Dunwoody shared the honors with Marillyn Hewson, executive vice president, Electronic Systems, Lockheed Martin Corporation.

At the beginning of the presentation, Dunwoody spoke with Ann Curry, co-anchor of NBC’s “TODAY” show about what our service members have accomplished in the last decade and the challenges faced by today’s generation of veterans .

“It has been a tough decade, fighting on two fronts, while responding to contingencies around the globe. When we remind ourselves that only one percent of Americans serve in uniform you can understand the kind of heavy lifting we’ve asked our service members and their families to do.” Dunwoody said. “I absolutely think today’s service members and veterans will be remembered as our next greatest generation.”

One female service member from each of the branches of the armed forces also received Military Leadership awards from the USO during the luncheon. Those awards were presented to Air Force Capt. Gina Fasciani, U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Sheen Adams, Army Sgt. Julia Bringloe, Coast Guard Lt. j.g Katherine Ustler, and Navy Lt. Katherine Worstell.

“Today, what was once a band of brothers truly has become a band of brothers and sisters and you don’t have to look any further than these five great American service members to see why,” said Dunwoody.”

Read the entire story at www.army.mil

On May 14, the Army will begin implementing the new Defense Department policy.

The new DoD policy opens up an additional 3 percent of Army jobs to women.

About 30 percent of Army jobs will remain restricted to men.

“The last 11 years of warfare have really revealed to us there are no front lines,” Brig. Gen. Barrye Price, director of human resources policy at the Army G-1 (personnel) told Army Times. “There are no rear echelons. Everybody was vulnerable to the influence of the enemy.”

(Read the article in its entirety at Marine Corps Times)

Gen. Joseph Dunford, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told the Marine Corps Times on Wednesday that the service is in the process of soliciting volunteers to attend the Infantry Officer Course in Quantico, Va.

All Marine infantry officers attend the 10-week course after completing The Basic School. Dunford and other Marine officials have not said what the next steps will be for women who volunteer to attend the school.

The Marine Corps is expected to release a service-wide message soon about expanding career and training opportunities for women. The message will include information about women attending IOC.” (Read the whole story here)

It’s been a few months since your husband left again for Afghanistan.

The last time he was gone, something bad happened, but it was the kind of bad that could have been worse. He was lucky to have escaped with minor injuries, and you were fortunate to not receive that visit.

In the few months since he’s been gone this time around, I’ve written you two emails.

Maybe it’s because I see your posts on Facebook, now and then, and you seem fine enough. A reply here, a brief post there, your words and pictures appearing with the same sporadic rhythm as they did before he left. “She’s doing great!” I hear myself assuming, and then I move on to something else.

When you share a picture of your children, I think about how cute they are, how powerfully their personalities come through in a still moment captured with your camera, how fast they’re growing, how happy they look.

It doesn’t occur to me that they miss their dad in a way I’ll never know, because I never had a parent go to war. A soul mate, yes. A parent, no. It doesn’t occur to me to wonder what it’s like for you to see their more profound moments of missing in the times they aren’t distracted by the things that distract kids, when they have time and space to think about him, or when they see his picture on the refrigerator or the wall.

It doesn’t occur to me to remember that seeming “fine” on Facebook (or in emails, or in silence) is often a facade. That waiting feeling isn’t something that can be seen. It’s not like crying, it’s not like frustration with the cost of a movie ticket that makes you say, “Seriously!?” to the innocent ticket taker. That waiting feeling is in the veins and the skin, and it doesn’t attach itself well to words.

You’d think I would be better at being a friend to you through this, having gone through a deployment myself. You’d think I would live on Skype, just waiting to catch you so I could keep you company or distract you for a few minutes, have a glass of wine with you even though having a glass of wine with you would mean one of us would be drinking it very early in the morning.

(Whatever. Hoda and Kathy Lee do it, and we, at least, could blame the time difference.)

In Homefront, the character you inspired (but only the best parts of her) says this:

We live in our small American neighborhood in our small American town. All we worry about is ourselves and how this war will affect us and the people we love. When Jake is home, you’ll see. You’ll care less about the war. It’s callous, but it’s true. You’ll care less because the soldier blown up by an IED won’t represent Jake, and the woman crying on TV won’t represent you.

When I wrote that, the people I had in mind were those “other” people I remembered from when Ian was deployed, the people whose loves had already come home. They’d left one reality for another, better reality, one of sound sleep and days not stained with anxiety and longing and no choice but to wait and see.

At the time, I hated those people, and I envied them, and I was irrationally happy for them. (It was very confusing, as you no doubt know.)

