Heroic Journeys: Cindy Lathrop-Oliva’s 21-Year Odyssey in the Air Force

Making a career out of the military is true for one Lake Havasu City resident.

U.S. Air Force veteran Cindy Lathrop-Oliva, 60, committed 21 years to the armed forces. Coming from a fortunate background presented her with many benefits, she explained. Her birthplace in Carlsbad, California allotted her parents a marina.

By joining the military, Lathrop-Oliva gained a new perspective on life. She enlisted at age 20 in 1983, after relocating to Havasu following her parents. This occurred after a delayed enlistment in 1982.

“It gave me goals. It gave me a career. It made me an adult,” she said. “The military showed me that I had to stand up for my own to be a person.”

Intentions of becoming a photographer were thwarted after tests in Phoenix. Lathrop-Oliva remembered photographers needed 20/20 uncorrected vision.

This hindrance caused the young recruit to become a mailman. Lathrop-Oliva then traveled to Blytheville, Arkansas following her basic training. Her next duty station became Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, she added.

“I got another (Air Force Specialty Code) where I ran the orderly room, all the personnel stuff. Typed up discharges,” she said. “While I was in the orderly room, that’s when computers started to come around.”

Original requests to travel overseas were eventually heard. Traveling to Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi gave Lathrop-Oliva a slight advantage. She recalled later receiving orders for Kunsan Air Base in South Korea.

At the time, she worked in the general’s office of her base. Her previous employment placed Lathrop-Oliva at the forefront of technological advances. She remembered first working on the Z-100 computer, transitioning to operating a computer shop in Mississippi.

“I went from a mailman to personnel to running a computer shop and watching as computers came on board in the Air Force,” she continued.

Accepting her overseas orders led Lathrop-Oliva to South Korea. In her year there, she embarked throughout the area alongside Korean colleagues.

“I loved it. We did exercise after exercise,” she said. “I hooked up with these people that we went all over Korea. We just went everywhere.”

Returning to the States, Lathrop-Oliva continued at her shop before entering into retirement.

By 2003, she was discharged as a master sergeant. She returned to Havasu after her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Time was spent working with her brother’s pool company during her father’s diagnosis.

“My career was just the best. In California, I didn’t have a drive. The military gave me the drive,” she said. “People say, ‘Thank you for your service,’ and I say, ‘No, thank you for letting me serve.”

In working at the general’s office, Lathrop-Oliva said she often received military recognition.

The support she received while serving remains with her today. She described her fellow airmen as being another family.

“Everybody supported each other. Anytime I had a problem, I had a herd of people right there,” she commented. “That’s why I think everybody should do two years. You learn that to have friends you have to be a friend.”