Skorea's Army names nation's first female combatant general

Army Col Song Myung-soon at the Joint Chiefs of Staff was promoted to brigadier general, according to the ministry. South Korea's military has turned out five female generals since 2001, but all of them were from the nurse corps.

Song, 52, was commissioned into the Women's Army Corps in 1981 after her graduation from Yeungnam University with a bachelor's degree in political science and foreign affairs. She holds a graduate degree in national security from Kyonggi University.

She has served as a commander of the special forces and a battalion commander in the Women's Army Corps and worked in the Combined Forces Command. The first woman to become a general-grade officer in South Korea was Brig Gen Yang Seung-sook, former chief of the Armed Forces Nursing Academy, who achieved the rank in 2001 and retired in 2004.