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| In her own words: Beginnings (2 of 3) |
March 12, 2001 |
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CADET WILSON: Today, Rep. Heather Wilson is one of the newest members of the House Armed Services Committee and is the first woman veteran to ever serve in the United States Congress
AIMING HIGH
I wasn’t part of the in-crowd, but I loved school and got good grades. When the Air Force Academy announced it would accept women, I was a junior in high school and decided to apply. I will always remember the phone message from my Congressman’s office, telling me I’d earned the appointment. My little brother took the call and lost the message behind the radiator in the kitchen. I found it about a week later. It was St. Patrick’s day in 1978 when I returned the call to my Congressman’s office and they confirmed the good news. I would be going to the Air Force Academy.
I went to work learning how to be a legislator, and started getting important things done for the families of Albuquerque and New Mexico.
It was the beginning of a life I could never have dreamed of for myself. In our little town there were no women who were lawyers or doctors or judges. I never knew anyone who had a passport.
But I would succeed at the Air Force Academy, becoming a distinguished graduate and a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford, I earned both a master’s and a doctoral degree, writing a book about international law that won a prize from the International Red Cross. I worked at NATO and negotiated arms deals with the Soviets. I was saved from signing up for law school when I got a call from the White House asking me to join the staff of the National Security Council as director of European defense policy and arms control.
And then the most wonderful thing happened. A man from Albuquerque, who had taught a law class at the Air Force Academy, and with whom I’d kept in casual contact for nine years, invited me to join him to see a play in New York. We fell in love, got married, and I left Washington for life in the high desert of New Mexico.
I started a small business, and became a parent three times...once by adoption, a son named Scott, and twice by birth, son Joshua and daughter Caitlin. I took an active role in the community, even becoming a candidate for superintendent of Albuquerque Schools. I didn’t get that job, but the new governor asked me to lead the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department in tackling some of the toughest social problems we face. I was proud of improvements made in foster care and adoptions, in childcare services, and in strengthening the juvenile justice system.
We have amazing opportunities to work together to give all our kids a better life and an equal chance to achieve their dreams. Nothing matters more than that.
I was happy in my work at CYFD. But a number of Republican leaders urged me to run for Congress when my predecessor became ill with cancer and I did.
NEW MEXICO`S CONGRESSWOMAN
I had no idea it would be the bruising battle it . . .
In her own words: BeginningsPAGE 1 | PAGE 2 | PAGE 3
Read about what New Mexico`s Congresswoman is doing today as your representative. |
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