The Courage to Serve: How Leanne Babcock Heals Through Veteran Farming -62
Ready to meet an unstoppable force in the world of military women? This episode of Dog Tag Diaries introduces you to Leanne Babcock—call sign Bobcat—a pioneer who went from a functionally homeless childhood to becoming the first woman vehicle mechanic in her Guard unit, an officer, and now a champion for veterans. Hear how she navigated blatant discrimination in the maintenance sector, balanced civilian life with military service, and carved out her place as a citizen airwoman. Leanne also shares the inspiring story behind Dauntless Wine Company and how her nonprofit helps service members heal through farming. This episode is packed with resilience, finding purpose after 9/11, and the power of community. Curious about what it takes to break barriers and redefine service? Hit play—this story will stick with you.
Leanne "Bobcat" Babcock
Growing up functionally houseless, Leanne joined the Air Force after 9/11 and has spent over 22 years and counting serving as a citizen airwoman. A trailblazer as the first and only woman vehicle mechanic in her Guard unit, she later commissioned as an officer while navigating the unique challenges of balancing civilian and military life. Currently she’s serving as the founding volunteer Executive Director of Dauntless Veteran Foundation, Leanne advocates for service members through transition and healing, serving as Oregon's Employer Outreach Director for the Guard and Reserve.
Connect with Leanne:
LinkedIn- Leanne M. B.
Resources:
Dauntless Website- www.dauntlessvf.org Agriculture Grant Program DVF newsletter
Women Veterans Giving: Melissa Washington Small Business Award
Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR)
Kim Liszka served in the United States Army/Reserves as a Combat Medic, Combat Nurse, Flight Nurse Instructor and one of the Top Female athletes in the Army. Kim worked 20+ years as an ER nurse and decided to explore the world as a travel nurse. She's an Advanced Wilderness Expedition Provider and Chief Medical Officer for numerous endurance/survival expeditions in different countries. Kim has a son, Jace and a daughter in law, Sammy and 2 grand animals, Joey & Bear. Her dog Camo is her best buddy. Camo is the sweetest yellow Labrador Retriever to walk this earth. He loves licking snow, riding the ocean waves, visiting carnivore food trucks and loves belly rubs and treats. Fun Facts: Kim's lived in the Reality TV World! Fear Factor, American Ninja Warrior-Military Edition, American Tarzan, Spartan Namibia and more to come!
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Dog Tag Diaries wherever you listen to podcasts.
Learn more about Reveille and Retreat Project:
Instagram: @reveilleandretreatproject
Facebook: Reveille and Retreat Project
You aren’t alone.
If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or having thoughts of suicide contact the
Veteran crisis line: Dial 988 then press 1, chat online, or text 838255.
Transcript
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Kim [:She grew up functionally homeless, found purpose after 9 11, and spent the next 22 years and counting navigating life with one boot in the military and one boot in the civilian world. Meet Leanne, call sign Bobcat, the first woman vehicle mechanic in her Guard units, an officer, a mentor, and now a veteran advocate. From fighting stereotypes in the motor pool to founding a nonprofit that helps service members heal through farming, her story is one of grit, resilience and redefining service. This week on Dog Tag Diaries, discover what it truly means to be a citizen air woman and why leann believes the military was the best decision she ever made. We made it Season 6 of Dog Tag Diaries where every military woman deserves a platform to take, tell her story and have it be heard. I'm your host, Captain Kim, and this community has already racked up over 4,500 downloads. So let's smash 5K together, share these episodes and help us make season six our biggest yet. This week on Dog Tag Diaries, we're honored to sit down with Leanne Babcock, call sign Bobcat, a trailblazer who spent 22 years in uniform across the Air Force Guard and Reserve.
Kim [:From being the only woman vehicle mechanic in the Oregon and California Air National Guard to commissioning as an officer, to navigating the wild balance of civilian and military life, leann's story is one of grit, resilience and purpose. She opens up about her childhood, her drive to serve after 9 11, and the realities of being a woman in the maintenance sector and the challenges of blatant discrimination. Most of all, she shares how serving with one boot in the military and one boot in the civilian world shaped her perspective on identity, community and belonging. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to live as a citizen airwoman or how to carve your own path in the military while staying true to yourself, this episode is for you, Bobcat, because that is your call sign. How are you? Thank you for being on Dog Tag Diaries.
Leanne Babcock [:Doing great. Thank you for having me.
Kim [:Yeah, I want to say thank you especially since I know you're on vacation, you're on a cruise. Where are you?
Leanne Babcock [:Outside of the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska.
Kim [:Oh my gosh, how beautiful.
