Mutual Respect
Captain Kathlene Contres U.S. Navy
 

A few years out of college, Kathlene Contres was busy teaching high school during the day and coaching sports during the evenings. She was living in the small Pennsylvania town where she’d grown up and where she was one of few Mexican Americans. “I wanted to do something different,” she remembers.

Kathlene Contres with Napolitano

Around the same time, she visited a friend who was a Marine in Camp LeJeune, N.C. “I was so impressed by the camaraderie, the discipline, the politeness—all the “yes, ma’am, no, ma’am” I heard—and I liked the level of respect that I found just as a visitor there,” Contres says.

Her visit got Contres thinking about joining the military, and a talk with an officer recruiter at the Navy sealed the deal. After four months of officer training—which involved leadership and managerial courses as well as physical training—and throughout her 25-year career, she has continued to experience that respect that had so impressed her at first. “Both the respect I give others and the respect others give me is second to none,” she says proudly. “I’ve had no difficulties as a woman or as a Latina, and I’ve had opportunities for as many different types of jobs as our counterparts.

Contres certainly seized those opportunities. Today, she is the Navy’s highest-ranking female Hispanic Line Officer on active duty, and she has won numerous accolades and awards. As the commandant of the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), she oversees a joint-service school supporting all Department of Defense and U.S. Coast Guard equal-opportunity and equal-employment-opportunity program requirements.

As Contres ascended in the Navy, she was especially distinguished as a recruiter, and she has had many opportunities to talk to Latinas with an interest in joining the military. When she does so, she always stresses the possibilities for advancement and self-improvement that the Navy offers. “The Navy is really big on education,” she says. “We have scholarships that basically give college students a paycheck if they get good grades, and allow them to start accruing their years of service towards retirement.”

Contres herself has taken advantage of the Navy’s support for education by getting her master’s degree in education leadership. “I tell Latinas that I would never have had an eighth of the responsibilities that I have now if I hadn’t joined,” she says.

Like many in military recruitment, Contres has had to confront the reluctance among Hispanic families to let their daughters join the armed forces. “I just participated in a big event with Latina high-school girls and their mothers, and I said [to the mothers] that if you really want your children to succeed you’ve got to let them go if they want to go,” Contres says. She reassures nervous parents by emphasizing Naval security and training. “I believe the Navy is one of the safest services,” she says. “Our ships are protected by planes and submarines, so if you happen to be sent to the war, you are more likely to be safe.”

“Life would be drastically different for me if I hadn’t joined the Navy,” Contres reflects. “I would probably still be in that small town in Pennsylvania. I would never have seen as many places or met as many people as I did.” For Contres, the Navy gave her life the direction she was looking for—and the sense of mutual respect that she so valued. For the increasing numbers of Latinas who are enlisting, that respect is just around the corner.

Pure Leadership
Lieutenant Colonel Maricela Alvarado U.S. Army

“I believe that all young Americans should join the military for at least a couple of years,” says Maricela Alvarado – and she has every right to say it. As a Military Intelligence officer who has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and served as a key member in the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Investigation, Alvarado herself has gone above and beyond the call of duty.

But it’s not just service to her country that is important to Alvarado. The military experience, she says, also offers incredible opportunities for young people to develop character, become more mature, and ultimately develop into qualified leaders.
Alvarado has certainly followed that path. As a college sophomore in Texas, she wanted a more leadership-oriented career than her small hometown had to offer. “Most people would graduate, move back home, get married, and become a teacher, and I was looking for something else,” she says. One day, she happened to see a U.S. Army advertisement whose slogan was “Go from training to management.” Over the objections of her parents, she signed up for R.O.T.C. basic-training camp.

The influence of her peers helped Alvarado persist with her Army career despite the continuing displeasure of her parents. “There were a lot of times when I didn’t know if this was the right career, because my family had so many doubts,” she comments. Balancing a military career and family has been one of Alvarado’s biggest challenges. “Having to leave your children behind for a year or so is probably one of the toughest things,” she says.

Nevertheless, she believes that being in the Army has built her character and improved life greatly for her children. “I know more of the world and I have a higher standard of living than I would have if I had stayed in a small town—and my kids have learned to deal with all races and all kinds of people” she reflects.

Maricela Alvarado with Napolitano