Tonkawa Massacre

Heidi Virginia Brown^[1] (born 20 July 1959)^[2] is a retired U.S. Army Major General who was the first woman to command an air defense battalion and later, in combat, an air defense brigade.

Biography

Born in Texas^[2] and raised in El Paso, Brown graduated from Austin High School in 1977.^[3][4] That same year, she was nominated by Congressman Richard Crawford White to the United States Military Academy.^[5] In 1981, she graduated from the second West Point class to include women.^[3] In 1993, she graduated from the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.^[6] Later, she earned a master's degree in education from the University of South Carolina.^[7]

Brown worked at the Pentagon where she developed a computer program to identify demographic profiles of deployed Army units.^[8] In September 1997, she returned to Ft. Bliss.^[8] She was in charge of a PATRIOT missile battalion in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the late 1990s.^[9] During this time, when she led the 2-43 Air Defense Artillery Battalion, she became the first woman to command an air defense battalion.^[8][10]

In 2002, Brown became the first woman to command an air defense artillery brigade in the Army.^[3] In 2003, she became the first woman to command a brigade, the 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade, in combat during the Iraq War.^[4][11] In 2008, she took a new assignment in combat support operations.^[9] Later she became the director of global operations for the U.S. Strategic Command stationed in Offutt Air Force Base.^[4]

Brown retired as an Army Major General in 2017.^[4] She retired to Locust Grove, Virginia.^[4]

References