Emily Perez: first female African-American Officer KIA At Age OF Only 23
Emily Perez was the first black woman to achieve the rank of Cadet Command Sergeant Major in the history of the United States Military Academy - Pic Credit: defaultcrossfit.com
Emily Perez was the first black woman to achieve the rank of Cadet Command Sergeant Major in the history of the United States Military Academy. Upon her graduation from the academy in 2005, she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S Army.
Born on February 19, 1983 in Heidelberg, Germany to a military family, Perez helped start an HIV-AIDS ministry at her church while in High School. She was also an educator with the Red Cross.Described as the “diminutive young woman calling out orders to the freshman cadets on the castled military campus of West Point. She was often seen sprinting the third leg for Army’s 400-meter relay team. Or in the school’s gospel choir, filling her lungs and opening her mouth to sing”.
Emily was a member of Peace Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. “Emily, as far as I’m concerned, was one of the most brilliant people I ever met. She was the consummate intellectual,” said the Rev. Michael Bell, executive pastor at Peace Baptist Church in Washington. “But she was not the kind of person who was only book-oriented. She always wanted to help someone, to help the community.”
In a bid to help others, Perez made personal sacrifices. “Shortly before shipping out to Iraq, Lieutenant Perez flew from Texas to Maryland to be a bone marrow donor to a stranger who was a match,” Pastor Bell said.
She went on to the United States Military Academy at West Point where she was a four-year letter earner on the track team, served as Cadet Command Sergeant Major.
She was KIA when an improvised explosive device detonated near her Humvee during combat operations in Kifl, Iraq. Emily was the first female graduate of West Point to die in the Iraq Wardia, the first West Point graduate of the “Class of 9/11” to die in combat, and the first female African-American officer to die in combat.
Perez earned numerous awards including the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Combat Action Badge.
She also posthumously received the NCAA Award of Valor in 2008 that recognizes a “courageous action or noteworthy bravery” by persons involved with intercollegiate athletics.
The soldiers in her former unit have honored her with a street named “Emily’s Way” and a medical center named the, “Emily J.T. Perez Treatment Facility” in Iraq.
One of her mentors, Roger Pollard, who worked with her when she volunteered with the Alexandria Red Cross education program, recalled her remarkable ability to stay focused, always on time, always ready to work.
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Making Adjustments and Taking Risks
220 years ago today, March 16th, Thomas Jefferson signed legislation establishing the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. 40 years ago this year, the first women were admitted to USMA, and 62 of those women graduated in 1980.
The first time I visited West Point, I was 14. I knew immediately that that was where I wanted to go to college. In 1990, the summer before my senior year of high school, I attended the Invitational Academic Workshop (now known as the Summer Leaders Seminar) at West Point, which only further solidified my desire to become a West Point cadet. Unfortunately, West Point shared neither my enthusiasm nor my belief that I would make an outstanding cadet. I was rejected a total of three times. They finally acquiesced in 1995, when I was a cadet candidate at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (aka West Point Prep). My birthday was the cutoff date; you could be no older than 22 years of age (the age is now 23) on July 1st of the year you enter USMA; I turned 22 the year I entered, making me the oldest cadet in my class (and earning me the nickname Grandma). If I had been accepted straight out of high school, I would have graduated in 1995. Instead, I am a proud member of the Class of 1999 (With Duty In Mind!).I’ve always said that I wouldn’t change the road I took to get to West Point for all the money in the world; had I gone there at 18, I would not be the woman I am today. Granted, I wasn’t that much more mature at 22 than I was at 18 (and at 42 my maturity level still comes into question fairly often) but the somewhat sheltered and isolated world I grew up in would have served to keep my worldview quite narrow. Those four years of experience (a whole other blogpost….my experience consisted of flunking out of the same university twice, joining the Army, a job on a movie set…….yeah, another post) helped broaden my horizons in a way that made me a bit more cynical. But I digress…..I am one of only a little over 4,300 women who can call themselves West Point graduates. To put that into some perspective, there have been over 70,000 graduates since 1802; using those numbers, only 6.14% of those graduates are women (yes, I realize that I probably should only consider the total number of graduates since 1980, as that was the first class with women, but that required more research, more math, and I really wanted to get this post done tonight. Just saying).
