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC--later the Women's Army Corps
or WAC), and she commanded the only organization of black women
to serve overseas. Earley left the Army with the rank of lieutenant
colonelthe highest possible rank except for the director
of the WAC. Read about other Pathbreakers.
at the Women's Memorial Foundation is directed to discovering and
disseminating the collective and individual experiences of women
who served with the US Armed Forces.
Their history mirrors
the history of women in America. Their experiences have reflected,
opposed and frequently moved in the vanguard of the social and political
conventions of the generations in which they lived.
Their stories are
the stories of how women served the country before they were formally
accepted as part of the nation's military and even before they shared
the civil liberties legally guaranteed to male citizens, how they
became part of the armed forces and how they acted as agents of
institutional and social change along the way.