Women in the military: Find out how their service has changed through the years

Called to serve

It has been 75 years since President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, which allowed women to serve as regular members of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

Women have served in every war the U.S. has been in, but before the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, women could enlist only as military volunteers in clerical positions or work as nurses, though Congress did briefly give the Women’s Army Corps full status during World War II.

Although the act promised more opportunities for women, it also limited the number who could serve to 2% of the total number of enlistees per branch. So, while women certainly integrated the armed forces, their overall presence remained limited.

The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, coupled with Truman’s decision to desegregate the military, also permitted African American women to officially serve in the military. Annie E. Graham, for example, became the first African American woman to join the Marine Corps in 1949.

Snapshot of women in the services

During World War II, all branches enlisted women in their ranks for the first time; nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform.Ann E. Dunwoody became the first female battalion commander for the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in 1992 and the first female general at Fort Bragg in 2000. In 2008, she became the first woman to be promoted to four-star general.

Midshipman First Class Sydney Barber was the first Black woman to serve as brigade commander at the U.S. Naval Academy, its highest student leadership position.

50 years ago

During the Vietnam War, more than 265,000 American women were in the military and 11,000 served in Vietnam, with 90% working as volunteer nurses.

Responsibilities included dealing with massive casualty situations involving amputations, other grievous wounds and chest tubes for their patients. Numerous women also served in nearby countries such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

An estimated 3.4 million U.S. service members deployed to Southeast Asia.

About 2.7 million deployed to Vietnam.

Army nurses arrived in Vietnam as early as 1956.

Eight women in the military were killed in the Vietnam War, and they are listed on the memorial in Washington, D.C.

Fifty-nine civilian women were killed in the Vietnam War.

You can learn about the Women’s Vietnam Memorial here.

News in 2024

Air Force 2nd Lt. Madison Marsh proudly shows off her purple ribbon lapel pin symbolizing pancreatic cancer awareness, a disease her mother died from in 2018.

In January, Marsh won the title of Miss America (as Miss Colorado) during the national pageant in Orlando, Florida. She is the first active-duty service member to receive the title. The 22-year-old U.S. Air Force Academy graduate is now learning to navigate life as an officer, a cancer research scholar and a public figure.

After graduating from the Air Force Academy, Marsh decided to defer her pilot training to pursue a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School – an option made possible through the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Civilian Institution Programs. She’s also a graduate intern at Harvard Medical School and is working with experts from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on early cancer detection research — continuing her work for the foundation dedicated to her mom.

Marsh earned her civilian pilot’s license at 17. She founded the Whitney Marsh Foundation in her mother’s honor in 2019, which raises funds for cancer research.

You can read a biography of Miss America 2024 here.

 

Sources: The Truman Library Institute, Department of Defense

Source: Orange County Register