‘It’s About Time’ Memorial Recognizes The Contributions Of 1.8 Million Women To The Military

It was an unusual invasion.

Women by the tens of thousands - some with husbands and families in tow - swarmed the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery Saturday to celebrate, honor and remember women in the military from the Revolutionary War to the present.

“I wasn’t going to miss this,” said Josephine Anton, 82, of West Palm Beach, Fla., national chairwoman of Women in the Military for the Jewish War Veterans, who left a hospital bed after eye surgery to attend the dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.

Anton, who joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942 and moved to the Women’s Army Corps in 1943 as a first lieutenant, said she was “delighted that women are finally being recognized as part of the military establishment. It’s about time.”

Remembering and recognizing the contributions 1.8 million women have made to the military - sometimes secretly, sometimes against stiff opposition from their male counterparts - was a theme that ran through the two-hour dedication ceremony, complete with marching bands, color guards, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a flyover of planes commanded by women.

“The nation expresses its gratitude for what it has, for more than two centuries, taken for granted,” Defense Secretary William Cohen said. “Now their heroism is chiseled into the stone of American memory.”

Frieda Hardin, 101, a former yeoman first class who served in the U.S. Navy during World War I, haltingly read a statement urging young women considering a military career to “go for it.” Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, the first female space shuttle pilot, said her path was blazed by the female pilots and servicewomen of previous generations.

For many of the women, Saturday was a long-awaited day of recognition of service that, for most, occurred a half century ago.

“I felt this would be just the right thing to do to make my career complete,” said retired Army Col. Banna I. Ghioto, 80.

Ghioto was a registered nurse living in Washington, D.C., in August 1941, four months before the United States entered World War II, when she volunteered for the Army.

“I thought I would stay in for a year and come out and do pediatric nursing,” Ghioto said.

Instead, she stayed on active duty for four and a half years, serving in both the European and Pacific theaters of war, and remained in the reserves until 1979.

She recalls coming under direct enemy fire once while riding in a jeep in the Philippines, but her most memorable experience, she said, was tending released American prisoners of war in the Pacific.

“They were so emaciated that if Betty Grable had walked down a hospital ward stark naked with an apple in her hand, those boys would have knocked her down for the apple,” Ghioto said.

Approved by Congress and signed by President Reagan in 1985, the $21.5 million memorial sits at the entrance to Arlington Cemetery interlaced with a curved stone retaining wall built in 1932.

At the base of the wall is a reflecting pool and fountain. Four stairwells were cut into the wall leading to a second level where glass tablets - etched with quotations by and about women in the military - serve as skylights for the exhibit gallery below.

Also included in the memorial is a theater and a computer registry hall which, so far, contains the remembrances of a quarter of a million servicewomen who each paid $25 to enshrine their stories.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY Associated Press Facts about women in the U.S. armed forces: 1775: During the American Revolution, they serve as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs. Deborah Sampson Gannett disguises herself as a man and serves in the Continental Army. 1861-1865: Dr. Mary Walker receives Medal of Honor during the Civil War, the only woman to receive the nation’s highest military award. 1917-1918: Navy and Marine Corps enlist more than 12,000 women to “free men to fight” in World War I by filling such positions as clerks and telephone operators. More than 200 nurses die during the war. 1941-1945: Nurses among those attacked at Pearl Harbor, Guam and the Philippines during World War II; 87 women held captive in the Pacific and Europe. More than 400,000 American women serve in noncombat jobs at home and abroad. 1948: Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 grants women permanent status in the military’s regular and reserve forces. 1967: Repeal of legal ceilings on promotions for women. 1972: Military draft ends; services recruit more women. 1975: Defense Department reverses policies on pregnant women; allows them to either be discharged or remain on active duty. They previously were discharged after becoming pregnant or adopting children. 1977: Women sent to sea as crew members aboard Coast Guard ships. 1989: About 150 women take part in Panama military action. 1990: Military deploys 40,000 women for Persian Gulf War. 1991: Congress repeals laws banning women from flying in combat; later, lawmakers approve service by women on combat ships. 1993: Women participate in multinational operations in Bosnia and Somalia. In 1994, they join forces sent to Rwanda and Haiti. 1994: Military revises combat rules; says women may be assigned to all units except those with high probability of engaging in ground combat, direct exposure to enemy fire or direct physical contact with the enemy.