TOP FEMALE MILITARY OFFICER TO LEAD NATO DEFENCE COLLEGE

Canada’s most senior female military officer, Lt.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, has been named commandant of the NATO Defence College in Rome. For the past year, the chief of military personnel for the approximately 60,000 Canadian men and women in uniform has been spearheading a high-level probe into complaints of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. Whitecross, Canada’s most-decorated woman in uniform, received news of her appointment to run the alliance’s academic training centre for senior leaders from Gen. Jonathan Vance Monday while on a working trip to Israel. A chemical engineer by academic training and an airfield engineer by military training, Whitecross has been in the air force for 34 years, with postings to Yellowknife, Germany, the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.