Villager Donna Wright vividly remembers the evening. The high school senior sprawled on the living room floor of the family’s Long Island home reading the comics. Her father sat on the sofa reading the newspaper.
“West Point is going to take female students next year and are looking for women to apply,” he said reading the report in the paper.
“They’re looking for top students who are good at sports. You should apply,” he encouraged his daughter.
An “A” student and athlete who excelled at several sports, Donna had not, at that point, considered West Point or a career in the military. Her life was about to change.
“I went to Catholic schools and thought I’d go to a college in the northeast like my friends,” Donna says. She was accepted to West Point in the first class with women in 1976. “One hundred and nineteen women started in that first class and 62 of us graduated four years later.” It was a tough four years. “There was a high level of resistance to having women in the school.”
The U.S. Military Academy, better known as West Point, was founded on July 4, 1802. “Since the beginning the function of West Point has been to train combat leaders. Some staff and upper classmen didn’t think that women belonged in that role.”
West Point was also tough in other ways. Academically rigorous, every cadet was also required to participate in competitive athletics. “Time management was so important,“ Donna says. “There was just not enough time to do everything. Between July and Christmas the only time off we got was the day of the Army-Navy football game.”
Donna was more fortunate than most. “My parents could drive up from Long Island and visit. Cadets from further away could go for months without seeing family.”
Graduating from West Point in 1980, Donna spent three years in military intelligence while thinking about becoming a lawyer. In 1986 she received her law degree from Villanova. “I loved everything about law school,” she says. “And since then I’ve loved being a lawyer.”
She joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) first as a prosecutor and then became a defense counsel. “JAG work is primarily criminal law for the military so it’s fast and interesting.”
Donna rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a colonel and a judge.
One of her more interesting cases involved an officer accused of murdering his wife in Korea.
“The officer and his wife were living apart when the woman was reported missing by her boyfriend. Her remains were found in a field by the police. Much of the evidence against the officer was circumstantial and the defense filed a complex motion to suppress.” As the presiding judge, Donna had to rule on the motion.
Her ruling, which ran many pages, followed researched case law and the facts – and allowed the contested evidence to be entered. The officer was convicted. It appeared that he had used an overdose of Benadryl to kill his wife.
After a 30-year career that included work in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Bosnia, Korea, Japan, Kuwait, Afghanistan and all over the U.S., Donna faced mandatory retirement. “Being a military lawyer was very rewarding for me,” she says. “It was fun, I had lots of different jobs and interesting cases. And unlike lawyers in private practice, I didn’t have billable hours to be concerned about.” She had also gone back to school, earning an LLM (Master of Laws) and an MBA. “I thought I might teach in a law school after retirement and these accreditations would make it easier.”
Living in Hawaii with her husband, Joe Kosowicz, Donna became a civilian attorney to the military including five years with the Army Corps of Engineers. “I thought we would stay in Hawaii.”
In 2013 Donna and Joe visited for a week with her sister-in-law who lives in the Village of Charlotte. “We fell in love with The Villages. We golfed, line danced in the square, played pickleball – which I’d never heard of – and moved here to Pine Hills in 2017. There are so many activities!”
Donna plays pickleball most mornings at Moyer Recreation Center and acts as coordinator for her group that includes “drinks and dinner” outings. She swims, plays golf – “My game seems to have gotten worse since we moved here,” she laments – water volleyball, and she just started playing softball as a sub. She admits that her schedule is almost too busy.
Asked which sport she loves most Donna pauses and says “Golf. It’s a game we can do together, it’s outside, challenging and it’s a lifetime sport that I can play for years to come.”
She is also looking at her volunteer options. “I’ve considered being a child advocate helping children who are in the legal system.”
John W Prince is a writer and Villages resident. Learn more at www.GoMyStory.com.
