Political Quotes

“recently, back in my district in central Pennsylvania, I had occasion in connection with the armed services holidays and celebrations to appear with a group of women right in the center of the action of Harrisburg, at the capital area, who were celebrating long service on the part of women in the Armed Forces of the United States. What was brought to bear at that function was the memory of Oveta Culp Hobby, who was from Texas and who was the first Women's Army Corps general; she did not make general, but she was commander of the Women's Army Corps. That is one of the first visions we have had of actual women serving in the service in the modern era. But women have served in the Armed Forces ever since the Revolution. Many of them served, of course, as nurses throughout all the conflicts, and they were Army and Navy and Air Force nurses, actually, so they were part of the Armed Forces. But we have had many, many different examples in the Revolutionary War, in the Mexican War, in the Civil War, and all the modern wars, so to speak, of women posing as men for the sole privilege on their part of wielding a weapon and engaging in fierce combat. Hundreds and maybe thousands of such cases can be found in the history of armed conflict in the United States. The remainder of the function in which we participated was to give recognition to modern day women participants in the current ranks of the Armed Forces, so it was a splendid day.”