Brigadier General Sherian Cadoria
(1943 — Present)
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Brigadier General Sherian Cadoria |
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Sherian Grace Cadoria was born in Marksville, Louisiana, on January 26, 1943, to Joseph and Bernice (McGlory) Cadoria. She was the youngest of three children that included one brother and one sister. Chronically ill due to an injury suffered by being kicked in the head by a horse, Joseph Cadoria was hospitalized until his death in 1994. Bernice became the head of the household and raised their three children. The family lived in a two-room house that had no running water or electricity. There were so many holes in the walls that Cadoria’s mother wallpapered the house floor-to-ceiling with pages from a Sears & Roebuck catalog to reduce the draftiness. In order to make ends meet, the family picked cotton in the fields. As soon as she could walk, Cadoria joined her mother and siblings in this labor. By the time that she was age 10, she could pick and haul up to 250 pounds of cotton a day. |
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Sherian credits her mother as a role model and her first real sergeant. She recalls that her mother's strict discipline made military life feel like home to her. “My mother was a strict disciplinarian, but she did it with a lot of love.” She goes on to state that Bernice “was the strongest, most courageous woman I have ever known. She worked all the time, but she never complained.” One early life lesson involved an incident where the children went into town shopping and the store clerk gave them one penny too much in change. When Bernice learned of the mistake, she sent all three youngsters back to the store to return the penny—a distance of five miles. She sent all three children because not one of them had spoken up about the error.
The Cadoria siblings walked those same five miles on a regular basis to and from Holy Ghost Elementary School each day. Though a school bus passed their home, the family preferred to avoid the problems involving segregated seating. In addition to picking cotton, Sherian and her sister started cleaning houses. A high school English teacher encouraged her to consider attending college; a recommendation that her mother seconded. |
BGen. Sherian Cadoria was a trailblazer in the military for both women and African-Americans. Photo courtesy of BGen. Sherian Cadoria.
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Cadoria attended Southern University in Baton Rouge and majored in Business Education. During this time, her brother went into the military. She remembers that ‘I thought I should do it too. My Mom said, ‘No way!’” She was selected by the Women's Army Corps to represent the university at the College Junior Program during her junior year. She spent four weeks at Fort McClellan in the summer of 1960, experiencing firsthand the life of an enlisted soldier. It was a positive experience for her and, following completion of her studies at Southern, she enlisted and received her commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps.
Cadoria returned to Fort McClellan in Alabama for training where she encountered the first of many obstacles facing her due to her gender and her race. In an interview with writer David Dent of Essence magazine in April of 1990, she recalled:
“When I started in the Army in 1961, there were jobs a black, by unwritten code, could not do. I can never forget that the coveted position of Platoon Leader in the Women’s Officers Training Detachment was denied me because a black could not carry out all the duties the job entailed. Specifically, in Anniston, Alabama, a black could not take the troops off the installation because of Jim Crow laws.”
While at Fort McClellan, Ku Klux Klan members were regularly present outside of the base gates protesting the integration of the military and harassing African American soldiers inside the base perimeter. In 1963, she was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant and became a platoon officer. That year she was also refused food service at a hamburger stand in town—even at the back door and while in uniform—because of her race.
Cadoria—now at the rank of Captain—volunteered for service in Vietnam where she served thirty-three (33) consecutive months from January of 1967 to October of 1969. She was assigned to the Office of the U.S. Army Vietnam Provost Marshall and to Qui Nhon Support Command. During these assignments, she was awarded three Bronze Stars and also an Air Medal for meritorious service at Cam Ranh Bay. In an interview with Merrill McLoughlin of U.S. News & World Report in February of 1989, Cadoria recalled that the officer who interviewed her for the job of Protocol Officer at Qui Nhon in late 1967 was reticent about a woman’s ability to fill the position. She would be required to travel frequently and lift heavy luggage. She responded that “Nobody said I couldn’t carry those hundred-pound bags of cotton when I was just a little child.” Shortly thereafter, the job was hers.
While in Vietnam, Sherian spent her spare time working with Dominican nuns in hospitals and leper colonies. The suffering that she witnessed had an effect on her. After returning to the United States in October of 1969—now at the rank of Major—Cadoria considered leaving the military and entering a convent to become a nun. At this time, she received word that she was the first African American woman to be selected to attend the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kanas. Even with this momentous breakthrough, she was prepared to pass up the opportunity. Her mother, however, advised her that “God wanted you to be a soldier. You now have a responsibility.” Bernice reminded Sherian that African Americans—both men and women alike—benefitted from her achievements. With this in mind, she stayed in the Army and attended the school, graduating in 1971.
