ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Even as she sat in a room lined with photos of her 81 predecessors, the first female commandant of the Naval Academy said Thursday that she does not see herself as a trailblazer.
Navy Capt. Margaret “Peg” Klein, a 1981 graduate who was in the second academy class to admit women, said the young men and women in the 4,400-member brigade of midshipmen should receive equal treatment, regardless of gender, and that she had no “laundry list” of policy changes in store.
In her first public comments since accepting the appointment last month from Vice Adm. Rodney Rempt, Klein deflected questions about being on the front lines of women integrating the military and brushed off some old-guard grumbling about a so-called “feminization” of the academy.
“I look forward, not back, at the (boat’s) wake, as we say in the Navy,” Klein, 49, said. “We’ll press on from there. “
A week after beginning her job of preparing future military officers and developing their character, Klein said she might adopt an emphasis on “respect and dignity” in leadership training.
Her remarks come as 54 percent of female midshipmen report the school “provides a positive environment” for them, up 12 percentage points since last year.
Eight percent of the female midshipmen who responded in the latest annual survey said sexual harassment had impeded their development. This year, the academy has been involved with two rape cases and the administrative hearing for a former instructor who used crude language in front of female midshipmen
As a girl growing up, she said, her aviation fate was sealed when her father took her, the eldest of four daughters, along on his spins as a private pilot.
“One flying lesson and I caught the bug,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be in the air. That’s how I came to attend the academy.”
She met her husband, Frank Klein, now a retired Navy commander, a day before he graduated from the academy and the couple married on campus in 1982.
She said she never imagined returning to the academy as its No. 2 officer with four stripes on her sleeve. “I didn’t dream on this grand scale,” she said. “What they (commandants) said was gospel. Better be careful of what I say.”
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