Story by Army Staff Sgt. Kaitlin Feyma
FORT SNELLING, Minn. – The last several years for women in the military have been filled with firsts. In 2012, the first ever female was promoted to a general officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 2015, the first two females graduated from Ranger School and earned their Ranger Tab. And in January 2016, for the first time in U.S. military history, all military occupations and position opened to women.
While the implementation of Army Directive 2016-01 has certainly made it easier for females to serve in whatever capacity in the military that they are qualified for and want to serve in, women have proven themselves as knowledgeable and capable members of the military throughout history, no matter the job or circumstances. And, now, the 416th Theater Engineer Command of the U.S. Army Reserve has given us one more instance where female service members have proven their abilities.
For the first time in Army history, an engineer command has an all-female chain of command, from the division level down to the company. Maj. Gen, Miyako Shanely, commander of the 416th TEC, who is the first female in the U.S. Army engineer branch to achieve the two-star rank, Col. Michelle Link, 372nd Engineer Brigade commander, Lt. Col. Abigail Cathelineaud, 397th Engineer Battalion commander, Cpt. Tashima McMurray, commander of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 372nd Engineer Brigade, and her first sergeant, 1st Sgt. Connie Cavanaugh, all hold command positions within the same engineer division.
Cavanaugh, whose current assignment with the HHC is her first as a first sergeant, is excited by the prospect.
“I think it’s pretty amazing,” she said. “I do think it’s something to celebrate, and I think it’s a sign of the change in times and what’s to come.”
She isn’t the only one who feels this way. Link, the first female commander of an Army Reserve engineer brigade said, “It feels pretty awesome from the context that if you look at the women in these positions, they’re competent, they’re smart, they’re knowledgeable, they’re capable.”
BEGINNING
Each of the five leaders started their military careers slightly differently. Two came from military families. McMurray’s parents were both in the Navy, and she was used to the military lifestyle, but she did not want to go into the Navy.
“I wanted to go into the Army,” she said. “If my troops are down and getting dirty, then I want to be down with them.”
Schanely grew up in a military family as well. Both her parents were in the Air Force. However, she says that she was not automatically drawn to serve in the military herself. It was the invitational workshop at West Point that she attended between her junior and senior years of high school that sold her on the military.
“I was sold hook, line, and sinker when I met the cadets and the people, the total person that they represented, that they had to be—scholars, athletes, leaders—and all the values that went with that,” she said. “I just saw them, and wow, I wanted to be like that.”
Schanely always knew she wanted to be an engineer.
“Math and science have always been strong areas for me. I like to create things,” she said. “So then going to West Point and majoring in engineering, it seemed to me there wasn’t even a choice to be made.”
Cathelineaud also joined the military through West Point. One of the things that drew her to the academy as a commissioning source was its structured curriculum and challenging academics.
“I thought that I would excel in that type of program, and it was also a sure path towards being an officer in the U.S. Army,” she said.
However, what initially drew her to the military was that she sees it as being a part of something bigger.
“I see the United States as a country with a lot of good honorable values, and as a member of the military, we have that unique opportunity to help defend our values,” she said. “And also, we’re given the opportunity to travel to different cultures and countries and experience excitement as well.”
Link, unlike the other officers, commissioned through ROTC. She says that when she was in college, she had friends who were in ROTC, and she found their military sciences curriculum interesting.
“It was intriguing,” she said, “and the more I spoke to them, the more intrigued I became.”
So, between her sophomore and junior year of college, she went to basic camp, an opportunity to see what the military life was like without prior experience or any commitment on her part.
“So, I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, having absolutely no experience,” she said, “and I found that it was something that I gravitated towards.”
She contracted and commissioned in 1990, and she says that although she didn’t pick the engineering branch—it was selected for her—it’s safe to say that she’s fallen in love with engineers.
“I think it’s changed my DNA,” she said.
Cavanaugh says there were only two options available for young adults in her small town after high school—go to college or work in a factory. She wasn’t ready for college so she decided to work in a window factory.
“After a few years, I really had this yearning to do something I could be proud of,” she said. “My uncle and dad had, at some point, both served in the military, so I decided to enlist.”
FACING CHALLENGES
All five leaders have experienced challenges during their multiple years of service, spanning from more than seven years for McMurray to almost 32 years for Schanely.
McMurray states that her biggest challenge in her career has been taking on her current assignment with HHC 372nd Engineer Brigade.
“I’m the HHC commander of the 372nd Engineer Brigade, but I’m actually medical services,” she said. “I am not an engineer, so it’s definitely a challenge, but my brigade commander has faith in me.”
She also states that one of the highlights of her career was being chosen as the commander, despite the challenge it entails.
“It’s not typical for it to be a female, and it’s not typical for it to be not an engineer,” she said. “So the fact that my colonel had the confidence that I will be successful in this position, I think that is definitely a highlight.”
Cavanaugh has been in the Engineer Corps since she joined the military in 2001, so the field is not unfamiliar to her. However, she states her biggest challenge is time—how to balance her civilian career, her physically demanding military career, and her personal life and family.
