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Therese Strohmer (b. 1962) of West Branch, Michigan, served in the United States Air Force from 1980-1986 as a Russian Cryptologic Linguist, performance evaluator, and instructor for a classified National Security Agency system. Therese Strohmer was born August 19, 1962 in West Branch, Michigan. She joined the United States Air Force after graduation from Ogemaw Heights High School. In 1980, she attended basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and subsequently received Russian language instruction at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at Monterey, California. In March of 1982, she was transferred to Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, for completion of language training. Strohmer was later stationed at Hahn Air Base, Germany, and was quickly promoted to the role of performance evaluator for sixty, mostly senior, linguists. In 1985, she was reassigned to Fort Meade, Maryland, where she trained civilians, foreign nationals, and domestic military personnel on a classified system for the National Security Agency. She was honorably discharged from the military in 1986, after six years of service. In 1997, after several moves and career changes, Strohmer received an undergraduate degree in history from Southern Oregon University and later a PhD in history in 2016 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her dissertation was Soldiers, not Wacs : how women's integration transformed the Army, 1964-1994.