Mary Agnes Hallaren (May 4, 1907 – February 13, 2005) was an American soldier and the third director of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) at the time that it became a part of the United States Army. As the director of the WAC, she was the first woman to officially join the U.S. Army.
Early life
Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of John Joseph Hallaren and Mary Kenney Hallaren. She graduated in 1925 from Lowell High School and attended Boston University and graduated from Lowell State Teachers College (now University of Massachusetts Lowell). She taught junior high school for 15 years in Lexington, Massachusetts, spending her summers on vigorous walking tours, which she called vagabonding throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Europe.
Career
In 1942 Hallaren entered the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, which later became the WAC. A recruiter asked the diminutive Hallaren (she barely stood five feet tall), how someone of her size could help the military. She replied, "You don't have to be six feet tall to have a brain that works."
In 1943, as a captain, she commanded the first women's battalion to go overseas. She served as director of WAC personnel attached to the 8th and 9th Air Forces, and by 1945, as a lieutenant colonel, she commanded all WAC personnel in the European theater.
On 7 May 1947, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson promoted Hallaren to full colonel and appointed her the third director of the WAC. On June 12, 1948, when the WAC was officially integrated into the Army, she became the first woman to serve as a regular Army officer (there had been female members of the Army Medical Corps since 1947). She received Army serial number L–1. She is buried in Saint Patrick Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Awards
- Legion of Merit