South grad becomes first female Marine to reach sergeant major in overseas assignment
A 1994 Bloomington High School South graduate has become the first woman serving in the U. S. Marine Corps to reach the rank of sergeant major — the senior enlisted Marine — in an overseas assignment.
Joy Maria Kitashima, 46, will become “the first female force-level sergeant major in the history of the Marine Corps” when she takes her post in July at a Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, according to the Marine Corps announcement.
Kitashima grew up in Bloomington and attended University Elementary School. After high school she enrolled at Vincennes University and received an associate’s degree in law enforcement in 1996.
She had a civilian law-enforcement career in mind until a Marine Corps recruiter sold her on enlisting, and soon she was enrolled in military police school at Fort McClellan, Alabama.
During a 26-year career as a Marine, Kitashima has served at U.S. bases and overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti.
According to a report in Stars and Stripes, Kitashima will be joined in the new assignment in Okinawa by her husband, Mark, a retired master gunnery sergeant, and their 11-year-old daughter, Caitlynn.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington grad is first female to lead Marine Expeditionary Force