The reason I’m giving you all this background information is due to a conversation I had today with one of my best friends (who is also my classmate). We were given some devastating news last week about one our own, and it has led us to reflect upon the relationships we have with our classmates as well as on our time at West Point. While the bonds among my own female classmates have been reinforced significantly over the past few years, the bonds among all West Point Women were recently strengthened following the August 2015 graduation of the first two women from US Army Ranger School, CPT Kristen Griest and 1LT Shaye Haver, both West Pointers. The third woman to graduate from Ranger School, in October 2015, MAJ Lisa Jaster, is also a West Pointer. West Point Women are soldiers, homemakers, doctors, lawyers, authors, CEOs, engineers, teachers, philanthropists, mothers, entrepreneurs, accountants, general officers, platoon leaders, company commanders, battalion commanders, singers, veterinarians, professors, personal trainers, corporate executives…..anything and everything you can imagine. And not only do we have an astronaut, we also have the current Commandant of Cadets at West Point, the first woman to ever serve in that position. We are an exceedingly accomplished, intelligent, amazing group of women. But………..
…….some of us don’t always feel like a part of the “we.” West Point attracts type A personalities, and by the time we graduate, most of us are A+++++ personalities. We want to be the best; we want to be the first; the strongest; the smartest; we are always in competition with someone or something, even if our opponent is the person staring back at us in the mirror. I would argue that for female graduates, this competitive trait is amplified. At school, many of us were not only competing against the men, but against each other. It was only after graduation, after leaving the strictly regimented life at West Point, that we truly began to understand what we all had in common. It is a bond that is incredibly difficult to describe. We celebrate each other’s accomplishments and we build each other up, but when doing so, we examine our own lives and sometimes come up short. Even if the goal achieved by a friend or classmate is one we do not desire, jealousy can rear its ugly head. Feelings of inadequacy can creep into our minds and eat at our self-esteem.
My ten year class reunion occurred in the fall of 2009. I didn’t go. I also did not attend my five year reunion, but for good reason; I was deployed to Iraq. However, my life had changed dramatically from 2004 to 2009. I left the Army, got divorced, and I was unemployed after having been unceremoniously dismissed from a job I loved at a local Humane Society (again, fodder for another blog post). I was beginning my initial descent into a black hole of debt, living on credit and savings, and I was more depressed than I’d ever been in my entire life. It didn’t help that my ex-husband was also a fellow classmate. Neither of my two best friends were going to the reunion (one was deployed), and I simply could not bear to answer the inevitable question “So what are you up to, Margaret?” The irony is that had I gone, I probably would have risen out of my depression quicker. I would have most likely reconnected with long lost friends, found a few shoulders to cry on, and been buoyed by the camaraderie and support of people who understood me. But I was scared and I was ashamed, because, in my mind, I was a failure.
Even now, when I am making great strides in climbing out of debt, have held a good job for over five years, am getting back in shape, and am applying for veterinary school, I am plagued by feelings of inadequacy. Do I belong in a group as celebrated and distinguished as West Point Women? What have I accomplished in my life? When will I be good enough? Will I EVER be good enough?
The only one who can answer that last question is me, but the question I should really be asking myself is “Am I happy?” Because that is what matters. Am I good to others? Am I kind? Do I listen more than I speak? Am I a good friend? A good daughter? A good mother to my furry babies? Maybe silencing the doubts and squashing those feelings of inadequacy isn’t necessarily about putting yourself into overdrive and reaching for the stars, but about adjusting our priorities and remembering what’s most important in life. Life is not about what we’ve accomplished, but about our relationships with others. It’s about being a good person, no matter how much money is in your bank account, how many titles you hold, how many sets of initials you have after your name, or what you do for a living. It’s about showing appreciation for the people we love and about telling them we love them. Often. It’s about never taking anyone or anything for granted. It’s about forgiveness. It’s about taking a risk if there’s even the slightest chance that the end result could be happiness. And it’s about making a positive difference in the world, even if that positivity only affects one person. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start taking my own advice. Carpe diem, indeed.
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