When Women First Wore Army Shoes

Book excerpt: Daughter, sister and sister-in-law of Army men who would all rise to the rank of General, it was not much of a surprise when Ethel A. Starbird decided to serve her country as a member of the Womans Army Corps during World War II. After multiple attempts to make weight to join the Army, due to the lack of different weight standards for female recruits, Starbird learns to do things the Army way as a Public Relations Man, making her way from her enlistment in Burlington, Vermont to an overseas assignment as one of the New Guinea Pigs in Hollandia, New Guinea. From learning the Queen Street shuffle - required to allow a chivalrous male General to still enter an elevator before a female Private - to the Armys seeming obsession with the reproductive health of their WACs, join Starbird as she humorously recounts her enlisted experience and the Armys growing pains as it learned to adapt to women in its ranks.