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Oral History Highlight
At the Gates of West Point: The Story of Marene (Nyberg) Allison and the 1st Class of Women at the USMA
The Army didn’t want them there. The academy leadership didn’t want them there. The school’s faculty and cadets didn’t want them there. It seemed no one did–but in July 1976, 119 young women stood at the gates to the US Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, NY, to embark on a course that would change their lives, the academy and the Army, forever. With the passage of the ground-breaking legislation in 1975 that was signed by President Gerald R. Ford, Congress ordered US service academies to open their doors to women–an action that shook the nation’s oldest service academy, and the Army, to their foundations. The young women in the first co-educational class at West Point found themselves face to face with an institution, and its people, entrenched in nearly 175 years of an all-male tradition in the “Long Gray Line.” For these women cadets, it was a four-year journey of exclusion, survival and struggle at every turn–and eventually vindication when 62 of them received commissions as US Army officers on commencement day 1980.
Looking Back at 30 Years
In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of women at the academies, staff members from the Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation conducted interviews for its Oral History Program with women service academy graduates at the third annual Academy Women Symposium, held at the Memorial, Oct. 20-22, 2006. A 1980 West Point graduate, Marene (Nyberg) Allison, was among those interviewed at the symposium and she recounted the early days when women first entered the USMA. Through her story, we learn about a young, eager 18-year-old woman who wanted a good education, wanted to serve her country and wanted the opportunity to succeed on her own merit. Her recollections also offer a snapshot of cadet life and the training of women in the Army’s first co-educational class, as well as the many challenges they faced.
Born and raised on the south shore of Boston, MA, Marene was beginning her senior year at Kingston High School when she read an article in the Boston Globe announcing that the military academies were opening up for women and she decided to apply. As she soon learned, a nomination from a member of Congress is one of the admission requirements. Massachusetts Congresswoman Margaret Heckler gave Marene a nomination to West Point and when she reported there on July 7, 1976, she was seeing the school for the very first time.
Preparing for Women Cadets
Prior to the passage of the 1975 legislation, the Army was opposed to admitting women, believing this would detract from the academy’s mission to train cadets to become Army combat officers; and women, at the time, did not serve in combat roles. After the legislation was signed, West Point leaders reacted by strictly interpreting the law. This meant that women would share a common training experience with male cadets and would be included in every phase of training, only undergoing different but equivalent training when a valid need was indicated. West Point officials may have felt that they had adequately prepared for their first co-educational class but from Marene’s recollection, they had not. Marene talks about integrating women at West Point in that first year:“From a change management perspective, [West Point] took the absolute worst way. You can do it the right way, the wrong way or the worst way. West Point decided to take the worst way … it was very evident they had not prepared. Simple things like the bathrooms were not done. They had not decided how they were going to do some of the uniforms. They had not properly instructed some of the cadets on how to treat women. So, it was very evident going through it that these people didn’t think we were supposed to be [t]here.”
As Marene mentioned, women’s cadet uniforms were in transition in those early years. The first year, West Point women were issued men’s white shirts, which didn’t fit properly. They were issued Full Dress coats without tails, which looked out-of-place next to the male cadets in their Full Dress coats with tails. It was originally thought that coats without tails would fit better on a woman’s body but a few years later, a better proportioned Full Dress coat with tails was designed and issued to the women. In 1976, the women were also issued modified gray pants:
“For the women … they took the gray pants with the black stripes and put a plastic zipper in it. So by the time–we hadn’t even been at the Academy twelve hours–we had to go across the plain and do our oath of office, about half the women’s zippers had already broken. So here we are 17-, 18-, 19-year-old women with 19-, 20-, 21-year old men in our [cadet] chain-of-command and you are in this kind of odd, unique situation.”
Women found themselves in another odd situation regarding grooming as Marene explains:
“I had a platoon sergeant who decided that my hair should be as short as the guys and … by August of 1976, I had hair less than one inch long all over my head. And the tactical officer had said to me, ‘Cadet Nyberg, New Cadet Nyberg, don’t get another hair cut,’ and then the platoon sergeant would say, ‘Cadet Nyberg, go get another hair cut,’ so I just kept going to get haircuts.”
