[Quotes are etched in glass on the top of the memorial:]
I'm still so very proud
of my Naval service.
I would do it againif I could.
Mildred Pearl Lane, Yeoman 2nd Class, US Navy, World War I
This award doesn't
have anything to do
with being a female.
It's about the duties
I performed that day
as a soldier.
Leigh Ann Hester, Sergeant, Kentucky Army National Guard, Silver Star, Operation Iraqi Freedom
In every time of crisis,
women have served our country
in difficult and hazardous ways...
Women should not be considered
employed periodically only
to be denied opportunity to satisfy
their needs and aspirations when
unemployment rises or a war ends.
President John F. Kennedy, 1961
The qualities that the most
important in all military jobs—
things like integrity,
moral courage,
and determination
have nothing to do
with gender.
Rhonda Cornum, Major, US Army Medical Corps, Operation Desert Storm
It isn't just my brother's country
or my husband's country,
it's my country as well.
And so the war wasn't
just their war. It was
my war.
And I needed to serve in it.
Beatrice Flood Stroup, Major, Women's Army Corps, World War II
The ground they broke
has hard soil indeed
but with great heart
and true grit, they plowed
right through the prejudice
and presumption, cutting
a path for their daughters
and granddaughters to serve
their country in uniform.
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, Groundbreaking, June 22, 1995
Let the generations know
that women in uniform also
guaranteed their freedom,
that our resolve was just as great as
the brave men who stood among us.
And with victory our hearts were
just as full and beat just as fast—
that the tears fell just as hard
for those we left behind.
Anne Sosh Brehm, 1st Lieutenant, US Army Nurse Corps, World War II
From the storm lashed decks
of the Mayflower
to the present hour,
woman has stood like a rock
for the welfare and the glory
of the history of the country,
and one might well add...
unwritten, unrewarded,
and almost unrecognized.
Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross, 1911
The Women in Military Service
for American Memorial
tells the
story
of hundreds of thousands
of courageous
American servicewomen.
Everyday, these women bring
new meaning to the old adage:
Duty, Honor, Country.
President William Jefferson Clinton, Dedication, October 18, 1997
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