Michigan native retires from service with honors

Lt. Col. Sandra Colburn Duiker put in her service. – by Susan Harrison Wolffis – After serving six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, setting up aeromedical evacuation hospitals and tending the most seriously wounded, Lt. Col. Sandra Colburn Duiker is ready to hang up her wings.

At the age of 66.  “It’s time for this grandma to stay home,” she said in a telephone interview from her retirement home in Cosse, Texas.

     Duiker, who grew up in Muskegon and got her R.N. degree from Hackley School of Nursing, retired in September from the 167th Airlift Wing, West Virginia Air National Guard after more than 20 years of military service.

“It’s been an eye-opening, irreplaceable experience,” she said.

For the past 18 years, Duiker has served with the 167th Airlift Wing’s Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, going into some of the world’s most dangerous territory as commander of the 451st Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Flight.

“She has saved many lives,” Col. Roger L. Nye, commander of the 167th Airlift Wing, said at her retirement ceremony in Martinsburg, W.Va.

He also announced she will receive the Air Force Legion of Merit and the West Virginia Legion of Merit for her contributions.

“From my point of view, I was just doing my job,” Duiker said.

This is her second call to duty in her nation’s time of need. In 1964, fresh out of nursing school in Muskegon, Duiker joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. For three years, she served as an operating room nurse, assigned to orthopedic reconstruction surgeries on those wounded in Vietnam.

She didn’t “re-up” when her tour was over, saying simply, “the Army wasn’t real excited about having women around, and married women at that.” So she turned to civilian nursing — and balancing home life with her career. She and her husband, Donald Duiker, raised six children and set up residence in West Virginia.

In 1991, Sandra Duiker was working in an intensive care unit in a small hospital in West Virginia when she heard the call to serve again. The children were grown. She had the experience. She’d cared for the wounded in one war already. Much to her disappointment, Duiker missed the chance to serve in Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East.

But she was among the first called upon eight years ago when the United States was at war on two fronts: Iraq and Afghanistan.

During her career with the 167th Airlift Wing, she wore many hats: assistant chief nurse, senior health technician, commander.

Officials with the Allied Forces Central Europe asked for Duiker by name to set up the aeromedical evacuation operations for the north area of Afghanistan in October, 2001. She was again requested by name by Allied Forces Central Europe officials to establish aeromedical evacuation operations in a NATO/ International Security Assistance Force environment.

Duiker comes from a long line of veterans. Her father, the late Cleo Colburn of Muskegon, served in the 339th U.S. Infantry as a machine gunner in northern Russian from 1918 to 1919, almost six months after the armistice to end World War I.

“Perhaps, probably, I am the only child of a World War I veteran serving on active duty in 2009,” Duiker said.

Her great-grandfathers served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Two of her brothers, including Dr. Burrill Colburn of Norton Shores, served in World War II. Three of the Duikers’ four sons are career military — like their mom.

“Combat operations are not my bailiwick,” she said. “It’s the aftermath of combat in the swirling mix master of war that’s my thing. I am a flight nurse, planning missions with a myriad of details; taking care of and transporting our wounded warriors is what I do.”

  She has also served in Qatar, Panama, Somalia, Cuba, Germany, Venezuela, Hungary, Bosnia, Oman, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

“Well, I can sure pack a suitcase,” she said.

From the minute she put on her uniform, Duiker has made history. She is the first member of the 167th Airlift Wing to earn two Bronze Stars, considered the ninth highest military award.

She was awarded her first Bronze Star Medal in 2002 after establishing the aeromedical evacuation for the northern leg of Operation Enduring Freedom in Turkey, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

Duiker earned her second Bronze Star in 2004 for serving as the director of operations at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, again coordinating “an aeromedical evacuation presence.”

“Lt. Col. Duiker is one of the most patriotic people I know,” said Lt. Col. Sandra Cotton, the 167th Airlift Wing’s current chief nurse.