By David Maurer
No institution more masterfully orchestrates the traumatic transformation from civilian to soldier than the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Since 1802 some of the nation’s finest Army officers have been honed within the gray, granite fortress overlooking the Hudson River in New York. In 1976 women were given the opportunity to join “the Long Gray Line.”
A year later Rebecca Halstead was one of 104 females and more than 1,000 males, who arrived at the academy to meet the challenge.
The day started with high hopes and parental hugs and ended, for some, with quiet rides back home.
Halstead did much more than make it through the four arduous years of demanding physical and mental training. On Aug. 1, 2004, she became the first female West Point graduate to earn the rank of brigadier general.
But on that long-ago July day, when flustered cadets could hardly remember their names, much less their right foot from their left, Halstead simply was focused on survival.
“If you have long hair it’s short hair, if you have short hair it’s shorter hair,” said Halstead, who retired from the Army last September and now makes her home in Fluvanna County. “They take your civilian clothes and get you into a military uniform.
“They teach you how to salute, how to do left-face, right-face and about-face. They teach you how to march, because there’s a parade at the end of the first day.
“And all this time you’re being yelled at. At the end of that first day, kids walk right off the parade field. They see their parents in the stands, and they’re gone.”
Many cadets prepare for years to receive one of the coveted appointments to the academy. The athletic Halstead was planning to go to Ithaca College to prepare for a career as a coach and gym teacher.
“West Point wasn’t even on my radar screen,” said Halstead, who grew up in the small town of Willseyville, N.Y. “But in the spring of 1976 my mother was reading the newspaper and said, ‘Look at this. They’re letting women go to the academy.’
“She started reading all the qualifications and said, ‘This sounds just like you.’ If you think about it, that’s pretty amazing, because in the
1970s for a mom to want her daughter to go to a prominent male institution is incredible.
“But my mom is known for her encouragement and for her ability to see the best in you and push you toward that in a positive way.”
To please her mother the future one-star general said she’d apply. Inwardly she didn’t think she had a prayer of being accepted into the extremely selective academy.
“When I got the acceptance letter I couldn’t believe it,” Halstead said with a laugh. “I immediately panicked, but I also felt I had made a deal I couldn’t go back on.
“What’s going through my mind that first day at the academy was that I was crazy. All my friends were home enjoying their summer, and there I was being yelled at by some of the country’s finest.
“I wanted to quit so many times, but I always tell folks there are two rules to life. Rule number one is: Don’t quit, and rule number two is: Refer back to rule number one.”
Halstead came to understand that the harsh, mind-numbing introduction to military life has a purpose. It’s designed, in part, to eliminate those who either aren’t seriously committed to the challenge or realize they’re not suited for the lifestyle.
“It has to be a tough environment,” Halstead said. “And it has to be a disciplined environment, because we are creating and developing leaders who are going to lead men and women, sons and daughters, into combat.
“That takes special people. Not everybody is going to like it, and not everybody is going to pass the test.
“If you’re not serious about it, they want you to leave. I don’t disagree with that.”
Halstead said most people would agree that the women in the class before hers had the hardest transition. This was not because they were treated any worse, but because they were constantly in the eyes of the media.
And there were a lot of people back then who didn’t believe women belonged at West Point. One male cadet was quoted as saying the admittance of women to the academy was the “most traumatic thing that’s happened since they took away the horses.”
But women like Halstead not only proved they belonged at the academy, they proved they could make tremendous contributions to the military. In time all the initial problems with things like uniforms were worked out.
“As far as women at West Point go, most changes I see now are physical,” Halstead said. “They can wear their hair long; we couldn’t. They can wear earrings; we couldn’t. They’re allowed not to lose their identity as women, whereas we were still in the lets-try-to-make-everybody-look-alike era.
“I think the overall camaraderie with men and women is probably much stronger now. They have grown up in an integrated society that is increasingly recognizing the fact that diversity is our nation’s strength, not a weak link.”
Halstead said making it through the academy is hard for everybody, not just women. The 40-percent attrition rate for both genders proves this out. Of the 104 women who started in her class, 63 graduated.
Halstead wasn’t the first person from her hometown to go to West Point, but she was the first to graduate.
“Anytime I think of proudest moments, I think of my parents both smiling and being so happy on graduation day,” Halstead said. “The day I was promoted to brigadier general was probably my second-biggest day.
“The ceremony was in Germany, where I was stationed. A whole bunch of my friends from grade school, high school and West Point came to be part of it.
“My entire family — Mom and Dad, brother, two sisters and nephew — were there as well. Having both my parents there and seeing them really beam meant more to me than anything.”
Halstead’s focus during her 27 years in the Army was in logistics and ordnance. She has shouldered incredible responsibilities, from helping to maintain nuclear weapons to ensuring the men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan had everything they needed to accomplish their missions.
