Cmdr. Bernadette M. Semple ’82 to Take Part in “Women in the Military” Panel

WORCESTER, Mass. – Cmdr. Bernadette M. Semple ’82, former deputy director of C4 Systems with the Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa and a College of the Holy Cross trustee, will take part in a panel titled “Women in the U.S. Military” on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College. Semple will be joined by Marlisa Grogan ’02 and Sergeant Kayla Williams. The group will discuss their experiences while serving in the U.S. Military.  The event, free and open to the public, is sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies.

Semple is a graduate of the Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I.  She earned her M.A. in national security affairs (strategic planning and international negotiations) at the Naval PostGraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and she received her M.S. in information resource management from Syracuse University. Previously she served as a commanding officer of the Naval Communications Security Material System and the chief Pacific Command representative in Guam.

Grogan served as a first lieutenant at Al–Asad Air Base in Iraq from Feb. 2005–06.  She is currently a captain in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), which is composed of former active duty or reserve military personnel, and is pursuing a master’s degree in social work at Columbia University.

Williams, author of Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (W.W. Norton, 2005), wrote about serving as an Arabic translator in Iraq from February 2003-04.  She is currently in the IRR.