Three pairs of pants and a skirt

Courtesy Photo | Specialist Tischa Lynn Gatten poses in her color guard uniform in 1975. Female Soldiers didn't wear the same utility uniform (fatigues) as males, so Gatten found her own, and she made a memorable impression. Gatten was the first female Soldier to become a member of an Army color guard.  

FORT BRAGG, NC, UNITED STATES

09.16.2007

Story by Sgt. Maj. Rich Greene 

1st Theater Sustainment Command

By Sgt. Maj. Rich Greene
1st Theater Sustainment Command Public Affairs

FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Tischa Lynn Eddy did not join the Army to break any barriers, but she did, and it all started as a joke – when she had a different name.

In the spring of 1975, the first sergeant of the Corps Support Command's 63rd Engineer Company received a tasking to form a color guard. He had three Soldiers and needed a fourth, so he called a company meeting.

When he asked for a volunteer, there was the usual awkward silence every Soldier knows. But then out of nowhere, squad leader Staff Sgt. Michael Eddy shouted, "Get Gat to do it."

Everyone in the meeting laughed. Spc. Tischa Lynn Gatten? A female? On the color guard?

"I said it as a kind of joke," said Eddy, a Fayetteville, N.C., resident who two years later would become Gatten's husband. "I was her squad leader (then), but everyone knew she could do it."

Gatten, who was known as "Gat" was undeterred at the laughter. She knew she could be on the color guard. Being a female in a male Army was not a new thing to her. Gatten and two other women were the very first females assigned to the previously all male 35th Engineer Group; so why should this be any different?

"I didn't care if there were no women in the color guard before me," Gatten said, "It's not like we were leaving the planet. No, (women are) here to stay."

The Engineers incorporated Gatten and two other female photometric stereo plotters to the cartography squad under the charge of Staff Sgt. Michael Eddy. The Army was changing. It was a new, modern 1975, but many men still called female Soldiers "WAC's" as they had since the Women's Army Corps in World War II.

Already integrated into the engineers, Gatten, Eddy, and two other Soldiers formed the color guard and they practiced constantly. In May of 1975, preparations began for the big Bicentennial Parade to be held in New York City on the Fourth of July. Word of the 63rd Engineers' color guard had gotten around Fort Bragg, Gatten said.

"We got so good it seemed we retired every general on post for months," Gatten said.

"Then out of the blue someone called a meeting and we were told that the 63rd's color guard was chosen to represent the Army in the New York City Bicentennial Parade," Eddy said.

"When we marched here on post we wore pressed fatigues, and even then I had to get them from some of the guys," she said. "WAC's didn't get fatigues; we wore these mint green polyester shirts, a darker green skort, and white tennis shoes. But we were going to wear the new Army Dress Uniform in New York."

The new uniform Gatten and the other members of the color guard would wear was the first version of the "Class A" green uniform. During that time men wore pants and women could only wear skirts.

"That meant there would be three pair of pants and one skirt on the color guard," she said. "Our command sergeant major wasn't going to let that happen. He wanted four pair of pants and no skirts."

"I was already in the (unit) color guard, and I really didn't want him to stop my chance at this," she said. "Just because the Army hadn't seen a female on the color guard doesn't mean I couldn't do it."

Gatten was not the first, and won't be the last Soldier to disagree with a decision, so she did what many Soldiers do when they disagree: complain.

She used her chain of command to set up an appointment with her commander to try and change the decision of her command sergeant major, but that only landed her right in front of the command sergeant major's desk, on the receiving end of an exhaustive "chew out" session.

"As he was telling me that there was no way I was ever going to change his decision, the (battalion commander) opened the door and asked if I was his next appointment. I said, 'Yes sir.'"

Gatten said, "I told him what the appointment was about and that I wasn't going to be allowed to march with the color guard."

As she tells it, "the colonel was clearly annoyed and wanted to know who barred me from continuing to represent the unit and the Army in the color guard during the New York Parade." She said, "the command sergeant major stood and proudly said "I did sir." '

And that is when it happened. What started as a joke by her squad leader was now in the hands of the commander. The commander looked the sergeant major square in the eyes and said, "She will march," she continued, "I was so happy!"

The 63rd Engineer Company's color guard marched in the New York Bicentennial Parade with their gleaming chrome helmets, carrying the colors proudly, while wearing three pair of pants and a skirt.

• Date Taken: 09.16.2007
• Date Posted: 09.17.2007 15:45
• Story ID: 12414
• Location: FORT BRAGG, NC, US