Carmen Contreras-Bozak was the first Hispanic woman to serve in the United States Women’s Army Corps. Contreras was born on December 31, 1919 in the town of Cayey, Puerto Rico. She was the old of three children. Her parents divorced when she was young. Her mother, Lila Baudilia Lugo Torres, moved the family to New York City. Here Contreras attended Julia Richman High School, located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She went on to work for the National Youth Administration after graduating high school. After taking and passing a civil service test, Contreras went to work for the War Department as a payroll clerk in Washington, D.C. Contreras joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942 and was directed to report to Fort Lee, Virginia for training. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was created in 1942 during World War II, during a time the nation was looking for women to fill important jobs. Contreras volunteered to be part of the 149th WAAC Post Headquarters Company, the first to be deployed overseas. Contreras was part of an important group of approximately 200 Puerto Rican women who would serve in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII. However, the women of the Women’s Army Corps who were deployed overseas were not treated the same as regular Army servicemen. They did not receive overseas pay nor could they receive government life insurance. The first group of women did not have any protection in war as their male counterparts. In 1943 the Women’s Army Corps bill was established, which integrated the Women’s Army Corps into the regular United States Army, giving thousands of women the same rights and protection as male military personnel. The bill was signed into law and became effective on September 1, 1943. Contreras was promoted to the rank of Tech 4 (Technical Sergeant), which in today’s army ranking would equal to Sergeant. Her assignment during the war was the transmission of encoded messages between President Eisenhower’s headquarters in Algiers and the battlefield in Tunisia. Contreras returned home and met Theodore John Bozak in Valley Forge General Hospital in 1945. Contreras was there for treatment of an eye infection she had contracted during the war and Theodore John Bozak was there recovering from a wound received during combat in the war. The two would end up getting married and have three children, two sons and a daughter. After the war, she started a chapter of Women’s Army Corps Veterans and in 1998 founded a chapter of the Society of Military Widows. Carmen Contreras-Bozak passed away on January 30, 2017 at the age of 97.