The Cadet Experience
While a few women dropped out at each phase of the training, those who remained carried on and took part in all aspects of the Academy experience. One important element of this experience is participating in team sports but there were no women’s teams at the academy yet. Marene played field hockey in high school and without a women’s field hockey team at West Point, she looked for other opportunities. She become involved in the sport of orienteering, a military skill sport where one runs from point to point in the woods, locating the points with a map and compass. Marene developed a tremendous skill for orienteering and she became the 1980 top US woman competitor at the college level, competing with the US World Orienteering team in Switzerland.Summer training is another central aspect of the cadet experience. West Point cadets spend their second summer learning about the various Army branches:
“There’s infantry week, reconnaissance training and patrolling. What you’ve got to understand is that in 1977, the idea that women even learning about combat patrolling, understanding the placement of howitzers and field artillery pieces, and driving tanks was hugely new for the Army, and for the military. It was shocking. Soldiers had never seen a woman on a tank. They had never seen a woman fire an artillery piece. It was perceived that a woman would never be able to do any of these. These were all men’s jobs at the time, and so … everyone just expected the women to fail … there was no expectation of success for the women.”
During their third summer, cadets complete leadership training. In the summer of 1978, Marene went to a Military Police unit in Berlin, West Germany, before the Berlin wall fell.
Academics
During the academic year, Marene focused on her studies and cadet activities. At that time, there were no academic majors at West Point, but cadets were required to declare a concentration for their engineering studies. Marene’s engineering sequence was electrical engineering. Considering her heavy academic requirements in addition to all the other duties and activities required of cadets, it’s not surprising that she experienced sleep deficit while at the Academy:“You just jam so much in … you [are] trained that you can always do more and you can get more done … you never have time to fully plan everything out and do everything the way you want. Everything has to be spur of the moment where you finish that paper while you’re studying for a math test while you’re doing your physics lab. So you always learn to multitask and put more on the plate.”
The Long Road to Commencement
The academic and military requirements were not, however, her most difficult challenge at West Point. She felt that her most difficult challenge was dealing with the fact that men really didn’t want women there. While growing up, Marene had never had any limitations placed upon her as she pursued her goals, so it was difficult for her to arrive at West Point and have men say that she shouldn’t be there because she was a woman. Nonetheless, she persevered. On May 28, 1980, Marene and 61 other women cadets became the first women graduates of West Point and received commissions as second lieutenants in the US Army. Marene talks about how she felt on that historic day:“We were vindicated. I did it, against all odds, against a society that didn’t know if it was ready for us, against a culture that didn’t want us [t]here, and in a lot of ways, still doesn’t want us [t]here.”
So, what was the guiding thought or personal standard that helped Marene achieve success at West Point?
“Survival. I am going to survive. I am not going to quit and I am going to make it through. Every day, you … woke up and said, ‘I will make it until tonight and then I will start again tomorrow.’”
Marene Today
Marene’s lasting impression of the military is the sense of duty, loyalty and integrity that military officers have and their ability to get things done.“Some civilians are just paralyzed to actually do something because there could be consequences. People in the military understand that there are consequences every single day. Sometimes there is no good [solution]. There is only the best one you can get out of the situation … whether it’s hiring or firing or a new business unit or profitability. There are many different things that you have to make decisions on and move on. You cannot dwell in the ‘what if.’ You have to move to the other side. If I really dwell on th[e] ‘what if,’ it will stop me, it will paralyze me in my tracks, which isn’t really good if [I’m] trying to take the hill one, two, three.”
After her graduation from West Point, Marene served six years on Active Duty as an Army military police officer attaining the rank of captain. She left the Army to become a special agent for the FBI. Currently, she is head of corporate security for a Fortune 50 company, one of only a few women to hold such a position. Marene is married with one son and resides in Pennsylvania.
For those interested in reading a retrospective about former President Gerald Ford and his role in the legislation that opened US service academies to women, check out our News Feature, “Former President Gerald Ford Remembered,” available at http://www.womensmemorial.org/News/Ford.html.
The Women’s Memorial Foundation’s welcomes oral history donations for its extensive oral history collection in audiocassette, CD and DVD formats. If you are a servicewoman or woman veteran and are interested in donating your oral history to our growing collection, contact our Oral History Department at oralhistory@womensmemorial.org or 703-533-1155 or 800-222-2294, so that we may continue to preserve the long legacy of women’s service in defense of our nation.
