19-year-old Westmoreland Native Becomes First Female To Enter U.S. Army Infantry

Meet 19-year-old Braelyn Riesel of Westmoreland. She just made history by entering by becoming the first female to join the U.S. Army Infantry.

WKTV reports Riesel will ship out this week to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin a total of 22 weeks of training, 10 weeks of basic training and then 12 weeks of infantry training. All of this is possible because Riesel made a trip to the Rome Army Recruiting Station:

SFC. Paul Gardner, Commander of the Rome Army Recruiting Station, says Riesel is the first female to directly enter the infantry after visiting the Rome Army Recruiting Center, "I was pretty excited when she said something about combat arms, so that was interesting to me because most women don’t want to do combat arms, most people in general don’t want to do combat arms.""

Once Riesel competes her 22 weeks of training at Fort Benning she will join the ranks of only about 600 women in the entire country to have made it through that training to be certified to fight on the front lines. She will also be joining her brother in the infantry.

We wish Riesel the best of luck on following her dreams, and thank her for her family's service.