Women’s History Month: Women Veterans Appreciation Desiree Sims and Jessica Garza

Desiree Sims spent more than 18 years serving in both the Army and Navy, from emergency rooms stateside to running a clinic at Guantanamo Bay. Jessica Garza served eight years as a human resources specialist, including a deployment to Afghanistan during one of the deadliest periods of the war.

This Women’s History Month, both Milwaukee-area women are among the veterans whose stories deserve to be told.

“It taught me how to be a better person,” Sims said. “Being flexible, being tolerant of people and the changes that happen in everyday life. That’s something you really can’t teach in a classroom.”

Women’s History Month is a time to recognize women veterans all over the world for their sacrifices and contributions to the U.S. military. Their place in that history was hard won. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker became the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, and remains the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. Yet even after her service, full recognition for women in uniform took generations to arrive. It wasn’t until President Harry S. Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act on June 12, 1948, enabling women to serve as permanent, regular members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, that a right never before guaranteed became law. That foundation is what made careers like those of Desiree Sims and Jessica Garza possible.

Sims, a Milwaukee resident, served in both the Army and the Navy for 18 years. She enlisted in the Army in 1989 as a medical specialist, working in emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. After earning her nursing degree, she returned to service in 1997 as a Navy officer, eventually running a clinic at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she worked alongside interpreters and cared for patients across cultural and language barriers. She retired in 2012.

Garza, a student worker at UWM’s MAVRC (Military and Veterans Resource Center) served eight years in the Army as a human resources specialist, a 42 Alpha in military terms. She grew up in a small town in South Georgia, the daughter of a retired Air Force veteran. The military offered her a way out and a way up. It also took her to Afghanistan.

Both Milwaukee women describe their identity shaping their service in ways both visible and invisible. For Sims, it showed up in the details, navigating appearance regulations and finding small expressions of femininity within strict uniform standards. But it also opened doors she doesn’t think civilian life would have.

“As a woman, I felt that there were a lot of different things I was able to achieve in the military that I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to do had I just been in the civilian sector,” she said.

For Garza, womanhood in the military meant something more pointed. It was about proving herself, then later, advocating for herself.

“I knew I could do just about as much as anybody else,” she said. “But it wasn’t until after I got out that I really started advocating for myself and showing that women can do just as much as the men.”

She’s direct about what that advocacy has to account for. “We have to deal with our hormones. We carry children,” she said. “But we’re just as capable as anybody.”

The service asked different things of each woman. For Sims, one constant battle was weight. Military height and weight standards were a recurring pressure throughout her career in both branches, a standard she had to fight to meet year after year.

For Garza, her most unforgettable moment from service was her 2011–2012 deployment to Afghanistan, one of the deadliest periods of the war. As an S1, a human resources specialist, she was close to the losses.

“We just had the most people killed,” she said. “Getting hit with an RPG, just life in another country when you’re basically trying to make sure you stay alive while other people are trying to kill you all the time.”

For both women, the hardest part of service wasn’t the deployments, the standards, or the proving themselves. It was what came after.

Sims retired in 2012 after 18 years of service. The camaraderie she’d built, the shared purpose, the activities, the community of people all working toward the same goal, was suddenly gone.

“It was really, really difficult,” she said. Even flying became a source of anxiety. In the military, boarding a plane meant traveling alongside people she trusted, toward a mission she understood. Now, surrounded by strangers, the feeling is different. “I have a lot of anxiety about flying now,” she said.

Garza’s transition was anything but smooth. She was pregnant when she left the Army, rushed through the separation process, and relocated from Alaska to Kansas with her spouse deploying, no family nearby, and no roadmap.

“That transition physically messed someone up mentally and all kinds of ways,” she said. “Trying to find that community and not knowing the resources, because I was rushed out.”

Both have since found support through the Milwaukee VA, which Sims praises for its quality compared to facilities in other cities. Garza has also found community through UWM’s veteran services and a growing network of women veterans on campus.

When women veterans are out of uniform, Sims said, they’re often met with surprise, as if the version of them that shops, laughs, goes to movies, and gets dressed up is somehow unexpected.

“Just because we’re in a uniform and have to wear our hair a certain way, when we wake up in the morning and put on that uniform, that life is different,” she said. “But we’re women like everybody else.”