WASHINGTON — Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.
At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform and said it was a credit to the Army — and a great surprise to her — that she would make history.
“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium crowd. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.
“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession. So when asked, ‘Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, ‘Not in my wildest dreams.’
“There is no one more surprised than I — except, of course, my husband. You know what they say: Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.”
Dunwoody, 55, hails from a family of military men dating back to the 1800s. Her father, 89-year-old Hal Dunwoody — a decorated veteran of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam — was in the audience, along with the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
Dunwoody, whose husband, Craig Brotchie, served for 26 years in the Air Force, choked up at times during a speech in which she said she only recently realized how much her accomplishment means to others.
“This promotion has taken me back in time like no other event in my entire life,” she said. “And I didn’t appreciate the enormity of the events until tidal waves of cards, letters and e-mails started coming my way.”
She was nominated by President Bush in June for promotion to four-star rank, and she was confirmed by the Senate in July.