Leanne Babcock [:And it's amazing.
Kim [:Have you ever been to Alaska?
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah, my first trip was in April of 2023, so not that long ago. And I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I'd always wanted to get to Alaska, had friends from there, but my trip was work related. When I was at NORAD, NORTHCOM at the J4, I was accompanying my general when she was doing her immersion trip up there. So we got to see some really cool stuff.
Kim [:And now you're on downtime. Yeah.
Leanne Babcock [:And this is how I relax.
Kim [:So what fun things have you been doing on the cruise?
Leanne Babcock [:Getting a chance to experience a little bit more of the southeastern Alaska first nations culture, which is a huge part of what makes Alaska and the Pacific Northwest at large really special. And, like, getting on a ship is not really interesting to me any more than two days at sea, and I start getting a little antsy because I can't get.
Kim [:But aren't those cruise ships these days? Like, I haven't been on a cruise since, like, I was 11, I think. But aren't they. Don't they give you so many things to do?
Leanne Babcock [:Yes. Today is full of activities.
Kim [:Okay, you have such an interesting story. And so let's go back and start when you were a little girl, what you were like, your personality, where you grew up.
Leanne Babcock [:So I did grow up in the town I live in now, Hillsboro, Oregon. So west of Portland in the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley, the county seat. So pretty much a. A larger suburb within an agricultural belt. And I'll say that I did grow up there because even though we had bopped around different locations, I had always stayed in the same school, no matter where we were. We're not living, you know, permanently at the time. So I had stability in unstable situation for housing. But I was very shy.
Leanne Babcock [:I read a lot. I spent more time with animals than people. A lot of that hasn't changed. So for me to recharge, I can just. I had a wild imagination as a kid, and I made friends very easily, regardless of the fact that I was shy. But growing up as an only child, I had. I had a lot of opportunity for that imagination to grow. And I always dreamed of what it would look like other places.
Kim [:Ooh, do you want to let us in on one of those dreams that you had that what it would look.
Leanne Babcock [:Like when you read. Right. There's is some people can just really paint that imagination and what that landscape looks like. And between reading some of my favorite books as a kid, like Anne of Green Gables, I'd always wanted to go to Canada. What's Prince Edward island look like? And I look at a map at the school. And back in elementary schools, when they still had world books and no computers. Like an actual globe.
Kim [:Yes, yes, great.
Leanne Babcock [:I'm speaking to my elder millennial crowd here. Had a phone, but you picked it off a wall with a Cord, all of that. But I had a real thirst for exploring the world and seeing what was out there and just didn't know how to get there. My grandpa had a huge library and he had traveled pretty extensively as well, and so had my grandmother, but nobody had ever left and then stayed away except for a couple family members that had gone off for work, for travel, and so I always live vicariously through them.
Kim [:Ooh, and did you ever make it to Prince Edward's Island?
Leanne Babcock [:Not yet.
Kim [:Oh, okay.
Leanne Babcock [:Maybe.
Kim [:Yeah, maybe we could do a girl trip.
Leanne Babcock [:That would be fun. I have a Canadian friend that's from Newfoundland and I figured, well, if I'd already be on the Eastern seaboard of Canada, it'd be very close.
Kim [:Yeah, we might as well, right?
Leanne Babcock [:Yes.
Kim [:So you have had an amazing. A long military career in a bunch of different branches. Where did you start and what drove you to doing that?
Leanne Babcock [:I started out in the Air National Guard in Oregon back in the early 2000s. There was a BRAC movement, so base Realignment Enclosure was happening. And so that usually hits every four years, every new term, whoever's in office. But a lot of the Guard and Reserve installations are at the mercy of what happens with the funding piece, from both the local economy's perspective, your local politicians, government, how that all plays into it. And in Oregon, we just have very, very small Guard footprint and at the time, an even smaller reserve, and now we just barely have a reserve footprint. So the options for me to go into the military seemed pretty low because I had wanted to be able to serve at home so that I could finish my way through school. I hadn't figured out how to make that happen, but I wanted the opportunity to at least do something that I couldn't do anywhere else. And going in the military seemed to be the best option for me to have everything.
Leanne Babcock [:I know that seems weird, especially with disability factor, but after I enlisted, I realized the best path for me to obtain a college education and to go off and be active duty was to commission as an officer, which you did.
Kim [:So congratulations on that. So how many years did you do, enlisted, and what was your job?
