KILLEEN, Texas — March is Women’s History Month and with Central Texas being home to Fort Hood, there is no shortage of remarkable women living and working in the area.
Women like US Army veteran and Commander of VFW post 9191 in Killeen, Rose Becton.
She has chosen to make the Fort Hood community her home even though she grew up in Fort Barnwell, North Carolina.
”It was nice,” Becton said.
“I was raised with both parents in a small community with family around. I had a good childhood.”
She did have family that served in the military but it wasn’t until someone walked through the door at her job that she had chose to put on a US Army uniform when she was 31.
”A recruiter came to me while I was working and asked me if I had thought of joining the military,” Becton said.
“I told him no — I had kids and a husband, but I told him that if he could get me in then I would, and he got me in 20 years later.”
She retired from the Army in 2017 after two decades of honorable services and that’s when she moved back to Texas and joined VFW Post 9191 — the same post she is now Commander of.
Now she is doing more than just leading members.
”She not only provides guidance as a Commander or as a leader, but her temperament is that of a mother. Even though we’re close in age, she is mothering to those of us who absent from our mothers.”
As one of the few female Commanders of the Post, she has a message to other women that might be thinking of carrying that same load.
”With help from your mentors and past Commanders — especially female Commanders — you got it, you can do it,” Becton said.
“I didn’t think I could do it. They told me I could, and I'm doing it, and I'm glad I did.”
Those who have served with her in the Army and the VFW aren’t surprised that she has embraced her role as Commander, and they want her to know that they've noticed.
”Rose, I would like to say, that I have known you for 10 years now, and when you were first offered this position, you were weary to take it, but I want to tell you that you have done an outstanding job,” said Vivian McKinney, Quartermaster of VFW Post 9191.
Rose Becton served 20 years in the Army and is now making history as a Commander of a VFW Post whose leadership structure is nearly all female veterans.
