Female four-star admiral: Adm. Michelle Janine Howard makes Navy history

The Navy's first female four-star admiral has served 32 years in the Navy since she graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1982. Admiral  Howard was also the first African-American woman to command a Navy ship.

|
Peter D. Lawlor/USNavy/AP
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (l.) congratulates Adm. Michelle Howard after putting on her fourth star, during her promotion ceremony in Washington, July 1. Howard is the first woman to be promoted to the rank of admiral in the history of the Navy. Howard's husband Wayne Cowles is at right.

The Navy has its first female four-star admiral.

She is Michelle Janine Howard, promoted on Tuesday to the service's highest rank. The ceremony was held at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery, near the Pentagon.

She will serve as the vice chief of naval operations, which makes her the No. 2 admiral in the Navy behind Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations.

Howard has served 32 years in the Navy. She is a 1978 graduate of Gateway High School in Aurora, Colorado. She graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1982.

Among her many distinctions, Howard in 1999 became the first African-American woman to command a Navy ship.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Female four-star admiral: Adm. Michelle Janine Howard makes Navy history
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0701/Female-four-star-admiral-Adm.-Michelle-Janine-Howard-makes-Navy-history
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe