American Legion Post 71 honored one of the first woman Marines to serve in combat operations on Saturday.
- Kathryn "Kat" Gates-Skipper joined the Marines in 1975
- She was one of the first women to do so
- American Legion Post 71 honored her for her work in veterans' health care
Kathryn “Kat” Gates-Skipper was one of several people given an award of appreciation for her dedication to pushing for better veterans’ health care and for promoting the American Legion Post 71 which, in its new facility, serves as an “all veterans center.”
Gates-Skipper, 59, of Lake Wales, was born in Tripoli, Libya to an Italian mom. She was adopted by an Air Force Colonel and his wife living in Libya. She said soon after she became a naturalized American citizen.
While in college, she decided to join the Marines to test herself, and to also follow in the footsteps of her family.
“I said if I can make it through a Marine Corps boot camp, I could do anything,” said Gates-Skipper.
She joined the Marines in 1975 when it was still segregated. She went on to become the first woman Marine to stay overnight in the field for combat training, and the first to stay aboard a war ship overnight.
She was activated to the Gulf War, and had the task of cleaning the belongings of fallen Marines, and making sure those belongings were returned to their families.
On Saturday, she recalled looking through a bloody wallet during the War, and finding the picture of a fallen Marine and his baby.
“There’s just some things that will never go away. It was an honor for me to do that job because that’s going back to the deceased family,” Gates-Skipper said.
When asked how she was treated by her male colleagues back then, she declined to comment.
“There’s a lot of things I’d rather not recall at this moment,” she said.
When asked about her thoughts regarding the current scandal involving Marines accused of sharing photos of nude female service members on Facebook, she said she’d rather not comment, but said it did bother her.
“No matter if it was Army, Navy or Air Force, that’s my sister in arms. We need to respect, you know, we came a long way to try to get that. Some of us are still fighting that because of that stigma of the men not agreeing with women in the military,” Gates-Skipper said.
She did have an opinion about women fighting on the front lines.
“I don’t believe women should be in the front lines because let’s face it, we’re not made the same way,” she said. “I’m not saying there’s women out that there that can’t do it, and that’s’ great. That’s all well and good but my personal opinion because of certain things like Mother Nature and stuff, I don’t agree. I don’t think that women should be right out there.”
In 2012, she volunteered and worked with Concerned Veterans for America, pushing President Obama to bring reform to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It led to the passage of the VA Accountability Act being signed in Aug. 2014.
In 2015, she became chairwoman of the Florida Veterans for Trump.
She’s currently running for the Polk County Commission District 2 seat, which will be vacant in 2018.