Barbara Lawlor

Nederland

On Friday, our nation will honor those men and women who have served their country in all the various facets of the military in bases all over the world. The holiday, originally named Armistice Day, November 11th, was originally created to celebrate the signing of the armistice with Germany in 1918, that ended hostilities during World War I.

The public holiday was meant to honor all veterans of foreign wars who risked their lives on the battlefield. In 1954, the name was changed to Veterans Day to include all who served in all wars. The definition of veteran is derived from the Latin, meaning "old.” It refers to a person who has completed a long service or has experience in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who has served or is serving in the armed forces.

Veterans come in all sizes, genders and colors. Some have not been engaged in combat, but have served as support teams to those who are fighting overseas. They enlist for myriad reasons, not the least of which is a desire to serve our country. Most of those who sign up to join the military are young, just out of high school, or a few years into adult life and trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do in life.

The military offers structure, career options, adventure and often the chance to satisfy a need to be part of the larger world of service which contributes to protecting our country. Enlisting in the service is the beginning of a life-changing journey, some good, some bad; but all of it enlightening, an experience that will determine much of how one lives their lives later.

Local veteran Cynthia Bakke was not from a military family, but decided to enlist, as her older brother had done a year prior to her.  She grew up in Burlington, Wisconsin with her single parent father, a brother and a sister. Her mother died when Cynthia was sixteen months old, her brother was 2 1/2 years old and her sister was 10. She says her dad did the best he could and was very laid back, which of course she liked at the time.  Like many of the children growing up in the 70's, she was a latch-key child, used to figuring out solutions to questions on her own.

"But, I think in some way I sought discipline," she says, as she recalls her childhood as a tom boy.

  She saw art in the life around her and loved hiking into the serenity of nature. She says she was a sweet child, always feeling tender about other people's feelings. Being close in age, Cynthia's brother Craig had an influence on her.  When Craig graduated from high school, he decided to enlist to travel and learn a skill to take him through life. Their uncle served in Vietnam and wouldn't discuss his experience when he returned.

In 1991, when Cynthia graduated from high school she hopped on a Greyhound Bus and headed West, to Colorado, where she always wanted to live. She lived in Loveland and got a job with a hardware store, but was looking at her future. When her sis suggested she should consider the military, her brother, now an Air Force missile technician, told her to talk to his girlfriend to hear about what the military experience is like for women.  She was thusly warned about the social reality of being a woman in the service.  "But being as I was, a six foot tomboy with a strong personality and filled with youthful idealism, I wanted to change all that, to change the limited viewpoint of women," she says.

She joined the Air Force in 1992 when there was still bombing and subsequent sanctions on Iraq. She was sent to Basic Training at Lackland, Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; and the former Lowry Air Force Base for technical school.

 Basic training was not as hard for Cynthia as it was for some of the other women. She knew how to let things wash over her. "They screamed at us a lot and they had something similar to a demerit system if we did something wrong."

Like all new recruits she was yelled at, told to move faster, and do everything in a specific way, but she was determined to get through it, and anticipated the discipline.  Some of the other women recruits were traumatized and cried at night and wanted out, but Cynthia knew she had made a commitment and would see it through.  "I was actually startled by the emotional response by some of them…hadn’t they also volunteered to join the military?  Isn’t this what they expected?”

Sometimes it seemed more like death by paperwork, rather than intense preparation for the military to Cynthia. She explained that the Air Force is not as physical in basic training. "We had to run one and a half miles, not like the army recruits who had to run five miles with their packs.  Compared to other services, the Air Force enlisted members are less likely to be in war zones except as support staff.  Remembering watching a basic training video that showed the Air Force Pararescue  training saving wounded troops, which she thought was exciting, "rescuing people so others may live," she raised her hand to join. So did the other 11 females in the group.  "Yes, we want in." 

“Sorry, that's only for men," they were told.

Considering that she had joined without a guaranteed job, she had to select a job offering from what the Air Force had available, based upon her tested aptitude.  She chose the graphic arts and was sent to technical school at Lowry AFB, Colorado, where she learned the job she would do for the next four years.

"People have this conception of the military that everyone is or will go into combat, but each military branch has a different mission.  In a combat situation, the Air Force provides air support, although only the officers fly high tech military aircraft.  Despite this, she laughed, nearly everyone who hears she was in the Air Force asks if she flew a plane.  There aren’t that many planes to go around.

“I joined the military for many personal reasons, and though I didn’t savor the thought of going to war, I accepted that as part of the enlistment.  I also knew that in the Air Force I would be less likely to serve upon the front lines due to the mission and I paid heed to the concerns of Vietnam era vets who urged me to put myself farther from harm.”

As for the general mindset of the military, she said there are very similar issues with college-aged students to include underage drinking and sexual abuse.  It is like a college campus with concertina wire encircling it.  “I'm pretty tough and that was helpful to avoid situations in which sexual abuse arose.”

She was not destined to stay in Colorado at that time. When Cynthia finished her training, she was sent to the Communications Squadron at Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, where she said she witnessed outspoken anti-military opposition.

"When we were driving into the base for the first time, there were people waving signs, saying, "Baby Killers!” and "Who owns the sky?”  She said that was very eye-opening for her, since she grew up far from a military base.

Cynthia settled into her duties, which involved providing graphic art materials for other departments on the base, to include posters, slides, retirement certificates, and presentations.  “Back then many of the computer applications for graphic arts were new, and we used floppy discs to get clip art.”  Her building contained other departments in the Communications Squadron to include photographers and videographers.  "We were in a creative job field, and so many of us were more artistic and weird, i.e. less regimented.  I was enlisted predominantly under Bill Clinton’s presidency and during that time we were more removed from the war. At one point, I could have taken a tour to Saudi, but decided that I would rather not see the country through occupier's eyes, especially as woman."

            This realization made her consider some of the realities in other countries, that many conflicts are more often created by the leaders, not the people.  She said she felt conflicted due to the realities of war affecting people on both sides, and these effects being long lasting.  This feeling didn’t change her determination to complete her enlistment, but underscored her compassion for those service men and women who have served in combat.

Cynthia left Kirtland Air Force Base at the end of April 1994 for a 15-month tour in Guam.  Guam is a US territory and a strategic outpost in the Pacific that had been liberated from the Japanese in World War II.  The military bases and housing for military members on Guam took up a considerable portion of the northern and southern parts of the island, which is approximately eight miles wide at the widest, and 20 miles long.  The space it occupied, along with the physical conflicts and sexual abuse common in the military, and again, similar to college campuses, engendered animosity from the local people. 

"Essentially, there were young military men eager for action… like Navy seamen who’d been on a ship for months.  Adding alcohol to the mix is where the problems usually began, fights between other military members or locals.  As well, there were military men who took up with young local ladies, and that added a cultural component.” 

 Basically, the locals wanted them to leave and Cynthia experienced some aggressive interactions off the base.  It was then that she began to take notice of her expectation of American entitlement. The locals didn’t uphold any privileges for Americans and she wondered why.

"I then realized that I had a huge sense of American entitlement, which at first shocked me, then became a gift that set the tone for my understanding of the world.  I sought to understand domestic and foreign affairs further because they would affect me as a member of the military and as an American."

On a lighter note, she said, she had the common military experience of meeting a true love just before getting stationed at another base.  She met a man in Guam who was separating from the military, but she said she fell hard and decided to marry him.  “It was indeed ill-fated, but once again, my youthful optimism prevailed.  Good grief.”

With four months remaining of her initial enlistment, she was required to extend for eight months in order to get a stateside assignment.  She was sent back to Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, which she knew well.  She was ready to move on as a civilian after she completed her assignment, and planned to move back to her first love…Colorado.

She ended up staying in Albuquerque for much longer than intended, got divorced and then, once again, headed back to Colorado where she saw the population boom and the attitude change.  Because of these shifts she knew she desired to move to the mountains when she returned.

In March of 2002, she moved to Ward and shortly thereafter, moved to a cabin in the woods just outside of the town, with no power, or running water and learned to chop wood. In the 14 years she had lived in Ward, she was without running water and power for a total of six years in several different houses.

She became a baker, a trade which she learned in Albuquerque after she got out of the military.  Cynthia felt a need to go the route of her grandparents, to live a simple life.  She worked at the Gold Lake Resort and is proud of the fact that the resort’s guests would begin their first taste of dinner service with her bread and end with her desserts, all made by her hands. 

She walked to work and loved every minute of it, but also sought to keep learning new skills.  In the summer of 2008, the resort raised goats, chickens and erected a greenhouse and outdoor garden beds. She became the caretaker of all, calling herself the animal wife.  She left the kitchen to keep up with farm duties as well as to work full time in the Spa.  The resort was owned by a 30-person group, which changed when the 2009 recession set in. 

When they decided to close the resort temporarily, she had to begin chasing the dollar working in the “luxury industry” of massage.  Cynthia had also served as the Ward Town Clerk from 2003-2006 and 2010-2012, where she learned how to apply the technical education she received in the military to the local needs and responsibilities of keeping a town in working order.

"I parlayed this smaller town clerking experience into working for Nederland and was also able to benefit from the veterans’ job preference for government jobs," says Cynthia.

She started as Deputy Clerk three and a half years ago and is the now the Planning and Building Technician, which was a title shift to honor the scope of the work that she does for the town.  She says she learned confidence from being in the military to pursue her goals.  From that experience she learned at a young age what it meant to be charged with responsibility, to understand and follow organizational protocols and procedures. She also discovered the need she had to serve the community as a volunteer, such as working with Wildlands Restoration Volunteers to learn how to build trails.

"I do not have children, but desire to be part of a legacy, of creating something that will live beyond me," she says. She also joined Team Rubicon, a group predominantly made up of veterans, who join forces to help communities recover from disaster. When TR came to help property owners with the recovery of land after the Cold Springs Fire, Cynthia felt the camaraderie of the group, which she knows she will always have.

"I want to be supportive of combat veterans. I see the real issues facing many veterans, the non-support, the disabilities they endure. As a young person, the military indelibly moved me to take on challenges with confidence. I can look back now and understand how joining the service was an upright thing to do for me, but also that everyone’s experience is different."

Cynthia likes her life right now, utilizing the skills she learned in the military and along the way to apply in the communities she loves; and in a sense, she has come full circle. She looks back on what she's done so far and says, "I deny none of my transformations.  I am so grateful for the job I have and enjoy what I do.  Since I got out of the military, I have operated in different spheres than the military’s mission.  My veteran friends include those who’ve been in combat, those who haven’t, those who support military intervention and combat veterans who are against past or future conflicts.  I respect that we have all made different choices based upon our military service and experiences."

The military opened Cynthia's eyes and mind to the larger broader world view. She met people from all over the globe and was entrusted to do a job which might have security components. 

"The service growed me up as they say," says Cynthia. "It had some form of influence upon every single job I had afterward even if it was the understanding of how to get along with many people I may have nothing in common with, but we need to get the job done.  For me, on the whole it was a beneficial experience.”

At 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 10th, the Gilpin Schools will host a celebration of the veterans in our community, filled with songs and speeches and a chance for all the vets to stand up and be honored. There will also be cake.

At 11 a.m. on Friday, November 11th, the Gilpin Veterans' Association and the American Legion will hold a ceremony at the Gilpin Veteran's Memorial at the Gilpin County Recreation Center, including a 21-gun salute.