 In 2001 she became the first woman Army Judge Advocates General (JAG), and the first Asian-American woman to reach the rank of general in the United States Army.Born in Waterloo, Iowa, to a Chinese immigrant father from Canton, China who had come to the United States to start a Chinese restaurant, and a Czech American mother, she grew up feeling different from her peers during the height of the Cold War, often being mocked for the Asian half of her ethnicity.Initially earning a bachelor's degree in theatre from the College of Saint Teresa, and later a master's degree in drama from Marquette University, she went on to attend the Catholic University of America for law school, graduating in 1974.