Leanne Babcock [:I was enlisted for exactly five years. I enlisted on 8 May in 2003, and then I separated from my enlistment 8 May 2008 and commissioned 31 days later. That was the minimum required time for the simultaneous member program that I had to stay contracted as an ROTC cadet. So during that 31 days, don't hurt yourself, don't go to the dentist, you have nothing. You're in this weird limbo period. But I knew that it had a great adventure at the end of it, so it was worth it. I enlisted into a combat communications squadron in Portland and at the time they didn't even have women's bathrooms in the maintenance bay really. And I remember my recruiter had taken my asthma vab and I'm not great at standardized testings thanks to Scalculia, but I was always pretty good with taking things apart and putting them back together.
Leanne Babcock [:I played with erector sets as a kid. I tinkered around with my grandpa in his shop. I just liked building things or trying to rebuild them. So I scored pretty high. And they're like, why do you want to be a mechanic? I was like, well I could never be a mechanic in the civilian world. I thought I could never be a mechanic. And I was like, well, if I'm going to do something in the military, it's going to be something I would potentially never do in the civilian world because maybe the training wasn't accessible or something. So I enlisted as a general purpose mechanic at the time and then went through my school after basic training and I was the last general purpose class that went through at Port Hueneme with the CBs in Central California.
Leanne Babcock [:So it's a four month long school. And while I was there, not only did I find out they had bracked my unit in Portland and I was going to need to find another place to go soon, before the end of the fiscal year. Still had no idea what that totally meant, but it's. I had six months to find somewhere else to go and that they were scrapping my career field and merging it. So I was going to have to learn how to work on fire trucks, refuelers, everything. And this was all happening while I was at my four month school in California. So when I came back in April of 2000 in four I had had a choice to go somewhere. Up to JBLM, to one of the guard units in McChord or to this really obscure geographically separated unit in San Diego.
Leanne Babcock [:And I was like sold. Never been there, but let's see what happens.
Kim [:So San Diego, it was okay. Totally different than Hillsborough in the Pacific Northwest.
Leanne Babcock [:Yes. And at that time the only places I had ever traveled on a plane were initially when I was 12 years old, flew from Portland to Denver when Stapleton was still an airport. I had a Casa Bonita experience, so I feel very fortunate to have had the original. And then Japan was my next flight after that, so just a little bit longer.
Kim [:A lot a bit longer.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah, a lot bit longer. So for an immersion trip that I had an opportunity to go for school. So the idea of moving down to San Diego was less scary because it still was close. Still the same time zone had some friends that lived in the LA area. The friend that I'm in the cruise with, she was going to school down in Southern California. So at least there was one person I knew. But it was the best choice.
Kim [:I was just going to ask about your decision going up to Fort Lewis or Washington State or going to San Diego. You think that was a better option for. For you?
Leanne Babcock [:When I looked at the weather, I felt like it was a better option.
Kim [:Yes. Seasonal Affective Disorder is real.
Leanne Babcock [:It is real. Well, and then looking at how the proximity of having a unit I was drilling out of, be close to the school that I was trying to go to that had an ROTC program on campus was huge because in Oregon I would have had to travel an hour one way just to do rotc, and then I would have had to still go to Portland to drill out of there. So this was an overall better logistics choice from my perspective at 21 years old.
Kim [:And if it's raining, you're still training. So I don't like to train in the rain and be all wet and disgusting.
Leanne Babcock [:Yes.
Kim [:But I get it because I was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, and I was like, what is going on here? No, I don't want this. I want the sunshine in San Diego.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. So if you're calculating, I spent more time, my 5 years enlisted surrounded by the Navy and the Marine Corps than I did the Air Force.
Kim [:Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about that. You were stationed at what base?
Leanne Babcock [:So the base in San Diego is a geographically separated unit. It's a 24 acre combat communications squadron that was in the center of what they call the golden triangle, the 163, the 15 and the 52. Right next to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
Kim [:Is that where the recruits go?
Leanne Babcock [:They go to MCRD. So right next to the airport, right?
Kim [:Oh, okay.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar used to be where Top Gun was when the first movie was filmed. So that road that Tom Cruise is driving down where he's like, I'm going to Myanmar. Yeah. You would see people doing that on their motorcycles. Yeah. So my closest base to do anything was the Marine Corps Station.
Kim [:Okay. Did you have a motorcycle at the time and do that?
Leanne Babcock [:No. No. In fact, we talked about this last night at dinner. Driving in Southern California was pretty Terrifying for me because Oregon was 55 miles an hour. You would rarely get a 65. You don't drive 80 in San Diego. You're getting ran over. Plus the motorcycles will split in between you.
Leanne Babcock [:It was a very different world for me, coming from a more rural area. Yeah.
