She has been an officer and an educator, a 9/11 survivor, a policy-builder, a wife and a mother. She has watched aircrafts go down, and she has had to face the news of a colleague's death. She accepts the inherent risks of her job as the price of serving this country while doing what she loves most.
Professional beginnings
A geology major at the College and a three-season athlete, deGonzzaldi always loved the outdoors, but she was not always certain about pursuing a career in the military. It was her desire to fly that pushed her to apply to a highly competitive military flight program during her junior year. The program, however, only accepted five people a year, forcing deGonzzaldi to consider other options when she was not selected.
"I was looking at being a teacher, initially," deGonzzaldi said. Eventually, though, she was contacted by the military, which had expanded the flight training program. DeGonzzaldi spent one year in Pensacola, Fla., training for over 160 hours to become a helicopter pilot. As a fleet officer in the Navy, deGonzzaldi was then required to fulfill a five-year obligation of service to pay for her training.
Based in Norfolk, Va., she was posted on a ship off the horn of Africa for two six-month stretches. Though she enjoyed flying, deGonzzaldi still was not sure about a lifetime with the Navy. "I was probably going to get out after my five years," she said.
deGonzzaldi decided to think more seriously about her career path after she worked as an aid to a female admiral. She decided to attend the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., and secured an master's degree in aeronautical engineering. The degree resulted in another obligation of service. "Once I took on the post-graduate school, the decision was basically made," deGonzzaldi said.
Working in Washington
From 1997 to 1999, deGonzzaldi was stationed in Guam as the officer-in-charge, flying H-46 helicopters off aircraft carriers. "We would deploy off of supply ships or maintain ships that came to support battle groups," she said.
After almost 15 years with the military, deGonzzaldi knew that in order for her to screen for a commanding officer position, she would have to consider yet another change in career. "You have to do a competitive job someplace, preferably in D.C.," she said.
She selected the job at the Pentagon, working for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, for its competitiveness as well as its relatively stable hours. Working there for three years, deGonzzaldi coordinated the joint doctrine of all three service branches-army, navy and air force.
"Joint doctrine tells the services how they're going to fight together, so when they get into joint operations, everything's together," she said. "Hopefully, by the time you're in battle, there are no squabbles between services. It avoids a Vietnam-like situation where every service is out for itself."
Following the Vietnam War, Congress had mandated vast changes in the workings of the Department of Defense through the Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act of 1986. The act ensured that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs would develop protocol for the joint employment of the three service branches, thus leading to the creation of deGonzzaldi's Pentagon job as a consensus builder.
She worked with the different departments of the military, hammering out battle procedure and deployment, which can be a difficult and delicate job when each service has billions of dollars worth of budget and equipment. Negotiation and compromise were necessary to avoid problems.
deGonzzaldi had been working at the Pentagon for almost two years by Sept. 11, 2001. She was in the building when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. "I knew immediately we had been hit. It was scary; it felt so surreal," she said.
The Navy Command Center was part of the area destroyed, and deGonzzaldi personally knew several of those who died. "I knew our lives had changed. What will this mean? What will the future hold? Will I get called up?" deGonzzaldi said, recalling her thoughts on that day.
Ultimately, her work continued. Though life at the Pentagon had always been hectic, deGonzzaldi noted a change in tone. "It wasn't like our work wasn't important before. But it felt as if we now had meaning," she said.
Although her office with the Joint Chiefs of Staff suffered severe water damage, and much of the building was filled with smoke for weeks and construction was in progress for months after the attack, deGonzzaldi says that everyone persisted. "People just tried to continue, to show that it wouldn't slow us down."
Close calls
The terrorist attacks were not the only time of anxiety in deGonzzaldi's career. A job flying helicopters with the military guarantees numerous tense moments. "The closest call was when we [were] in Haiti [in 1994]," deGonzzaldi said. "I was flying search-and-rescue. We didn't know whether it was going to be peaceful or not until moments before. Fortunately, it turned out to be a peaceful rescue."
deGonzzaldi doesn't need to recall such dramatic moments to recall times of fear. Often the everyday business of flying can be extremely risky, and despite her years of experience, deGonzzaldi doubts that fear during an especially dangerous maneuver ever goes away.
"On overnight water flights, when you're low down to the water, there's no way you can't be nervous," she said. "It's an uncomfortable feeling ... You just have to trust your instruments. But when you're done, you feel like you've accomplished something."
Fear for fellow pilots is also a part of military life. "We had an aircraft that was lost," deGonzzaldi said. "I saw it go down right in front of me, saw it go down into the water. I knew people on it." Though the aircraft went down, the pilots escaped.
The outcome is not always so positive, a fact that causes deGonzzaldi's family to worry. "I'm a professional, and I'm very cautious, and this is just the way things are," she said. "My mother does worry a lot. My husband would like to always be out there with me."
Helping others to fly
Since leaving the Pentagon in 2002, deGonzzaldi has screened for command, and is now the executive officer of Helicopter Training Squadron 8 at NAS Whiting Field in Milton, Fla. She and her two sons, Douglas, seven, and James, 15 months, live just outside the base.
Now, deGonzzaldi teaches others to fly. It is the first time she has done actual flight training. "I can't say I don't get nervous," she said. "I'm flying with very, very new students. They don't have a lot of experience and you don't always know what they're going to do."
In 2001, deGonzzaldi married her second husband, Chris Knowlton '84. Knowlton lives in Connecticut, where he owns a lumber yard. The long-distance separation is something deGonzzaldi has learned to tolerate.
Though she admits that military life can be hard on families, she looks to the future for reassurance. "We have an end-state; we're not going to be separated forever," deGonzzaldi said. "He just comes down to visit us a lot … It's kind of fun."
She is confident in the services the military provides to ease the burden frequent moves and long separations can place on a family. Marriage counseling, family service centers and chaplains all help support service members.
"Chaplains in the military are really more than just religious people," deGonzzaldi said. "They're for someone who just needs an ear to talk."
Thoughts on the military
In light of current events, deGonzzaldi sees the military as an especially relevant faction of society. Although the military has become more active overseas, deGonzzaldi does not believe there has been an increase in anger toward the American military. "I've just seen that there's just general animosity towards Americans, nothing directed particularly towards the military," she said.
deGonzzaldi believes that she has learned about diversity simply by being in the military. "From all over the country, people come to the military-different socioeconomic backgrounds, races, cultures," she said.
The College played a part in her current career. She complimented her liberal arts education for helping her to think through different situations logically. "I left Amherst with a good sense of self. It gave me the foundation for what I'm doing today," she said.
deGonzzaldi acknowledged that there are not very many Amherst graduates who choose to go into the military, and that today's political climate has, to a certain extent, encouraged pessimism about the military's role in society.
"Some of the reason [students] might have negative input is because a lot of the professors or people in the power positions are from the Vietnam era, a time of distrust," deGonzzaldi said. "If you study history, you see that America needs diplomatic, economic and military power. I've never heard someone say that we don't need a powerful military. If people don't appreciate that, they're just misinformed."
deGonzzaldi noted that the army's current volunteer-only policy is far different from the use of the draft. The fact that political objectives control military initiatives also is a reason for the misdirected anger, she explained.
"We are run by civilians; we work for the politicians," deGonzzaldi said. "If people don't like our policies, they should look at who they're voting for."
deGonzzaldi said that the absence of a significant military direction at Amherst is the result of neither the school, the administrators nor the political climate. It is not even the lack of a military tradition. Rather, she believes that students must look closely at what they truly want to do. "If you are interested in flying or operating ships, you should look into [the military]. It's a very exciting job. I came from a nonmilitary family. I just wanted to fly."