(SAN LUIS VALLEY, Colo.) — Every week a group of veterans meet at the San Luis Valley Museum to have a cup of coffee and conversations with each other. Together the group is able to relive stories of serving our country and reflect on now living in the valley.
“I grew up in the valley. I have a different story,” Veteran Jeffery Knight said. “I joined the military when I was 30 years old. Best thing I ever did and I appreciate the coffee every morning and visiting with my friends who have a lot of interesting stories.”
Each of the veterans made up one of the different branches including Guadalupe Cruz who worked in the Air Force.
“I joined the Air Force and I was given the opportunity to be at different places,” Cruz said. “I got lucky toward the end. I got stationed here at the Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy. Almost my whole 20 years I spent being an air traffic controller because of my bilingual capability.”
The group of veterans are able to enjoy coffee and breakfast while sharing stories with each other.
Cruz found himself returning down to the valley for vacation and at one point had the idea to move here.
“We come back to spend some vacation every year here we come [back] again,” Cruz said. “Finally we just said, wait a minute, why are we coming back? Why don’t we come back here and purchase some property.”
This is exactly what Cruz did. He bought a property and said he couldn’t be happier to be living in the valley.
“Of course, the tranquility where I live, there’s no ambulance, there’s no honking,” Cruz said. “There’s peace and quiet, I love it.”
The support group for veterans was created by the San Luis Valley Museum founders, Dorthy and John Brandt, who were both military veterans. Thanks to them this group is able to meet once a week and lean on each other for support.
A photo of Dorthy and John Brandt the founders of the San Luis Valley Museum was on display.
Bill Brown is another veteran in the group who shared how his family first settled in the valley.
“I’m a valley native,” Brown said. “My roots go fairly deep in this valley. My father came to Alamosa in 1926 and they came over in covered wagons over La Vita pass. My mother’s father came here on the train ten years after he got here in 1888.”
Brown recalled a memory of growing up in the valley during freezing temperatures.
“I was born the year after the coldest recording of weather in the San Luis Valley, 1948,” Brown said. “It was 50 below zero here and they don’t know actually how cold it got, because that’s where the thermometer stopped.”
Photo of downtown Alamosa on display at the San Luis Valley Museum.
With each individual in the group having a military background, they are able to bond in swapping stories of protecting our country. Craig Rauwolf said he works his whole schedule around these meetings to make sure he will be in attendance.
“I’ve been out about a decade now, but when I got out, the thing that I missed the most was just that camaraderie that people to talk to about similar things,” Rauwolf said. “You can’t…have those conversations with civilians because they don’t understand them.”
Brown similarly referenced the comradery the group has with each of them stationed and serving in different branches of the military.
“So for us to be able to sit down here and give each other a hard time because of what service we were in and all of that, which we did continuously while you were in [service], you know, you miss it,” said Brown.
Each of these individuals connected thanks to not only the valley but to their call to service.
“So there’s a saying in the military, at least in the Army, I don’t know about the other services,” Jay Branscome said. “We wrote Uncle Sam a blank check and so now we get to sit around and talk to each other about what check we wrote and what we cashed in.”
