Back in 2004, after 17 consecutive months of attacks, U.S. Army Sgt. Cynthia Flores was tired of dodging mortar rounds from pro-Saddam forces, tired of living in the heavy Kevlar vest.
She was stationed in the burned-out buildings of Saddam Hussein’s Taji Air Force Base, 45 minutes north of Bagdhad, temporary home to the U.S., British, Italian and Macedonian armies in Iraq.
At the time, Flores was the only woman in her combat unit.
But she is among the hundreds of thousands of women veterans who have fought for this country — a quiet army of determined women who would not be defeated by sacrifice or pain. And many of them, like their male counterparts, are working on adjustment back to civilian life.
When she fractured her right ankle during a sandstorm on a convoy headed back to Kuwait, she waited 10 days before X-rays at a larger clinic revealed that her ankle was shattered and needed surgery — just one week before she was scheduled to leave for home.
But like a true soldier, Flores knew you just dealt with it — “that’s what you do.”
A lot of strength and courage is packed into her 95 pound, 5-foot frame,
Attributes of a seasoned combat veteran.
She has seen the horrors of war close-up.
Flores is among the women who have served in our military since 9-11-2001 — unsung heroes — women whose stories have rarely been told.
“I was trained with the other soldiers and only saw a handful of women,” Flores said.
In her nearly 14 years of service during three deployments to Iraq and one to South Korea, she was trained for hostage negotiations, trained for entry control points, searching a detainee, riot control, first responder, combat operations, trained as a combat lifesaver, and in satellite communications.
Macedonian Special Forces helped train her in Iraq for searching and clearing a house.
Often, they would find caches of weapons.
She remembers the day in 2004 when Saddam Hussein was captured, triggering the need for riot control outside the base for about a month.
She has fought in hand-to-hand combat.
Now 33, Flores, who was raised in Riverside, calls Moreno Valley home and is in the work-study program at the VA hospital in Loma Linda.
“Females in the military have to meet the same requirements as males,” said Flores, a platoon sergeant.
Almost 280,000 women have served post 9-11 in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today, women make up about 20 percent of new recruits, 14.5 percent of the 1.4 million active duty component and 18 percent of the 850,000 reserve component.
Although women in uniform have long served with honor and courage in combat environments, their contributions have been under-recognized.
“Historically, women have not received the same status as men in military service,” said Richard Valdez, legislative director for Disabled American Veterans (DAV) of California and member of the National Interim Legislative Committee.
“What this reminds me of is separate-but-equal. This is what I see here, and it doesn’t work,” said Valdez, who is also a past state commander and former commander of San Bernardino DAV Chapter 12.
Purple Heart recipient Joe Moseley, a sergeant in the Iraq War, said he encourages women veterans as much as he can to get involved in support groups.
“It’s tough to get your life back together and the more support you have, the easier it is to talk about it,” Moseley said. “Women went through it just like we did, but they’re not often heard.”
Moseley, who served in Iraq between 1999 and 2010, is a founder of Cal State San Bernardino’s Veterans Success Center.
“The more we learn from women veterans, the better off we’ll be,” he added.
According to the 2014 Disabled American Veterans study on women veterans, the unique needs of women should be addressed.
The 2014 report, “The Long Journey Home,” says in summary, “Women have patrolled the streets of Fallujah and Kandahar, they have driven in convoys on desert roads and mountain passes, they have deployed with Special Forces in Afghanistan on cultural support teams, they have climbed into the cockpits of fighter jets and out of the bloody rubble after IED explosions.
“Many have begun their long journey home. The question we ask in this report is ‘Will they walk alone?’”
Flores has taken awhile to adjust to civilian life.
She had a reputation of being able to “cut it with the guys” — it was like having 24 older brothers, she remembers.
Here in the U.S., she served two years at Fort Irwin, training other soldiers. and was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, where her unit arrived late or would have been the victims of the November 2009 shooting attack by Army Major Nidal Hasan. She was also stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.
These days, she plans on getting her graduate degree in clinical psychology and wants to help current and future veterans learn how to deal with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), a condition she struggles with every day.
The condition comes with a full-range of nightmares, she said.
One of the hardest things she dealt with was the suicide of her platoon sergeant, Sgt. First Class Richard Quintana.
“He was always an advocate for us, but we never saw that coming for him,” she said. “We had no idea. A lot of us felt guilty. We should have seen it.”
She recalls the first time she had seen the reality of war, passing a U.S. Army tank that had been hit by an IED — and saw a pair of empty boots, all by themselves.
“That was 2003 and we did lose a lot of people,” Flores said.
“We went out and did what we had to do.”
In spite of the rough roads she has traveled, Flores remains positive about the future.
“No regrets at all,” she smiled.
Cynthia Flores’ story is one of the many poignant but little-known stories of military women.
If you have a story of an Inland Empire woman who has served in the U.S. military, I would like to hear from you at michel.nolan@langnews.com.
And here’s a thought for the day: Courage is not freedom from fear — it is being afraid and going on.
Michel Nolan appears in The Sun on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at michel.nolan@langnews.com or on Twitter @MichelNolan.
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©2015 the San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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