A first: Female 4-star general

WASHINGTON - Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, yesterday became the first woman to become a four-star general in the U.S. military.

At an emotional promotion ceremony, she 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 in a male-dominated military.

"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 an auditorium crowd.

In an interview after the ceremony, Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff, said Dunwoody was distinguished for her lifetime commitment to excellence. "If you talk to leaders around the Army and say, 'What do you think about Ann Dunwoody?' almost unanimously you get, 'She's a soldier first.' "

Dunwoody, 55, hails from a family of military men dating to 1866. Her father, retired Brig. Gen. Hal Dunwoody, 89 - 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; the Joint Chiefs chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen; and Dunwoody's husband, Craig Brotchie, an Air Force veteran.

When she was nominated by President Bush in June for promotion to four-star rank, she said she was humbled. "I grew up in a family that didn't know what glass ceilings were," she said. "This nomination only reaffirms what I have known to be true about the military throughout my career - that the doors continue to open for men and women in uniform."

Yesterday, she said she only recently realized how much her accomplishment meant to others. "I didn't appreciate the enormity of the events until tidal waves of cards, letters, and e-mails started coming my way.

"And I've heard from men and women, from every branch of service.. . . I've heard from moms and dads who see this promotion as a beacon of hope for their own daughters and affirmation that anything is possible through hard work."

Later at Fort Belvoir, Va., her birthplace, she was sworn in as commander of the Army Materiel Command, responsible for equipping and arming all soldiers.

Dunwoody received her Army commission in 1975. Her first assignment was at Fort Sill, Okla., as supply platoon leader. She later served in Germany and Saudi Arabia. She graduated from the Command and General Staff College in 1987, and was assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., where she became the 82d Airborne Division's first female battalion commander.

Currently there are 21 female general officers in the Army, all but four at the one-star rank of brigadier. It was not until 1970 that the Army had its first one-star: Anna Mae Hays, chief of the Army Nurse Corps.