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Catherine Barker (b. 1959) of Austin, Texas, served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps from 1981-2011. Catherine Barker was born in 1959 in Austin, Texas. As a child her family frequently moved, and she lived in many places including Arizona, Virginia, and Massachusetts before going to boarding school in Hawaii. Baker graduated from Hawai'i Preparatory Academy in Waimea, Hawai'i in 1977 and was accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill. During her first semester, Barker won a NROTC Marine Scholarship. While attending college, Barker attended Marine Corps Boot Camp at Parris Island, South Carolina and Officer Candidate training at Quantico, Virginia. Barker graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1981 and then did her specialty training at Parris Island to become a Personnel Administrative Officer. Barker's first station duty at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, Japan as an administrative officer for the 7th Communication Battalion. She was there for a year and a half before an assignment to Parris Island with the Women Recruit Training Command. While Barker was there, she was a Series Commander for three series then became an Assistant Operations Officer and wrote training plans. She then was assigned as commanding officer of headquarters company. Barker was at Parris Island for three years before completing her active-duty obligations in 1985. Barker then moved to Los Angeles, California. Barker was in the inactive Reserve for five years before getting a job at the Marine Corps Mobilization Station as a logistics officer in 1990. A month after working there the Marine Corps called up the reserves for Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield and Barker worked with activating reserve personnel. This only lasted for three months before she went back to her logistics job. In 1993, Barker moved from California to Baltimore for a job at Quantico with a reserve detachment to train Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) staff. Barker did this for two weeks out the year for three years before being moved to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to a MEF Augmentation Command Element unit as assistant chief of staff. In 1998, Barker moved back to California and transferred to the MEF Augmentation Command Element unit at Camp Pendleton as an operations officer. Barker stayed with this unit for a few months until August 1999. Barker moved to Rochester, New York in 2000 and then found a reserve job in New Orleans, Louisiana as the operations officer and command historian of the 4th Marine Division which involved her flying to New Orleans every three months. The Reserve were activated in 2003 and for four months Barker was with the 8th Tank Battalion as a site commander. Then she returned to New Orleans as an assistant Chief of Staff for the 4th Marine Logistics Group. In 2007 Barker went to Camp Lejeune and worked with the reserve support unit. While at the Camp Lejeune she joined the II MEF Headquarters and was deployed to Iraq. Barker was in Iraq for a year from 2009-2010 with to assist with the shutting down the Marines presence there. She retired from the Marine Corps in 2011.