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Sgt. Maj. Laura Brown was Marine Corps Base Quantico’s first female base sergeant major. She devoted 30 years to the Marine Corps, retiring in 2014. After graduating boot camp in 1984, Sgt. Maj. Brown served at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina and later found herself on the drill field at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. While there, she became the first female history instructor for both female and male recruits, and became the 4th Battalion drill master. Sgt. Maj. Brown deployed to Iraq in 2003 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and again in 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II.
While the sergeant major set an example and shaped the lives of thousands of other women as she moved through the Corps, she ultimately credited her mother for providing the foundation that made her career possible. “When you’re seventeen years old, you think you have the world by the tail. But that’s not the reality. My mother certainly gave me foundation. She certainly taught me my left and right lateral limits and not to go past them. When I came to recruit training, I understood intrinsically what that would mean to my family if I made wrong decisions.”
In 2005, she was frocked to the rank of sergeant major and returned to 4th Recruit Training Battalion as the battalion sergeant major. In March 2011, Sgt. Maj. Brown deployed to Japan as part of Operation Tomodachi, a humanitarian disaster relief effort following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami. (U.S. Marine Corps photo illustration by LCpl. Keegan Bailey, Cpl. Webster Rison, and Cpl. Sean Potter)
| Date Taken: | 03.31.2022 |
| Published: | 04-19-22 10:10 AM |
| Graphic ID: | 19665 |
| VIRIN: | 220331-M-OX907-1001 |
| Size: | 768.33 KB |
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| Web Views: | 33 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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