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¡Punto Final!

Brigadier General Angela Salinas:
A Woman of Honor

On August 2, 2006, former Colonel Angela Salinas became the first Latina ever to become a Brigadier General in the U.S. Two days later, she became the first Hispanic woman ever to command a Marine base. She assumed command of the 8th, 9th and 12th Marine Corps Districts, as well as the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, and the Western Recruiting Region. That means each of the 24 recruiting stations and 3 districts west of the Mississippi now fall under her authority.

Every year, some 20,000 young men gather at San Diego’s Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and Salinas, in her capacity as Brigadier General, is responsible for their transformation from a young civilian into a United States Marine. “To watch those young people voluntarily come down here and put their feet down on the yellow footprints, and endure twelve weeks of the most difficult training in any branch of the service, to earn title of U.S. Marine is the most exciting piece of what I get to do,” she says. “When their moms and dads see them twelve weeks later, they stand taller, they’re imbued with this love of country, of their corps, of a higher being, they truly are selfless. That is just tremendous to me and such a responsibility.”

Thirty-two years ago, Salinas underwent such a transformation herself, first donning a uniform as a 20-year-old recruit. It happened almost on a whim, and without offering an inkling of what was to come.

Salinas’ story does not have an auspicious beginning. Born in South Texas, Salinas grew up humbly, the youngest of five children. In the late 1950s and 60s, during her adolescence, America was a different place, and though she understands Spanish fluently, her parents originally tried to prevent her from speaking it. “My parents didn’t want us speaking it so we wouldn’t have an accent,” she says. “They wanted to minimize any chance of discrimination, they worked very diligently at trying to put us in the best position for success.” In fact, it was on Salinas—their first child to attend college—that they’d pinned their highest hopes, counting on her to live out the family’s first success story.

By 1974, Salinas was succeeding very little. She had just completed her sophomore year at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, and after trying out a succession of odd jobs, including a stint working with children for the Department of Parks and Recreation, she felt she’d proven she was good at only one thing “I always tell people, I excelled at one thing really well those first couple of years in college and that was partying and being at the bottom of the class,” she says.

Her life changed at, of all places, the post office. “All I did was go mail a letter,” she says. “And up walked this Marine recruiter, tall, sharp, very confident, and looked at me right in the eye and asked ‘Why aren’t you a U.S. Marine?’” she remembers. Although an older brother had spent some time in the Army, Salinas had never thought about joining the service herself and she was completely unfamiliar with the Marine Corps. But there was something about that recruiter that instantly piqued her interest. “I always tell people you don’t know what it is, but you know you want that, that sense of self-confidence, that ability to serve, to be selfless,” she says. “I liked when he talked about camaraderie, a sense of belonging, that feeling of honor and of courage, of commitment—things you can’t put a dollar value on, you can’t feel them, except in your heart.” Five days later, she took an oath to uphold and defend the constitution, and three days after that, she arrived at boot camp. “Not a lot of chance to have any remorse in my decision,” she says.

She still doesn’t. “It was absolutely the best thing. Because I was at point where I was about to drop out of college,” she says. “But I came back totally motivated, totally disciplined, with a renewed vigor for academics, and I had direction.” In just 12 weeks, she had pulled herself out of a downward spiral, and learned how and where to channel her energies. Her parents, however, were dismally disappointed. “Oh, my gosh, my mom went apoplectic, and my dad was like ‘Women don’t join the military especially not the Marines,’” she says. Fearing that their daughter was opting to throw her future away by cutting short her college education, Salinas’ parents fretted and questioned her judgment. Instead, Salinas quickly reclaimed her academic standing, graduating just two years later near the top of her class. Suddenly, she had a world of options to choose from. She chose to be with the Marines.

“I think I always knew I wanted to do something that wasn’t about profiteering,” she says. “I always wanted to serve something larger than myself. And, of course being Hispanic, we’re all about the familia, and I feel that in the Corps, this sense of a family,” she muses. It’s that feeling of family which has meant the most to her over the years. “Where else could I have millions of big brothers?” she wonders.

