Top Two Cadets-West Point, Class of 2010

[Ralph]

CNN

Alexandra Rosenberg and Elizabeth Betterbed

For the first time, two women graduated with the two top highest honors in West Point's 208-year history.

According to the U.S. Army, 2nd Lt. Alexandra Rosenberg of New York earned the highest cumulative academic quality point average and was named the Class of 2010 valedictorian. Second Lt. Elizabeth Betterbed of Fox Island, Washington, graduated with the highest accumulative cadet performance score.

An Engineering Corps officer, Betterbed is also a Rhodes scholar recipient, a member of a team of mechanical engineers who helped develop a bionic foot, and a four-year letter winner and starter on the women's soccer team. This year was the 31st class to graduate women at West Point, and it included 136 female graduates.

U.S. Army: West Point class of 2010 celebrates landmark accomplishments
Post by: CNN Managing Editor Jay Kernis

[jbuck919]

For everybody's information, the Corps had its first female cadet first captain a long time ago.

I hope we'll never know when the first non-closeted gay person achieves such honors, because when it happens no one will think it significant enough to be worth reporting.

[MarkC]

......I hope we'll never know when the first non-closeted gay person achieves such honors, because when it happens no one will think it significant enough to be worth reporting.

I remember the first time I witnessed something along those lines. I consider myself pretty 'liberated' but maybe I'm not that much.......

When New Jersey governor McGreevey announced that he was gay, I happened to be away at a piano event, and I heard it on the TV. I ran breathlessly to tell the others about this big news -- and everyone was like, "So?"