{"id":17734,"date":"2020-06-23T12:17:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T12:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/06\/23\/i-had-to-be-on-a-look-into-the-career-of-the-corps-first-female-marine-ground-combat-battalion-commander\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:18:28","slug":"i-had-to-be-on-a-look-into-the-career-of-the-corps-first-female-marine-ground-combat-battalion-commander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2020\/06\/23\/i-had-to-be-on-a-look-into-the-career-of-the-corps-first-female-marine-ground-combat-battalion-commander\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I had to be on\u2019: A look inside the career of the Corps\u2019 first female Marine ground combat battalion commander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For Lt. Col. Michelle Macander being a Marine was a family tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her grandfather was a Marine infantry officer who fought in World War II, her father and uncle were both Marines. <\/a>As a kid she would sneak into her father\u2019s closet and try on his uniform and cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So one of the first things Macander did when she first stepped foot on the Georgia Tech campus was walk over to Navy ROTC and ask what she needed to do to become a Marine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week later she was in a uniform and starting a path that sent her on numerous combat tours, introduced her to her wife, and gave her the opportunity to mentor and train the next generation of Marine officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fateful day also led Macander to make history: She became the first woman to command a Marine Corps ground combat battalion in 2018 when she took over as battalion commander for the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally Macander had gone to the The Basic School intending to become an intelligence officer, but once she got her first taste of demolition her plans changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went through TBS and we spent some time handling demolitions and I was done at that point \u2015 all I wanted to do was be a combat engineer,\u201d Macander told Marine Corps Times in a phone interview on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday Macander stepped down from her command in the engineer battalion to head to her new assignment at the Naval War College. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And though she may not have specific goals for her own Marine career \u2015 she\u2019s just worried about doing the best she can at her current job \u2015 she does have a few more female Marine firsts she looks forward to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only service that has never had a woman four star general, so that would be exciting to see,\u201d Macander said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women in combat jobs<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was in 2016 that the Defense Department<\/a> approved the Marine Corps\u2019 plan to open up all combat jobs and positions to women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Female Marines slowly began entering fields that were once banned for them, until 2019 when the Corps saw a 60 percent increase of women in previously all-male<\/a> units over the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike most ground combat jobs prior to 2016, when Macander was a young officer women were allowed to become combat engineers, with a restriction on which units they were allowed to be assigned to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the job that Macander fell in love with once she got into her military occupational specialty. <\/p>\n\n\n\t