Ginger Wallace is one of many Trigg County military veterans who protected the liberties of our country with honor and dignity. However, her military path is not one that has been traveled by many.
Before joining the United States Air Force, Ginger was a three-sport standout at Trigg County High School. She was a member of the 1982 state champion cross country team and earned All-Region and All-State honors for the Lady Wildcat basketball team.
She will be the first to tell you that sports molded her career as a military officer and as a person.
As a sixth grader, the Wallace family took a family trip to Colorado that included visiting the Air Force Academy. Ginger says it was then and there she decided to make the Air Force her career for later in life. After high school, she received her appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy and was a team captain on the women’s basketball team.
Ginger ascended the ranks of the Air Force as an intelligence officer and earned the rank of Colonel. Early in her military career, she was involved in missions in unstable parts of the world such as Somalia and Yugoslavia.
One of her final assignments was the assistant commandant at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, California where she was the commander of the 517th Training Group and led two squadrons of 1,200 Airmen.
Wallace had to balance her military career with her personal life as a gay military officer. However, she helped break down those barriers after the 2011 repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.
In 2012, she was asked to attend President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech as a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama. This came after President Obama repealed the DADT policy.
Ginger retired from the military in 2017 after a 27-year service to her country. She married her partner Janet in 2015, and they live in Louisville where they are both active as community volunteers and advocates for the LGBT community.
