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First Female USMC Officer to take Engingeering Command Post

With the expansion of opportunities for women, the United States military is changing and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville has seen its share of that change.

Recently, the base broke new ground yet again by promoting Lt. Col. Lauren Edwards to a command position over the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, the first woman to command an engineering battalion in Marine Corps history.

Chris Thomas has a profile on this Marine making history in Eastern North Carolina.

“When I was in Iraq in 2003, I remember going on convoy and there were little kids throwing flowers and giving thumbs up in our path or on the side of the road.”

Lauren Edwards likes puzzles.

She likes seeing fragments come together to create a whole, clear, picture.  

Puzzles come in all shapes, sizes, and purposes and Edwards’ describes her work as a puzzle of sorts. Only, instead of sitting on a living room floor with jigsaw pieces, she’s coordinating the movement of material and manpower that helps sustain the lives of Marines and Sailors.

“There’s so many different pieces and parts that have to come together at the right moment of time.”

In September, Edwards was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and in a ceremony aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune last week, took command of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion – the first woman ever to do so.

This will be her second time stationed on the base, and though she’s breaking new ground, things feel quite familiar.

“Camp Lejeune is a pretty amazing place. A lot of us start our specialty training done here. I started training down here on Courthouse Bay for combat engineering, so it’s just good to be back to one of those places in the Marine Corps you can kind of call home.”

Holding battalion colors on a parade field in Eastern North Carolina is a long ways from the rolling hills of Kentucky, from which Edwards hails.

Edwards grew up with two siblings and loving parents – which included many of her elders.

“You know, everybody’s looking out for everybody and…your parents were de facto parents for others and that was just fine.”

She’s from Smiths Grove in Warren County with a population of about 714.

She remembers Marine recruiters’ constant presence at her high school – and their high rate of success – but tragedy led her to joining.

“I had a cousin who was killed in a training accident and (at) his funeral, I saw the loyalty and camaraderie and respect and dignity that Marines gave.” 

Edwards also credits one of her civics teachers, Bill Utley, who reminded her and her classmates there was more to the world than Smiths Grove and everyone in that room had a responsibility to it.

“He really helped foster that spark either foster that spark or facilitate that spark of love of nation, love of country, and love of service.”

Edwards would go on to The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. on a track and field scholarship – with initial plans to go into sports broadcasting – but the USMC called to her and after graduating, she went to Officers Candidate School, graduating and earning her gold bar as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1998.

Edwards remembers her first day at “OCS.”

“Honestly, it was a really slow day because I knew that we were going to have a day called ‘pick-up’ in a couple of days and they were going to yell, and yell a lot, and yell some more.”

She started her career in engineering there, a field that can make or break success in a tight, dangerous situation like combat.

“A lot of the stuff we do can really make a difference in the morale of the Marines in the field.”

As they do in civilian life, engineers in the Marine Corps build, maintain, and repair roads and structures. Combat engineers, though, must also clear mine fields and demolish the work of enemy engineers if the situation calls for it.

“Generally, we do survivability, mobility, and counter-mobility. A lot of survivability, there’s a lot of construction – horizontal, vertical construction of things. Mobility, you’re looking at roads and airfields and being able to ensure that ground troops can travel and move throughout the battlefield. And then counter mobility is obviously countering the enemy’s movement.” 

There has been call for such action early and often for the past 14 years, after the September 11th Attacks. Edwards had recently received and followed orders to go to the air station in Yuma, Arizona, but after word spread about the attack that Tuesday morning, she knew things had changed for good, though she wasn’t sure how.

“My unit – we weren’t originally on the slate to go, but we got called up kind of as a last add on so a couple months later was when it really started happening for us and…that’s when that part of the reality came to me personally.”  

Edwards completed three tours throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the “longest days” in Edwards’ career came in 2003, when she and more than 100 fellow Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers, came under attack.

In the book “Why Marines Fight,” she recalled the enemy’s reluctance to face “the grunts” – nickname given to infantry personnel in the Marine Corps – and opened fire on a convoy of engineers instead.

“We were traveling through Tikrit, we were going through Baghdad and we just ended up hitting an ambush area and took a lot of fire.”

She said it was the first time she faced gunfire and called it an out-of-body experience, in which time became irrelevant and only the safety of the people under her mattered.

It was an experience for which she earned an award for valor and gave her a taste of combat leadership.

“These are your Marines and Sailors and Soldiers in this case and your responsibility is to them, so whatever it is you do, you are secondary as far as you yourself. It’s all about the Marine, Sailor, Soldier on your left and right and that’s everything.”

The United States Marine Corps is an institution that prides itself on traditions. It’s the way Marines link themselves to former – never “ex” – Marines and those yet to don the “dress blues.”

Yet, Edwards takes a command post at Camp Lejeune – a base where the smallest, oldest branch of the republic’s military looks to the future. It’s the location of Montford Point, where the first black Marines trained. It’s the base where the Marines’ Women Reserve began, which blazed the trail for seven Marines who may be the first, official, female “grunts.”

As Edwards looks back on a career that’s approaching two full decades, she says one of her proudest accomplishments is one that has no direct connection with the Marine Corps – making the Warren County Schools “Hall of Distinguished Alumni” this year.

“If you can leave your home town but yet still remain tied to it, I think it’s pretty important to pay it forward, and I think if that accolade just shows young men and women alike back home that they can do whatever they want, they can be whomever they want. I think that’s what we’re all charged to do during our time here.”

marineengineer_edwards_knowledge_book.mp3
Lt. Col. Edwards talks about the "Knowledge Book."

marineengineer_edwards_original_plans.mp3
On how a Marine nearly went into sports broadcasting (Lt. Col. Edwards refers to "GW" in this clip, short for The George Washington University)