Annie Graham
Lt. Col. Annie Graham was the highest-ranking army nurse serving in the Vietnam War to die in the line of duty.
Category Archives: Military
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Lt. Commander Brenda Robinson
Lt. Cmdr. Brenda Robinson became the first Black woman to become a U.S. Navy naval aviator when she earned her Wings of Gold in 1980.
Odette Sansom
Member of the Special Operations Executive and POW during WWII
Reba Whittle
During World War II, Lieutenant Reba Whittle was a flight nurse with the 813th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron who logged more than 500 flight hours and spent months as a POW.
Shannon Faulkner
Shannon Faulkner was seventeen when she applied to the American military college known as The Citadel. Knowing they only accepted males, she did not include her gender on her application and marked it out on her transcripts. Although she was accepted, the school reversed that decision upon finding out she was female. She sued for violation of her civil rights, as The Citadel was a public school that received state funding.
Pearl Witherington
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Such attitudes are particularly infuriating in light of the battles women have had to wage just to be allowed into the armed forces, and recognised as such when they have served. Historically, women have been grouped into supposedly civilian roles even as they perform the same duties as men in the armed forces and are frequently sent into war zones. The women of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spied—and often died—in service to their country during World War II often received commendations that were explicitly designated for “civilians.” Even when the SOE as an agency recommended women like Pearl Witherington (who led an SOE network of around 2,000 fighters in France) for military commendation, the government was likely to change it to a civilian version.
Helen Kirkpatrick
Journalist and war correspondent
Dickey Chapelle
Photojournalist and war correspondent
Lena Basilone
US Marine Corps veteran Lena Basilone served during World War II
Coral Wong Pietsch
On March 30, 2001, Coral Wong Pietsch became the first female Asian American general officer in the Army and the first female general officer of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps’ (JAG) 230-year history.