The Army announced last week that Major General Michelle A. Schmidt will take the helm of the 7th Infantry Division headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she will become the nation's first woman to lead an Army active-duty maneuver division.

Maj. Gen. Laura Yeager became the first woman to lead a U.S. Army infantry division, serving in California's National Guard in 2019. Yeager is since retired.

In a podcast with the Association of the United States Army last September, Schmidt talked about leading soldiers. "We can't just talk about it, you have to train it. You have to train folks how to be good leaders the same way we would train people how to shoot or do PT. You actually have to work on it."

Schmidt attended the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as a Military Intelligence Officer in 1992. She began her career as a platoon leader in the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea.

Notable assignments include, company command in the 82d Airborne Division, S2 for the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, intern for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Senior Intelligence Officer and Squadron Commander for 1st Special Operations Detachment - Delta, G2 for the 82d Airborne Division, JSOC Intelligence Brigade Commander, Chief of Staff for the 82d Airborne Division, Chief of the Initiatives Group for the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Director of Intelligence J-2, United States Special Operations Command, and Deputy Commanding General for the 10th Mountain Division. She most recently served as the Director of Operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Deployments include, Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY in Haiti in 1994, numerous conventional and special operations joint task force deployments to Iraq in support of Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and INHERENT RESOLVE from 2003-2015, and multiple conventional and special operations deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.

The 7th Infantry Division fought in Europe in World War I and the Pacific in World War II, followed by the Korean War, remaining on the line at the Demilitarized Zone until 1971. Headquartered today at JBLM, it leads two Stryker brigade combat teams and a combat aviation brigade.