<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of the Army Times.</div><div><br></div><div>-------------------------------------</div><div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 34px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><br></span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 34px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><b>Longest-serving female warrant to retire after 43 years</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeanne Pace joined the Women's Army Corps in 1972, playing in the 14th Army WAC Band based out of Fort McClellan, Alabama.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The fort, the band and the WAC have since closed up shop, but Pace's career continued through 43 years of active-duty service. Recognized as the longest-tenured female warrant officer and the last former member of the WAC on active duty, she plans to retire in a Friday afternoon ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, where she served as bandmaster for the 1st Calvary Division Band.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Five things you should know about Pace, one for each decade during which she donned an Army uniform:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;">1. An integrated force. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The 1970s marked the end of the WAC, born out of World War II personnel needs and offering a self-contained career track to female soldiers who weren't nurses. It included the 14th Army WAC Band, in which Pace played clarinet during her formative Army years.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Along with a musical education, the band offered Pace a look at the way women were treated by the Army at the time.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"That's, I think, when it really, really started to hit me," Pace said in "</span><a href="http://www.wacband.com/" title="http://www.wacband.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;">The Beat of a Different Drummer</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">," a documentary on the band. "What some of the women in the WAC Band went through: Not being able to go to school. Not being able to do the same training as the men, and how different it really, really was for them."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Integration efforts began in earnest midway through the decade: The WAC Band went away in 1976, and the WAC itself was gone by 1978, as women entered the regular force.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;">2. Try, try again. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Pace attended Warrant Officer Candidate School in 1983 but washed out. Two years later she was the school's distinguished honor graduate, according to a</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://www.army.mil/article/62326/Band_commander_receives_award/" title="http://www.army.mil/article/62326/Band_commander_receives_award/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;">2011 Army news release</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">, en route to becoming the first female warrant officer bandmaster.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I tell people that my first attempt at warrant was not successful, and I'm OK with that," Pace said in the release. "I think it's a message we need to get to soldiers, that if you have a goal, don't let failure the first time dissuade you from that goal."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;">3. Passing up retirement. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After initially joining the Army on a three-year enlistment as a way to pay for college, Pace re-upped for four more years, then decided around the 10-year mark to stick it out until retirement eligibility. The 20-year milestone came and went in the early 1990s, and Pace had no plans to leave service.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She was about to put in retirement paperwork at the 30-year mark, she said in</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://www.army.mil/article/151389/Trooper_reflects_on_43_years_of_selfless_service/" title="http://www.army.mil/article/151389/Trooper_reflects_on_43_years_of_selfless_service/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;">an Army release issued last month</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">, but was offered chief warrant officer 5 and decided to remain in uniform. She's now reached the 30-year limit for allowable service as a warrant officer.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;">World travels. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Pace's duties have taken her to Fort Amador in what was then the Panama Canal Zone, as well as multiple domestic duty stations.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She returned to Fort Hood in 2009 and deployed with III Corps in support of operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn from 2010 to 2011.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700;">5. Changing times. </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This decade has brought</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20120502/NEWS/205020312/Women-combat-Army-open-14K-jobs-6-MOSs" title="http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20120502/NEWS/205020312/Women-combat-Army-open-14K-jobs-6-MOSs" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;">further integration</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">of women into</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/2015/04/20/women-start-ranger-school/25901823/" title="http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/2015/04/20/women-start-ranger-school/25901823/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;">traditionally male Army jobs</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">, a far cry from Pace's early days in service.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"My most lethal weapon in basic was an iron," she said in the June news release. "When I think about the past 43 years and see all the changes, it's pretty amazing. The Army's leading the way, and now women have so many more opportunities."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span class="cutline js-caption" style="display: block;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeanne Pace poses for her retirement photo, left, and in her Women's Army Corps uniform, right, sometime in the mid-1970s.</span></span><span class="cutline js-caption" style="display: block;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></span><span class="cutline js-caption" style="display: block;"><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/Army_Times/CW5_Jeanne_Pace_01.jpg">http://www.tomandrodna.com/Army_Times/CW5_Jeanne_Pace_01.jpg</a></span></div><div><i> </i></div><div><span class="credit" style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">---------------------</span></div><div><span class="credit" style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span class="credit" style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-style: normal;">Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeanne Pace began her Army service with the Women's Army Corps in 1972.</span></span></div><div><span class="credit" style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span class="credit" style="font-style: italic; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/Army_Times/CW5_Jeanne_Pace_02.jpg">http://www.tomandrodna.com/Army_Times/CW5_Jeanne_Pace_02.jpg</a></span></div><div><br></div><div>-------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>