Female general takes over Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

[thedrifter]

Female general takes over Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

Staff report

The first woman to head Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego took command today. Brig. Gen. Angela Salinas, who has 32 years in service, took the reins from Maj. Gen. John Paxton Jr., who was named commander of the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 1st Marine Division and received his third star today.

The depot graduates thousands of Marines from recruit training each year; however, there are no female Marines among them. Women who enlist in the Corps train at MCRD Parris Island, S.C., while men train at both depots.

Salinas began her career as an enlisted legal services clerk in 1974 following boot camp at Parris Island; she was commissioned in 1977. She served as the chief of staff for Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., from 2004 until her assignment in San Diego.



rig. Gen. Angela Salinas became the first woman to command Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in an Aug. 4 ceremony. —

Ellie

[Marine84]

Oohrah!

Yay!

One for the GIRLS!

[bigdog43701]

Marine84,

u and them dancin' bananas!

[hrscowboy]

OMG please dont tell me this is true...

[jinelson]

I spoke with Brigadier General John Paxton and he wore only 1 star in January, if he is a LtGen 3 star now did he skip a star?

[greensideout]

If this is true, the Marine Corps may be headed down the same path of ruin as the Army has done.
The Marine Corps is a department of the Navy. THE MEN'S DEPARTMENT!
This is a joke, right?

[RLeon]

If this is true, the Marine Corps may be headed down the same path of ruin as the Army has done.

Nah, just Hollywood Marines

[thedrifter]

Highest-ranking Latino woman assumes command of Marine Corp Recruiting Depot

By: PHILIP K. IRELAND - Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO ---- With a ceremonial passing of the organizational colors, Brig. Gen. Angela Salinas, the highest-ranking Latino woman in the Marines, accepted command of the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego on Friday.

Salinas will oversee the training of more than 18,000 Marine recruits each year. She will direct more than 1,600 Marine recruiters west of the Mississippi River as commander of the Western Recruiting Region. She will be responsible for more than 3,000 Marines, sailors, civilians and Coast Guardsmen on the base.

The diminutive Salinas ---- just over 5 feet tall ---- accepted command of the Marine Corps' West Coast recruit induction center on the parade grounds in front of Pendleton Hall in a 90-minute ceremony.

She replaces Maj. Gen. John M. Paxton Jr., who will soon take command of Camp Pendleton and the Ist Marine Expeditionary Force.

Paxton lauded Salinas as an able leader as he congratulated her on her new post.

"The Marine Corps has the foresight to put round pegs in round holes and give the awesome mantle of responsibility for leadership to the right person, and they have done so in Angie Salinas," Paxton told the audience.

Michael W. Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, sent Salinas a message that was read by an announcer over the loud speaker.

"Your wealth of experience makes you ideally suited to take the helm as commanding general," he said.

Salinas, 53, was the Marine Corps' first Latino woman selected to the rank of brigadier general, according to military officials.

Salinas thanked her superiors for their trust, saying that she looked forward to assuming the helm of the base.

"We will continue to attack the mission," she vowed.

Salinas punctuated her acceptance speech with humor as she thanked her "unusual family" for their continued support.

Paxton, Salinas said, is a tall man with big shoes ---- shoes she will endeavor to fill as she assumes his post.

"I'd like to think that someday I could stand as tall as you," she told Paxton.

"The guys up the road are getting a great man."

A 32-year Marine, Salinas remembered the day in 1974 when she enlisted in the Marine Corps at a post office in San Rafael. She wondered aloud if the recruiter had any inkling then that he was enlisting a future commander of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot.

She wondered the same of the "nice drill instructor" at Parris Island, S.C., where she took her basic training.

A graduate of Dominican College in San Rafael, Salinas majored in history. She earned a master's degree from the Navy War College in 1992 and is a graduate of the Amphibious Warfare School, the Navy War College's Command and Staff College and the Army War College.

Her decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with a gold star and the Meritorious Service Medal with two gold stars.