Kim [:Okay, so you went to college down there as well, and where did you go?
Leanne Babcock [:So I went to San Diego State University, which was not easy to get into. And when I transferred from Oregon down to California, I had gotten into the community college system in San Diego, and they looked at all my credits from quarter system, and they're on a semester. There's no transfer agreement. And they're like, yeah, you're gonna have to pick a major now. Because in order to get into school there through the California State University system, you have to pick a major that's impacted. So you can transfer into that. You can change it once you get there, but the only way you're going to get in is by choosing a major now. So I picked what I thought was the easiest way to get in, and that was linguistics.
Leanne Babcock [:So, yeah, it kind of was. But what was interesting for me is at the time, military identification cards still had the word guard or reserve or active duty on them. Right. So I was in the California Air National Guard. I had to reenlist in the state of California when I transferred there. And they were charging me out of state tuition because I was an Oregon resident. And I was like, I'm in the California Guard. And that when the community college district, I ended up having to fight it through their veterans office.
Leanne Babcock [:And this is also early 2004, 2005, and they didn't think I was a real veteran. And I didn't really think I was either. At the time. I didn't understand completely what that legal definition was. I very much understand that now. But I thought that it would be easier to get into the school if I just picked the easiest major to transfer into. And I did that. But I had to go to every single San Diego community college, one in San Marcos, up by Camp Pendleton.
Leanne Babcock [:I did a couple online courses through national just to be able to transfer in in the spring, because otherwise if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to complete rotc since you have to do two years as a undergraduate and then two years in the professional officer course. So I was going to miss my fiscal year commissioning target if I did not transfer and transfer quickly. And this was all during when Katrina hit that fall, and we were getting on standby for mobilization every Time there was a fire in Southern California. My unit was getting activated. So it was a series of challenges of, okay, so you still have to go to school. You have to pass. I got into San Diego State on probation, so that's a great start. In the spring of 2006 and nearly failed out of my first term in school because linguistics is hard, and transferred into child development.
Kim [:They say, always do the arts degree, I think.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. And that was the key, and I really enjoyed it. And I loved the families that I was. I nannied for when I was down in San Diego. And it just felt like a good fit. So I'm happy that I had the opportunity to do summer school and transfer.
Kim [:Yeah. So you finished school there?
Leanne Babcock [:Barely. Yeah, but I finished, yeah.
Kim [:Got commissioned. And did you stay there then?
Leanne Babcock [:I had a strange experience between commissioning and when I was supposed to go on my entry to active duty, my active duty ead, because in the system, they saw me as a senior airman in some portals and as an E5, so a staff sergeant and others. Because I was contracted incorrectly, I should have been contracted at the rank that I held. So if something happened in those 31 days, then I wouldn't have commissioned. And as a result of that, they kept pushing my EAD farther and farther out. And then when I did PCs in September, finally it was on Labor Day weekend, and they canceled my PCs as I was standing in the Denver airport waiting to get a rental car to drive down to call.
Kim [:Okay. This really is about grit and resilience because you had a lot of setbacks, a lot of confusion, a lot of instability, and you kept persevering.
Leanne Babcock [:Yep. And no. And, you know, no paycheck during this time frame. Right. Because if you're not on status, you're not getting paid. And the concern was is that if it goes any more past the fiscal year, that now what's going to happen? Where do I live? I was living in California, nannying for the summer, and I was supposed to have been gone by the beginning of July. Then it was middle of August, then it was the beginning of September. Great.
Leanne Babcock [:Then I sat in Colorado Springs, two miles from Peterson, and couldn't get them to put me on status before they sent me down to Alabama for another training at the end of October. So I sat there for nearly two and a half months with no job. So I started a master's degree. It's like, I'm bored. I need to do something. I've never not been doing something. So my first and my entry onto active Duty was rot with what I felt like enlisted, Jesus punishing me for commissioning.
Leanne Babcock [:So.
Kim [:I get it. I was enlisted as well. Going into the officer side, I thought it was like, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I was like, oh, am I supposed to be. I don't know. I don't think I should be going on the officer side. It just doesn't feel right.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. That was like a sharp indicator, but it was still. It worked itself out.
Kim [:Yeah. So you go to Alabama for training.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. They had a lieutenant course that they sent everybody through and they couldn't figure out how to pay me because I was still messed up in the system somewhere. Right. And because my PCs had been canceled. And then they had this new EAD. So by the time January of 2009 rolled around and they were getting ready to send me down to Texas for my logistics officer course, I finally got a back paycheck.
Kim [:That must have been nice.
Leanne Babcock [:It was nice, but I was terrified because the government's, you know, they'll take it back. Right.
