This is the sixth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. Pondering science, space, and astronomy inspires US Army Major Mindy Kimball, because she has long dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Many astronauts begin their space quests in the military, which is where Mindy hopes her quest is beginning as well. Mindy grew up in…
This is the fifth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. When Liet. Col. Hae-Sue Park retired from the Army two years ago, the most common questions she received from friends, “I can’t believe you retired. Do you have any regrets? What are you going to do?” Although she loved the challenges of her 20-year…
This is the fourth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. “It is amazing how more alike we are than we are different,” said Jen Boggs, Coordination Officer in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping at the United Nations. “The vast majority of people from all backgrounds want the same things: to live in…
This is the third installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. Before kindergarten Stephanie Ahern drafted her life plan; graduate high school, attend a good college, earn a masters degree and then a doctorate, like her father a metallurgical engineer, work for a year or two and than get married. That is as far as…
This is the second installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. As a junior high student in Franklin, Tennessee, Becky Kanis remembers the excitement and awe of fellow parishioners when they learned a young woman from St. Philip’s Catholic Church received an appointment to a service academy. Carol Anderson, a high school senior and St….
Between 1980 and 2008, 3,245 women graduated from West Point and have served selflessly in the Nation’s armed forces. Most of them, whether or not they still wear the uniform, are ordinary women with extraordinary stories of perseverance and integrity. They are soldiers and wives, mothers and daughters. They are doctors, lawyers, teachers, clergy and…
This is the first installment in the weekly Honored Role Series. Odessa Maxwell is the story of a soldier turned poet. A study of complexities and contrasts, Odessa Maxwell describes herself as an unusual woman. Born in Germany to a Japanese mother and African-American father, Odessa grew up in the south. The family settled in…
In the month of August, both Forbes Magazine and US News & World Report ranked West Point as American’s Best College in each of their respective annual rankings. The rank and follow-on accolades are tribute to a national treasure – the United States Military Academy. There has been both praise and criticism of the methodology…