Page 90 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine Fall 2019- Online Magazine
P. 90
Denise Estenson
Profile of Courage
by Thomas Hawkins & Steven Lara
Affiliation: VetStar
experiencing systemic abuse was a foreign concept. Even
at his hands, and eventually after being temporarily bed
leaving to live with her uncle. ridden, due to respiratory arrest
Her siblings, also victims of the in 1992, she started a full-time
abhorrent environment, coped wedding business. She also began
by turning to drugs. Denise, reflecting on her experiences in
encouraged by her uncle to walk the military, voicing her deeply
a different path, turned to the internalized trauma and molding
Air Force instead. it into a transformative force of
change for other veteran women.
In 1974, she trained to become Optimistically, Denise categorized
a Medical Service Specialist it as, “What can I do to make
in San Antonio. Even at a myself or the situation better?”
young age, Denise stood out;
her craving for knowledge She had no qualms about
and her willingness to push challenging institutions and
beyond her limits led to standards, and a brazen courage
leadership roles very early in that has saved many veterans who
her military service. Deployed could not find their own voice. Her
time comes in every life to Korea, Denise was faced with passion was infectious. “I’m one
when an individual’s challenges on the home front and that you can’t stop. I’m the one to
A strength is tested. Some are her unit, having to balance her go to Washington D.C. and fight
resigned to their fate, unresisting career (at the time, an E-4 Senior for a veteran. I’m the one who
against the random forces that Airman filling a Master Sergeant isn’t afraid to fight for veterans
seek to overpower them. However, role as head of a hospital unit), because what are you possibly
for those like Denise Estenson, life as a single mother and being going to do to me? If I can’t
an Air Force retiree and veteran a woman in an environment with personally take care of a situation,
champion, failure was never an toxic norms. I’ll find someone who can!” When
option. Denise’s extraordinary
journey from tomboy to soldier Military sexual trauma was—
to advocate is a resounding is, even now—an unspoken,
affirmation of the veteran persistent abuse in military service.
community’s most treasured ideals, While in Korea, Denise was raped
as well as a challenge to norms of twice, enduring one incident so
our past and a voice of resilience physically severe that it left her
for veterans in our community. questioning how she survived.
Despite her anguish, she pushed
Raised in Oakland, California, forward, burying the trauma in
Denise’s path from citizen to order to place her service to our
soldier defied expectations. Her nation and her family first. After
mother disowned her at the age 20 years of service, Denise retired
of 15 for wanting to live with her honorably from the Air Force.
father. Unfortunately, Denise
felt no safer in her father’s home, For someone like Denise,
spending retirement on a couch
90 Lubbock Senior Link
