Mary Hallaren, 97; Longtime Head of Women’s Army Corps

Mary A. Hallaren, who was director of the Women’s Army Corps when it officially became part of the regular Army in 1948, died Feb. 13 of complications from a stroke at Arleigh Burke Pavilion, an assisted living facility for retired military personnel in McLean, Va. She was 97.

By virtue of her position, she was the first woman -- other than a few medical officers -- to be sworn into duty with the regular Army when the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act took effect June 12, 1948.

A diminutive woman who had to stand on tiptoe to meet the minimum height requirement of 5 feet, Hallaren was a tough-minded leader who refused to let her size or her sex limit the force of her command. She was nicknamed “the Little Colonel.”

In 1942, she was in the inaugural class of officers trained for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (the term “auxiliary” was soon dropped), and the next year led the first battalion of women to serve in Europe during World War II. By the end of the war, Hallaren commanded all 9,000 American WACs in the European theater.

She was described in otherwise sober military documents as a “legendary figure” who helped her troops endure the bombing of London under the blitz of V-1 and V-2 rockets from Germany. She was especially proud that not one of her women went AWOL.

When Hallaren enlisted in the Army after 15 years as a teacher, a recruiter dismissively asked how someone of her stature could help the military. “You don’t have to be 6 feet tall,” she replied, “to have a brain that works.”

After becoming the top WAC officer in 1947, Hallaren worked with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. George C. Marshall toward merging the women’s corps with the regular Army. She guided women’s Army units through the Korean War before stepping down as director in 1953. She had the longest tenure of any of the nine WAC directors until the service was eliminated in 1978.

She remained in the Army until 1960, serving in Germany and in the office of the secretary of Defense, helping direct personnel policy, until her retirement.

Her decorations included three awards of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and two Army Commendation Medals.

In 1965, Hallaren became the first executive director of Women in Community Service, a coalition of five charitable groups that she helped mold into a nonprofit agency of national scope to help women and children in poverty or at the margins of society.

“This was right at the time of the beginning of the women’s movement,” said Ruth Herman, who was later the organization’s executive director. “It was ahead of its time, and so was Mary.”

Mary Agnes Hallaren was born in Lowell, Mass., attended Boston University and graduated from what is now the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She taught junior high school in Massachusetts for 15 years, spending her summers on vigorous walking tours, which she called vagabonding.

“Mary Hallaren could have matched foot mileage with the most seasoned dogface,” said a 1947 Washington Post article. “Europe was familiar territory to her -- so was every state in the Union, Canada, Alaska, Central and South America. She had covered them all on foot in 18 summers of walking and lived out of a pack.”

In the early 1930s, she encountered a political rally in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

“I couldn’t get excited about it,” she said years later. “He just didn’t make a strong impression.”

Hallaren continued to travel throughout her life, joining a tour to China with Women in Community Service when she was 92. She lived in Arlington, Va., for many years.

In the 1990s, she was a leading proponent of the Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, which was dedicated in 1997. She was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1996 and was featured in Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation.”

After retiring as executive director of WICS, Hallaren continued to speak around the country about women’s issues and her worldwide travels, sometimes standing on a box to reach the microphone. Even in later years, she carried herself in a brisk, no-nonsense military manner.

“If you would see her on the street, you’d think she was a librarian,” Herman recalled. “But every now and then, she could bark out an order that would stop a whole room.”

She leaves no immediate survivors.