Kim [:I'm shocked you didn't go on the run.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah.
Kim [:So I wouldn't blame you.
Leanne Babcock [:It took a while to get everything straightened out. You know, going from garden listed to active officer. There's just a lot of numbers that are involved with that. They had to figure out time and service from what I had and adjudicating that. And it probably took a good, like, year and a half for that to even out. So, you know, I was like, I'm going to be active for 20 years, so I guess that's a drop in the bucket.
Kim [:Yeah. Well, before we go into your officer stuff, I want to talk about the enlisted part. You were the only woman in your maintenance sector. What was that like for you?
Leanne Babcock [:I think I was probably one of the more fortunate women to be working in either, you know, ground maintenance. So it's like all of the aerospace ground equipment and then fire trucks, refuelers. I didn't know a lot about what it looked like on the flight line because I was in units that didn't have aircraft, but I had the best supervisors. They were amazing, and I am grateful every day for them and still have contact with them now. They helped shape me both as a mechanic and then teaching me what it was like to be enlisted, helping me through my upgrade training. And they said, regardless of the fact that you're going to end up commissioning here, something may happen and you may not. And so I always had that in the back of my mind that, okay, it doesn't matter what I'm doing here if I don't put the effort into it. And I was on orders every summer or always going on annual training, and so.
Leanne Babcock [:But I really just enjoyed it. And if they were a bunch of jerks, it probably would have been a different experience for me. But I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was in a guard unit. We're very much like a family. I did interview because they were receiving people from different units because of the bracs happening across the western states within the guards. So they did ask for me to come, and I had the best mentorship there. And through my first. They always say, grab a senior NCO when you're a young lieutenant.
Leanne Babcock [:Well, I latched onto those guys until I started being able to branch out and find senior non commissioned officers at my active duty unit that I felt comfortable working with.
Kim [:Leanne, I'm so happy to hear that you had such a amazing experience as an enlisted soldier and being the only woman in that sector because you heard the stories.
Leanne Babcock [:Well, I had a couple of those stories when I would not be at the unit, and that's what gave me a perspective that kind of shaped me when I did commission on what I needed to watch out for for my enlisted airmen. So the times where I saw the what happens TDY stays TDY phrase come into play, that was shocking. And then when I did deploy, deployed 45 days in between my junior and senior year of college, and then I deployed during the Christmas break. So I deployed twice as an E4 and an E5 within a year of me commissioning. And nobody found that out until much later in the second deployment. But the guys on those deployments, the male mechanics, some of them were less than welcoming to me.
Kim [:You describe it as blatant discrimination.
Leanne Babcock [:Absolutely.
Kim [:What were some of the things? Can you give us some examples?
Leanne Babcock [:Pretty typical things that you would hear, especially during that surge time frame, where they would say, well, if you're an E4 in the Guard, you must be just like an airman basic on active duty. Meaning, like, I had no background. I didn't know what I was doing. They couldn't leave me alone. Like, dispatch wouldn't give me certain vehicles. So instead they just stuck me out on the flight line with the fire trucks. I was like, cool. I'd rather be out here anyway.
Leanne Babcock [:I don't want to be. I don't want to sort your work orders. I don't want to do any of this crap. I came here to get dirty and work. So I had a great time doing that. And just a couple of them would be, they just mess with me. And it finally got to one point where we're just sitting and having a. Like a break in the lounge or something in the maintenance bay.
Leanne Babcock [:And it's July, it's hot, everybody's in a bad mood. We're all over tired, there's shit getting blown up across the border, and they're bringing all this crap over here for us to fix. You know, it's less than ideal. And so it just made me wonder, and I had asked a few of them, was like, did you not get to pick your job? Do you just not like your job? Is that why you're just so unhappy and you feel the need to share that with everybody else? Because I don't understand how that improves your situation.
Kim [:Yeah, that doesn't help morale. Being around that type of energy does not help morale in those types of situations. No.
Leanne Babcock [:And it was at the end of that tour in Kuwait. I was getting ready to start my senior year of college in ROTC at that juncture. And I remember getting my. I had been given my assignment. I was going to be a Logistics Readiness officer in LRO, and that was my number one pick. And I told the ROTC detachment cadre, I was like, if I don't get this job, I'm going to stay in the guard it. To me at that point, it was more important to do a job that I knew I would enjoy or like than just to have the opportunity be in a uniform. I had had so much freedom of choice at that point that I thought, okay, I'll know it will be a good LRO.
