CWO5 Jeanne Y. Pace: Longest serving woman in the Army
Andy sends us a link from Army.mil about Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeanne Y. Pace who is the Army’s longest serving woman in history. She is currently the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division Band. She’s been on active duty since 1972 when it wasn’t the Army but the Women’s Army Corp.
Like many serving today, Pace said she joined the Army to establish her independence as an adult with the guarantee of clothing, food, shelter, and medical benefits while earning her education benefits and trying to figure out what she really wanted to do with her life.
“I had no idea that that three-year year enlistment would turn into more than 40 years. There is just no way I could have imagined it,” continued Pace.
Pace began her career as a private with the 14th Army (WAC) Band at Fort McClellan, Ga., and after 13 years decided to apply to be a warrant officer. It was during this time she was dealt what she perceives was her only real setback during her distinguished career.
“I failed the first time I tried to become a warrant officer,” said Pace.
Category: Real Soldiers
Holy crap–talk about your lifers!
Good for her. You go, girl!
I just wish that the PC crowd had not got hold of military service acronyms. If you a WAC or a WAVE or a WM or a WAF, you knew who you were. Now you’re just one of the boys. Phooey.
Ex-PH2, do you remember the chant in WWII? “The WACs and WAVEs will win the war, so what the hell are we fighting for?”
My mom used to go around singing that when I was little. Two of her brothers fought in WWII.
PN, I never heard that! I did not know about that! But I will remember it, for sure. Thank you!!!
“Fort McClellan, Ga.” – bet Alabama is going to be irked when they find that FT McClellan went AWOL.
Good work, Chief.
Keep it up.
A career in the band. Wow.
I know the 82d chorus was the division LRRPs when I was there.
I could be wrong on this, but was there not some rule or AR years back that stated the band would guard POWs in time of war?
I believe it is very outdated, but I seem to remember that I came across it somewhere?
Any help?
Cool!
Green Thumb, I had heard that the band guards the CG during time of war. I don’t know if it is true or just an Army myth.
..back away from the buffet, Jeanne…
The alternate mission of the Iowa NG is to process POWs.
So. there’s something to what GT said.
http://www.iowanationalguard.com/ARNG/Band/34ArmyBand.htm
@8 Greenthumb, I believe the band gets additional duties during war time like guarding the Div TOC. If there are any ex band members around they can confirm or deny this.
Okay, she’s overweight, looks bad in a uniform, and had a hard time cracking the WO ranks. But she has been in the Army for 41 years. And that means something. I just don’t know what–aside from a nice retirement check, that is.
AirCav, doesn’t she get your respect?
2/17 AC,
YOU try looking as good in your uniform at 60 as you did at 20!
(Pssst! For all you math challenged military out there, that’s 40 years)
And yes, I do respect her. Especially making it to CW5. I’d met a few while I was in, but damned few.
What do you say to an overweight CW5? “Good day, Chief!”
I dont think that 60-year olds get a complete pass on AR 600-9…just sayin.
Either have standards, or don’t, but don’t have pretend standards.
Sorry, I never saw the need for the band. And now we’ve paid this woman for 40 years to play an instrument and tell people how to play them. She’s now earned 100% of her pay of $9222.90 a month for playing an instrument?? Over 110k plus medical and dental benefits? Doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t be in a combat arms role for 40 years of actually doing your job, your body couldn’t take it. This is crap in so many ways.
15 years and I’ve got her beat !!!!
And I failed (DOR) the first time I went to OCS
What a great example of how to be facetious.
@8
Yes the band is supposed to supplement the MP’s guarding pow’s.
@2
Or BAM’s.
“wookie” isn’t an acceptable term for female Marines any more??!?? NOW they tell me
I’m amazed at the sour grapes! Being a musician is how she served, for 40 years. Would it be different if she’d been a cook? Or a truck driver? Is it the musician part that’s rattling the cage?
Some of the finest musicians in this great nation serve with the various bands in the armed forces. You can’t just walk in off the street and be a musician. It requires an audition, and some serious proficiency with your chosen instrument. In fact, being able to play various different instruments is often the only way to be promoted up through the ranks.
Any chucklehead who disses the band as not being “real soldiers” or not having “real jobs” is clueless.
Kudos to the Chief for her 40 years of Service!! This one time at band camp… sorry could not resist!
As a Infantryman there was no way in hell I was making 20, I would have gladly reclassed to the band if they had allowed me to. They do have a mission, whether you agree with it or not. no they aren’t combat arms, but neither are cooks or mechanics…
They all have a mission.
Hooyah CWO Pace!
Regimental drummers and buglers were the start of military bands. They performed a service sounding calls for “Forward” and “Retreat” and “Charge” that could be heard at a distance over the noise of gunfire and cannons. Their history goes back a very, very long way.
Do not diss the musicians. They aren’t just for show.
Everything and everyone has a purpose.
Good point EX-PH2!
I have to admit, I was a musician (not in the military) and still am, and I was very tempted to audition for the USMC to be a part of their Drum and Bugle Corp. I opted for the Army and being a Paratrooper instead, but I know many who went the music route inthe Army and Marines and it was no cake walk for them. They are serious musicians.
