BE INSPIRED: BLANCE 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 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. Baquero- Cruz 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, art, music, mentorship, resiliency training, and recovery services, including massage and chiropractic therapy.

Baquero-Cruz, who’d been a nationally ranked competitive swimmer when younger, was immediately drawn to the adaptive sports program. “When I went to my first CARE event,” she said, “I thought the only thing I was going to be able to do physically was swimming.” She soon learned how care coordinators helped determine which events were feasible, based on a service member’s abilities and limitations. She also learned about the High Performance Program, a regimen aimed at training for the Warrior Games. “I immediately asked them to put me in that program,” she said. “I told them, ‘I want to train. I want to go to trials and try to make the Warrior Games.’ It was my last year of active duty, and I was going through a really hard time. The program gave me something to look forward to, a direction – a new mission, if you will – while using adaptive sports to recover at the same time.”

At the 2019 Games, Baquero-Cruz will compete not only in swimming but also in track racing chair, recumbent cycling, archery, and air rifle. She’s surprised even herself in choosing some of these events. “If you’d have told me I was going to be competitive in archery and air rifle, I would have laughed at you,” she said.

It was when she was talked into shooting an air rifle for the first time that Baquero-Cruz had what she called a “Eureka” moment: “With my anxiety,” she said, “just being around loud noises or weapons, or anything that could create a startle response, was scary.” Program coordinators introduced her to the equipment slowly, explaining that they didn’t have the same noise and kick as other firearms, and demonstrating how to use the pistol and air rifle.

“I remember, after taking my first shots,” she said, “I just looked over at another warrior and smiled. I was like, ‘I love this.’ When you have anxiety or PTSD issues, it’s really hard to control your thoughts. Your concentration is all over the place. So when they give me a target to focus on, tell me to just breathe and go through a sequence of events, it feels really, really good to have that calming moment. That’s what archery and air rifle do for me.”

The racing events, especially the chair and the recumbent bicycle, are exhilarating for Baquero-Cruz. “I can’t tell you how good it felt the first time I was on the recumbent bike,” she said. “I was flying! It was so great. Before that, I’ve got to tell you, my smiles were very few and far between. But when I started going to the CARE events, I didn’t even have to try; I was just smiling because I was having a good time and feeling good about myself.”

Though she knows the competition is fierce – only 14 Air Force members were selected to represent the United States at the most recent Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia – Baquero-Cruz hopes to qualify for the team that will travel to the Hague next year, and to remain a part of the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program any way she can.

In the year-and-a-half between the time she suffered trauma and her first CARE event, she said, she was going through the motions of recovery, doing things because she was ordered to and didn’t want to disobey. “Adaptive sports is a privilege,” she said. “I get to go to the range. I get to take bikes for a ride. I get to go to the track. I want to leave the house, and I feel supported, and I don’t want to let go of that.”

In other important ways, Baquero-Cruz has moved on. After 20 years of service, she retired from the Air Force in March 2019. She’s still a nerd: She’s studying at the University of Alaska, and is on track to earn her bachelor’s degree in another year-and-a-half. She hopes for a second career as a researcher/archivist in Alaska, which she imagines she’ll call home – “It’s one of those places you don’t believe are real until you see it,” she said – and a return to a quiet, studious life.

It’s a life, however, that she hopes will always involve the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program. “You’re an Airman for life,” she said. “And I’d like to become part of the Ambassador Program, traveling to other bases and telling them about the Wounded Warrior Program. I don’t think enough people know about it, and what it can do for them. I want to tell them: ‘Hey, you don’t have to struggle by yourself. There are people out there who want to help.’”