I never believed I would become one of them. Never thought I would fall into the 99% – the original 99%: “Americans not in the military and watching war news from a blissful distance.” I never would have believed I could continue to be married to someone in the military and, at the same time, be so separate from the deployment experience I can still so vividly remember simply because he’s still here, that my heart-hurt for the families waiting at home would all too frequently last not much longer than one of the increasingly rare news stories covering the military in Afghanistan, or about the length of a YouTube video of a happy child, wife, or dog welcoming home a service member.

I thought of you this morning when a beer glass crossed my feed (it was a glass bought for a soldier who would never again be able to drink it), and I remembered your husband was deployed. Which meant I’d actually forgotten. I sent you an email asking only, “How are you doing?”

After hitting “send,” I wanted to take it back. I don’t know what I would have replaced it with, but certainly something…more. Something that lets you know I’m sorry for forgetting, sorry for forgetting you.

Sorry for becoming one of them.

-Kristen J. Tsetsi

Former reporter Kristen Tsetsi is an editor and freelance writer and the author of Homefront (not to be confused with Kristin Hanna’s later released Home Front). She lives in New England with her husband, formerly a 101st Airborne soldier and currently a National Guard Company Commander.

Air Force officials announced the confirmation of Lt. Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger to the rank of general with assignment to the position of AFMC commander, making her the Air Force’s first female four-star general. Officials also announced the Senate confirmation of AFMC Vice Commander Lt. Gen. C.D. Moore II for appointment as commander of the new Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, to be located here.

Wolfenbarger was previously Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition at the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

As commander of AFMC, she will oversee 83,000 people with a budget of $60 billion annually for research, development, test and evaluation. The command provides the acquisition management services and logistics support required to develop, procure and sustain Air Force weapon systems.

(Read the entire story here)

The changes are included in a report the department submitted to Congress today, based in part on findings the Military Leadership Diversity Commission reported in March.

Today’s report includes a “vision statement”: “The Department of Defense is committed to removing all barriers that would prevent service members from rising to the highest level of responsibility that their talents and capabilities warrant.”

A Pentagon news release accompanying the announcement quotes Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta as saying women have proven themselves in and out of battle.

“Women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission,” he said. “Through their courage, sacrifice, patriotism and great skill, women have proven their ability to serve in an expanding number of roles on and off the battlefield.

“We will continue to open as many positions as possible to women so that anyone qualified to serve can have the opportunity to do so,” the secretary added.” (Read the entire article at the Department of Defense website)

And from Stars & Stripes:

“American Women Veterans founder Genevieve Chase echoed that sentiment, saying she has heard from numerous commanders who couldn’t use highly qualified female servicemembers for certain jobs because of the rules.

“The nature of war has changed and battlefield commanders have found value in the contributions of women in combat, and especially counterinsurgency operations,” she said, pointing to the use of Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan today.

“Our military has realized that we have the ability to field the best America has to offer and all those who volunteer to serve our country should receive equal training and career opportunities, regardless of their gender.”

The change will also eliminate rules that prohibit women from living alongside combat units, and spur the development of gender-neutral standards for a variety of military positions.” (Read the entire story at Stripes.com)

I hesitate to use the term “friend”, because I am not sure I knew her well enough to claim that title. However, I think Mariah is probably comfortable with it, and considering that she gave me something of considerable value, no other term seems quite appropriate.

Mariah was a veterinarian in the United States Army before suffering a severe brain injury in the summer of 2008. I met her through Team River Runner, the non-profit group that brought kayaking to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where it is now an adaptive-sports component of wounded warrior rehabilitation. Mariah’s struggle to overcome the unrelenting challenges of brain injury ended on December 24th.

I was reluctant to attend the memorial service. I had just returned home after ten days of traveling for funerals and memorial services of fellow warriors who had fallen in Afghanistan, and I was anxious to return to less solemn endeavors. Because Mariah is a Quaker, I was also concerned about how I, and her other military friends, would be received. The only other Quakers I have met were protesting the war in front of the main gate of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (they behaved more civilly than any other group of protesters I have seen). Mariah, of course, had one of the very few positions in the armed forces that can be held by conscientious objectors – Veterinarian.

Although reluctant, I decided to “proceed as the way opened”, and arrived at the Sidwell Friends School, in Bethesda, on Saturday afternoon. Although I was early, all the parking spaces were filled, so I parked some distance away, in the yard – more like a field – adjoining the school. As I dodged mud puddles on my walk to the school, I took in all the sights and sounds around me (an involuntary legacy of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder). At the far end of the yard, in the tallest tree around, a crow was calling. It called about every twenty seconds, creating a rhythm.

Suddenly the words “Just listen” came to me, and I stopped in mid-stride…

At one of the kayak sessions conducted by Team River Runner at Walter Reed, I had found Mariah watching from the side of the pool, apparently despondent. Pain and fatigue had forced her to sit-out the session. I knew I should attempt to encourage her, but our previous conversations had been limited to an exchange of greetings. Kayaking and brain injury were the two things I knew we had in common, so I tried to engage her on those. Mariah did not respond, so I was not sure if my attempt was welcome, or if she was really there (I thought she might have “zoned out”).

