We took a brief hiatus with this episode to dig into current event. This past Spring, after officials at USNA removed a display of Jewish women graduates from the Jewish Midshipman Center, Shannon and Carrie sat down to talk with our '98 classmate, Misty Hechinger, about the incident as well as being a Jewish woman at USNA and in the fleet. This wide-ranging discussion touched on the challenges of being a dual minority, leading a diverse force, and what we can do to support midshipmen, young officers, and each other moving forward.

Our celebration of the 50th continues through the 1980s as we speak with Marie (Schanz) Burris, Class of 1986. Those of you who are part of the 50th anniversary committee for USNA will recognize Marie's name and voice, since she's heading up the planning for the 50th and all that comes with it.

Please join us as we learn from Marie and her journey, her strength and resilience, and her thoughts on leadership. We discuss how our experiences at USNA and in the fleet can shape whether we stay in or get out, how we lead, and our concerns about backpedaling. Also: we talk about Aretha Franklin. 

And we would be failing if we didn't include the link to sign up for the Early Bird Registration for the 50th Anniversary celebration: 

The "Screaming Early Bird" saves you $175 from the regular priced tickets, so don't miss out on this amazing deal!

Registration link: https://SignUpNow.Events/USNAWomen50

This special weekend will take place from April 16-19, 2026, in Annapolis at the Fluegel Alumni Center (FAC) and the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium (NMCMS). The weekend will have inspiring speakers, panelists, valuable networking opportunities, featured USNA Women artists and authors, and celebrations that include:

• Thursday, April 16th: Golf Outing
• Thursday, April 16th: Welcoming reception (FAC)
• Friday, April 17th: Day 1 Conference (NMCMS) and Gala (FAC)
• Saturday, April 18th: Day 2 Conference (NMCMS)
• Sunday, April 19th: First Class Welcome (Welcoming Class of 2026) (FAC)

Hi everyone! Somehow, the long and fancy episde description we submitted with the podcast didn't fully upload. Please excuse the mistake... and see the details, below. 

Please join SOMB today as we talk with Pamela K. Pitkin, USNA '82. We spent an afternoon with Pamela discussing the great class of 82, life at USNA, life beyond USNA, and what she thinks about as the 50th approaches. 

Pamela also asked that we include a few notes here as corrections:

Continuing the work to share stories from alumnae across the classes in support of the 50th anniversary of women at the Military Service Academies, in this episode, we interview an alumna of the Class of 1983, Tatjana Qadada. 

Tatjana's story is an incredibly powerful one, and we are grateful to her for her willingness to share it with us so that we can better understand the deep, significant challenges faced by women both at USNA and beyond over the past half century. We hope you all listen to her story and understand how important hearing it is.

As Tatjana's story drives home, the stories of women at Annapolis may be ones of courage, strengthm and resilience, but those qualities also may reveal themselves in conjunction with deeper trauma. This episode, as with past episodes, includes descriptions of sexual assault and other forms of violence. We are grateful to Tatjana and to so many of you for trusting us with your stories and with lessons that you have learned from the trauma you've experienced and the steps you've taken as life progressed to seek healing.  We also want to share a key resource that was started and is led by Service Academy alumna: the Survivor Advocacy Network (https://www.survivoradvocacynetwork.org). We encourage each of you to visit the site and see what they do.

Thank you all - and thank you particularly to Tatjana Qadada, USNA '83, for trusting us with her story! 

As our celebration of the 50th anniversary through Waypoints podcasts continues, please join Jeannette and Shannon as we talk with three women from '81 and '82 - Mary Brigden and Peggy Metzger (both '81) and Kathy Bustle ('82). We learn more about what it felt like to be a female mid at USNA during a Forrestal lecture in October 1979, the letter that Peggy's mother wrote to her that became a source of strength and pride, and the music of the late 70s/early 80s (Boston's More Than a Feeling, Blondie - Heart of Glass, Buffett, Boz Scaggs, and WHFS).

In our 2nd 50th Anniversary podcast, Kate and Jeannette get to hear stories from mother-daughter duo Sharon Hanley Disher '80 and Alison Disher Orr '10 - and they are only two of the five (!) Disher family members who are USNA grads. Yes, all five are Navy grads! If you haven't read Sharon's 1998 book, First Class: Women Join the Ranks at the Naval Academy, you should... but you should also listen to this podcast.

Join us as we learn what it was like to be both a grad and the mother of a female grad... and a grad and the daughter of a female grad. We talk about the similarities and differences between the experience of being a woman in '80 and the experience of being a woman in '10, the treatment of cheerleaders in 1976 and 2006, and the existence of phones in Bancroft Hall. So much has changed, yet so much hasn't. 

Thank you, Sharon and Alie!

SOMB is excited to launch our Season 4 -- where we focus our podcast on the upcoming 50th anniversary of women at the military service acadmies. To kick things off, Jeannette and Jenn sit down with the amazing Janice Buxbaum, USNA '80. From Janice and her stories, we learn about how hard women had to fight to be admitted, how to hold a mutiny, and what happened during a certain uniform race. (We also learn a lot more - particularly about leadership, resistance to discrimination, and resilience.) And we close with a story about the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'"... please join us! (Thank you to the USNA Women's Glee Club for the opening and closing music.)

For our second episode of 2025, SOMB sought to hear from alumnae from across the Academies. For this episode, we posed two questions to our fellow sisters: 

First, how are you being impacted by current events? And second, what does your experience teach you and what can it teach us? How have you handled challenging situations or hostile leaders in the past?

We asked for volunteers to join the podcast recording and provided an email address for any who wanted to share asynchronously, so this podcast is the result of that conversation. Please note that we do not introduce anyone with last name or affiliation - we only used first names. But all who joined are female alumnae.

We're also providing a list of books recommended by some of those who joined us. They are here for reference:

1. It's My Country Too: Women's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan by Jerri Bell (2017)
2. No Coincidences: Reflections of the First Black Female Graduate of the United States Naval Academy by Janie Mines ('80)
3.  Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by BG Ty Seidule, USA (Ret) (2021)
4. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (2020)
5. Be Bold: How a Marine Corps Hero Broke Barriers for Women at War by Tom Sileo (2022)
6. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brene Brown (2018)

After a brief break as the team grappled with life, we're baaaaack... to grapple with the topic of meritocracy in the military. Meritocracy has been in the news recently, with shout-outs on the main DoD website and in the new SecDef's most recent book. When a recently-published short journal artice on meritocracy caught our eyes, we decided to read it and focus an episode on our thoughts on what a meritocracy is and whether the US military is one - on air. Full disclosure - we don't stay on topic, and if you're looking for a coherent overview of the article itself, you will be disappointed. =) (Article here in case anyone is interested: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661324003292.)

After an unintended break (life happens), we finally had the tremendous opportunity to meet and talk with Paula Neira, USNA '85, and one of the most remarkable leaders we've been fortunate to learn from on this podcast. Please join us and listen to Paula's story -- it's one of significant professional and personal growth, leadership, and advocacy. From a SWO... to a nurse and nurse educator... to an attorney and advocate... to a program director, Paula has served as a leader in all kinds of organizations and roles. But her life is grounded in a deep love for the Navy and USNA. And - bonus - the song "In a Big Country" by the band "Big Country" makes an appearance! Unfortunately, so does "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba. But let's pretend that won't get stuck in your head.