“When I showed up for airborne school, they made me the stick leader. Now, stick leaders are always the first one out the airplane. And I thought, `Wow, a stick leader, a promotion already -- this Army stuff is all right’…Later I found out the truth: the black hats thought if the woman was the first one to jump out of the airplane, none of the men would chicken out.”

— Army General Ann Dunwoody, the first woman in U.S. military history to wear four stars, at her formal retirement ceremony Wednesday in Washington. General Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, noted how important the Army deemed the day by the presence of a “four-tuba” Army band. “You are quite simply the best logistician the Army has ever had,” Odierno told Dunwoody as she ended her 38 years in uniform.

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