Laden with camera bags and coffee, I took a seat next to West Point graduate Carolyn Furdek and her mother, Margaret Logan, on Kentucky’s first all-female veteran Honor Flight on the morning of June 11. I knew the friendly women were decorated veterans with a stash of stories told and untold about their service in the Army, and a rare thing happened: I became shy.
My eyes were drawn to the bracelet on Furdek’s wrist. After a few minutes of pleasantries discussing our families and this great adventure on which we were about to embark, we taxied through a water cannon salute on a chartered American Airlines flight bedazzled with American flags, departing Blue Grass Airport en route to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., for a day of honor for some of Kentucky’s bravest women. I eventually got the courage to ask Furdek about her bracelet.
It bore the memory of Laura Walker, a fellow officer and West Point grad, and Robert Davis, a soldier she had known for three years and very much respected. “He had just returned from a two-week leave to meet his newborn son,” Furdek said of Davis. “Laura and Robert were both in our unit and in my company. They were killed in 2005 during my second deployment to Afghanistan.”
Furdek, 44, is the mother of two boys. We joked that she had broken the streak of female veterans in her family by having sons and that perhaps she needed to adopt a daughter. Her mother’s mother also served in the military. Furdek worked as an engineer officer—with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2000-2006—rose to the rank of captain, and earned a Bronze Star, among a long list of accomplishments.
For her and the other 133 women on Honor Flight Kentucky, this day was a chance to remember, heal and move forward, while soaking up the appreciation for their service. The Operation HERoes Honor Flight was coordinated by Honor Flight Kentucky and sponsored by the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs (KDVA), the Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) and UPS.
From the moment we touched down at DCA, the day was a masterful feat of coordination and hospitality, beginning with a visit to the Women in Military Service for America Memorial. The next stop for our chartered buses was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the World War II Memorial, Marine Corps Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where the women participated in an emotional wreath-laying ceremony to honor the 265,000 women who had served there.
I held my emotions together until that point, but the stories got me: women who fought to receive recognition, lost countless friends, helped identify the bodies of soldiers and then prepared their remains to ship home. Some of these women didn’t speak about their traumatic experiences for decades.
The evening prior to the flight, the KHS hosted a dinner with keynote speaker Gen. Lori Robinson, USAF (Ret.), the highest-ranking woman in United States military history as the former commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command.
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The story of one life shaped by war is that of Ashley Hawkins. She served in the Army in Baghdad, Iraq, as a Military Police Officer, conducting route patrols, securing routes for convoys, scanning for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and protecting military personnel and civilians. Hawkins is the first woman to be awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device after the infamous Palm Sunday Ambush in 2005. She called the award an honor, and, during her visit to the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, she was able to honor a friend who was in the ambush. Hawkins, 38, has the photo on her phone of her friend that was recreated in a drawing at the memorial in a series of artworks. She said that she was “thrilled to see [her friend] there.”
HFK enabled her to reconnect with her experiences and interact with Kentucky women veterans who she said had paved the way for her to serve. According to the Pew Research Center, since the U.S. military established an all-volunteer force in 1973, the number of women serving on active duty has risen dramatically. The share of women among the enlisted ranks has increased from 2 to 14 percent, and the share among commissioned officers has quadrupled, from 4 to 16 percent.
“Just thinking about that day brings a smile to my face,” said Hawkins, who recently was treated for breast cancer and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She was welcomed back home at LEX the evening of the Honor Flight by her husband and five children. She said she hopes all of her children, especially her two daughters, are emboldened by her career and forge the paths they want for their own lives—whether that’s working as a housewife or an Apache helicopter pilot.
Hawkins has worked for years to ensure female veterans are seen and heard. “It’s about [fixing] the assumption … If I ask for a military discount at a store, they look at my husband and say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ It’s not an insult, but my husband didn’t serve,” she said.
Kentucky Historical Society Foundation Director Doug High, who helped coordinate Operation HERoes, also hopes to help female veterans get the recognition they deserve. It’s personal for him. “As a veteran of Afghanistan and the War on Terror and throughout my 21 years of service in the Navy Reserve, I have been keenly aware of how important our female service members are to the mission,” he said. “I’m painfully aware of what my female colleagues have gone through—the service and sacrifice, the brick walls and scaling mountains of inequality and harassment and worse. We owe them a huge thanks. It was incredibly humbling to be in the presence of these women who did nothing less than change the world.”
