A Salute to Latinas in the Armed Forces

Joining the U.S. military is a not a decision to take lightly. Whether it’s the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, the Air Force, or the National Guard, each branch of the military requires steadfast commitment, strict discipline, and the willingness to risk your life for your country. For Latinas in particular, the pressures from family members to follow a more traditional path can be intense. Yet for six Latinas who have distinguished themselves through stellar careers in the U.S. military, the decision to join the military has offered profound and lasting rewards for both their personal and professional lives.

An Extended Family
Storekeeper First Class Isabel Paez U.S. Coast Guard

Isabel Paez was a recent immigrant from Colombia, living in a studio apartment in New Jersey with her husband and 10-month-old son, when she decided to join the Coast Guard. The initial inspiration? “A neighbor was in the Coast Guard reserves, and she told me that if you join on full-time active duty, you can live on the base in Governor’s Island, New York.”

Kathlene Contres and Paez swap stories at the National LATINA Symposium luncheon. Isabel Paez with Napolitano

For Paez, the opportunity to provide a more attractive home for her family, in addition to the chance to work in law enforcement and help people, sounded wonderful. The Monday after she talked with her neighbor, she went to a recruiter, took the entrance test, and went into full-time active duty. A month later, she left for basic training.

Paez’s decision to join the Coast Guard took her family by surprise, she laughs. “I even surprised myself!” She was the youngest of 10 children, and her mother hadn’t even wanted her to leave for the United States, much less join the military. But Paez’s husband was supportive, and she recognized that it was a great opportunity to gain skills that would serve her and her family well.

That didn’t mean it was easy. “Basic training was my most painful experience in the Coast Guard,” she recalls wistfully. “Leaving my son for two months was very hard—no one could ask me about him during training, because I would get teary-eyed just thinking about it.”
Nevertheless, Paez knew that the decision would work out in the long run. Within two years, she was stationed at the Coast Guard Training Center in Governor’s Island, where she and her family (by that time, she had a second son) lived, worked, and went to school. “The flexibility of being able to live and work on the base was tremendous,” she recalls. “If I had to work overtime, the kids were in daycare, and I had an open-door policy at my office—the kids could come in any time.” She continued to enjoy that flexibility in her subsequent job as a logistics section chief in Sandy Hook, N.J.

For Paez, the orientation towards family has been the most important benefit of her job. “I was able to support my family, my husband went to school full time, and we lived in the best places anyone can live,” she says. “Plus, there were the intangible benefits: medical and dental services, going shopping at the military exchange, tuition benefits, the training you get.” All of these benefits served Paez and her family well as she advanced rapidly at the Coast Guard, garnering numerous awards for her performance and her community involvement.

Today, Paez works as the enlisted ethnic policy advisor in the Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the first Latina to hold this position. There, she is currently leading an effort to bring English training to entry-level service members at the Recruiting Training Center. As someone whose U.S. citizenship was sponsored by the U.S. military, Paez is very proud of the opportunities that the Coast Guard, as well as the other military branches, can offer to immigrants.

“People that come to this country have to struggle with many things. But [the military] gives you the skills to compete and the assurance that you are capable of doing anything,” she says. And for people who may have left loved ones behind, she says, the best thing of all is that “the Coast Guard becomes an extended family.”

Rear Adm. Stephen W. Rochon, director of personnel management for the U.S. Coast Guard, echoes Paez’s sentiments. “We really want to nurture you and train you and prepare you for success,” he says.

Not only is the Coast Guard committed to personally and professionally developing its current “family members,” but it is also dedicated to attracting diverse recruits. “We want to have a diverse organization because we know the value of having different thoughts at the table,” says Rochon. “We have to do it now; we have to do it today—to get these high achieving and smart leaders in the Coast Guard.”

A Great Start
Colonel Angie Salinas, U.S. Marine Corps

The way she tells it, Angie Salinas joined the Marine Corps because she went to go mail a letter. A sophomore in college who “excelled at partying,” Salinas was approached by a recruiter at the post office. “Right before I got to the mailbox, out stepped an incredibly good-looking, sharp, confident Marine who stood right in front of me, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Why aren’t you a U.S. Marine?’” In one week, Salinas was in boot camp.

Angie Salinas with Napolitano

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says now. “The Marine Corps sent me back to school, and I went from being last in my class to being an outstanding student. It also gave me passion and an objective.”

Salinas’ family was initially not so sanguine, but perhaps that’s partly because they only found out about her decision when her mother called Salinas’ college to ask why she hadn’t heard from her daughter for three days and learned that she was in boot camp. “In 1971 when I came in, the Marine Corps employed less than a thousand women,” Salinas says. “The perception from my family was that it was a very male-dominated environment and that it was never an option for any of the girls.”

Nevertheless, Salinas stuck with the Marine Corps, and in time her mother warmed to her career choice. “Three years after I graduated college, my mother came to visit me when I was training recruits at Parris Island, S.C. ... She fell in love with the Marine Corps the same way I had, and she saw why I loved what I did,” says Salinas. Recently, when she thought about retiring, her mother was the one who convinced her to stay in a bit longer.
Despite her 30-year career, in which she has risen to the position of chief of staff at the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., earning countless awards along the way, Salinas says she never really planned to be in the Marines for life. “I always just thought of the Marines as being a great place to start, and every time I got the chance to do a new assignment I thought, ‘I’ll just do this for now,’” she says.

Nevertheless, Salinas was continually engaged by her jobs, which offered her opportunities and education that she says she never would have had otherwise. “I think if I’d never come into the Marine Corps, I never would have finished college or gained the confidence that I’ve developed over the years,” she says. “I would have believed I was a second-class citizen, reinforcing all the stereotypes for a Hispanic female.”

As part of her job, Salinas is constantly thinking about the benefits of the Marines for young Latinas, and she thinks the most important message to get across is the one that she has repeatedly told herself. “You can get skill sets that you don’t know you have, and then make use of those back in civilian work,” she says. “You can go back to the community and be a teacher, go to law school, become a policeman or fireman. You don’t have to decide on the rest of your life when you join the Marines—this is just a great place to start!”