Who do you imagine when you hear the word “veteran?”
Many people don’t immediately call to mind the scores of women who have served in America’s armed forces, in both official and unofficial capacities, for nearly 250 years.
This Veterans Day, the Malibu Chamber of Commerce, together with the City of Malibu, Pepperdine University and HRL Laboratories, hosted its 16th Annual Veterans Day Public Ceremony on Nov. 11. This year’s event focused on honoring “Women in the Military.”
“Usually, you have an uncle or a father who has served, but we came to realize with this year’s ceremony that you might have had a grandma or an aunt in service,” Veterans Day Ceremony committee member and Malibu Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Persson said. “There are plenty of families out there who don’t have someone like that and I think it’s important to give them an opportunity to understand what it means to serve.”
The ceremony, which according to estimates by Persson drew a crowd of around 400, was emceed by Mistress of Ceremonies Captain Valerie Overstreet of the U.S. Navy.
Overstreet, who is currently serving as Deputy Commodore for Commander, Airborne Command Control and Logistics Wing at Point Mugu, shared stories from her time in the military, including first learning to fly.
“I don’t care how big you are, when you go zero to 150 MPH [when you catapult off an aircraft carrier] for the first time, you scream,” Overstreet said. She went on to speak about the role that women have played in her life in the military.
“I’ve had this incredibly blessed career and incredible memories because of the women before me,” Overstreet said in her remarks, a sentiment that was expressed by many of the women who spoke at the ceremony.
Petty Officer First Class Monique M. McLaurin, Qualification and Certification Program Officer at Point Mugu and the youngest speaker at the event, said that women helped pave the way for her advancement in the military.
“I’d like to thank the women in the military who came before me that experienced hardships and discrimination,” McLaurin said, but added that men in the military who mentored her are also to thank. “My great leadership told me it’s OK to shine.”
Capt. Andrea Joy Essig, a Flight Nurse and Flight Nurse Instructor who has served in eight deployments, also thanked women of the past for her 20-year career with the U.S. Air National Guard.
“I wish there was a way to let women of the past know how much they’ve impacted our lives today,” Essig said.
Two retired military members from WWII spoke at the ceremony: former Women’s Army Corps (WACS) Private First Class Ethel Margolin and former Marine Corps member Marjorie McElroy Dukatz. Margolin and Dukatz were both involved in the war effort, with 90-year-old Dukatz working as an airplane spotter as a teenager and going on to join the Marines at age 20, and 93-year-old Margolin joining WACS shortly after high school graduation.
“I like to think of WWII as the war that everyone fought in,” Dukatz said, recalling her years of service both as a civilian and a Marine. “Is there anything I didn’t do? If there was anything they needed done, they called on Marj.”
Margolin did express one regret from her time with the WACS.
“They approached me and said I should go to officer’s training school. I said ‘no, I have to come up through the ranks,’” Margolin said. “I ended the war as a PFC. If I had gone to officer’s training school, I would be a general right now — if I had known then what I know now.”
The event also included music from the Malibu High School band, Our Lady of Malibu Choir, Girl Scout Troops 2465 and 12895, Malibu local guitarist Heather Gardner, Juan Cabrillo Elementary School flutist Madeline Winters, award-winning singer and songwriter Kathy Bee, and Malibu Middle School student Trinity Drummond.
“Following the event, we had a lot of hugs and a lot of tears,” Persson recalled.
