page_title: Laura Yeager
section_title: Military career
hierarchical_section_title: Laura Yeager / Military career
caption_attribution_description: English: Col. Laura L. Yeager
context_page_description: Major General Laura L. Yeager is an officer in the Army National Guard. Effective June 29, 2019 she became the commander of the National Guard's 40th Infantry Division. She is the first woman to command a United States Army infantry division.
context_section_description: Yeager was commissioned a second lieutenant on May 30, 1986, after which she completed the Army Medical Department's Officer Basic Course. Her first appointment was as a platoon leader with the 423rd Medical Company. She completed training as a military helicopter pilot in 1989. She then flew Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters as an aeromedical evacuation pilot. After eight years, she left active duty as a captain when her first son was born. She joined the Army Reserve and later resumed her active military career in the California Army National Guard.
  Yeager was promoted to major in December 1998, lieutenant colonel in 2004, and colonel in 2011. After several staff appointments, she commanded 3rd Battalion, 140th Aviation Regiment, at Stockton, California, between 2006 and 2008. In 2010–11, she saw service in Iraq as the deputy commander of the Guard's 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, based in Taji. On March 8, 2016, she was promoted to brigadier general. In 2017, she became Commander,  Joint Task Force North, part of United States Northern Command, at Fort Bliss, Texas—the first woman in that position.
  On June 29, 2019, Yeager was promoted to Major General and assumed command of the Guard's 40th Infantry Division, a force of more than 10,000 soldiers. She became the first woman to command a United States Army infantry division; the change-of-command ceremony was held at the Joint Forces Training Base - Los Alamitos, California. 
  Yeager's awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit with two bronze oak leaf clusters, the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with three bronze oak leaf clusters, and various other achievement, campaign and service medals.
caption: Colonel Laura Yeager, 2011
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