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Valley native promoted to colonel
By Elise Franco
Col. Lisa Doumont doesn’t know why she wandered into Youngstown State University’s ROTC headquarters in 1986, but the Austintown native said she’s thankful for the day that changed her life.
Doumont, 45, deputy commander for administration and operation at the 256th Combat Support Hospital in Twinsburg, recently was promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel. She said she never thought she would be so successful.
“I didn’t think I would get this far, but I enjoy what I do,” she said. “I’m not sure what first compelled me to walk down that hallway [at ROTC], but I’m so glad I did.”
Maj. Dan Supple said he’s worked with Doumont at the base for many years and believes her promotion will have a positive impact on the entire unit.
“She’s outstanding and professional, a great mentor to young officers and all soldiers alike,” he said. “You can tell she comes from a strong military background.”
Doumont and her unit left the Twinsburg Army Reserve Center on Saturday for Fort Lewis in Washington, where they’ll stay for about one month before deploying to Iraq for nine to 12 months.
She said this is the first mission in many years that the entire 256th will be sent together.
”We’ve given support to so many other units that were mobilizing,” she said. “But the 256th flag has not flown in support of any deployments since World War II.”
Doumont’s love and respect for the armed forces is due, in part, to her family’s long military history, she said.
Her father, Robert Ward — as well as her uncles, Warren and Ralph Johnson — served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. She said her mother, Lillian Ward, who still lives in Austintown did her part during WW II by making 8-mm mortars at the Ravenna Arsenal.
“I think for myself, it has something to do with the respect I had for those who served, and I wanted to be part of that,” she said. “To hear my mother talk about my father in World War II ... It was the appreciation and respect I had that led me to it myself.”
Lillian Ward said she’s proud of her daughter’s success, and would have loved for Doumont’s late father to have seen her move up through the ranks.
“I just wish my husband had lived to see it,” Ward said. “He would have been so thrilled with her and her boys.”
Doumont’s husband, Joseph Doumont, also served in the Navy from 1983 to 1989.
And though it may seem like a natural progression in a family with such a long lineage of military members, she said she was surprised when her three sons decided to follow the same path.
Twin brothers Patrick and Nicholas, 20, attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York and The Air Force Academy in Colorado, respectively.
Their younger brother, Andrew, 17, is still deciding between West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, Doumont said.
“I think it’s a little more common than people think to have families where military is kind of a family lineage, but I never dreamed that mine would end up doing this,” she said.
Doumont said military life was never something she or her husband pushed their sons toward.
“Their father and I were very realistic with them about the fact that this is a decision they had to make for themselves,” she said. “They needed to understand what they were committing to.”