Marines' first Latina general credits Dominican, hard work

[thedrifter]

Marines' first Latina general credits Dominican, hard work
Staff Report
Marin Independent Journal
Posted:07/19/2009 10:49:41 PM PDT

By Brent Ainsworth

Angie Salinas describes herself as "not the sharpest knife in the shed" in the early 1970s when she attended Dominican University, then known as Dominican College. She was living on the San Rafael campus, probably partying a little too much and struggling to find her identity.

On a whim, she up and joined the Marines.

"Everybody was flabbergasted," she said with a laugh. "I was probably the only person ever from Dominican who had enlisted in the service."

That was 35 years ago. Today she is one of only six women in U.S. Marine Corps history to achieve the rank of general, and the only one of Latina descent. Today she is Brig. Gen. Angie Salinas, the commander responsible for all Marine recruiting west of the Mississippi River and stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.

In August she will head to Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., as the director of personnel management, responsible for where 202,000 Marines are positioned around the globe.

In a recent interview Salinas reflected on her time in Marin, which coincided with the winding down of American involvement in Vietnam.

"It was an interesting time. The draft was just ending when I got to Dominican," she said. "The last thing in the world I thought I was going to do was join the military."

On April 30, 1974, Salinas was on her way to mail a letter at a San Rafael post office when she passed a recruiting center.

"Out steps this tall, good-looking, sharp, impressive Marine recruiter who asked, 'Why aren't you a Marine?'" she said.

Four days later, knowing she needed structure and discipline in her life, Salinas raised her hand and swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Three days after that, she was standing on the yellow footprints at Parris Island, S.C., being barked at by a drill instructor and thinking, "What the hell have I done?"

What she has done is inspire young recruits, said Lt. Gregory Allen of San Rafael, who often guides local recruits in their physical training before and after they are sent down to San Diego. He met Salinas about a year ago and keeps her photo on the wall of his gym, the House of Steel.

"That picture lets other women, like the police officers who come in here, see what they can accomplish if they apply themselves," Allen said. "When I shook her hand, her grip was stronger than most men's hands. You can feel the internal dedication and strength, and that gets passed on to all recruiters. É Her character makes me feel proud every time I go down there."

Allen notes that the U.S. Army and Navy have long traditions of female participation. It dates back almost as far in the Marines, but the percentage of women in the corps is much lower. Times are changing, Allen said.

"Once you're a Marine, you are a Marine and nothing else - not a man or a woman, a Marine," he said. "From top to bottom, it is a brotherhood regardless of gender."

Salinas' journey from teenage party animal in Vallejo to the first Latina general in the Marines wasn't much different from the stories many of her recruits tell. Their lives lacked something - motivation, focus, discipline, a challenge, a reason bigger than their own needs and interests, even a sense of belonging, what Salinas calls "her niche."

At Dominican, Salinas played on the basketball team and studied U.S. history, but did not excel in class. "They could have easily booked my little heiney out because of my poor academics the first two years," she said.

But she was determined to become the first college graduate in her family, which included parents originally from Mexico. After the Marine recruiter assured Salinas that she could return to finish her degree, she made the commitment to the Marines and came back to San Rafael, where she considered the Dominican nuns as the best female role models she could find. She had first been inspired by faith-based education while at St. Vincent Ferrer High in Vallejo.

"The people really cared (at Dominican) and were very focused," she said. "They turned my focus around, and I ended up being honored by them as the most outstanding student in my class in 1976. I will forever and ever have great gratitude for that."

Dominican President Joseph Fink said the university is proud of Salinas' accomplishments.

"She epitomizes everything we strive to instill in all our Dominican graduates: a solid college education, leadership skills and a commitment to service in the community," he said.

Salinas fondly recalls Sister Aquinas, a Dominican biology professor and administrator who died in 2006. Upon her return from basic training, Salinas had been assigned to the Air Reserve Training Detachment in Alameda and had to bunk in the female Navy barracks. As the only female Marine there, Salinas felt out of place among the sailors.

"I told her that I was having a tough time assimilating into it, so she said, 'Tell them you know Admiral Nimitz's daughter' and handed me a book about Admiral Nimitz," Salinas said. "I looked at her and said, 'But I don't know Admiral Nimitz's daughter.'"

Sister Aquinas was born Mary Manson Nimitz, daughter of Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, who led U.S. Naval forces in the Pacific during World War II.

"I remember saying, 'What?'" Salinas said. "Yes, that helped a little bit."

Her goal when she was commissioned in 1977 was not to make a big deal of her gender or her ethnicity, even though she was female in an organization that is still 97 percent male.

Salinas deliberately stayed away from the "women's movement bandwagon." She never participated in affinity groups for female Marines, nor did she join La Raza or LULAC.

Being a role model for young women or Hispanics was not top of mind then, but Salinas remembers the day in 1997 when that changed, too.

Stationed at the Pentagon, the newly commissioned lieutenant colonel was in Dallas for a traditional Mexican family wedding, complete with plenty of tequila and mariachis and introductions of special guests who had traveled from afar to be there.

Salinas says she wasn't really paying attention. Looking at her watch, she was thinking about asking her sister how long they were obligated to stay before they could go shopping.

Applause in the room and a poke in the ribs from her sister brought her mind back to the people around her.

"They're applauding for the Marine in the room," her sister told her.

As Salinas walked through the guests to the front of the room, she said, she "remembered looking into people's eyes and faces and realizing that I was everything they wanted and hoped for their own children. It was my epiphany moment. If I could be the one who some young Hispanic kid looked up to, if my life and story could serve to convince them to stay in school, stay off drugs and work hard because they want to be a Marine too, then I had to set an example."


Read more San Rafael stories at the IJ's San Rafael section.

Contact Brent Ainsworth via e-mail at bainsworth@marinij.com; Jill "J.R." Labbe of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram contributed to this report.

Ellie

[Kegler300]

[StoneTheWeak]

No such thing as a Latina General, just a General. We're all green.

[Allmarine21]

I happen to have been assigned under her command when she was the Commanding Officer of RS Charleston, WV. We knew back then that she was going to go far in her career. BGen Salinas was put out there in to run a recruiting command, and she had the pressure not only to succeed for her career, (only woman ) but to suceed on the recruiting effort . I happened to be the NCOIC of an RSS, also on quota, and believe me, she was arguably, one of the better Commanding Officers you wanted to work for. She pushed you to excel, and instructed you how to get better as a Marine if you did not excel. Alot of standing tall and late evening close of business calls, sometimes 0400 arrivals at your office also caught your attention.