![]() ![]() In the Spring of 2010, as the snow broke in the mountains of Georgia, she hit the trail alone and walked from Georgia all the way to Maine in 5 ½ months. Searching for solace, solitude and a gradual entry back into civilian society, Laura decided to “walk off the war” and solo hike the Appalachian Trail. Somewhat ironically, Laura and her girlfriend broke up shortly after their military service was over. ![]() “I can’t continue living a life like this. When it came time for her original terms of enlistment to conclude, she opted out of re-enlistment. Laura continued her relationship with her girlfriend for the entirety of her military service yet they were constantly under the demoralizing threat of new discovery by less tolerant superiors and wearied by the emotional drain of secrecy. ![]() If I hadn’t been such a good a linguist and such a good airman…it could have been totally different. “The military had already invested so much in me. At their next base, she and her girlfriend actually became official military roommates. But Laura was a good, valuable soldier and her Master Sergeant suggested that she finish her training as quickly as possible, get to another base and hopefully it wouldn’t follow her. It didn’t take too long for their relationship to be discovered by her superiors. But now it was not about hiding from herself but keeping her relationship secret from the military, her friends and her family. It was already becoming very clear that those feelings would never go away. But just two days after completing her basic training, she began her first relationship with another woman, also in the military. Initially… being in the military, she believed, protected her from anyone suspecting she was a lesbian…maybe even herself. She hoped those feelings she could not share would just go away. In December of 2009, Laura left military service and decided against re-enlisting…and not just because she was tired of war.Īt sixteen years old, Laura suspected she was gay but kept it to herself because of her deeply felt commitment to her Southern Baptist faith and her very conservative family. But by now, the war and the intense duration of service had taken its toll on her both physically and mentally. She also conducted “in theater” training as a Non-Commission Officer in Charge (NCOIC) and a Staff Sergeant. Laura’s third and final deployment was once again to Iraq but this time she went to Balad and worked with the Special and Conventional Forces of all of the military branches as a Special Operator. She was one of the first women ever to work for the military in that capacity. Her second deployment was to Tikrit, in Iraq, where she served with the 1st battalion 75 th Ranger Regiment as an Arabic linguist and a “special operator” for the Joint Special Operations Command. Laura’s first deployment was to Qatar, a small peninsula off the coast of Saudi Arabia where she served in support of “Operation Enduring Freedom” and flew missions from Qatar to Afghanistan on a daily basis. She came out of this specialized training as a highly valued American soldier, fluent in Arabic with a top-secret security clearance. In 2005, at the age of 26, Laura enlisted in the Air Force as an Airman First Class and trained to be an “Airborne Cryptologic Linguist”.īasic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio followed, along with sixteen grueling months of intensely immersive Arabic language instruction. “We were watching television and I turned to my best friend and told her…if these are foreign attacks, I am joining the military.” And indeed she did. She might have continued with a civilian life had it not been for the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Laura did get her education first and not in a shy way a BS in Psychology and a BA in Foreign Languages from Mississippi State University and a Master’s Degree in Criminology from Sam Houston State University in Texas set her on her path. I did both,” Laura remembers with a smile. “Although my father had always insisted that his daughters get an education instead, he was thrilled when I joined the military. Once while traveling back from her first deployment to Iraq, through Germany, Laura ran into her Dad as he was on his way to Afghanistan. He continued serving with the Mississippi Air National Guard through deployments to Afghanistan. ![]() Laura’s father served in the military for 40 years, starting with Air Force enlistment in 1968 and deploying to Vietnam at the very height of that conflict. As Laura puts it, “It was just something in the family DNA”. At least one member of her family has served in the military during every US conflict since the Revolutionary War and in both the Union and Confederate Armies during the Civil War. Laura Harper was born and raised in Basic City, Mississippi to a strict Southern Baptist family, the oldest of four girls. ![]()
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