Houma native given U.S. Air Force commission

Most officer commencements are solemn affairs held on a military base away from the public spotlight.

But Houma native Therese Hirko got to share her big moment with family, friends and the rest of her hometown at the Patriot’s Parade and Fireworks Display on Saturday, Independence Day.

The daughter of Judge Morris and Yvonne Lottinger, Hirko was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force by another Houma native, Maj. Gen. Hunt Downer Jr., during the Fourth of July opening ceremony at Veterans Memorial Park.

For the 44-year-old mother of four and grandmother of seven, changing careers at midlife to become a nurse in the armed forces is her way of making a difference in the world and helping people.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for four years,” said Hirko, who graduated from the University of Mississippi graduate school with a Doctorate of Philosophy in Nursing on May 22. “It’s an unbelievable and unforgettable moment.”

Hirko said she chose to join the Air Force for two reasons. First, it allowed the quickest route to serve as a nurse. Second, it was the only branch of the military her family had never served in.

“A member of her family has been in every war from the American Revolution to Vietnam,” she said. “My great-great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side fought in the Revolution. My uncle Mike served in Vietnam.”

Hirko will spend the next five weeks in officer training school at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. From there, she still has 10 weeks of nurse’s training with the 56th Medical Group at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix.

Upon completion, she will be stationed at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas.

In the parade, Hirko shared a limousine ride with the area’s oldest living veteran, Cpl. Louis Ruffin, 92.

Hirko said the best part of the day’s festivities was receiving the outpouring of support from residents for her fellow active duty soliders and retired veterans.

“The whole day has been just unbeliveable,” she said, “but there’s many more important people here than me, like Mr. Ruffin who’s the oldest living veteran, Maj. Gen. Gary Whipple and Brig. Gen. Sam deGeneres (also Houma natives).”

Although she was born and raised in Houma, Hirko graduated high school from the all girls Academy of the Scared Heart in Grand Coteau in 1983.

“I wanted to go there,” she explained. “I felt I wasn’t being challenged in school here, and I wanted an academic challenge.”

She started college at Nicholls State University majoring in business, then moved to Florida to complete her degree.

She married Bob Hirko, a retired professor from the University of Florida in Gainesville. The couple have one child together, Michael, 18, and three from Bob’s previous marriage – Julie, 28; Erin, 38 and Jennifer, 41.

Therese Hirko spent the past 22 years as an accountant. However, it did not fulfill the “I’m going to save the world” idealism she had when she graduated from college.

The event that sparked her on her current path was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I can recount minute by minute that morning.” she insisted. “I came home that night and told my husband I wanted to go back to school to be a nurse and join the military. He said, ‘OK.’

“This country was founded by the blood, sweat and tears of the people beckoned here by a statue in a harbor that said, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,'” she added. “This country is a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. But freedom isn’t free. There comes a time in your life when you have to step up to the plate. You get a calling and you serve.”

As the Jackson, Miss., resident prepares for active duty service in the Air Force, Hirko does not see her decision as a special one, even at her age.

Instead it is the natural outcome for someone who wants to save lives and serve her country.

“I’m an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, trying to do extraordinary things,” she said.

Maj. Gen. Hunt Downer Jr. (left) swears in fellow Houma native Therese Hirko (fourth from left) as an Air Force second lieutenant while her parents, Yvonne and District Judge Morris Lottinger, look on. The ceremony took place during Saturday’s Independence Day ceremony at Houma’s Veterans Memorial Park. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF