Be Inspired:
BLANCA BAQUERO-CRUZ BY CRAIG COLLINS
BLANCA BAQUERO-CRUZ GREW UP IN THE AIR FORCE: HER FATHER BEGAN HIS TWO DECADES OF SERVICE AS AN EMERGENCY ROOM TECHNICIAN AND LATER TRAINED TO BECOME AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER, THE ONLY JOB SHE REMEMBERS HIM DOING. HIS CAREER TOOK THE FAMILY FROM OKLAHOMA, WHERE BAQUERO-CRUZ WAS BORN, TO SPAIN, NEW MEXICO, MISSISSIPPI, AND NEBRASKA, WHERE HER FATHER RETIRED AND SHE JOINED THE SERVICE IN 1999. “I SOMETIMES JOKE WITH PEOPLE THAT I’VE ACTUALLY SERVED FOR 40 YEARS,” SHE SAID, “BECAUSE THAT’S HOW LONG I’VE LIVED ON AIR FORCE BASES.”
A self-described nerd, Baquero-Cruz joined the Air Force to become a linguist, translating and producing time-sensitive reports in support of defense intelligence operations. After basic training, she went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and learned her first language other than English: Serbo-Croatian, a language in high demand amid the involvement of the United States and its NATO allies in the Yugoslav wars. She was stationed in Washington, D.C. When the Balkan conflicts ended, Baquero-Cruz, eager to continue serving, learned a new language – Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia – and supported operations in sub-Saharan Africa from Washington. In 2012, she joined the 93rd Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio, where she oversaw the language unit for the squadron commander. At the 93rd, she was responsible for the training, testing, and facilitation of between 300 and 400 linguists, making sure they were learning and remaining proficient in their assigned languages. At the end of her assignment in San Antonio, she earned the rank of master sergeant. In 2015, the Air Force streamlined its intelligence program, reducing the number of languages it handled – and Amharic wasn’t one of them. Baquero-Cruz, who had been one of five Amharic speakers in Air Force intelligence, set out to learn a new language, Russian, because of its similarity to Serbo-Croatian. She returned to Monterey in 2015 to begin her studies, and soon learned the Russian language had plenty of its own challenges. “When you go back to learn a language, you’re a student,” she said. “There’s no time to do anything else. Your whole job is Russian, seven hours a day, usually with about two to three hours of homework a night. Rinse and repeat for 47 weeks. It’s no joke. And it doesn’t
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2019 Warrior Games
get easier the older you get.” In January 2017, Baquero-Cruz, now fluent in Russian, reported to her first OCONUS billet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. It’s ironic, Baquero-Cruz said, that in all her time studying languages for the Air Force, she never learned Spanish, her father’s native language – a fact that remains a bone of contention. He’s a naturalized citizen who emigrated from Colombia, and now, in retirement, serves as an interpreter at a children’s hospital in Omaha. In her defense, Baquero-Cruz said there wasn’t much demand for Spanish when she was growing up, even at home, in Mississippi and Nebraska, where she spent most of her childhood: “The mentality of the early eighties, especially where I lived,” she said, “was that the more you spoke English with each other, the better off you’d be. I can understand a lot of Spanish. But I don’t speak it.” Baquero-Cruz’s life of service was a relatively quiet one – days spent at the office, with most of the stresses of work left behind at the end of the day – until it wasn’t. Her experience is a reminder that not all wounds suffered by American warriors are suffered on the battlefield, and not all are visible to the rest of the world. BaqueroCruz continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress as a result of domestic violence and sexual assault. “It’s important to point out that not all wounds are from combat,” she said. “Some of us went to war at home, and fought for our lives at home.” In the wake of her wounding experience, the reserved and studious Baquero-Cruz became withdrawn, anxious, and depressed. She stayed mostly at home and socialized very little, until, realizing she needed help recovering from trauma, she checked out the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program, which hosted “CARE” events offering counseling and participation in activities such as sports,