Leanne Babcock [:I know I'm a good logistician. And maintenance was just one of seven of those career fields that made that up. So the chief from my guard wing, he was our lead mechanic for the entire guard wing, was in Kuwait with me on that first deployment. And I just asked him, I was like, just please let me handle at my level, and if I need help, I'll let you know. And at the very end of it, he had given me my award. And this was in front of the whole shop. And he says, everybody can congratulate Airman Babcock that she's been selected to be a Logistics Readiness Officer when she commissions next May. And then the guys that have been dorking around with me kind of looked and they're like, you may have to call her Lieutenant depending on where she gets stationed next year.
Kim [:I love that you had that male soldier with you. Wait, tell me he Was a senior.
Leanne Babcock [:We were the same rank. We were an E4 senior airman.
Kim [:He was in charge of the whole.
Leanne Babcock [:He had more time in service than I did. He had been in for like six or seven years as an E4, so. Which is not uncommon. Right. Especially depending on if you came in as an E1. So it's pretty normal timeframe, especially in the career field. But, yeah, I was getting ready to leave, like, two days after that, so didn't have any of those conversations pop up again. And my second deployment in the fall, I had been promoted to staff sergeant to E5.
Leanne Babcock [:And at that time, another just incredible experience. And I had the opportunity to work with refueler maintenance and pol. Some petroleum oil lubricants. I liked being able to do the retrofitting on the Kovach R11. So the big flight line fire trucks. And looking back on it now, it's like I could fit inside those. Probably shouldn't have been going inside of them. You know, jet fuel and then some were diesel.
Leanne Babcock [:It was what it was. But. Well, some cool experience. Well, some people would spend their summer vacation studying abroad. I still studied abroad. I just did it a little bit differently. And then holiday vacation. And while I was there, I found out my assignment and where I was getting stationed.
Leanne Babcock [:And then that's when my leadership in the second deployment discovered that I was commissioning because my Detachment 06 called my squadron commander. Then I got called into the squadron commander's office, and my supervisor's freaking out. They're like, what did you do?
Kim [:You're like, I don't know, but probably something.
Leanne Babcock [:I walked in and I'm deployed over Christmas and New Year. And I walked in and I reported in and. And he says, go ahead and have a seat. And he goes, why didn't you tell me you were commissioning?
Kim [:Oops.
Leanne Babcock [:And I said, because I came here to work. And he did pull me off the flight line for a couple days. And he attached me to one of the lros in our squadron that I knew from an ROTC organization, so we were already familiar with each other. And he just says, yeah, Liam, let's loop you around. I just want to show you this stuff. He said, it's. And then I'll stick you back out on the. On the flight line and you can get back to refuelers.
Leanne Babcock [:And I was like, thank you. So I just. I had a really great experience with it. The lieutenant took me to loop me around the different sections, show me what it would look like in a logistics squadron. He didn't Know anything about the base? I was going to, but it just gave me an opportunity to feel very supported. Granted, as I mentioned, there were a couple incidents that happened while I was tdy. I did play on the California's Air National Guard softball team for a couple seasons.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah, I've random. I have a random life.
Kim [:Which is so cool. Makes you so interesting. I mean, we really could sit here for hours. I know you have a cruise that you're on, and we have to get to the Bobcat sign. How did you get that as your call sign?
Leanne Babcock [:All right, well, my last name is Babcock, so do with that what you will. My MTIs at basic training really enjoyed that. That was before. It was kinder and gentler at training. I also had BCGs, and I'm short, so I was right in the front. I marched like I was still in color guard, so it was just all excited about it.
Kim [:BCGs are birth control glasses to the audience.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. Yeah. I could burn ants with those bad boys. Those were awful. They were awful. But Bobcat came because the chief at my combat comm unit in San Diego had a very difficult time saying my last name. And she just finally said bobcat. And so I would get called on the speaker, and I'd be in the other building in my coveralls, and if they would call, airman Bobcat, please come over to the main building.
Leanne Babcock [:And I'd have, like, pull the coveralls off, put on actual pants, uniform pants, go across the street. And it just stuck like I had no other name. And it's very common still to be just referred to as Bobcat. So.
Kim [:I love hearing stories like that, like how the names got created or were born.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah, yeah. And in an operational setting, when I was in contingency response, you know, for about five and a half years, that is a Bobcat.
Kim [:So do your military friends still call you that?
Leanne Babcock [:Oh, absolutely.
Kim [:And you're still in.
Leanne Babcock [:I am 22 years and counting.
Kim [:22 years, yeah. How long do you think you're going to stay in for?
