WAC CERAMIC ORNAMENT

The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943. General Douglas MacArthur called the WACs "my best soldiers", adding that they worked harder, complained less, and were better disciplined than men. Many generals wanted more of them and proposed to draft women but it was realised that this "would provoke considerable public outcry and Congressional opposition" and the War Department declined to take such a drastic step. The WAC as a branch was disbanded in 1978. Women serving as WACs at that time converted their branches to whatever Military Occupational Specialty they were working in. Since then, women in the U.S. Army have served in the same units as men, though they have only been allowed in or near combat situations since 1994 when Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered the removal of "substantial risk of capture" from the list of grounds for excluding women from certain military units.