Holmes grew up in Derby, Kansas, a location that inspired her love of aviation.
“We lived six miles off the Boeing Aircraft runway that was adjacent to an Air Force base, McConnell Air Force Base. And so, as a young girl, I would get to see the B-52s climbing slowly up into the air,” Holmes said.
As the daughter of a WWII Army medic who served at the Battle of the Bulge and stepdaughter of a Navy WWII veteran, she learned early on about the importance of patriotism and service.
In high school, she talked with her classmates’ parents stationed at the local Air Force base and gained their perspective on military service.
“It’s an incredible honor to serve your country,” she said. “That was very appealing to me.”
While her family had a history of working at Boeing, Holmes had other plans.
“I wanted to see the world, so I couldn’t wait until I could get enough money or education and go out into the world. At that time the Army had a slogan ‘Join the Army, See the World.’”
In 1974, the week of her 19th birthday, she went to a recruiting office to enlist in military service.
“My brothers had had draft numbers so we had sat up and watched the draft. And my mother never thought in any way, shape or form that her youngest and only daughter would join the military. She was not thrilled,” Holmes recalled.
The Army had recently started expanding opportunities for women beyond administrative and nursing roles to include military occupational specialties, allowing Holmes to pursue her interest in air traffic control.
She attended basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
While she didn’t know what to expect in basic training, she had some previous shooting experience that helped her on the range. Her first shots with an M16 hit the target and her sergeant asked her where she learned to shoot.
“My uncle worked for Daisy BB company, and I’ve shot BB guns,” she shared with him. “He was not impressed.”
Following basic training she attended air traffic control school at Fort Rucker, Alabama (today known as Fort Novosel.) Holmes was enrolled in an accelerated training course that was challenging, but the practice and persistence paid off giving her the tools to be a good controller.
She was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where the military was running simulations. She was often the only female air traffic controller.
“The soldiers, sailors and marines that I primarily engaged with who had either been to Vietnam or who had been drafted – because I was a woman and also a volunteer – they were not happy,” she recalled, shaking her head. “They voiced the fact that they didn’t think it was appropriate for women in the miliary especially in these new roles that they were rolling out. The other male volunteers were much more accepting.”
Holmes expected an assignment to Germany based on her enlistment. However, the Army reassigned her to Yongsan, South Korea, where she was initially nervous to be in a new location. She remembered asking for a sign that things would be okay.
“We’re all going along on this bus and I look up, and I don’t think I ever saw another one after that and I was there for two years, but it was a Coca-Cola billboard in Korean,” she said. “That was the answer to my prayer. And I thought ‘oh yeah. I can do this now.’ I used to put in my letters a Korean Coca-Cola bottle cap to my family. It was kind of a fun message that I would make it.”
She recalled her living conditions in a Quonset Hut that included dangerously cold temperatures, forcing her to chip ice off the toilet, followed by the rainy monsoon season.
She was stationed close to the demilitarized zone which put her in dangerous situations, but her training gave her the tools to succeed.
Her fondest memory of her time in South Korea was the engagement with locals on her way to do laundry. Every two weeks she looked forward to dancing and singing with area kids as she made her way through the village. She learned it was something her hosts also cherished when, on one of her last visits, the men, women and children showed their appreciation by bowing to her and honoring her with a gift.
“They had heard that American women like two things: gum and perfume, so they put their money together and bought me a pack of Chanel No. 5 gum,” she said. “They had put this together to give me a gift because I had sang and danced and played with the kids. I was so honored.”
She recalled arriving stateside in her uniform to unexpected hostility. Not only were travelers at the airport calling her names, but a passenger on her domestic flight threw a drink on her.
“It was really difficult. It was really difficult,” she said. “Once I got out of the military I didn’t mention it for 33 more years. I wouldn’t tell anybody. I just didn’t mention it. I didn’t put it on any resume, anything. I’m not going to chance it,” she recalled.
Holmes finished her military service at Fort Eustis, Virginia. By this point, she had been certified in all types of air traffic control.
“There weren’t many of us in the world at that point in time that had that certification.” She credits her commander in South Korea for providing her with the opportunities that led to her success.
Holmes loved air traffic control, but things changed after she was in a tower hit by lightning during a tropical storm. She sustained serious injuries.
“I could go back to air traffic control, but I was never as sharp. I was never as quick at it. And I couldn’t settle for that.”
Following military service, Holmes pursued a career in technology and later transitioned to a hospice chaplain.
Today she calls Springdale home and participates in a number of veteran organizations to support her fellow servicemembers.
“I have fulfilled a promise I made a very young girl in me, that I would see the world and I would have adventures. And the Army kicked that off for me. If you can go to a country where you know nobody and nothing, you can find your way. And in the military people do have your back. And I don’t think a civilian can quite understand what that means. I don’t think I could even put it into words, but it’s something sacred.”
“I’m grateful for Debra Holmes’ dedication and service to our nation. Her time in uniform serves as a reminder of the adversity women faced on their path to military success and the responsibility we have to honor our commitment to support the men and women who answered the call to serve. I’m honored to collect and preserve her memories,” Boozman said.
Boozman submitted Holmes’ entire interview to the Veterans History Project and will continue to mark the program’s 25th anniversary this year with events in several Arkansas communities to conduct interviews with veterans and train those interested in learning how to participate.
An interview day is scheduled for April 30 at the Fort Chaffee Barbershop and Military Museum. To learn more, contact Kathy Watson in the senator’s Fort Smith office at 479-573-0189.
