| AUSTIN, Texas— Today, Texas Land Commissioner and Veterans Land Board (VLB) Chairwoman Dawn Buckingham, M.D., is proud to introduce the next installment of the series highlighting the VLB’s Voices of Veterans oral history program. This week, we highlight the service of Jonathan Hernandez who served in United States Air Force as a Combat Journalist. Born in Visalia, California, Hernandez said he was “the only one in his immediate family to serve in the military,” entering to serve when he was 19 years old in 2007. When asked why he chose to go into the military, he said it’s because he had this idea he wanted “to get out and see the world and the military seemed like a great path for that” while also wanting to go to college without accumulating debt. Enlisting in March 2007, Hernandez said “The Air Force was always a front runner for me but I did considered the Navy for a decent bit because of that ability to travel and go into port and see different things.” He said he decided on the Air Force after talking to the recruiter about career opportunities. “The career opportunities available in the Air Force, it was very much a dedicated career path […] that stood out to me and not every service branch is that way,” he explained. “But with the Air Force, they’re really strict on, okay, here’s what you’re doing, and that’s how they want you to grow throughout. That appealed to me a lot because I knew I could really hone a skillset.” 
Click the image to watch the interview of Combat Journalist Jonathan Hernandez Hernandez said he originally wanted to work in radio as a disc jockey (DJ). He got the opportunity to do that for a few years in Tokyo, then saw the Air Force had a “career field that was journalism radio and also public affairs.” So, he applied, thinking the radio route as a journalist would be fun. “After I got into that career path, I discovered how much I liked the journalism part because that was really important, the capturing history part of it, at that moment,” he said about becoming immersed in being a radio journalist. “Even though I had a blast getting to do radio, it was the journalism that really stuck with me.” He attended boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and called his first day a “shock factor” because reality eventually hits. “I am going to do this, versus now I’m actually doing it. There was definitely a lot of nerves,” Hernandez explained. “It’s hard to try to remember a specific detail just because your body’s kind of in that state of shock as you’re going through it.” Hernandez said that when he finally passed basic training, it felt like his own “Super Bowl” before he was sent where “all military journalists go” to Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland. He described it as one of his best experiences. “It’s one of the coolest military schools, I think, because it gave me exposure at that moment to a lot of what my career ended up being, and that was working with other services and working with different career fields,” he explained. “Now it’s not just me in the Air Force with my training squadron, it’s me with my classmates from all these different services.” After working as a “one man band” telling stories, Hernandez was ready for his next duty assignment, but his hopes of being sent overseas were dashed when he learned he’d be headed to Grand Forks, North Dakota to work in a public affairs shop. There he helped with various projects, including getting up close with his camera on some exciting stories of Airmen in action as they refueled planes. “You’re over the highest sky floor you’ve ever seen in your life, and their refueling these planes,” Hernandez explained. “So, there were some cool stories.” After a year in Grand Forks, Hernandez would get his chance to go overseas to Japan where he went “full-time journalist” for the first time in his military career. While he covered various stories and learned how to “develop leads,” he was sent to Afghanistan. He said the deployment didn’t come as a surprise, in fact, he was preparing for it during his time in Japan. “I joined in the peak of the Global War on Terror […] so I knew that it was always going to be something that I would likely do,” he said. To listen to Jonathan Hernandez tell his story, click the button below: RELATED: Voices of Veterans: Commissioner Buckingham Announces VLB Voices of Veterans Program’s Partnership with the Texas Oral History Locator Database at Baylor University RELATED: Voices of Veterans: Texas Land Commissioner Buckingham Issues Statewide CALL OUT for Veterans to Participate in the Voices of Veterans Oral History Program Veterans can email VoicesofVeterans@glo.texas.gov to tell their stories. Please note that the Veteran must be a resident of Texas at the time of their interview. Voices of Veterans is a state agency’s first Veteran oral history program. It records the stories of Texas Veterans through their time in service and after returning home from combat. The VLB records interviews with Veterans over the phone or in person. Their interviews are then permanently archived in the Office of Veterans Records at the GLO, where they join the historical documents of other Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis. Veterans’ interviews are also available to researchers, historians, genealogists, and the public. These precious records inspire future generations and remind us of our Veterans’ sacrifices. To listen to the over 500 archived stories of Veterans documented through the GLO’s Voices of Veterans oral history program, click the button below: Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D., brings a lifetime of experience to the Texas General Land Office (GLO). In 2016, she became the first Republican elected to the Texas State Senate from Travis County and the first woman to represent Texas Senate District 24. She made history again in 2022, winning a statewide election to become our state’s first female Land Commissioner. |
