| Congratulations, Sergeant Major King! |
“When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a female,” Sergeant Major King said. “I see a soldier.”
Looking back on her years in the Army, Sergeant Major King says she can think of few occasions where men challenged her authority because she was a woman. “And when they did,” she said, “I could handle it.”
Asked if women should be allowed into frontline combat units, she said yes, but only if they meet the same standards as men. While she says most women cannot meet those standards, she believes she can. As if to prove her point, she scored a perfect 300 on her semiannual physical training test last week, doing 34 push-ups and 66 situps, each in under two minutes, then ran two miles in 16 minutes 10 seconds (well below the required 17:36 for her age group.)
But before she started her test, she characteristically noticed something amiss. “Can you believe that?” the sergeant major asked no one in particular. “A bag of garbage outside my Dumpster.” |