Retired Air Force Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1980 as a member of the charter class of 157 women in a class of approximately 1,500 cadets. Of those 157 women, 97 graduated.
She remembers when her father, an Air Force pilot, came home from work one day and told her then-President Gerald R. Ford signed a law allowing women to enter the military academies for the first time in history. She applied and was accepted to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the spring of 1976.
While most upperclassmen were not appreciative of women entering the academy in 1976, she noted that if it had not been for the men in her charter class, the women could not have made it through that difficult experience without their male classmates’ support.
‘’I believe those who opposed women coming in were actually fearful that with women being introduced, the program standards of the AFA would be lowered,’’ Wolfenbarger said, adding that she and the other women in her class spent four years proving the standards did not have to be lowered. ‘’We proved that women can not only survive, but thrive, in that very stressful environment.’’…