Service With A Service With A Smile
Andrea Humbertson looks comfortable serving customers in her Java Jungle Coffee
Shop. She’s young and pretty, relaxed but energetic, and she smiles easily. The
casual observer wouldn’t guess that the woman wearing the apron had, until recently,
been a Black Hawk helicopter pilot with 1,000 hours of flying combat time.
The only clue that this seemingly gentle woman might have an adventurous side
is perhaps the name of her shop and the pictures of jungle cats that decorate its
walls.But when asked if she is an adventurous person, her face lights up and her
smile gets bigger.
“I’ve always been a tomboy,” she says. “I always thought it was cool to hang
out with my older brother and his friends. We’d skateboard, rollerblade, campout and
play army. I never had Barbie Dolls,” she says with an impish smile, “but the dolls
I did have, and the teddy bears, we’d use them as targets!”
Among the games she played with her brother, playing army was a favorite. She
recalls a few years ago when she was looking at some pictures of her and her brother
playing army. “We were about six or seven years old, and we’d made a tank out of a
bed, putting ropes up around it. I had on an army shirt and it had a patch on it,
and the patch was from the first unit that I was actually in – Ft. Polk. I don’t
know where my brother got that shirt, but it was like an omen!”
It seems that playing army had a big influence on her life - two years after
graduating from high school she enlisted. Serving our country while getting to
travel, and later getting to continue her education with the GI Bill, seemed like an
ideal situation for her. “I love new people, new places and new adventures,” she
says, which may be the result of having lived in many different places when she was
growing up. “My mom and I counted it up once - we moved 33 times! People don’t like
the military because they move you all over the place, but to me it was
stabilizing!”
Becoming a pilot had not yet entered her mind. Her interest was in the health
field and she trained to be a medic. Her first deployment was to Taszar, Hungary
during the Kosovo Conflict. She worked in the Troop Medical Center and partook in
frequent convoys providing medical coverage for soldiers in Croatia, earning the
NATO Medal and Armed Forces Service Medal.
After six months at her first duty station, she was ready to move on to more
challenges, more adventures. “One day I saw a guy in a flight suit and he told me I
should apply for flight school. I never thought I could be a pilot without having a
college education,” she says, her face showing some of the excitement she must have
felt at the time. He told her how to begin the application process, which included
interviews, aptitude tests, letters of recommendation and a physical, and she began
immediately to work towards her new goal.
Flying wasn’t exactly new to her, nor was facing a challenge. She’d flown a few
times with her mother, who had a private pilot’s license, and her mother had also
taught her that she could do anything she set her mind to do. “My parents divorced
when I was one,” she says, “and my mother raised me to do anything I wanted to do in
life. We were always on the verge of feast or famine, so you know, we fended for
ourselves when it came to fixing a car or any of that stuff. We did it on our own.
My mother is a very independent woman.”
When Humbertson announced that she was going to be a helicopter pilot, some of her
friends at church were very upset. “Oh no! You can’t go!” they said, but when I told
my mother, ‘This is what I want to do,’ she said, ‘Great!’- I’ve always had her
support.”
In October 2000, Humbertson began flight school at Ft. Rucker, AL. Out of the
forty pilots in training, three were female.
After intensive training she earned the Army Aviation Badge. She was now a Black
Hawk pilot, and she remained at the controls for the next eight years.
Her flying time included: 1,000 hours flying combat, 400 hours flying night
vision systems, over 200 missions flown in Iraq, and over 150 missions flown in
Afghanistan. For over 50 percent of all the missions she flew, she was the pilot in
command.
While deployed to Afghanistan, she served as Flight Lead Pilot in Command for
multiple air assaults. She shows no fear when recalling the missions, but she says
that the one thing all missions have in common is that they never go as planned.
“You have to learn to bend,” she says, “you have to bend.” Once she was flying a
medivac mission to evacuate four wounded soldiers, but what she and her crew did not
know was that there was fighting close by. “We had no idea there was fighting on the
other side of the hill where our wounded soldiers were. We came under combat fire,
but we got it down safe and we got them out.” For her valiant efforts she was
awarded the Sikorsky Rescue Award.
After serving our great country for eleven years, which included eight years of
being a Black Hawk pilot, Humbertson was again ready for a new challenge – she
wanted to be a business owner. Shortly after separating from the Army, she opened
her Java Jungle Coffee Shop in Pooler. She’s still serving others, but now it’s on a
local level.
It was easy to choose the Savannah area for her home base, because she’s
thankful for the kindness that the people here show to the military. “This is the
first place I’ve ever been where you can go out in uniform and people will buy you
lunch. It makes you feel appreciated for what you do. I’ve talked to my friends, and
every little comment is appreciated because,” she explains, “when you’re deployed
you’re away from your family, and friends, and you’re basically cut off from
everything you’re comfortable with. It’s difficult, and a lot of families are
destroyed by the separation.”
Now she has the chance to return that local kindness. Her goal is to provide a
friendly comfortable place where people can enjoy a simple meal while sipping their
favorite java.
She calls this her latest adventure, not just because of all the work involved,
but because returning to civilian life is also a challenge. Just learning to relax
and get a good night’s sleep was difficult for her.
Preparing to open her coffee shop took weeks of hard work, because the
building, as she describes it, “was kind of a wreck!” She worked eight to ten hours
every day cleaning and painting. She even built some of the counter tops, which she
says is a skill she learned while in the Army. “Basically, while deployed, you build
stuff for yourself all the time. If you don’t want to sleep on a cot, you build your
own bed. If you want a dresser, you build your own dresser. It was like when I grew
up – if you want something – do it.”
Life in the military builds strong bonds, and one close friend, Angela Zugay
who is also a former helicopter pilot, has been helping Humbertson get her business
up and running. “She just got out last month,” says Humbertson, “and the day she got
out, she came down here to help me out.”
The two women met in Hawaii where they were both based, and they had a lot in
common. Besides being helicopter pilots, they enjoyed riding their motorcycles, and
they were both members of an all female biker club named “Dangerous Curves”. “The
club was made up of women from all walks of life from 18 to 40,” said Humbertson,
“and they were our greatest support when we were deployed to Afghanistan. Every
month they’d send us care packages and cards.”
Humbertson had given me a tall mocha latte that I sipped on during our
interview. It was topped with whipped cream and drizzled with more chocolate, and I
think it was the best I’ve ever had. When I got home, before throwing away the
Styrofoam cup, I read the sticker that was pasted on its side. The sticker had a
picture of a cute little animal on it that appeared to be waving at me, and some
whimsical words of wisdom saying:
Always borrow money from
A pessimist. He won’t
Expect it back
“Smile” Java Jungle
Caution Hot!!!!
I guess that’s her unique form of fortune cookie. I’ll probably forget the
words, but I’m sure I’ll never forget her smile!
Thank you Andrea Humbertson, and Angela Zugay, and all our military for keeping
us, and our great country, safe.
Loading... 