First Latina Academy grad

High school commencements come with shelf lives measured in nanoseconds. Who spoke or what they said are ignored or quickly forgotten. But it was the deafening silence at Houston businesswoman Linda Garcia-Cubero’s high school graduation that still echoes these many years later. The speaker’s utter indifference about Cubero’s accomplishments still bothers this successful woman.

In 1976, Cubero was selected as the first Latina -- the first woman -- in Massachusetts’s history to gain admission to a military academy, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Yet, at her graduation, not a word was spoken about it despite two Congressional nominations, including one from Sen. Ted Kennedy and one from the White House.

The speaker, as Cubero recalled, mentioned every scholarship earned by classmates, “even hundred dollar scholarships to beauty school…but not mine.” She shouldn’t have been surprised.

Months earlier, when Congress voted to go co-ed at U.S. military academies Cubero announced to her counselor that she wanted to complete an application. The response? “No, you can’t,” said the counselor. “It’s your grades.” Cubero was incredulous. She was in the top five percent of her class. “It was the name,” said Cubero.

Despite the obstacles, seven days after graduation Cubero stood in formation at the Air Force Academy alongside her new classmates with upper classmen in her face, yelling, screaming and, otherwise doing everything they could to make these young men and women turn and leave.

The trauma of day one was just a wake-up call, Cubero said. It was just part of the process essential for building future officers and leaders. Knowing this made everything else easy, or at least easier.

Initiation into the military is something she and her career officer father had discussed. Juan Garcia, a career Air Force officer, had warned her ...