Portland State Magazine Spring 2017

SPRING 2017 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 17 I AM NOT INVISIBLE Penny Aktepy, Army veteran, and Sarah Aktepy, Navy veteran, PSU doctoral student in sociology M ARIA CAROLI NA GONZÁLEZ-PRATS was two days away from finishing the final phase of Army officer training when, on Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. “There was a sudden realization that we would be going to war,” she says. González-Prats deployed to Iraq 18 months later, where she led a platoon that provided mission critical supplies and logistical support to the 3rd Infantry Division. Supply units were frequent targets, and although hers never came under fire, “being responsible for the lives of 35 soldiers, many of them parents with small children, weighed heavily on me.” Women military veterans get their due in a new photo exhibit.