“I am driven to success, so I put my heart and soul into just about everything I do,” she said. “I put a lot of hours into my civilian job, and I also have a family. So the struggle there is, where do I dedicate my time…That’s truly one of my biggest challenges.”
She says that, fortunately, she’s not encountered the challenges that some women face in the military because of their gender.
“I really don’t believe that gender, that being a female has held me back at all,” she said. “I’ve never let that play a card or a factor in what I do, so thankfully I can say that everything I’ve set out to do, I’ve accomplished.”
Cathelineaud states a similar challenge in her almost 19-year career—that the engineer branch requires a lot of hours, movement and deployments. She says, also, that it’s been a challenge for her and her husband, who is also in the Army, to stay in the same location.
“I do rely on my family quite a bit,” she said. “Our in-laws are able to help out with our five children. I do have the benefit of my husband being in a career that’s a little bit more flexible…he’s in a position right now where he can take off a little bit more time than if he was in a position that required a lot of man hours.”
Another challenge she’s had is dealing with long held beliefs about women in the military.
“I’ve found that people may make assumptions about women in the military, and we’re in a position where you have to prove yourself through hard work,” she said. “However, I’ve found that if you show that you’re committed to the team and you show that you have a strong work ethic, you’ll be treated with that same type of respect.”
Link has faced similar challenges in the 28 years she’s served.
“Coming into the engineer career field when I did, I was definitely a minority,” she said.
Her engineer officer basic course was one of the first classes where females were allowed, so her class of 150 students had just five females.
“My first assignment coming out of OBC, I was in a platoon in the 983rd Engineer Battalion out of Ohio,” she said. “My platoon sergeant quit the second month. He refused to work with a female.”
She says she finds irony in the situation, in that she now commands the brigade which commands the battalion that the company falls under. But she also says she sees a commonality to this situation throughout her career.
“As I progressed through my career, or as I changed assignments, I was always a singular face…the first female that was into the unit,” she said. “In 1995 they had changed the ground combat laws, and I was involuntarily moved into a combat mechanized heavy battalion, so again the first female there.”
She says these “firsts” weren’t deliberate on her part, and that there were some challenges that came with being the first in an environment that had existed a certain way for years or decades.
“That’s a hard culture to try to inculcate yourself within and to demonstrate that you’re capable and competent, and you tend to be up against some of those preconceived notions,” She said. “So far…all of the command positions that I’ve held up until now have been a ‘first.’”
Like Cathelineaud and Cavanaugh, Link also faces the challenge of balancing her military and civilian careers.
“It’s very difficult, I’m not gonna lie,” she said. “Every day gives me a new opportunity to try to perfect it.”
Schanely states similar challenges in her career as her fellow leaders, like managing two demanding careers.
“I’m very blessed to have an employer who is very supportive of service in the military, very understanding and accommodating, really,” she said. “So I just have to prioritize my work in both places to try to keep the most important work moving forward in both areas of my responsibility. And it certainly is a challenge. Self-discipline and mastery of your own time and usage of your calendar is critical.”
Schanely also faced a full spectrum of attitudes toward the idea of women in the military. She graduated from West Point in 1986 in the seventh class that allowed women.
“So I didn’t have some of the same challenges that a few of the earlier classes did where…there were seniors and juniors that were their leaders that still were not yet integrated,” she said. “But I think we actually experienced the gambit.”
She says she met some people who did not think women should be in the military, and she met those who thought the complete opposite as well.
“I had classmates who honestly thought that having women in the military, and the academies particularly, was the best thing since sliced bread and that that was the best thing for our military and for our unit,” she said. “Not just for the women themselves and the opportunities, but actually for the enterprise.”
Schanely also says she finds it interesting how far the military has advanced in its attitude toward females in just the last half century. She says that she essentially ended her mother’s career when she was born because until 1971, women could not remain on active duty if pregnant. After 1971, they could request a waiver, but it wasn’t until 1975 that the regulation was eliminated entirely.
FINDING INSPIRATION
All five cite various mentors and leaders they have learned from, who have inspired them and helped them overcome their challenges to become stronger leaders themselves.
“I was fortunate enough to spend twelve or thirteen years at the same company, and I grew up with some really strong leaders there,” Cavanaugh stated. “Some even that I still speak to today and ask for advice. So, really, those NCOs that I had at my first unit were really the ones that I looked to for guidance and support.”
McMurray names her aunt as the one person who most inspired her career.
“She is actually the one who recruited me into the military,” she said. “With her accomplishments and what she has been through and the challenges she faced and was able to overcome, despite the adversity and everything that she went through, I would definitely say my aunt.”
She also says her fathers are her mentors.
“They inspire me, they believe in me, constantly give me the knowledge I need in order to work with such a different optempo in today’s world.”
Cathelineaud also finds inspiration from family.
“I would have to say as an army officer, my husband has really been a strong mentor,” she said. “He is six years ahead of me in his career, so I do come to him for advice on certain things.”
Link says that she did not look to any one gender of individuals for inspiration. Instead she found strength and mentoring in those leaders who invested in her.
“For every platoon sergeant who may have quit, there was a first sergeant that was adamant that he was going to make sure that I was coached and mentored and that I was as good a leader as he could make and would treat me just as he treated everybody else.”