Cadoria’s next assignment returned her to Fort McClellan in Alabama where she was an instructor and Human Relations Officer at the Women’s Army Corps School & Center from 1971 to 1973. She next served as Executive Officer & Personnel Officer for the WAC at the U.S. Army Military Personnel Center from 1973 to 1975. During this time, she also earned a Master’s Degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma. From 1975 to 1976, she was assigned to the Pentagon as the Personnel Staff Officer for the Law Enforcement Division Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel Headquarters. During this assignment, she also saw duty as a White House social aide to President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford.
In 1977, Cadoria returned to Fort McClellan in Alabama. The strides made in civil rights over the previous sixteen years were now evident. Where before she was unable to become a Platoon Leader because of the inability of African Americans to take troops off-base, she now commanded the Military Police Student Training Battalion. She held this post through 1978 until departing to study at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she graduated in 1979. As with the earlier admission to the Command & General Staff College, Cadoria was the first African American woman to be admitted to the War College.
The Women's Army Corps was disbanded in 1978 and its personnel integrated into the regular army. In 1979, Cadoria was deployed overseas to West Germany as Division Chief of the Physical Security Division for U.S. Army Europe & Seventh Army (USAREUR). Promoted to the rank of Colonel on September 01, 1980, she remained at this posting until 1982 when she became Brigade Commander of the 1st Region Criminal Investigation Command. In 1984, she was assigned as Chief of the Office of Army Law Enforcement. In 1985, she attended the Institute of Higher Defense Studies at the National Defense University, located on the grounds of Fort Leslie J. McNair in Washington, D.C.
When first notified of her selection to be promoted to the general officer ranks, Cadoria’s mother Bernice remarked that “We are going to be a general.” On October 01, 1985, Bernice joined General Robert Elton in pinning the stars of a Brigadier General on the shoulders of her daughter.
Cadoria’s next assignment was Director of Manpower & Personnel for the Joint Chiefs of Staff where she was responsible for the placement of personnel in all branches of the military and its reserve components. She served in this assignment until 1987 when she became Deputy Commanding General and Director for Mobilization and Operations for the United States Total Army Personnel Command in Alexandria, Virginia. Her responsibilities in this position were aptly described by David Dent of Essence magazine: “Simply put, if a world war were to erupt, Cadoria would be responsible for providing replacements to the overseas commanders on the battlefields.”
Cadoria retired in 1990 at the rank of Brigadier General after a distinguished 29-year military career. At the time, she was the highest ranking black woman in the United States armed forces and one of only four female generals in the U.S. Army. To say that her career was that of a pioneer is an understatement. Cadoria was one of the first women to serve as a military police officer. She was the first woman to command an all-male battalion. She was the first woman to lead a criminal investigation brigade. She was also the first African American woman admitted to the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College. In 1985, she became the first African American woman to serve as a director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Regarding her status as a black female in what was a predominantly white male community, Cadoria states:
"I've gotten more pressure from being female in a man's world than from being black. I was always a role model. I had responsibility not just for black women but for black men as well. A woman today has to do more than her male counterpart. I came in knowing I was going to have to give 200 percent effort to get 100 percent credit. Most of the time, you don't even get the 100 percent credit."
Upon returning home to Louisiana, Cadoria settled in Pineville near her hometown of Marksville. She established her own consulting firm. In 1997, upon learning that Holy Ghost Elementary School was in danger of closing due to lack of funding, she volunteered to serve as principal for one year while drawing no pay. She stayed on beyond that one year, so great was the need of the school: buildings were falling apart, textbooks were far outdated, and teachers lack proper certification. Long after her stepped down as principal, she continues to serve in an advisory capacity for the school as well as serving on numerous community, state, and national boards. Her philosophy of giving back to the community is evident in a quote given during an interview with the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, of which she became a member in 2003:
“Success is a shared journey. My mentors were always there for me and I try to be a mentor to young people. To me, success is having the ability to serve others by sharing your talents, your time, your resources, and always extending your hand to pull someone along so they, too, can journey forward.”
General Cadoria has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Black Business & Professional Women and has received the NAACP's Roy Wilkens Meritorious Service Award and the National Athena Award. On November 11, 2002, she became the first woman and the first African-American inducted into the Louisiana Veterans Hall of Honor. Additionally, she is a member of the Louisiana Black History Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame.
General Cadoria was the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Among them were the following:
Sherian Cadoria's outstanding career and contributions to the Army, her community, her state, and her nation are a reflection of her belief that "the dictionary is the only place where 'success' comes before 'work.'"
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Sources used in the compilation of this article:
African Americans in the Military, by Catherine Reef. Facts On File, Inc. (2010). Biography of General Sherian Cadoria, Eileen Daily. Answers.com . Biography of General Sherian Grace Cadoria, by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans (2003). Conversations between Brigadier General Sherian Grace Cadoria, USA (Ret.) and USS KIDD staff. |
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