One remarkable woman's lesson in breaking the rules | Kurt Greene
Kurt Greene
Of the more than 3,500 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, Mary Edwards Walker is the first and only female recipient. It’s a stunning statistic that well lags the numerous other social advances in our country over the past 150 years.
But the story of how this woman earned the armed forces’ highest recognition is an impressive study of both courage and compassion.
Born in 1832 as the youngest of seven children, Mary grew up on a family farm in Oswego, New York. Alvah and Vesta Walker were industrious and intelligent parents with progressive and nontraditional approaches to education and child rearing that planted seeds of independent thinking, equality, and a sense of justice that would soon blossom.