thedrifter
07-04-07, 06:02 AM
A somber milestone
Women join ranks of graduates memorialized for sacrifice on Naval Academy's hallowed wall
By Bradley Olson
Sun reporter
Originally published July 4, 2007
TThroughout her accomplished Naval Academy and Marine Corps career, Capt. Jennifer J. Harris never attracted special attention for being a woman.
So it was fitting, friends said, that she was not singled out in death, when the academy placed her name yesterday among hundreds of others on a marble tablet designated to honor graduates who were killed in action.
She is only the second woman in school history to be added to the list, which includes 954 men dating back to the Civil War, many long celebrated as heroes. The first woman, Maj. Megan M. McClung, was distinguished as a combat death in December.
Together, on the most hallowed wall in the academy's most hallowed hall, they mark a grim milestone, even though combat roles in the military have opened gradually to women since they first arrived at the academy 31 years ago.
Some have held out hope that adding the names of the two highest-ranking females to be killed in the Iraq war to Memorial Hall would be enough to silence grumbling among older alumni about whether women belong in Annapolis.
"One of the original objections to women serving in the military was that the country couldn't handle women dying in combat," said Lisa Stolle, a 1981 academy graduate who faced harassment and a glass ceiling in her Navy career. "What's significant is that it's not being treated as anything more than a man dying in combat. It's just that this is a service member who served and gave their life for their country, period."
Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who studies women's issues in the military for the Women's Research and Education Institute in Arlington, Va., said the addition of the women's names "would certainly help with a lot of the graduates.
"I can't imagine any graduate would begrudge it, but I don't think it will settle the disgruntlement among the old, old boys who just haven't moved with the times."
Commonly called the academy's "sanctum sanctorum" or "holy of holies," Memorial Hall is the first stop for alumni who come to Annapolis after years or decades away. Midshipmen go there occasionally to ponder what might await them, as well as the sacrifices "of those who went before." Plebes, or incoming freshmen, are not allowed to enter the room until they receive an orientation from upperclassmen about what it means.
Located at the heart of the academy at the entrance to Bancroft Hall dormitory, the hall lies up a granite staircase in a domed room filled with busts of notable admirals and paintings of naval battles. A marble panel for each graduating class lists every fallen comrade, whether a combat death or an accident while on active duty.
The "Killed in Action" tablet is the centerpiece of the room, protected behind a glass case under a likeness of the famed blue standard flown in 1813 by a beleaguered commodore, urging his sailors: "DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP."
Using private funds, the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation maintains the panels and updates them every six months, using official descriptions about their deaths from the Pentagon to determine who will be added to the "KIAs."
The vast majority of those on the list were killed during World War II, many of them during the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Guadalcanal campaign. Most on the panel were junior officers serving as Marines or naval aviators, killed not long after they left the academy. There are just 12 names under "Global War on Terrorism."
Without fanfare yesterday afternoon, a craftsman added Harris' name and that of two others - 1st Lt. Travis J. Manion and Maj. Douglas A. Zembiec of the Annapolis area, known as "the Lion of Fallujah."
Lt. Rose Goscinski, Harris' roommate at the academy, described her as a gregarious person of exceptional generosity, who urged classmates to come to Goscinski's plays or acted as social coordinator for a tight-knit group of friends.
"She made events and things you were involved with really special," Goscinski said. "She showed she cared about you and made time for you. You could go to her with anything and she would drop everything she was doing and sit there and listen to you."
Harris never thought much about how she fit in as a woman at the academy or in the Marine Corps; she just wanted to fly and to do well by her fellow Marines, Goscinski said.
A pilot whose CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was shot down while bringing an emergency supply of blood to Fallujah, Harris was a weapons and tactics instructor on her third tour in Iraq.
She didn't have to fly on Feb. 7. Harris, 28, would have been on her way to a new job on the staff of George Washington University's Reserve Officer Training Corps program in just a few days. And as mission coordinator that day, she could have easily assigned someone else to do an emergency casualty evacuation, said Lt. Col. Stephen Griffiths, the second-in-command of her helicopter squadron.
Dubbed "the Purple Foxes," the squadron is tasked with the "No. 1 cannot-fail mission" of getting to Marines and soldiers who have been wounded.
And on that day, "she volunteered for the action," Griffiths said, preparing for a last hurrah with some of her favorite crew members before heading home.
They picked up one Marine in the Sunni Triangle and dropped him off at a hospital in Balad, only to be called back to Fallujah to bring blood for an emergency.
On the way to Fallujah, the helicopter was shot down by insurgents. Soon, a video showing the Sea Knight crash - which killed all seven crew members - was posted on radical Islamist Web sites and eventually made its way to cable news channels.
Griffiths, who investigated the crash and saw the video a day or so later, said it was clear Harris heroically maintained control of the aircraft, flying it almost to a landing.
"Because of the altitude they were shot at, the fire was too catastrophic," he said. "But her and her lieutenant flew it all the way to the bottom."
Goscinski said seeing Harris' name in Memorial Hall will probably take her aback, not because it stands out among so many men, but because it is someone she knew so well.
"It's sort of a beautiful, reverent place. It has its own character and feel, with all the people on the wall who symbolize all the academy represents and what our country stands for," she said. "You can memorialize all the people that have died, and you walk around and know they didn't die in vain and realize that their spirit still lives on because people can go in there and remember them.