Standing 5-feet, 1½-inches tall, Halstead proved time and again that size doesn’t make the soldier. Retired Maj. Gen. Dewitt T. Irby Jr. met Halstead early in her career when she was a captain.
Halstead said Irby started as her leader, became her mentor and then one of her dearest friends. He was in Germany to pin the bright stars on her uniform.
“Very candidly, I consider Becky one of the finest leaders who ever worked with or for me in all my 33 years in the Army,” Irby said during a recent telephone interview from his home near Santa Cruz, Calif. “I think the cornerstone of her leadership skills are probably two words — integrity and caring.
“In the more than 20 years I have known her, I have seen her deal with some very difficult situations in some very difficult and trying times. I can’t recall ever hearing her complain about anything.
“When things got tough, she just got a little bit tougher. When things didn’t go her way, she looked at it as an opportunity and maybe even a challenge, but she didn’t shirk from it.”
Irby said when he gave Halstead command of a problematic company, she had it “humming like a sewing machine” within weeks. She then asked him for command of an even bigger and more challenging company.
“I had an ammunition company, 300 soldiers strong, that was a problem for me,” Irby said. “They were ammo humpers with big shoulders.
“When I told Becky’s battalion commander I was thinking of giving her the company he said, ‘Oh my God sir, that’s stupid. That’s just not right. She’s a little bitty girl, and they’ll run over her.’ I said he might be right, but let’s give it a try. I called her in and told her I was going to give her command of that company in about a month.”
A few days later, Irby was heading home after a long day at the office and noticed a lone soldier exercising in the middle of the parade field. Curious, he walked out to see who it was.
“It was Becky,” Irby said with a tone of admiration in his voice. “I asked her what she was doing, and she said getting in good condition.
“She told me her plan for the day she took command of the ammo company was to take her soldiers on a PT [physical training] test and whip all their butts. And then she was going to take them on a four-mile run and lead it all the way.
“That’s exactly what she did. From that moment on, they had great respect for her, and I didn’t have any more trouble with them.”
Halstead was a brigade commander with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., when terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Just weeks later, she found herself flying into Uzbekistan to help determine what logistics would be needed during the war in Afghanistan.
“I flew into Uzbekistan with a Special Forces team in a C-17,” Halstead said. “My first impression of them was that they had no discipline, because their hair was long.
“But that’s because part of their mission is to fit in. They’re a different part of our Army, and so they have a different culture, and I hadn’t been around that before.
“But you quickly recognize that they’re doing far more important things than worrying about haircuts. I found them to be very professional and wonderful to work with.
“They’re incredibly hard and mean, yet incredibly tender and loving. All my friends who have had anything to do with any of their groups have been amazed.”
Halstead also has been extremely impressed by the men and women she has commanded throughout her military career. During her tour in Iraq from 2005-2006 she commanded 20,000 soldiers, 5,000 civilians and was responsible for 55 locations.
Halstead’s job was supplying logistical support for all the coalition forces in Iraq. To accomplish this she had to work nearly around the clock, seven days a week.
“During my year in Iraq, I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows,” Halstead said. “When your soldiers get killed on missions, that’s the lowest low. The highest high is when you know you’re part of accomplishing tremendous missions on a daily basis.
“For example, every day we moved by ground anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million gallons of fuel. I always said without the maneuver units, we didn’t have a job.
“But without us they can’t do their job. So it takes a real team effort to get the job done.”
The general said by far the most difficult job she had was writing letters of condolence to families of soldiers in her command who were killed. They always were personal letters, handwritten on her general-officer stationery.
“I typically chose Sunday afternoons to write the letters,” Halstead said. “I would sit in my office, calm my thoughts and really focus on the family that was going to get that letter.
“Usually by the time I wrote the letter I had attended the memorial service for the soldier. When you walk away from a memorial service, you feel as if you had known that person your whole life.
“You also walk away knowing how many lives are fractured because of it.”
Halstead now works for Praevious Group, which does work for the military in areas such as leadership development. She also is working on a book she has been asked to write about how faith, family and freedom have shaped her life.
The retired general also is adjusting to life as a civilian. It’s a transition that can be nearly as traumatic as learning how to be a soldier.
“I really loved being a soldier,” Halstead said. “I very much loved the patriotism of service to nation, I loved the people and I loved wearing the uniform.
“The hardest part now is not wearing the uniform and not being identified with being a soldier. The upside to that is I love going through the airports now and every time I see somebody in uniform I get to say, ‘Hey, thanks for your service.’
“But the Army was just the right environment for me. I was very blessed that I found my niche early.”
Source: DailyProgresss.com (http://www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/lifestyles/columnists/article/tall_shoes_to_fill/35791/)