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She wore combat boots
Above: Lt. Col. Brenda Alicea leading an excavation team at the crash site of Col. John Robinson in North Vietnam, 1991.
By Diane Klutz middle school, but after five years it was All my previous experiences paled in com-
time to do something different, so I joined parison to my assignment with the USA
Many residents of Sun City Texas the Women’s Army Corps. Central Identification Laboratory. My duty
are veterans of WWII, Korea, Viet- as Executive Officer and Team Leader
nam, Operation Desert Shield and I learned the basics at Fort McClellan: was overseeing our group’s mission in the
Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom marching, saluting, military etiquette. I search and recovery for remains of missing
and the War in Iraq. Most are men, yet many went to Fort Lee for officer training, fol- servicemen in Vietnam and occasionally
women among us wore combat boots as well. lowed by Quartermaster Basic and Ad- South Korea.
vanced Courses as well as Command and
I recently had the privilege of visiting with General Staff College. I also graduated Combing for remains was painstakingly
five of Sun City Texas’ women veterans. All from the U.S. Army Airborne School at slow. We used garden trowels or shovels to
volunteered to serve, marched in skirts and Fort Benning and the 82nd Airborne Divi- dig, then sift, the dirt through .25” mesh
heels, succeeded in challenging environ- sion Jumpmaster Course. screens within carefully plotted grids.
ments and were forever impacted by their Occasionally, artifacts were found after
service to their country. The following is My first deployment was to Granada in digging only a few feet, but typically our
just a small piece of their stories. October 1983 for Operation Urgent Fury. dig site resembled a crater created from
I was Company Commander for the 82nd the force of the plane plowing into the
Lieutenant Colonel Brenda Alicea Airborne’s Supply and Maintenance Com- ground. It was a tedious but important
US Army (1975-1998) pany HQS and only the second woman job. Crash sites were often hard to get to,
to have attained that position within the but there were folks back home who wanted
I graduated from Michigan State Univer- 82nd. I was stationed in Germany for Des- and needed to know if a loved one was re-
sity with a Master’s Degree in Secondary ert Storm as the Plans and Operations ally dead or perhaps alive somewhere. We
Education in 1970. Teaching was not my Officer G4 for the 3D Infantry Division. I searched for any artifact that could be con-
first choice - I wanted to go to a Military was also the Operations Officer S3 for the nected to those people, something to offer
Academy - but in those days the only real 3D Support Battalion at the same time.
options for girls were teaching, nursing ONLINE: SCTEXAS.ORG
or secretarial work. I taught English at a
36 | SUNRAYS NOVEMBER 2016
