A Woman’s War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy’s First African American Female Intelligence Officer

Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

A Woman’s War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy’s First African American Female Intelligence Officer

by Gail Harris with Pam Mclaughlin

Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. (January 16, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0810867931
(Available on Amazon and Barnes & Nobel)

When Gail Harris was assigned to a fleet squadron as an Air Intelligence Officer in 1973, she became the first African American female to hold such a position. Her subsequent 28-year career included service in a leadership position in hands-on leadership in every major conflict from the Cold War to Desert Storm to Kosovo.

When she retired in 2001, she was the highest-ranking African-American female in the Navy.

Those are some of the words from the jacket, and they are all true. I never had a chance to serve directly with Gail, but everyone of that era knew about her, and her storm-force personality.

Raised in the mean streets of Newark, New Jersey, at the age of 5, Gail Harris saw a WWII-themed movie called “Wing and a Prayer” starring the legendary leading man and later character actor Don Ameche.

Mesmerized by a scene of the debonair Ameche briefing Navy pilots before the Battle of Midway scene, she decided that was what she’d do when she grew up. She did not know about the combat exclusion policy (which would not be officially changed until 1994) she forged ahead with her dream.

Patrol (VP) squadrons, although they deployed, were deemed to be eligible for the pioneering assignment of officer and enlisted women, and represented the first crack in the all-male combat force.

If you are looking for a detailed history of the times, you can find it elsewhere. This book is very human in scale, approachable and inspirational. There is not much about the technical end of the business in this narrative, though there is plenty that will resonate.

Some of the issues are common to all of us who served and some are not. Living on Adak Island in the Aleutians and on the Kanto Plain; battling the bulge in the newly-fit post Cold War Navy; playing assignment roulette and the perils of dating in the Service. If you have not considered the challenges inherent in all of them, this is a great read.

“A Woman’s War” is a social memoir that tracks Gail’s career in a rapidly evolving Navy. In addition to the usual complex tasks of support to military operations, she also had to battle the status quo. That includes Squadron and institutional bullies office bullies, and politics.

Lt. Gen Claudia Kennedy, the first female DCSINT, has been quoted on the difficulties of maintaining a romantic life as a single female General Officer. Gale investigates the issue in detail, specifically outlining strategies and means of coping with a diminishing pool of eligible candidates as she rose in rank.

As the first female or first African American for every job assignment, she truly was a trailblazer.

In August 1988, she writes of being pulled from an assignment in Hawaii eighteen-months early and dispatched to South Korea to head up the Defense Department intelligence support for the 1988 Seoul Olympic games.

That assignment and the extensive coordination between U.S. and ROK military, intelligence and civil agencies laid the framework for the last decade of her service, once the Gulf War was concluded and the down-sizing of the Cold War force began in earnest. Gail spent extensive time in the Middle East during the war, and has harnessed that experience since retirement as a consultant and SME, specializing in Cyber defense issues.

She pulls no punches, as one would expect. She also does not hesitate to outline the way intelligence is used and misused.

Gail is no novice to the writing game and this is worth a read if you knew her in the day, or if her story is new to you. She has previously contributed to “Wake Up and Live Your Life with Passion,” a compilation of essays on self-sufficiency that reached # 4 on the Barnes and Noble best seller list.

Her essay “Reflections of a Retired Black Woman” was published in “Lies and Limericks Inspirations from Ireland” in October 2006. She is a frequent guest on radio shows as a defense expert, and she also hosts her own weekly Rhythm & Blues radio show. She is reportedly writing two Broadway musicals. “A Woman’s War “ is part of the Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series, a motivational series of texts designed to build dreams, confidence and performance.

Gail Harris

Gail now lives in Durango, Colorado, where she says “She living happily ever after.”

Her co-author Pam McLaughlin is a retired teacher and has been working since retirement as a ghostwriter and copy editor.

-ed.