Colleen Ross was the seventh woman ever to be stationed at the Minot Air Force Base as part of the women’s squadron when she arrived there in 1971.

She knows firsthand the challenges women faced in those years being such a small minority. That’s why Ross has devoted much of her life to helping other veterans, particularly women who have served.

“My interest is in educating women who have served” about the benefits they’re entitled to as veterans, said Ross, of Columbia Falls.

Ross, 66, served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War era. Growing up in rural Larimore, North Dakota, she interacted with the children of servicemen and women stationed at the Air Force Base in nearby Grand Forks, and recalls the stories they told about living in faraway places such as Germany or Japan.

As she hoed beans in the garden, the call of adventure beckoned, as she watched the Air Force planes fly overhead.

“I wanted off the farm,” she declared.

After high school she attended a business college in Grand Forks, where she was a typing whiz at 95 words a minute.

“I was 20 years old and looking for a job when I saw a sign that said ‘Join the Air Force and See the World,’” she said.

She was all in, and remembers sitting in the airplane that would take her to boot camp in San Antonio, Texas, thinking “What have I done?”

Since she was younger than 21, Ross needed her parents’ consent to enlist. Joining the Air Force wouldn’t have been the first choice for their daughter, but her father finally relented, saying “She’ll do it anyway.”

ROSS DIDN’T get to see the world right away. Ironically, her first assignment took her right back to her native North Dakota, at the Minot Air Force Base.

“The recruiter had promised me I would never come back to North Dakota,” she recalled with a laugh.

Ross worked as a clerk/typist for a transport squadron and witnessed a lot of civil unrest in the early 1970s. She recalled a big riot on the base in 1973 when a group of black airmen took over the chow hall.

Those tumultuous times shaped her time in the military. She began handling the paperwork for Article 15, non-judicial punishments through the Judge Advocate office. Ross applied to cross-train and was accepted.

She finally got her overseas assignment and was sent to the Torejon Air Force Base in Madrid, Spain, where she was a non-commissioned officer in charge of courts-martial. Ross additionally got training through a legal tech school to become a certified court reporter.

Ross was asked to open the first area defense office in Torejon, and worked in that office until she was medically retired in 1975.

AFTER SHE returned to the U.S. she earned a degree in business and worked at the Children’s Hospital in Denver as a meeting planner.

In later years she worked for the Veterans Administration. As the women veterans coordinator for the state of Colorado, she helped track down Vietnam War era women veterans and helped them access services.

“I’d go out and find these women and help them file benefits and help with appeals,” she said. “I still do that.”

Ross went back to college for a second time and earned a degree in vocational rehabilitation with an emphasis in post traumatic stress disorder. That training helped with both men and women veterans in a number of capacities.

She currently works with the Disabled American Veterans as a chapter service officer for the Flathead County DAV.

Hard-wired to help people, Ross has been involved in community service from early on, starting with her very first assignment at Minot Air Force Base.

These days she volunteers at the Montana Veterans Home, the Columbia Falls Food Bank and for the VA.

“My life is about service,” she said.

Military service in her family continued with her son, who served in the Marine Corps.

Ross’ father, a World War II veteran who served on the USS Nevada, showed his pride in his daughter’s military service, even though he’d been reluctant to give his consent at first.

“When I finished basic training, Dad bought my first membership to the American Legion,” she recalled.

Veterans needing assistance with filing claims for VA benefits can contact Ross at crosstalk20@gmail.com.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.