"I'm sure that when I see the name I'll feel the same way I do when I think about her almost every day."
bradley.olson@baltsun.com
Ellie
Women join ranks of graduates memorialized for sacrifice on Naval Academy's hallowed wall
By Bradley Olson
Sun reporter
Originally published July 4, 2007
TThroughout her accomplished Naval Academy and Marine Corps career, Capt. Jennifer J. Harris never attracted special attention for being a woman.
So it was fitting, friends said, that she was not singled out in death, when the academy placed her name yesterday among hundreds of others on a marble tablet designated to honor graduates who were killed in action.
She is only the second woman in school history to be added to the list, which includes 954 men dating back to the Civil War, many long celebrated as heroes. The first woman, Maj. Megan M. McClung, was distinguished as a combat death in December.
Together, on the most hallowed wall in the academy's most hallowed hall, they mark a grim milestone, even though combat roles in the military have opened gradually to women since they first arrived at the academy 31 years ago.
Some have held out hope that adding the names of the two highest-ranking females to be killed in the Iraq war to Memorial Hall would be enough to silence grumbling among older alumni about whether women belong in Annapolis.
"One of the original objections to women serving in the military was that the country couldn't handle women dying in combat," said Lisa Stolle, a 1981 academy graduate who faced harassment and a glass ceiling in her Navy career. "What's significant is that it's not being treated as anything more than a man dying in combat. It's just that this is a service member who served and gave their life for their country, period."
Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who studies women's issues in the military for the Women's Research and Education Institute in Arlington, Va., said the addition of the women's names "would certainly help with a lot of the graduates.
"I can't imagine any graduate would begrudge it, but I don't think it will settle the disgruntlement among the old, old boys who just haven't moved with the times."
Commonly called the academy's "sanctum sanctorum" or "holy of holies," Memorial Hall is the first stop for alumni who come to Annapolis after years or decades away. Midshipmen go there occasionally to ponder what might await them, as well as the sacrifices "of those who went before." Plebes, or incoming freshmen, are not allowed to enter the room until they receive an orientation from upperclassmen about what it means.
Located at the heart of the academy at the entrance to Bancroft Hall dormitory, the hall lies up a granite staircase in a domed room filled with busts of notable admirals and paintings of naval battles. A marble panel for each graduating class lists every fallen comrade, whether a combat death or an accident while on active duty.
The "Killed in Action" tablet is the centerpiece of the room, protected behind a glass case under a likeness of the famed blue standard flown in 1813 by a beleaguered commodore, urging his sailors: "DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP."
Using private funds, the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation maintains the panels and updates them every six months, using official descriptions about their deaths from the Pentagon to determine who will be added to the "KIAs."
The vast majority of those on the list were killed during World War II, many of them during the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Guadalcanal campaign. Most on the panel were junior officers serving as Marines or naval aviators, killed not long after they left the academy. There are just 12 names under "Global War on Terrorism."
Without fanfare yesterday afternoon, a craftsman added Harris' name and that of two others - 1st Lt. Travis J. Manion and Maj. Douglas A. Zembiec of the Annapolis area, known as "the Lion of Fallujah."
Lt. Rose Goscinski, Harris' roommate at the academy, described her as a gregarious person of exceptional generosity, who urged classmates to come to Goscinski's plays or acted as social coordinator for a tight-knit group of friends.
"She made events and things you were involved with really special," Goscinski said. "She showed she cared about you and made time for you. You could go to her with anything and she would drop everything she was doing and sit there and listen to you."
Harris never thought much about how she fit in as a woman at the academy or in the Marine Corps; she just wanted to fly and to do well by her fellow Marines, Goscinski said.
A pilot whose CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was shot down while bringing an emergency supply of blood to Fallujah, Harris was a weapons and tactics instructor on her third tour in Iraq.
She didn't have to fly on Feb. 7. Harris, 28, would have been on her way to a new job on the staff of George Washington University's Reserve Officer Training Corps program in just a few days. And as mission coordinator that day, she could have easily assigned someone else to do an emergency casualty evacuation, said Lt. Col. Stephen Griffiths, the second-in-command of her helicopter squadron.
Dubbed "the Purple Foxes," the squadron is tasked with the "No. 1 cannot-fail mission" of getting to Marines and soldiers who have been wounded.
And on that day, "she volunteered for the action," Griffiths said, preparing for a last hurrah with some of her favorite crew members before heading home.
They picked up one Marine in the Sunni Triangle and dropped him off at a hospital in Balad, only to be called back to Fallujah to bring blood for an emergency.
On the way to Fallujah, the helicopter was shot down by insurgents. Soon, a video showing the Sea Knight crash - which killed all seven crew members - was posted on radical Islamist Web sites and eventually made its way to cable news channels.
Griffiths, who investigated the crash and saw the video a day or so later, said it was clear Harris heroically maintained control of the aircraft, flying it almost to a landing.
"Because of the altitude they were shot at, the fire was too catastrophic," he said. "But her and her lieutenant flew it all the way to the bottom."
Goscinski said seeing Harris' name in Memorial Hall will probably take her aback, not because it stands out among so many men, but because it is someone she knew so well.
"It's sort of a beautiful, reverent place. It has its own character and feel, with all the people on the wall who symbolize all the academy represents and what our country stands for," she said. "You can memorialize all the people that have died, and you walk around and know they didn't die in vain and realize that their spirit still lives on because people can go in there and remember them.
"I'm sure that when I see the name I'll feel the same way I do when I think about her almost every day."
bradley.olson@baltsun.com
Ellie