To illustrate her point, Salinas describes a particular layover where she once had to wait out in the Los Angeles airport, when en route to Okinawa, Japan. “I was leaving my mom and my sister in D.C., and I was totally distraught about it,” she says. “I thought, I’m going away for a whole year, and I’m going to miss my mom, and I hope nothing happens, and I was just totally torn about having to do this.” In just a few hours, though, she connected with a handful of service personnel and made lifelong friends. “It was like, instantly, we had another family,” she says. “And it’s always been that way.”

Salinas is also a woman who craves challenges. “Every time I turn around, the Marine Corps gives me another challenge, another chance to do something new and open the doors for other people,” she says. Incapable of resting on laurels, Salinas tackled every challenge set before her: To not just be a Marine, but to be an officer. To not just be one of the very few female Marine officers, but to become the first Latina ever selected to the rank of Brigadier General in the history of the institution. The way Salinas sees it, her impressive career trajectory has been built on two things: hard work and a commitment to high standards. “I think I’ve always worked hard, not really to be better than anyone else, but to meet my own standard,” she says, “To be successful, I felt I needed to do certain things.”

“When I was young,” she continues, “I never wanted anyone to say she’s a good female officer, or she’s a good Latina officer, I wanted people to say she’s a good officer. I wanted my troops to want to follow me anywhere, that was the stamp of success to me.” By her own measure, then, she’s proven her worth. Among the first class of women to be fully integrated during officer training, “I had to run as far, I had to carry as much weight, I had to shoot the same weapons, I had to make the same types of decisions as my male counterparts,” she says. At just about 5-feet-tall, that was no small feat. “I was running when they were walking,” she laughs. But all these years, What has kept her running? “I took my mom out to play putt putt golf recently,” she says. “Now, my mom over the years seemed like a nice little old lady, but man, she wanted to win! We laugh, because she was out there getting mad if she missed the putt. I thought that must be where I get this, this urge to push the envelope, to try to be the best you can.”

Nevertheless, Salinas understands how significant her success is to her community. “I tell the story of how I had an epiphany at a family wedding,” she says. Salinas, her mother and sister had traveled back to Texas to attend the nuptials of a distant cousin. It was an unfamiliar environment for Salinas, and one that became increasingly uncomfortable. “Everyone was speaking Spanish, Texano music was playing, everyone was doing tequila shooters, it was a great Mexican wedding,” she says. But that was also an atmosphere her parents had worked hard to distance her from throughout her childhood, and the worldly Marine officer was having difficulty fitting in. “I was looking at my watch, counting the minutes until I could leave,” she says. Then, the Master of Ceremonies began to single out guests, honoring those who had traveled great distances to take part in the celebration. Distracted, Salinas didn’t even hear her name. “I was clapping like everyone else, and my sister said, “‘No, this is for you,’” she says. “And I stood up and it was kind of like Moses parting the water, an aisle opened up and I went, and that was such a moment for me, I’m looking into the faces and the eyes of all these people who are related to me and what I was seeing was this tremendous admiration, this tremendous respect. I felt I was a representative of them, of the American dream, of serving their country. That moment is when I said I’m going to make a difference. I went back and started going out and speaking as a Hispanic and a Latina.”

That decision alone keeps her in constant motion. In addition to her numerous duties Salinas attends military functions across the country. She visits as many of her recruiting stations as possible each month—“I like to be around my Marines, thanking them for the sacrifices they’re making, thanking their families,” she says. Salinas is one of several Marines who serves as a promotion board member, her role is to ensure selected qualified Marines for promotion.

“There is absolutely no way I could do all the things people want me to do,” she says. “So I have to be very careful that the invitations I do accept are doing good for the institution and not for anything on a personal level.”
There’s actually little time and energy left over for anything personal in Salinas’ high powered position, but whenever a moment does present itself, she uses it to check in with her family. After years of misgivings about her daughter’s career choice, Salinas’ mother finally came to visit, to witness life on the base first hand. “She completely fell in love with the Corps the way I did,” Salinas says. “We laugh because she came to visit and never left.” In fact, Salinas’ 92-year-old mother and her older sister live across the street from her office, and if she has 30 minutes free during the day, she likes to pop over “and see how their day’s going,” she says.

After all, “it’s all about the family with me,” Salinas says. “My Marine Corps family and my real family.”
 

By Mindy Farabee