First time in 60 year history of Republic of Korea Armed Forces, operational commander fluent in English
[Dec 16, 2010]
For the first time in the 60 year history of the army, a woman was promoted to combatant brigadier general.
Brigadier general Song, Myung-soon (52, photo), class of '76 of Yeungnam University Department of Political Science & Diplomacy, was promoted to the first female brigadier general in combat arms during the personnel shift conducted by the Ministry of National Defense on the 16th.
Until now, the only female generals were from the nursing branch. Since Yang, Seung-suk became the first female brigadier general in 2001, a new female general was promoted every two years in the nursing branch. However, this is the first time that a woman was promoted to brigadier general from the combat arms branch.
Brigadier general Song graduated from Gyungbuk Girl's High School and the Yeungnam University Department of Political Science & Diplomacy, and completed an English instructor course at the US Defense Language Institute. She joined the army in the 29th unit of the Female Military in 1981 and served as a communications officer, protocol officer and strategy officer, and also worked as the spokesperson for the Korea ground forces festival command center, commander for the woman Special Warfare, protocol officer for the Army Chief-of-Staff secretary office, chief commander of the female unit of the army, regimental commander of the army 2nd training center, commander of the public opinion department of the 2nd Operations Command, and commander of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command civilian-military operations office. While working at the ROK-US Combined Forces Command, she proved to be an outstanding strategic commander, which is uncommon for women in the military. She is currently working in the joint operations headquarters for the ROK Joint-Chief of Staff.
Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of National Defense's data on '2006-2010 female military officers' university attended and major', Yeungnam University was found to graduate the most female officers, and was selected as the first female ROTC university by the Ministry of National Defense, and has so far selected five female students as candidates.
