thedrifter
03-08-06, 06:17 AM
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
High-ranking Marine made women's history
By Mark Coomes
mcoomes@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
When Carol Mutter joined the Marines in 1967, women generals weren't merely unheard of.
They were against the law.
"The law of the land was that women could not have one star, let alone two or three," Mutter said. "But that law was changed in November of '67, and lots of significant changes were to follow.
"Put it this way: Over my career, I remember almost every Friday opening up the base newspaper and seeing another first for women."
Mutter often read her own name.
She will visit Wildwood Country Club today to address the Louisville chapter of the Military Officers Association of America. What better person to speak during Women's History Month than a woman who made history herself?
In 1996, Mutter became the first woman in U.S. military history to attain the rank of lieutenant general. She retired from the Corps in 1999 but remains the Marines' only female three-star general.
In the five branches of the military -- U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard -- only eight women have ever achieved three-star rank. Four have retired and four are active.
"It's a pretty small club," Mutter said.
But it's a start, and the club is almost certain to grow. Mutter, 60, said that women officers in Iraq and Afghanistan "will have every opportunity to compete favorably with male counterparts" for future promotions.
Things have changed dramatically over the past four decades.
"When I joined the Corps, if a woman married a man with children under the age of 18, she had to get out," Mutter said. "And certainly if she got pregnant she had to get out.
"Remember that 1967 was just the starting edge of the women's lib movement. The prevailing idea was still that if you had a family, you belonged at home."
Mutter and her husband, Jim, a retired Marine colonel, have no children, and Carol Mutter hopscotched from Virginia to Colorado to California to Okinawa during her 31-year career.
In Colorado, she became the first woman to lead the U.S. Space Command. In Okinawa, she became the first woman general to lead a major tactical command.
Since retiring to Brownsburg, Ind., near Indianapolis, she has worked as a consultant to businesses pursuing military contracts and earned a presidential appointment to the American Battle Monuments Commission.
All in all, it's been quite a career for a woman who joined the Marines "thinking that I would put in my three years and get out," Mutter said. "I just wanted to be a math teacher."
Ellie
High-ranking Marine made women's history
By Mark Coomes
mcoomes@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
When Carol Mutter joined the Marines in 1967, women generals weren't merely unheard of.
They were against the law.
"The law of the land was that women could not have one star, let alone two or three," Mutter said. "But that law was changed in November of '67, and lots of significant changes were to follow.
"Put it this way: Over my career, I remember almost every Friday opening up the base newspaper and seeing another first for women."
Mutter often read her own name.
She will visit Wildwood Country Club today to address the Louisville chapter of the Military Officers Association of America. What better person to speak during Women's History Month than a woman who made history herself?
In 1996, Mutter became the first woman in U.S. military history to attain the rank of lieutenant general. She retired from the Corps in 1999 but remains the Marines' only female three-star general.
In the five branches of the military -- U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard -- only eight women have ever achieved three-star rank. Four have retired and four are active.
"It's a pretty small club," Mutter said.
But it's a start, and the club is almost certain to grow. Mutter, 60, said that women officers in Iraq and Afghanistan "will have every opportunity to compete favorably with male counterparts" for future promotions.
Things have changed dramatically over the past four decades.
"When I joined the Corps, if a woman married a man with children under the age of 18, she had to get out," Mutter said. "And certainly if she got pregnant she had to get out.
"Remember that 1967 was just the starting edge of the women's lib movement. The prevailing idea was still that if you had a family, you belonged at home."
Mutter and her husband, Jim, a retired Marine colonel, have no children, and Carol Mutter hopscotched from Virginia to Colorado to California to Okinawa during her 31-year career.
In Colorado, she became the first woman to lead the U.S. Space Command. In Okinawa, she became the first woman general to lead a major tactical command.
Since retiring to Brownsburg, Ind., near Indianapolis, she has worked as a consultant to businesses pursuing military contracts and earned a presidential appointment to the American Battle Monuments Commission.
All in all, it's been quite a career for a woman who joined the Marines "thinking that I would put in my three years and get out," Mutter said. "I just wanted to be a math teacher."
Ellie