My journey from Colombian to American

Ken Taber and Fernando Manrique (photo courtesy of Tripp Smith)

"I'm an American soldier too!" Those simple, powerful words were spoken by Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch upon being freed by her rescuers in a hospital in Iraq. Those words resonated with truth for me. "I am an American soldier too," I thought.

An unlikely set of events have transpired to make those words come true for me. As the sixth child of a Colombian cattle rancher, I should have grown up and continued the family ranching tradition in the ancestral lands of the State of Huila, Colombia, where the Manrique de Lara family settled in the early 1600s. They had been looking for a new life in the new world, and settled in the Magdalena River Valley, the area reminded them of their home in southern Spain.

But 374 years later, I embarked on a different journey to another new world, leaving a troubled land for one that promised a life free of fear and uncertainty. My new life began appropriately at a southern military boarding school called Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. I was 15 years old and proudly wearing the uniform of first sergeant in the Marching Band Company. My journey had begun.

After two years of marching to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I graduated near the top of the class and was accepted into the College of William and Mary in Virginia. No more uniforms for me, I thought at the time. I wasn't quite sure what to study, but had always enjoyed learning about relations among nations, so I majored in Government and International Politics. As an undergraduate at William and Mary, I met the two most important people in my life. One was Kathy, my college sweetheart and now my wife. The other was Jeff, my aviation-obsessed roommate, and the person who would spark my interest in flying.

Kathy began my transformation from Colombian to American. It was through her family that I learned the traditions of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter - and more importantly - Dallas Cowboys football. Jeff, on the other hand, shared with me his passion for flying, and I spent countless hours in his Cessna 172, 59 model, flying between Virginia and the Bahamas and Daytona Beach during our spring break jaunts. He was the pilot and I was the trusted copilot.

After college, Jeff joined the Air Force to begin his flying career. Kathy and I were married one day after graduation, and departed for Colombia for a long honeymoon at "Balmoral," my family's cattle ranch. A few months later, Jeff called me from pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, and insisted that I was destined for an Air Force flying career. Never mind that I was neither a U.S. citizen - as required by law to be an officer - nor had any formal flying training, except for our spring break trips in the Cessna.

The citizenship issue was fixed with a visit to the office of Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, where his helpful staff promptly submitted my application for naturalization. Within six months, I was a United States citizen. Not able to afford formal flying training, I bought a basic flight manual aptly called "Stick and Rudder," memorized it, and went for my first visit to an Air Force recruiter. It must have paid off, because my Air Force Officer Qualifications Test scores were high enough to qualify for a pilot slot after completion of Officer Training School.

After a grueling year of Undergraduate Pilot Training in sunny Del Rio, Texas, Kathy and I were off to see the world with our first operational assignment to Kadena Air Base, Japan. While at Kadena, I really began to appreciate the special nature of wearing the Air Force uniform. I found that every time I landed my KC-135 in a foreign country I was always met and treated as the representative of the United States Air Force.

After five years and countless typhoon evacuations, alerts, and numerous flying exercises throughout Asia, it was time to return to the states and start our family. Our first daughter, was born a few months before we left Japan, and our second daughter, was born during our following assignment to Castle AFB, Calif., at the time, the only KC-135 schoolhouse in the Air Force. Though the excitement and adventure of international flying was temporarily over, the challenging job of training others to follow in our footsteps was just beginning.

I was called by a staffer at the U.S. Air Force Academy to inquire about my interest in coming to Colorado Springs to teach Spanish to cadets. Since Castle was scheduled for closure as the result of the drawdown of the early '90s, I thought coming to the Academy would fit our timing perfectly.

At the Academy, I was given the task of teaching cadets about Latin American culture. I also had numerous travel opportunities, exposing cadets to Spanish by immersing them in Spanish-speaking countries. It was on one of these trips that I fully realized I had completed the journey from Colombian to American. I was selected as the escort officer to lead a delegation from the USAFA to the Republic of Colombia. There I was, the sixth son of a Colombian cattle rancher, representing the U.S. Air Force and the Academy, briefing the Chief of Staff of the Colombian air force on educational and training programs.

My journey was complete. I, too, was an American soldier.

Lt. Col. Fernando Manrique
Fernando.Manrique@pentagon.af.mil
Band Company '76