Brigadier General Amundson's reflections on Memorial Day

May 22, 2015

Brigadier General Roma Amundson
USANG (Ret.)

After spending 33 years in the United States military, retired Brigadier General Roma Amundson, 65, is going to spend Memorial Day at home.

The general’s most recent assignment was Assistant Adjutant General of the Nebraska Army National Guard. She now lives in Walton, Nebraska, about three miles east of Lincoln.

“This is the first time in 12 years I haven’t been asked to make a speech,” she said. “So, I plan to spend time on my back porch, work in my garden and later in the day I’m going to attend a ceremony in Lincoln with my husband, Randy.”

Amundson wishes Memorial Day was celebrated in the middle of the week instead of being coupled with a four-day weekend.

“A lot of people travel on Memorial Day weekend and forget to honor our fallen veterans. It’s easy to forget the significance of what it means to serve an ideal that is bigger than all of us.”

To Amundson, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance and thanks. “We must solemnly recognize the sacrifices that people have made throughout the generations.”

Although retired, Amundson still holds onto her military beliefs and advocates a strong American defense and economy coupled with energy independence.

“I’m an ‘all of the above’ energy supporter,” she said. “Oil, solar, wind, nuclear energy, whatever it takes for us as a nation to be energy independent.”

When Amundson first enlisted in 1978 about 10 percent of military personnel were women compared to 14 percent today.

“When I was given my first assignment as a lieutenant, there was a sergeant who thought he could run my unit better than a ‘skirt.’ I showed him he was wrong.”

Amundson said she learned a lot about herself, not just as a woman in a man’s army but as a person as well.

“I learned a lot about my strength of character. I learned a lot about challenge; you have to be challenged to know you can do something. I learned I was tough and that I was tough minded.

And part of that tough mindedness is the general’s belief that women can, are willing, and should serve in active combat.

“Women are as equal and as capable as the men are. They want to fight for the nation as much as their male counterparts do.” 

Brigadier General Roma Amundson, USANG (Ret.)