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(Omaha, NE) -- Nebraska's Army National Guard is celebrating 50 years of female service.
“Women weren’t allowed into the National Guard until President Eisenhower signed Public Law No. 845 in 1956, which authorized female reserve officers of the Army and Air Force to be appointed as nurses or medical specialists,” Major Scott Igalsbe, the Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, tells 6 News.
Continuing, Igalsbe says the following:
"Eleven years later, Public Law No. 90-130 removed the two percent strength and rank ceiling limitations on women and allowed female officers to be assigned to units outside the medical field, but they were still restricted from combat arms units like armor, infantry, and artillery."
Igalsbe says nonmedical enlisted women could join the National Guard in 1967.
5 years later, Leslie Doughty, Christine Sherman Thompson, and Jodell Urbauer made history when they were sworn into the Nebraska National Guard on January 27th, 1972.
50 years ago, those three women became the first of many to serve in Nebraska's guard in the years since.