Retired general talks at Swan River School of how hard work and commitment pay off

Colleen McGuire doesn’t fit the vision that comes to most people’s minds when they hear the word veteran. 

Retired Army Brigadier General Colleen L. McGuire stood in the gymnasium at Swan River School Tuesday, while poppies made out of paper covered in thank-yous written by students were displayed behind her. She was well-dressed for the occasion in a nice suit, with only a small Army pin on her lapel denoting the military branch she built a career serving.

When people think of Veterans Day, they may think of grandfathers, uncles and men who served in wars that are long over, like Vietnam or World War II.

But McGuire thinks for children, like the ones she addressed at Swan River School’s first Veterans Day assembly, their image of a veteran will be different. “It’s going to be younger, it’s going to be more women,” she said. It will be people who come back with injuries both visible, and less obvious. The new population of veterans will be a group who chose to serve, not those who were drafted. There are over 100,000 veterans in Montana, she said.

McGuire served 32 years in the U.S. Army, mostly in law enforcement and was the first women to hold several high-ranking positions in the Army. She served as Provost Marshal General the Army’s top law-enforcement position, commanded the felony investigative organization, Criminal Investigations Command and commanded the Department of Defense maximum security prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. She held every possible law enforcement position in the army and served at the Pentagon.

Her service took her all over the world, and now that she has retired, she’s returned home to Montana.

“I’ve come back home. I’ve lived all over the world and Montana’s the best,” she said.

McGuire was born in Texas, during her father’s military service but spent most of her childhood growing up in Missoula. When she graduated from Sentinel High School she joined the Army Reserves as a way to pay for college. While she was attending the University of Montana to study broadcast journalism she decided to join ROTC and commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the Army when she graduated in 1979. At the time, she did not plan to have a career in the military.

The Army sent her to Military Police training and then stationed her in Germany for three years. 

“Germany was great because it was just such an adventure,” she said.

She went to Berlin with a friend to see the Berlin Wall, which hadn’t come down yet. They had to wear their uniforms and as they walked around in the streets, people would keep their distance. The streets were bare, she recalled, and there were hardly any cars.

Almost 20 years later McGuire visited Berlin again and found it a changed city. “I did not recognize it,” she said.

After her first job in Germany she was stationed in the United States, she had thought about getting out, but then gave birth to her daughter Maggie Goff, who is Swan River School’s librarian. 

“I wanted to be a journalist but I ended up being a police officer,” she said. “I found that I really liked the military so I decided to stay in. I really like the discipline and the purpose of the military. It was a good career.”

The Army took her and her family all over the world. She told the students that Goff attended six different elementary schools and four different high schools; the last one in Brazil while McGuire was in Iraq.

When asked what she felt her greatest achievement is, McGuire said raising her daughter in that environment. Her military achievement’s speak for themselves, she said.

She blazed to the top as a women, and said she didn’t feel affected by any gender bias that there may have been.

“When you’re in the thick of it, sometimes your oblivious to it,” she said. “I believe that if you work hard, you’re recognized for your work. Hard work and leadership carries the day more than gender bias.”

McGuire said one of the biggest things she took away from her time in the Army is an appreciation for the United States.

“Sometimes when you first join the military it is for personal or selfish reasons,” she said. “But the longer you serve in the military you have a greater appreciation of the patriotic aspects. We’re upholding and protecting the constitution of the United States, you realize that we really are a very powerful nation. When you’re living in the U. S. sometimes you take it for granted. We forget that it comes at a cost, and we constantly need to remind the population that it came at a cost.”

McGuire has been retired for two years, and after all her service, Veterans day is a special holiday for her. 

“It really truly is a day of remembrance for me,” she said. “And a day of appreciation for those who continue to serve.”

And though she has hung up her uniform, McGuire isn’t done serving yet. She was appointed by the Department of Defense Secretary to work on a congressionally mandated panel looking into sexual assault in the military, which completed in August. Shortly after she finished that, she was asked to sit on another panel representing the nations fraternities, looking at the same subject. 

“We don’t hang up our uniforms when we retire, we just find another way to serve,” she said. “When you get into a work ethic of service I think you want to continue to serve in some capacity.”