The Latina leads the Veterans Day parade in Phoenix

by Junna Base November 11, 2024

Women in the U.S. military don’t just fight during their service. For some, the battle begins with recruitment. That was the case with the retired staff sergeant. Rosa Linda Regalado, who was almost 18 years old and dreamed of becoming a pilot, was rejected for the first time because she was a woman.

It was 1997 when Regalado decided to join the US Air Force. As a child, she watched US Navy television commercials and told her mother that she wanted to be a pilot. With this memory, she went to the recruiting office. There she would face her first rejection, but she wouldn’t give up.

“They told me ‘No’ and I asked them why and they said ‘You’re a woman, you wear glasses and you’re short’ and I said ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ “I want to do this to help people because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Regalado, 44, said in an interview with The Arizona Republic.

After 20 years of service in the Navy and Army, where she served in two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, Regalado strives to empower women like her who strive to make their way into the armed forces by leading by example. how difficult it is to be part of this group, but at the same time how rewarding it can be.

“It’s a very difficult job, especially when you’re a mother and you go off to fight, because I never knew if I was going to come back… and didn’t know if my children were going to be raised by my mother or my sister.” She said: ” It’s a 24 hour job, you never know when you’re going to call, you can’t say no and you can’t tell your family where you’re calling them from… I would just say it.” my mother: ‘I’m alive .’”

A Chandler resident and proud daughter of Mexican immigrants, Regalado will honorably represent all veterans as one of the grand marshals in the annual Veterans Day Parade taking place on Monday, November 11th in downtown Phoenix.

Follow in the footsteps of family members

Regalado was born in Manzanola, Colorado, a town with fewer than 300 residents. She is the third child in a family with four siblings. Her mother, Guadalupe Banuelos, originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, and her father, Jesus Regalado, from Durango, Mexico, worked in agriculture picking tomatoes and chili peppers.

“I remember ever since I was a child passing by the tomato and chili fields and my mother telling me that they had me in the car seat while picking tomatoes,” she said.

Although she has fond childhood memories, Regalado experienced domestic violence at home. She said her father drank a lot and fought constantly with her mother, so she knew from a young age that she wanted to leave the house as soon as she was old enough to do so.

“I wanted to get out of there and I said, ‘I’ll never turn back,'” she said with tears in her eyes. Her desire to join the Air Force—an inspiration that came from her uncle’s career in the U.S. Army—and to leave home led her to enlist as soon as she graduated high school.

In 1997 she enlisted in the Navy. From there, she waited a year for training in Virginia, then to Texas and finally to New Jersey, where she boarded for the first time.

“I can do the same job”

Regalado’s time in the Navy wasn’t easy. In the 1990s, when sexism was prevalent in the armed forces, Regalado said she had to demonstrate her integrity, courage and ability to win the respect of her colleagues.

“Back then men said, ‘You’re a woman and you can’t do anything, you can’t do the same job.’ But I always said, “No, I’m going to show you that I can do the same job even if I’m a woman.” Men didn’t accept women as equals. Now there are not as many (sexists) as before,” Regalado said.

For this reason, the war veteran began to study and prepare for promotion, and little by little she managed to earn the respect and admiration of her colleagues. She earned six different sergeant ranks throughout her career, retiring as a sergeant first class in 2008.

The most difficult thing she faced during her service were the three wars she lived through, as she sustained several wounds that landed her in the hospital.

“They removed part of my knee bone. I had an accident on the ship and my hip moved and I couldn’t walk, my foot broke at the ankle. I had four wrist surgeries. They removed my ovaries and uterus because they found I had a lot of scar tissue. I have wounds on my shoulders. “I still have shrapnel in my back that they couldn’t remove,” Regalado said.

But the injuries to her body cannot be compared to the post-traumatic consequences she lives with: she has to take medication just to be able to sleep. She said her faith, her children, her family and her desire to tell her story motivate her to keep going every day.

Making Arizona her home

Life as a soldier was not easy, but reintegrating into society after 20 years of service was also difficult. Regalado had to endure several challenges before he could lead a civilian life.

After completing her military service, she decided to return with her two children to her native Colorado, where she had purchased a home in 2003 before leaving the military.

A few days after settling into her home, Regalado got up early, put on her uniform, and when she was ready to go to work, her son stopped her at the door and said, “Mom, what are you doing.” ?” “You’re retired,” and then it dawned on her.

As a soldier, Regalado followed a strict schedule that began at 4 a.m. and continued into the late hours of the day. As she tried to bring the same rigidity into her everyday life, she realized that it couldn’t work the same way – her world was no longer the same.

“I said to my therapist, ‘I don’t know what to do with my life, I don’t know what to do,’ and he told me, ‘This is going to happen… but you.’ “You have to start your life with your children,” she remembers. “If it weren’t for my children, I don’t know what I would have done. They told me, ‘Everything will be okay, Mom.'”

She struggled through, learned to accept family life and opened up to marriage. But a failed relationship eventually led her to Arizona.

“Since it didn’t work out, I told my sister I had to do something and she said, ‘Come here, we’ll help you,’ and that’s how I came to Chandler,” Regalado said.

In 2020, Regalado earned her bachelor’s degree in Community Program Support Services from the University of Phoenix. Today she works as a dental assistant and financial coordinator.

Lead by example

Nathaniel Burgos, 21, is following in his mother’s footsteps. The young soldier has only been in the Navy for two years and has managed to advance two ranks during this time, something Regalado is proud of.

“I am very happy for him. My son wasn’t a schoolboy… I remember him telling me, ‘I want to join the Navy, that’s the only life I know,'” she said.

Her daughter Aricella Powe, 15, dreams of joining the Marines.

“I always tell my daughter, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something, and if someone tells you, show them you can do it,” the retired sergeant said.

Regalado missed many family gatherings, was unable to enjoy the first years of her children’s lives, lost contact with her sister for 20 years, but she accomplished what she set out to do: show the world that women in the military can do the same work as men and serve the country she loves.

Regalado said without hesitation that she would do it again. “It’s worth it. The experience is worth it. I miss it. I miss this life,” she said.

Do you have any story tips about Latino culture and cuisine in the Valley? Reach La Voz reporter Nadia Cantú at [email protected].

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