Women in Armed Forces

•       American Revolution (1775-1783): Women serve on the battlefield as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs.

•       Civil War (1861-1865): Women provide casualty care and nursing to Union and Confederate troops at field hospitals and on the Union Hospital Ship Red Rover. Women soldiers on both sides disguise themselves as men in order to serve. In 1866, Dr. Mary Walker receives the Medal of Honor. She is the only woman to receive the nation's highest military honor.

•       1901: Army Nurse Corps is established.

•       1908: Navy Nurse Corps is established.

•       World War I (1917-1918): During the course of the war, 21,480 Army nurses serve in military hospitals in the United States and overseas. The Navy enlists 11,880 women as Yeomen to serve stateside in shore billets and release sailors for sea duty. More than 1,476 Navy nurses serve in military hospitals stateside and overseas. The Marine Corps enlists 305 Marine Reservists to "free men to fight" by filling positions such as clerks and telephone operators on the home front.

•       Army Reorganization Act (1920): A provision of the Army Reorganization Act grants military nurses the status of officers with "relative rank" from second lieutenant to major (but not full rights and privileges).

•        World War II (1941-1945): More than 60,000 Army nurses serve stateside and overseas during World War II. Sixty-seven Army nurses are captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942 and are held as POWs for over two and a half years. The Army establishes the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942, which is converted to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1943

•       1947: The Army-Navy Nurse Act of 1947 makes the Army Nurse Corps and Women's Medical Specialist Corps part of the Regular Army and gives permanent commissioned officer status to Army and Navy nurses.

•       1948:The Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 grants women permanent status in the Regular and Reserve forces of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps as well as in the newly created Air Force.

•       Executive Order 9981 ends racial segregation in the armed services.

•       1949: Air Force Nurse Corps is established.

•       Korean War (1950-1953): Servicewomen who had joined the Reserves following World War II are involuntarily recalled to active duty during the war. More than 500 Army nurses serve in the combat zone and many more are assigned to large hospitals in Japan during the war.

•       1961: The first woman Marine is promoted to Sergeant Major.

•       Vietnam War (1965-1975): Some 7,000 American military women serve in Southeast Asia, the majority of them nurses. An Army nurse is the only US military woman to die from enemy fire in Vietnam.

•       1967: Legal provisions placing a two percent cap on the number of women serving and a ceiling on the highest grade a women can achieve are repealed.

•       1974: An Army woman becomes the first woman military helicopter pilot

•       1978: The Coast Guard opens all assignments to women.

•       The first Army woman is promoted to two-star general. She is also the first woman officer to command a major military installation.

•       The Women's Army Corps (WAC) is disestablished and its members integrated into the Regular Army.

•       1979: The first woman to command a military vessel assumes command of the Coast Guard Cutter Cape Newagen.

•       The Marine Corps assigns women as embassy guards.

•       1980: The first women graduate from the service academies.

•       1982: The Marine Corps prohibits women from serving as embassy guards.

•       1984: For the first time in history, the Naval Academy's top graduate is a woman.

•       1985: For the first time in history, the Coast Guard Academy's top graduate is a woman.
1986: For the first time in history, the Air Force Academy's top graduate is a woman.

•       1988: NASA selects its first Navy woman as an astronaut.

•       Marine women are again assigned as embassy guards

1989: NASA selects its first Army woman as an astronant

• The Navy assigns its first woman as Command Master Chief at sea.

War in the Persian Gulf (1990-1991): Some 40,000 American military women are deployed during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Two Army women are taken prisoner by the Iraqis

• 1991: The Navy assigns the first women to command a Naval Station and an aviation squadron.

The first Navy woman assumes command of a ship.

• Congress repeals laws banning women from flying in combat.
• 1992: The first active duty woman Coast Guard officer is promoted to captain (O-6).
• 1993: Congress repeals the law banning women from duty on combat ships. Women deploy with the USS Fox.
• The Marine Corps opens pilot positions to women.
• The Army names a woman "Drill Sergeant of the Year" for the first time in the 24-year history of this competition.
• 1994: The USS Eisenhower is the first carrier to have permanent women crew members. Sixty-three women are initially assigned.
• The first woman assumes command of a Naval Air Station.
• 1996: The first women in the history of the armed forces are promoted to three-star rank.
• 1997: The Army promotes its first woman to lieutenant general.
• 1999: The Air Force promotes its first woman to lieutenant general.

• The first women graduate from the Virginia Military institute and the Citadel.

•       2001: An Air National Guard security force woman becomes the first woman to complete the counter-sniper course, the only military sniper program open to women.

•       The US Army Women's Museum opens at Ft. Lee, Virginia.

•       2002: For the first time in US history, a woman becomes the top enlisted advisor

•       2004: By year’s end, 19 servicewomen had been killed as a result of hostile action since the war in Iraq had begun in 2003, the most servicewomen to die as a result of hostile action in any war that the nation had participated.  

•       The first woman in US Air Force history takes command of a fighter squadron.

•       2005: The first woman in history is awarded the Silver Star for combat action. She is one of 14 women in US history to receive the medal.

•       An Air Force woman becomes the Air Force Academy’s Commandant of Cadets, the No. 2 position at the nation’s service academies. She is the first woman in the history of any of the academies to be appointed to this position.

•       The first woman in US Air Force history joins the prestigious USAF Air  Demonstration Squadron “Thunderbirds.” She was also the first woman on any US military high performance jet team. 

•       2006: The Marine Corps assigns the first woman Marine in history to command a Recruit
Depot.

•       2008: For the first time in US military history, a woman is promoted to the
rank of four-star general. She is promoted by the US Army.