When I was a young EM, I was stationed at Ft McNair (TOG).
We were around the band and FDC alot.
I will give them this; they can party with the best of them.
She’s serving and she’s not trying to claim to be something she isn’t. That’s good enough for me.
@8 and @13: I was in Division HQ units twice: 1st Armored Div and 2nd Inf Div. I know in 1AD the band provided security at the DTOC/DMAIN, can’t remember if they did at 2ID but I believe they did. AFAIK musicians also have to do annual CTT traiing, weapons qual, PT Tests, just like the rest of the Army.
@5: They also could mean Ft. McPhereson, GA which is or was an Army HQ (5th Army? Can’t remember.)
@33 AMEN!!
PintoNag – don’t forget the others… “The Navy rides the WAVES” and “The Army spreads WACs on the floor”. (taught to me by a WWII major who was in from Dec 8th 1941 through the occupation, and I told ’em to my wife when she was in – and she had already heard them, too.)
#33
Exactly.
@37 Thanks for adding those, David. My mother may have known those also, but I also know for a FACT she wouldn’t have repeated them in front of her two daughters! 😉
To the extent that anyone who does the same or similar job for 40+ years gets my respect, she does. I ain’t jumpin’ on the bandwagon, so to speak.
At Camp Victory 2003, V Corps band supplied bodies for Hajj watch, counting joes at the KBR DFac, and other necessary but totally mind numbing duties. I lived out on the Island across the street from EOD, not in the band.
PintoNag – came from my Dad. If you’re ever in Arlington, let me know and I’ll send directions so you can say Hi. He had a wicked sense of humor and took sly delight in (what he would have described as) dirty jokes like that.
#27
No they’re not combat arms, but I disagree with your lumping cooks and mechanics in your position.
While the band may be vital, I am sure a lot more would be lost without cooks or mechanics.
Was a fuel specialist when I first joined, Wonder how military would have gotten around without us.
@43, I lump all MOS’s together. It is one big team, you remember the concept right? As has been pointed out by others… The Band in some units augments MP duties, in the 82d at one point at least the Chorus was our LRS Detachment.
All gave some, some gave all. Let’s just congratulate the Chief on her 40 plus years of Honorable and dedicated service.
Can only add a couple of anecdotal stories.
When my father was a bandleader (Army), his men always far exceeded quals at the range, usually much better than any other group. He opined that perhaps it had something to do with their ability to concentrate combined with their desire to keep their range time to a minimum.
In my last unit that had a band, it was a member of the band who was the most decorated member of the Wing. He lost a leg rescuing some civilians having a real life emergency during what was otherwise a unit exercise.
Can’t help but wonder if any of the folks denegrating bandsmen here might scream loudly if their latest music making machines were taken from them.
I rather doubt that families of band members suffer any less when their loved ones are lost. Glenn Miller’s family (among others) can confirm that for any who doubt it.
I do not know why anyone would begrudge the military its music, but melody for “Taps” was arranged in its present form by Union Army Brigadier General David Butterfield, and American Civil War Officer and Medal of Honor recipient, who commanded the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division in the V Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac while at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia in 1862. It was first played by GEN Butterfield’s bugler, Oliver Wilcox Norton.
Reveille is a military bugle call usually sounded at sunrise or at 0800 when the flag is being raised.
Without a musician to play this, you don’t have reveille.
I’m currently in an Army Band, I actually served under CW5 Pace in the mid 90s. Most of what you all have said is true. Part of our mission used to be doing POW duties and supplementing MPs, but that’s not in our mission statement anymore. However, we get pulled to do plenty of duties when we deploy. Since Iraq and Afghanistan have been going on, we’ve done access point and badging, pulled duty in the towers, run the Aerostats, perimeter guard, convoys, escorting VIPs, reaction force, just about everything you can think of short of kicking down doors, and some people may have done that as well.
We have to do PT (and most units have one of the highest averages in the battalion), qualify on weapons systems, and do all the common training everyone else does. All this, on top of making music. Let me tell you, playing on a remote FOB for people that have nothing is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, and for the guys and girls that have nothing to distract them on those remote locations, having the band fly in and play them some music is the only taste of home they will get.
I feel that when people mock the non infantry/non combat MOS’ types, they in fact encourage more posers to claim false heroics on the battlefield, or active/veterans to embellish their service.
The reason being, their mockery only makes them feel somehow “inadequate,” and one thing leads to another.
Ran into an old SF CWO5 at Torii when I was stationed at Hanza in 93-96 (we were using their incinerator since ours was on the fritz). He was pretty crusty and I think he had an eye patch. Sat out there smoking a pipe and traded Army vs Navy barbs with us 🙂
Jorge
CTIC(SG) (Ret)
Holy crap … she has out paced all of us!
Enough with the MOS hatred!
HooYah CWO Pace!
From my understanding, only the best of the best musicians qualify for the band. So each one of them is world class in their field. That kind of speciality should garner nothing but respect. @47… I was on a random FOB one time and the band was playing in the little DFAC. It was a bit surreal but also kind of cool.