Salute for Irene

Any lingering doubt that the Women's Army Corps (present strength: 12,000) has not become a part of the regular Army in spirit as well as fact was dispelled last week with the appointment of its fourth director, Lieut. Colonel Irene O. Galloway of Carroll County, Iowa. The announcement that Miss Galloway is to succeed Colonel Mary A. Hallaren in the WAC high command not only avoided feminine gushiness but actually achieved the box-score inscrutability which has been the hallmark of soldierly prose from time immemorial.

It simply listed the lady lieutenant colonel's schools (Boyles Business College, Omaha, Neb., the University of Maryland Extension in Heidelberg, Germany), her record in ten years in uniform (her present post: chief of the WAC Training Center, Fort Lee, Va.) and her medals (Commendation Ribbon, Army of Occupation WAAC; American Theater and European Theater Ribbons, World War II). The present director's comment on her successor--"wholesome, energetic and efficient" --was also regular (male generals usually refer to their successors as "fearless, brilliant and dynamic"). But it was evident, nevertheless, that WAC brass is still feminine in exercising at least one prerogative of command--Lieut. Colonel Galloway's age (44) was listed nowhere in her official biography.

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