Why did you join the Army?

The young man I was engaged to was drafted and killed in Vietnam. That was in 1969. Fast forward to the 1970s after college — I got very involved in the Equal Rights Amendment movement in New Orleans. One day I went to a local television station to respond to someone who had been on air the day before arguing against the Equal Rights Movement. I said: “You know, not only do we want our equal rights, but we are willing to share our equal responsibilities. And if one of those is the draft, we’ll do it.”

That guy came up to me afterward and said, “You women talk a big line, but I don’t see any of you joining the Army.” I was so mad — but there was truth in what he said. I thought that if I really believed what I professed to believe, I really had to do it before more years went by. Then I talked my sister into joining with me. Our father was a retired colonel in the Army, so I knew the life. He swore us in, and off we went.

At graduation I chose military intelligence for my branch, and got orders for jump school at Fort Benning. I was the first female officer to go through, supposedly. If there was someone who did it before me, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

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How did you manage to get into the Special Forces Officer Course?

I pushed my way in. I had several jobs over the next four years that didn’t require Special Forces training, but most people in those jobs had gone through the course and were S.F.-qualified. Then I was picked by the head of the Fifth Special Forces Group to be his intelligence officer.

After about a year in the job, I put an application through, and it was denied. However, I’d found that nowhere did it say it was a male-only course, so I tracked down the office at the Pentagon in charge of Special Forces training, and I told them I was filling a spot that required knowledge of Special Forces, which I needed training for. At the time the combat-exclusion policy was in place barring servicewomen from any unit or job that was going to war. I told them in my paperwork that the policy did not apply in this case. I wasn’t asking for a job in a combat unit, I was just looking for a slot in an Army school, and I didn’t think anyone in a school was being shot at by an enemy.

How was the course?

Once I was in the S.F. school, the head of the school really wanted me out. Most of the instructors wanted me out. They were so against this thing. When it came to doing rucksack marches, my team was the only one forced to do rucksack runs — and this was in the summer with the temperature high enough that runs like that weren’t supposed to be allowed.