Story by: Sherry Barkas, City of La Quinta
La Quinta residents Virginia “Ginger” Nelson and Barbara Burik are veterans. Both enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in the 1970s.
It was a time of change for women in the military, as equal opportunity cases opened doors to more occupational specialties, beyond nursing and administrative positions that had traditionally been available to them.
“I was such a novelty that one of the warrant officers told me he didn’t think I would make it through” training, said Burik who enlisted in October 1973 and served as an Army Nuclear Weapons Electronic Technician.
His comment made her more determined to succeed, said Burik, who served until September 1978 and attained the rank of SP5 (equivalent to a sergeant).
“I’m glad that women are more accepted now,” she said, adding that for many years she kept her military service private, not knowing how people would react.
Nelson served for three years, training to be a mortician until her platoon was assigned to help identify the remains of hundreds of adults and children who died in a mass suicide near Guyana.
She served from January 1976 to December 1978, and was among the last to serve in the WAC, which was disbanded in October 1978 when President Jimmy Carter signed legislation integrating women into the regular Army.
Burik and Nelson are among 24 La Quinta residents who will be recognized on November 11, during the City’s annual Veterans Day Recognition Ceremony, and have their names added to the monuments on the Civic Center Campus. Of the nearly 370 names currently on the monuments, Nelson and Burik join just five other women recognized.
All Should Serve
Following basic training, Burik, who grew up in Southern California, was sent to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama for her nuclear weapons training. She was the only woman in her squadron and one of just three on a base of about 2,500 men. “They didn’t have clothing for me, so they outfitted me in men’s clothing. They didn’t have shoes small enough for me, so I was given jump boots, which is not normal issue. So, it was in an experience,” Burik said.
She received Secret clearance to work with nuclear weapons and was transferred to Germany where she spent three years calibrating test equipment – an eye-opening experience, she said.
“What I did was to keep the test equipment up and running so they could do periodic continuity tests,” she said.
“I had no idea a nuclear warhead was so small,” she said. “I was trained for
emergency destruction, laying out the det (detonation) cord, wrapping it around the warhead, running back, putting the shaped charges on the blasting caps.”
She finished her service at Seneca Army Depot in New York, a major U.S. munitions storage and supply base that operated from 1941 until 2000.
Out of the Army, Burik returned to Southern California and worked for Lockheed before accepting a job with McDonell Douglas in Long Beach, a major aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor bought by Boeing in 1997.
“The military really opened doors for me with aerospace (development), and having a secret clearance helped,” she said.
She ultimately worked on the C-17 Globemaster, a large military transport aircraft developed for the US Air Force during the 1980s and ’90s. She retired in 2015, and when her husband retired in 2023, they moved to La Quinta full-time. “I personally think every American citizen should … serve for a couple of years,” in the military or the Peace Corps, she said. “You learn structure. You learn appreciation for your country, and you have experiences in meeting other people and learning different cultures, which I think are valuable,” Burik said.
Among the Last WACs
Nelson was 18 when she enlisted and served three years, attaining the rank of SP4. She was one in a long line of family members to serve.
“I was an Army brat,” she said. Her family lived in France, New Jersey, and several other places during her father’s more than 20 years of service.
Her Dad’s service inspired her some to serve but so did his reluctance to send her to college, Nelson said.
“I got out of high school and I wanted to go to college and my father, God bless him, his attitude was, ‘You’re a pretty girl, you don’t need to go to college. Get married,’” she said, laughing.
“Unfortunately, he was serious,” she said. So, she enlisted.
“I wanted to get away, I was tired of being at home and just trying to find a little part-time job or something, and I decided I’m going to go in,” Nelson said.
At the time, her godmother was a mortician and owned a funeral home.
Her mother’s side of the family were “I guess you’d call us church royalty,” she said. Her grandmother bought a church for her brother who started preaching what was called a “chitterling route” when he was 5.
It was her brother who encouraged her to become a mortician, and they could own a funeral home off of the church.
She enlisted in January 1976, choosing a career in mortuary science and was stationed at Fort McClellan in Alabama. Her plans to be a mortician ended with the mass suicide of more than 900 people in Jamestown, Guyana. In November 1978, Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones ordered his followers at the compound to drink a fruit punch laced with cyanide and sedatives, leaving 909 people dead including more than 300 children and minors.
“My platoon was shipped up to Dover, Delaware, to try to help identify those 900 bodies, and that told me I did not want to be a mortician. It was the most gruesome thing I have ever seen,” she said.
She married a soldier in her battalion and was honorably discharged in December 1978, and went with her husband to Germany. They had a son together and after two years were transferred to Fort Hood, Texas.
The marriage ended but her ex-husband encouraged her to enroll in nursing school. She used her GI Bill to pay for college, which led to a long career as a registered nurse.
After getting her degree, she moved to the Washington, D.C., area where she was a neonatal ICU nurse for 10 years. A snow storm that had her stuck at the hospital for three days while her child stayed at a neighbor’s house had her looking for a job in a warmer climate, she said.
“I was offered a position at the Naval hospital in San Diego, so that’s how we ended up moving to California.”
She is now retired, having spent the last 15 years of her career working for the California Department of Public Health as a facility inspector, investigating complaints and doing inspections for Centers for Medicare (CMS).
“That was a very interesting job. I saw lots of horrible things and some good things,” she said from her La Quinta home where she has lived since 2020.
Veterans Day Ceremony
Join the City in honoring all service members on Wednesday, November 11, at 9 a.m. at the City Hall courtyard. Seating is first-come first-serve. For information about the City’s veterans recognition program, visit www.laquintaca.gov/veterans.