Leanne Babcock [:Well, I am finally back in the Oregon Air National Guard, this time as the A4 at the Air component side. So at the state level, so I'm the director of logistics, and that includes maintenance and engineering functions for both Klamath Falls in Portland. I have my dream job. It took me 12 years after I left active duty to get here, back home. But I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve my home state in a capacity with the knowledge and background that I have been able to collect the last 22 years in uniform and get to share that with them.
Kim [:Yeah. You really do have your dream job. Not just in the military, but in the civilian sector, too. Because we're going to go right into Dauntless Wine Company, which you are the hospitality. You are. You're the hospitality of Dauntless Wine. Right?
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah. I'm one of a few teammates that get to be the front lines of the tasting room.
Kim [:Dream job. I want you to tell us a little bit about Dauntless Wine Company, but you are also the executive director of the Dauntless Spectrum foundation, which came out of the Dauntless Wine Company. Okay. The floor is yours, Bobcat.
Leanne Babcock [:With Dauntless Veteran Foundation, I am the volunteer executive director. So as many garden reserve personnel are used to, we work quite a bit without being monetarily compensated, but we're very happy with the work that we do the next five years. I'm hoping to get us to a point where we're transitioning from a working board to a governing board. And the staff positions could receive a monetary salary so that they could dedicate more of that time specifically to helping veterans translate their talents from the field to the farm, which is the heart and soul of what we're doing. Through agriculture grant program with 31 past grant recipients and over $200,000 awarded. And rolling into this five year anniversary, we're celebrating with a luncheon on Sunday, November 9th, and inviting those grant recipients and those donors to all come together and get to hear a little bit about what we've done and where we're going, which is very exciting as we.
Kim [:It is very exciting. Okay, well, let's start at the beginning. So everyone knows Dauntless Wine Company was created by three male Marine veterans. Correct?
Leanne Babcock [:One Navy Corpsman in there as well.
Kim [:Yeah.
Leanne Babcock [:So, yes. Yes.
Kim [:So two male Marine veterans and one Navy Corpsman.
Leanne Babcock [:Yes. So that was back in 2014. So over 11 years ago. Yes.
Kim [:And their fields are in Oregon.
Leanne Babcock [:Yes.
Kim [:Where in Oregon?
Leanne Babcock [:So the majority of the grapes are coming from the Willamette Valley and then the Columbia. Gorgeous. Our vineyards are connected. At least one degree separation of a veteran. We like to have that military connection. It's important for us to support those farmer veterans and also be able to have the. The process be very much in house. So in the next couple weeks, all of us will be taking turns either doing punch downs, getting everything off the crush pad, just in there, pretty much doing whatever Ben needs us to do.
Leanne Babcock [:And then we'll go work in the tasting room just to keep the Operation running at the front lines and prepare for the busiest time of year for us both on the winery side and the nonprofit side. And that starts the third Saturday of August every year and goes through Veterans Day. It's no longer a marathon at this point. So you can understand why I'm taking my vacation now.
Kim [:Yeah. Well, since you get to be in the tasting room quite a bit, what is one of your favorite, favorite wines?
Leanne Babcock [:Oh, boy. You can't pick favorite children.
Kim [:I know. Well, yes, you can.
Leanne Babcock [:I've really enjoyed our Riveter this year, which is our rose. I did help make this one while I was finishing in between my master's program classes. I'd stop out in Gaston on my way back from Linfield, and I'd help do some punch downs and do a few other things in the winery itself. So I really enjoy the Riveter. And then we do have a red that's not out right now. It is called Overlord. And then we have Pacific Theater, which is a Pomard Pinot Noir. So Ben is just a winemaking wizard when it comes to pulling the flavor out of these single clone varietals of Pinot Noir that we have in our valley.
Leanne Babcock [:It just makes magic. So it helps pick, depending on what you're doing, what favorite wine you can add to that. But we don't get the Pinot fatigue with our wines like you do in other parts of the valley. Everybody has something different to offer. That's why all these wineries are special in what they do. It's an art form.
Kim [:Yeah, but you all are veteran owned, and I love that. And I love that you pull, like you said, from farms or fields that have. That are owned by veterans as well.
Leanne Babcock [:Either even owned or planted by them. And it's just a way to help steward that story from seed all the way into the grape clusters, through that whole bottling process, and into the glasses of our patrons in our tasting room.
Kim [:And I believe in all that generational energy. And I saw. I was reading and I saw that one of the fields, a Vietnam veteran plant.