He recalled observing the women as they interacted with each other at the monuments. “Their strength—collectively and individually—just radiated off of them,” he said. “It was inspiring and infectious to be near. And what moved me the most was just how grateful these veterans were for us to be honoring them and caring for them. They seemed so overwhelmed, more so that all male Honor Flights I’ve been a part of, and our love and attention for them seemed so surprising and unexpected. That hurt me to see. As a veteran, I’m thanked often, and I greatly appreciate it. I got the sense from their surprise and their reactions that this hasn’t been the case for many of them.”
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Operation HERoes brought out stories of courage and fortitude, such as tales of escaping enemy gunfire, identifying dismembered bodies, comforting dying soldiers, delivering babies in war zones, going dark on a ship for weeks after it was bombed, and countless other experiences from the Vietnam War to the War on Terror.
“I loved watching the wreath laying at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. Watching them embrace and look into each other’s eyes with that look of ‘I know’ … It was beautiful,” flight director Ashley Bruggeman said. “There’s healing in community, and that’s such a large part of why Honor Flight makes a difference. Two of the veterans on the flight—one currently living in Kentucky and the other in D.C.—had attended Basic Training together and hadn’t seen each other in over 30 years. I can’t think of a better way to reunite.”
Honor Flight is a nationwide network of independent hubs serving veterans in their states. Bruggeman’s involvement with HFK began after her Junior League of Lexington work helped award grant funds to HFK. She then began volunteering and is wrapping up a term on the Board of Directors.
Bruggeman’s “onboarding” began in 2019 with a conversation with George Campbell, one of the late founding members. He and another founding HFK member, the late Phill Pittman—both Vietnam veterans—equipped her for the role, and she called their passing within six months of each other a “monumental loss.” Planning Operation HERoes took a year.
“At the airport in D.C., once we finished handing out mail-call bags and the veterans were boarding the flight, I sank down where I was standing and just sat on the ground in front of our gate,” Bruggeman said. “I was completely exhausted. One veteran sent me a text message as soon as she passed by to board. Her number wasn’t saved in my phone, and for some reason, my phone showed it as ‘Maybe Phill Pittman.’ The text said, ‘Well Done! Hooah!’ And the tears poured down my face. It was like receiving a giant hug from my late friend.”
Following the quiet evening flight home was a welcome party at LEX that I will never forget. Stepping off the plane, we prepared to travel a surreal, reverse-direction passage through airport security behind a row of bagpipes and flags. Hearing the large crowd and readying my cameras to document what I could with eyes blurred by tears and exhaustion, I was struck by the meaning of the day and how “normal” the women I boarded the plane with that morning had seemed. Many of them appeared to be like me, but appearances can be deceiving, and their stories raced through my mind as I passed cheering throngs to capture their return home.
“I hope that, as we approach Veterans Day, we’ll all consider that veterans often look different than what we expect,” Bruggeman said, noting that she often sees younger female veterans go unacknowledged. “The young mom wrangling a few little boys in the grocery store or the woman walking alongside her husband, a fellow Vietnam veteran, who served during the same period and witnessed similar horrors. It’s time we show appreciation for these women who so easily blend right back into civilian life. They need to know how much we appreciate them and that their service made a lasting impact within the military and for future generations of women.”
Furdek said the experience drove her to get more involved, and she hoped it will inspire more people to serve in the military. Furdek and Logan enjoyed the day together and met new friends. “There is a kinship that veterans share and a mutual respect for one another,” said Logan, who worked as a nurse in multiple capacities from 1973-2001. “To see so many women veterans together on the Honor Flight was awesome. And meeting one of the female sentries at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a highlight. So many doors have been opened by women in my lifetime. Seeing women honored as well as men at the Vietnam Memorial spoke to my generation of nurses. Eight nurses died in Vietnam. Their names are on the wall.”
“My goal in planning this flight was to do everything I could to ensure these veterans know they’re loved and that their service mattered,” Bruggeman said, “and to be able to hug all 134 of them was the icing on the cake.”