"Receiving the Thayer Award makes me feel closer to West Point than I've ever felt before," said General Ann Dunwoody (Retired), in an interview just prior to receiving the 62nd annual Sylvanus Thayer Award. A remarkable statement given that Dunwoody, the first women in U.S. military history to achieve the rank of four-star general, comes from a four-generation legacy of West Point graduates: her father (Harold H. Dunwoody, Class of 1943), her grandfather (Halsey Dunwoody, Class of 1905), her great-grandfather (Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody, Class of 1866, and her brother, Harold "Buck" Dunwoody Jr. '70). "I've been here a lot," she joked.
Yet in addition to her long and strong West Point lineage, Dunwoody's personal devotion to the values of "Duty, Honor, Country," the central tenet of the Thayer Award, actually come from her 38 years of distinguished service to the country. "In my Army career, I've learned that ‘Duty Honor, Country' is more than three words: It's a way of life," she says. Read more.