Leanne Babcock [:That's our shoeburger. Yes. We're one of four vineyards in the state that grows the grape, but we're the only one that produces wine out of it. And RJ was Vietnam veteran, was a POW. Those vines have been producing beautiful grapes for nearly 30 years. And we get to look outside of the tasting room up at old 47 and just be reminded of his connection to the land. You know, we believe that agriculture can be very therapeutic. And agriculture has many different branches.
Leanne Babcock [:And so what may help one veteran may benefit another veteran. And so that's the beauty of agriculture as a large entity is that it's more than just the food that people see on their plate. It's everything that goes behind that or the wine in their glasses.
Kim [:Which I feel like makes dauntless wine more rich. The flavor, the experience. So I need to come down to your tasting room.
Leanne Babcock [:Yes, yes, you do. And I'll have, I'll be pouring it tasters at the ODVA Women Veterans Conference. So that'll be available on the Friday night before we kick off on Saturday for our all day event.
Kim [:Let's talk about that too. I get to meet you in person, which I am so super excited for because you have always, when we do our fundraisers, when our nonprofit Revelation Retreat project does our fundraisers, don't miss Wine Always, always gifts us with wine to sell so we can raise money to keep our nonprofit going, which is making amazing. But now I get to meet you in person because the Oregon Department of Veteran affairs is hosting Women Veterans Conference. And it just so happens to be that we get to host it in Bend, Oregon, which is so cool because Bend, Oregon is so cool. And so I'm glad you're bringing up the wines. I'm glad we're going to get to taste them. And I feel like that whole experience is just going to be so rich and special. So thank you for doing that.
Leanne Babcock [:Yeah, no, we appreciate it. And I think being able to give back to veteran causes within the state is what makes us a cornerstone of the veteran community. But then also the agricultural community. We support everybody. And that's evident with our endeavors to move forward with helping be a stakeholder in the Oregon chapter formation of the former Veteran Coalition. And a lot of why I give back to different organizations. And I think I mentioned animal rescue. I had, you know, spent the night.
Kim [:We didn't even get the chance to talk about how you helped coordinate an international cat adoption during deployment. Now, I know you said when you were little you hung out with animals more than you did people. And I want you to talk about putting that together.
Leanne Babcock [:Google's an amazing thing. When I was stationed in Honduras, we had some cats on the military installation there. And it worked with Animal Kind International and an amazing woman named Sherry Pilar out of Tegus. And she helped us get nine cats brought over to the United States sponsored by service members. And I have one of them living with me, a cute little orange bob tail. And then when I was in Kuwait during Operation Allies welcome. I was at a special operations compound, and there was a family of cats there, and we worked with a separate nonprofit and Paws of War to be able to get those five cats out and then another two subsequently afterward. Just an incredible opportunity to have three of them that were born in the suitcase in my Conex now live with my friend who lives 10 minutes down the road with me.
Leanne Babcock [:And they're the most. Three, most spoiled cats I think I've ever met.
Kim [:Of course they are. They're in your care. Yeah.
Leanne Babcock [:Animals and service members have been together for centuries, just like farming and soldiers have been together for forever. And wish you get a chance to try Sergeant Reckless and learn the story about her on the Marine Corps side. What a badass horse. Our winery, our nonprofit, the people that are committed to it and service members nationwide. And when they're deployed overseas, have these animals. They don't choose to be there. And it's an opportunity for us to be able to help them in an area where we're at. And it's often a therapeutic, emotional support mechanism for many of them.
Kim [:I was just gonna say, what a healing modality for them. Right. Like, animals have all these aspects to em. Like, when you pet them, it gives off, like, that wonderful, good feeling. Hormonal cascade. Yes. And then that purring is so rhythmic. If we just tap into all of that, they really are this healing force, which is amazing.
Kim [:Leanne, I know we only touched the surface of your service and what you do, but my goodness, it sounds like. And you've even said you have the best of both worlds. Civilian, military, like, you're living this dream that allows you to stay so true to, like, who you are at the core. And that is amazing because not a lot of people get to do that. So I am so excited for you. I'm so excited to meet you at the Women Veterans Conference here in Bend. I'm so excited to come down to Dauntless Wine Company and do some tasting with you. And actually, I would love to work the land a little bit.
Kim [:So we will put all this in the show notes. We'll put the Dauntless Wine website and other events that are available, the grants that can be available for veterans and opportunities for them. We'll put them all in the show notes. But thank you so much for taking time out of your vacation in Alaska and being on Dog Tag Diaries. I really appreciate you. That's a wrap on today's episode of Dog Tag Diaries season six, baby. We're gunning for 5,000 downloads and 26 Apple reviews and I know we can get there with your help. Share these episodes Leave a review and let's show the world how can you powerful military women warrior voices really are.