In June 1989, Salinas assumed command of the recruiting station in Charleston, S.C., and became the first woman in the Marine Corps to command a recruiting station, according to the Marine Corps.

In June 1992, she became the first woman assigned as a combat service support ground monitor responsible for the assignments of more than 1,000 senior officers. She was the first female assigned as a plans and policy officer for a major combatant command in 1999, and in May 2001 when she assumed command of the 12th Marine Corps District. She has been named one of the top 100 most influential Latinos in the country, and one of 80 most elite women, according to the Marine Corps.

Contact staff writer Philip K. Ireland at (760) 901-4043 or pireland@nctimes.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines name first woman to post

By Sarah Gordon
UNION-TRIBUNE

Angela Salinas' life changed during a chance encounter at a post office in 1974.

The college sophomore had walked there to mail a letter when she met a Marine Corps recruiter. He asked Salinas why she wasn't a Marine, and she had no good answer. After listening to his pitch, she began to think the Marines might give her a grand and meaningful life.

She enlisted three days later. Within the week, she had traveled from Dominican College in San Rafael to Parris Island, S.C., to begin boot camp.

Salinas would go on to become the first woman to hold multiple high-level positions in the Corps.

She made Marine history again yesterday, becoming the first woman to lead either of the Corps' two boot camps.

“I wonder, did that recruiter ever think that he, in fact, would be enlisting the future commanding officer of the very region he worked in?” Salinas, now 52 and a brigadier general, said during an afternoon change-of-command ceremony at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot.

She now oversees the facility, which trains all male Marine recruits west of the Mississippi – about 20,000 a year.

Salinas will also lead Marine recruitment in the western United States. She takes over the positions from Major Gen. John M. Paxton Jr., who will serve as commanding general of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton.

Yesterday's audience included several retired admirals and Marine generals, Mayor Jerry Sanders and Salinas' relatives.

“It's Angie Salinas plus 352,” said Paxton, joking about the large extended family that Salinas brought to the ceremony.

Her mother and sister were among those attending. For decades, they have lived with Salinas wherever she's stationed.

Salinas recognized them and her Latino heritage by greeting the crowd in Spanish.

Several military experts said Salinas' unprecedented appointment will likely cause some stir at the depot because she has not engaged in combat and because, in various ways, the Corps has been slower than the other military branches to integrate women.

The Marines are the only branch to train men and women in separate battalions. All female recruits, no matter where they enlist, attend boot camp at Parris Island. Only 5 percent of active-duty Marines are women, the lowest percentage in any of the armed forces.

“You'll probably get a lot of people saying, 'Why did they send her here? Why didn't they send her to Parris Island?' ” said Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, who oversaw the depot from 2000 to 2003.

But he and other Marines said her high rank and the Corps' emphasis on respect for authority should win over the doubters.

“We're Marines, she's earned her stripes,” said Retired Marine Gen. David Brahms, now a defense attorney in Carlsbad. “(She's) going to be embraced as one of a band of brothers. I know that's a sexist comment, but we simply don't have a new and appropriate way to describe that in the 21st century.”

Salinas' lack of combat credentials won't hamper her ability to effectively inspire the boot camp's staff and recruits, said retired Lt. Gen. Victor “Brute” Krulak of San Diego.

“Training recruits is not the same as training for combat,” he said. “(This phase involves) learning the discipline and philosophy of the Marine Corps.”

This is Salinas' third tour in San Diego County. Her first was at Camp Pendleton in 1986, when she commanded a service battalion. Fifteen years later, she returned to the region to head the 12th Marine Corps Recruiting District. She was the first woman to hold that position, responsible for overseeing recruitment stations in 10 states.

Salinas was also the Corps' first Latina to reach the rank of brigadier general. Earlier in her career, she became the first woman to head a recruiting station.

Salinas was born in Alice, Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents. She used to hope that people wouldn't think of her as a great Latina or female Marine. She just wanted to be a great Marine, held to the same standards as everyone else in the Corps.

But in recent years, Salinas has accepted how important her achievements are to the Latino community.