In order to reach the two-star level, Schanely has looked to many people for mentoring and advice.
“I have had a mix of people who have inspired me,” she said. “There have been mentors, leaders who were my superiors…commander and some of the general officers that I’ve learned from. And even commanders that I had at younger ranks too that I learned an enormous amount from. And some who were great advocates too.”
She says she had a leader who gave her an opportunity to serve in Saudi Arabia for a year, a place where women do not often serve in leadership positions.
“But he saw that as a great opportunity, I had the right skills for the job, and it’s made a huge difference having advocates and leaders like that.”
Schanely also cites the many non-commissioned officers she has worked with as providing wisdom and inspiration for her career.
“The first sergeants, the sergeants major, the different levels of responsibility has been absolutely huge,” she said. “We all as leaders, as officer leaders, learn so much from our battle buddies. And I’ve been blessed to serve with some phenomenal senior enlisted advisors.
FORGING AHEAD
Having all faced challenges in the military, several of them having to do with the fact of their gender, all five leaders say they are excited by the all-female chain of command that they are a part of.
“There’s still not a lot of women within the engineer command so to have it within the 416th TEC and 372nd down trace, it’s still pretty significant,” Link said. “And what’s for me even more amazing, just two weeks ago one of my soldiers in a company that I had commanded as a battalion commander formerly, just became the first female company commander for a combat engineer company…It’s pretty awesome to see her take command and to know that she was in that position not because she was a science experiment, but because she was very good and competent and capable and has demonstrated that.”
Cavanaugh looks at the chain of command as a sign that times are changing.
“You can do anything you want to do, and for those young girls out there or young female enlisted, here it is, look at our chain of command,” she said. “Anything is possible, and like I said the times are changing. It’s the new standard.”
Schanely is excited by both the situation and the potential leadership it can inspire.
“It’s exciting that there are several firsts there, both at the individual and collective level,” she said. “I think it’s great that the army is a place that those kinds of opportunities exist. And I think what strikes me is that I never had women leaders ahead of me to look up to and to aspire to be like, but by the same token I didn’t miss them either because the bottom line is I had leaders to aspire to be like. It didn’t matter whether they were male or female. I learned from all of them.”
MENTORING NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS
Schanely says that now that she, Link, Cathelineaud, McMurray and Cavanaugh are in the position her leaders were in, they all have the same opportunity their own leaders had to be an example to both men and women coming up through the ranks.
“I think that’s great for all of them,” she said, “because we all learn from those who are ahead of us. And it’s a privilege to really be in a position like this, to hopefully be able to teach, mentor, and coach our junior leaders and be the example that they aspire to be like.”
And the biggest lesson they want to teach to young men and women what want to reach their levels of leadership?
Cavanaugh: “Put your head down and do your work. Put your head down and work hard. Don’t lose sight of what your goals are and do whatever you can to make them happen.”
McMurray: “I would tell them to keep pushing, regardless of what people may say, regardless of the negativity, just keep pushing forward. You can do it. You can do whatever you put your heart to.”
Cathelineaud: “I think the best thing we can do to develop the future generation is to just be honest with them about our lessons learned, things that we’ve struggled with, and give them the best advice moving forward so that they understand that there are struggles and challenges but that it’s a very rewarding career.”
Link: “I think that they would expect from any leader that you’re competent in what you do, that you’re knowledgeable, that you’re well-read, that you’re tied in, that they trust that you know what you’re doing. And for me, that is paramount. I have to continue to earn their trust, that I know what I’m doing, that I’m competent and capable in this position that the army has trusted me with.”
Schanely: “Well, first of all, I’d say that you should aspire to be better than me, but the bottom line, I think, is really having the heart to serve and to be committed to the organization and the people that are in it, because my success, and the leaders that I’ve seen who I try to emulate, it’s never been about ourselves. It’s about the organization that we’re a part of, the great mission that we have, the purpose that we have, and the great people that we get to serve with in fulfilling that mission. And if we’re focused on succeeding there and making both the people and the enterprise successful, that is what I think helps put leaders on the trajectory to their own personal success.”
What all five leaders agree on is that anyone, male or female, can succeed in their chosen career field, if they keep pushing forward and are confident and willing to learn and do the work. Cathelineaud sums this up with an experience from early in her career, when she was an executive officer for an all-male mechanized engineer battalion.
“I did have to go through a period of time where I had to prove myself to those non-commissioned officers that did not want to necessarily interact with me until I could show my capability, show what I could bring to the battlefield. And by the time I left the position, I had some NCOs come up to me and say, before I met you I was not a proponent or an advocate of having women in combat roles. But after meeting you and working with you I see that it is possible and it can work.”
For more information on the history of women in the military, visit https://www.army.mil/women/history.
| Date Taken: | 02.24.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 03.28.2018 20:52 |
| Story ID: | 271014 |
| Location: | FORT SNELLING, MN, US |
| Web Views: | 976 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, ALL-FEMALE COMMAND MAKES HISTORY FOR THE ENGINEER CORPS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
LEAVE A COMMENT