I changed topics, and related my experience with Ride-Well, a therapeutic riding program at Rock Creek Park. I told her I had been partnered with Jackson, a horse that did not like to be touched – especially by men – but allowed me to groom him with no resistance. Keeping up the banter, and not expecting a response, I said “As a Veterinarian, I guess you probably know the reason for that, but I wish Jackson could tell me.” And at that, Mariah turned toward me, and with an earnestness best appreciated by another brain-injury survivor, said… “Just listen.”

Mariah had been there all along, completely engaged, but just too tired to talk.

That was what Mariah gave me. A lesson, an observation, a premonition — I don’t know how to characterize it, but I know it is valuable.

Not long after that, I listened to Jackson as intently as I could, and learned why he trusted me. It was because we shared a common hyper-alertness to our environment – Jackson, because horses are “prey animals” and he had been abused; and I, because of brain injury and post-traumatic stress. Consequently, we both were suspicious of anything that moved, made a noise, or just seemed out of place, until we investigated and verified it was not a threat.

I am not an “animal person”. Mariah is an animal person, and I have other friends who are. Some of them are Native Americans that I spent time with in Washington state. They related to me a cultural belief that when a crow calls out, creating a rhythm like that crow on Saturday afternoon, it is announcing that someone’s spirit has just traversed the path from physical death to eternal spiritual life.

I attended the memorial service, and remained for a while at the reception that followed – and discovered that religious and philosophical differences did not impede the courtesy, respect, and friendship that was afforded to Mariah’s military friends. I also discovered why I was there: I told a few people about the crow and what it might mean, and they seemed comforted by it.

When I left the reception hall, dodging mud puddles as I walked to my car, I looked for the crow, but it was gone. It did not need to be there, it did not need to call out anymore — I had already listened.

Thank you, Mariah >

What this means for American Women Veterans:

The Echoing Green Fellowship

Through our two-year Echoing Green Fellowship program, we provide start-up capital and technical assistance to help new leaders launch their organizations and build capacity of their social enterprise. We offer:

• A stipend of $80,000 for individuals (or $90,000 for 2-person partnerships) paid in four equal installments over two years
• A health insurance stipend
• A yearly professional development stipend
• Conferences led by organizational development experts
• Access to technical support and pro bono partnerships to help grow your organization
• A community of like-minded social entrepreneurs and public service leaders, including the Echoing Green network of nearly 500 alumni working all over the world

From Echoing Green’s Website:

“There are 3,508 reasons why we have great hope for a better world. This is the number of applications Echoing Green received for our 2012 Fellowships. We congratulate every single applicant for taking on the world’s biggest problems with their bold, innovative solutions. After an awe-inspiring and challenging first-stage review process, we proudly announce our 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship Semifinalists and the 2012 Open Society Foundations Black Male Achievement Fellowship Semifinalists.

Echoing Green sent official notifications to all applicants this afternoon.

The Semifinalists will have the opportunity to submit additional information about their big idea, and the Finalists for both Fellowships will be invited to our Finalist Weekend in May 2012.

We thank all the 2012 Fellowship applicants and wish everyone success in their efforts to solve the world’s biggest problems.”

See the entire 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship Semifinalist list here

“It was an unusual job even for the Seabees, the U.S. Navy’s construction forces trained to hold a hammer in one hand and a Beretta M9 in the other.

First, the team selected to build barracks high in the mountains of Afghanistan consisted of eight women, who are all stationed at Naval Base Ventura County. And second, the women completed the job far ahead of schedule.

Beating deadline made up for long days and freezing nights in tents without plumbing, building four 20-by-30-foot structures, said Gafayat Moradeyo, the mission commander. But when the women returned to Bagram air field, their Afghanistan base, they learned that they had nailed another achievement: a place in naval history.

Military officials say they are the first all-female construction team to take on a construction job from start to finish in the Seabees’ 70-year history. And they did it in record time in the barren rocky mountains of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the focus of recent combat efforts.”

(This is just an excerpt, please read the entire story at The Los Angeles Times)

Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, first woman and first nonphysician to become the Army’s surgeon general, was promoted and assumed her new duties at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., on Dec. 7.

She took command of Medical Command at a ceremony on Fort Sam Houston, Texas, two days earlier.

She succeeds Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, who is retiring after more than three decades of service.

“We are dedicated to identifying and caring for soldiers who have sustained physical and psychological trauma associated with a protracted war,” Horoho said at the Dec. 7 ceremony. “A focus on wellness and prevention will ensure that our soldiers are ready to heed the nation’s call.”

Read the entire story at Armytimes.com