A big family wedding changed her mind, said Debbie Thurman, an ex-Marine who attended officer candidate training with Salinas in Quantico, Va., in 1977.

At the wedding reception, an uncle asked everyone to honor the Marine among them. Salinas' family members applauded her, and they called for a speech. For the first time, Salinas recognized that she represented success and fulfillment of the American Dream to her loved ones.

“She said that at that moment, she realized that they were her and she was them,” Thurman recalled.

Several Latino publications have honored Salinas. In 2002, for example, Hispanic Business magazine named her as one of the nation's 50 most influential Latinos.

Thurman was among the many female Marines who considered Salinas a role model.

She recalled how during officer candidate training, after days spent trudging miles with 40-pound backpacks or slogging through mud, the 5-foot tall Salinas would ice her bad knees.

“She always had a smile on her face and she never complained about anything,” Thurman said. “I looked at her and said, 'If she can do this, I really have no excuse.' ”

Salinas is taking charge of the depot during a crucial time for the Marine Corps. She will oversee boot camp training for recruits who will almost certainly be deployed for combat duty in the Middle East. The Corps and the Army have suffered the most casualties and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wartime recruitment is also an essential part of Salinas' new post.

Between October 2005 and June of this year, all branches of the military met or exceeded their recruitment quotas, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. But the Marine Corps and Army had failed to do so for more than a year before then.

Several high-ranking generals said Salinas' experience in recruitment was a chief reason she got her latest promotion.

Most recently, Salinas served as chief of staff at the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico. There, she helped devise marketing campaigns and training programs for recruiters.

Maj. Gen. Walt Gaskin, Salinas' former boss in Quantico, said she naturally motivated the recruiters who worked for her.

“She has a passion for service and the ability to translate that so people understand it,” Gaskin said.

And her own story is her best plug for pledging devotion to the Marines, he said.

“She started as an enlisted Marine in 1974 who aspired to do great things with her life,” Gaskin added. “She asks others to follow her lead, and she sets one heck of an example.”

Sarah Gordon is a Union-Tribune intern.

Ellie

[Marine84]

C'mon ya'll.................ya'll KNOW women are worse cause we can exercise our right to be a B!tch!

From the pic it looks like she's a nice lady but you know when she puts that uniform on and assumes the role of THE DOG every day at one of ONLY 2 Marine Corps Recruit Depots AND 32 years under her belt? That's just downright out-f'n-standing!

I bet none of you guys would want to have to go stand on the yellow footprints that you KNOW she has in front of her desk now - just think of how some sniveling little boot is going to feel when it happens to him!

I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall to see it and I'm DAM proud to be a WM!

[hrscowboy]

they should have sent her to PI where the women are..

[FistFu68]

DAM ,YOU YOU GUY'S WERE ALWAY'S GREAT WITH COMING UP WITH, CHIT~BUT THIS IS THE BEST YET! A WOOKIE RUNNING MCRD! AHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~'CUSE ME WHILE I GO TAKE A CRAP!

[lifer1369]

Well that should cut out the profanity about women in the pit...no more of those cute words or hog boards in the sqd bay! She might be in the passage way w/ sgtmaj. (wonder) who gets that post...The general goes and the sgtmaj goes too; Didn't think we had any (F) SgtMaj's that could fill in shoes as one looking like a bulldog, mean crusty and rip your lips off... but then again time will tell!

[yellowwing]

Is Donnie Rumsfeld behind this? Who appoints generals out of the DOD?

[jennifer]

LMFAO!! And I personally didn't think this was possible. The funny thing is that I know of a certain Sgt that was with the unit I am currently with, whom went through his Drill Instrucotr training and is now currently working at MCRD. HAHA, oh ya, the funny thing. Well, this certain Sgt does not believe females should be in the Marine Corps. He is a good guy and a good Sgt, just doesn't believe we shold be here. Well here ya go Sgt, now you are working for a female!! HAHAHA!! I wonder what the look on his face was when he found out about this.

Nah, just Hollywood Marines