No one claims that the military is an easy career choice, and for Hispanic women it might not yet be an obvious one; but for Latinas who have spent a lifetime rising to the highest ranks, it has clearly been the right one.

Brigadier General Maria Owens, whose parents were both World War II veterans, is the director of manpower and personnel for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. Owens’ father, who served in the Army, Navy and Air Force, was still on active duty for the Air Force when Owens was young. “From the time I was a little girl I always thought I would come into the Air Force,” says Owens. “The Air Force has been my livelihood, my life, for 30 years — and it has really delivered on all the ambitions and dreams and hopes that I had.”

Looking back at her long career, Owens describes an equal-opportunity environment. “I have never experienced any discrimination with respect to being a Mexican American,” she says. “My experience in 30 years has been that if an officer … performs their professional responsibilities in the manner that one is expected to perform, that is what is important to the U.S. Air Force. You could be green, for all they care! The Air Force just wants leaders who are willing to work hard and will deliver, no matter what their color or gender.”

Owens notes that the military is making specific efforts to recruit minorities and increase the number of Hispanics in the military academies, but she stresses the need for Latinas not to depend on anyone but themselves. “It is up to each one of us as individuals to step forward and learn how can we obtain an education, how can we obtain technical training, and what can we do to put ourselves into a position to compete for a better life,” she says. “I do not believe that we should rely on our minority status to get us there. I think we should determine that we need to get out there and work hard.”

Lieutenant Colonel (RET) Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch

One person who did just that is retired Lieutenant Colonel Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch, who rose to a senior officer position in the Army and became the highest-ranking woman in the Army’s Combat Support Field. Today, she is the founder of Educational Achievement Services, through which she gives motivational lectures to empower people, including Hispanic youth, to become leaders. From the beginning of her military career, Castillo Kickbusch was always one of few Latinas. “What happens to a lot of women and Latinas is that there’s a crossroads in their life. They have this loyalty towards la familia, and the military calls you to conduct your mission in various places,” she says. But Castillo Kickbusch’s own story proves that a military career and family life are not an impossible combination. Herself a mother of five, Castillo Kickbusch decided to have her children “when the army thought it was OK so that I could jump back into the fast lane again. It was very high paced, very demanding, but very satisfying and very gratifying,” she says.

For those who are up to the challenge, Castillo Kickbusch says, the military can offer leadership opportunities unlike any other employer. “In the military, you can run a company at 27 years old if you have the skills and the leadership and the potential. What corporation would allow you to do that?”

Though she praises the military’s diversity record — “The military is one of the best diversity champions in the world; I would match it against any of the Fortune 500.” — Castillo Kickbusch admits that challenges to true diversity remain. “It is important to have a role model on the officers’ side,” she says. “If [lower-ranked soldiers] don’t see us, if we’re not around them representing all of the different ranks, then the question will be, ‘Where are my Latino leaders?’”

To address this issue, Castillo Kickbusch works with a recruiting tour aimed at Latino Youth called Yo Soy El Army. Through this and other culturally-aware campaigns, she says, “I hope that Latinas will continue to look forward to the upper ranks.”

Another Latina who has risen high into those ranks is Shirley Martinez, the deputy assistant secretary for equal opportunity at the Air Force. In her position, she is responsible for policy, guidance, direction and oversight of all plans and programs affecting equal opportunity for Air Force military and civilian personnel.

Martinez is an advocate of diversity at all levels of the military. As she explains it, a multicultural military is the only way to ensure that America retains its place as a dominant leader in the 21st century. “The more diverse the pool of talent that we bring to our table, the more successful we will become at achieving our mission. In today’s situation, we need to bring in diverse mindsets and leaders with cultural competency.”
For Latinas on the way up in the military, she recalls her own experience. “I was welcomed into an enterprise that said, ‘Here is an individual who wants to serve, who wants to help us.’ And I was developed — my leadership and my development began along the way from when I first joined the Air Force, even when I didn’t realize it.”

Martinez emphasizes the opportunities that are offered for members of the Air Force to fulfill their potential. At the same time, “It’s always been about being part of a team. As the protector and defender of our country, we would want to seek our nation’s most talented, and we will inevitably find Latinas.”

For the past three decades, Colonel Angie Salinas has been part of the U.S. Marine Corps team — or, as she think is of it, the Marine Corps family. “The Marine Corps is much like my Hispanic culture,” she says. “It’s about family. The family is the core held together by tradition, pride, honor and commitment.” This core is mirrored in the Marine Corps’ core values: Honor, Courage and Commitment.

Colonel Angie Salinas

Salinas’ current position as the assistant chief of staff for G-3 operations at the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., is the most recent stage of a 30-year military career whose benefits, she says, “far outweigh any challenges or obstacles I may have encountered.” Salinas’ career has, for the most part, been a very positive experience — both as a woman and as a Latina. In the beginning, her ethnicity was hardly noticed, since being one of only a handful of female Marines drew much more attention. But none of that ever mattered to Salinas. “As I progressed through the ranks, I wanted to be recognized as a good Marine officer rather than as a good woman Marine officer or a good Hispanic officer,” she says. “For me, the Marine Corps rewarded success as a result of performance and not because of gender or ethnicity.”

Salinas found that success, paving the way for future female Marines. She was the first woman to command a recruiting station, the first to serve as a combat service support major’s assignment monitor, and, in 2001, the first to command a Marine Corps recruiting district. “Some of the most particularly challenging situations have been the times I was assigned to duties where I was the first woman,” she says.

Salinas recognizes the importance of people like her — women and ethnic minorities — serving in the military. “A diversified military represents America,” she says. “The people in today’s military come from all walks of life, from the city streets and barrios, to the hill country of West Virginia. … The contributions of a diverse military reflect the heart and soul of who we are.”

Captain Ruth Torres, a family nurse practitioner, has been a member of the U.S. Coast Guard for over 12 years. Her military aspirations began with childhood dreams of joining the Navy in a medical capacity. “I knew I wanted to be a medical person from the time I was able to comprehend,” Torres says. “I remember that as a very young child … I was running around sticking people with toothpicks.”

It wasn’t until years later, when one of her two sons dedicated his Ph.D.. dissertation to her, that Torres’ decision was validated. “I told [my sons], ‘I want to apologize to you if maybe I was a little selfish in pursuing my career when I should’ve been there with you.” Her sons responded, “Mom, we wouldn’t have had it any other way. Because if it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for what you have shown us, we wouldn’t be where we are.”

According to Torres, being confident in your decision to join the military is crucial — especially to women and Latinas. “For a woman to come into the military … she’s got to be very sure of herself. She’s got to know who she is and where she stands,” Torres says. “Most women in the military, the ones that are doing okay and aren’t having a problem, are the ones that know where they are and know who they are. No one can shake them.”