Elias photo by Spc. Luciano Alcala, Department of Defense

Justin Diep – Jan 27, 2025 – Lincoln Journal Star

My cmnt: This woman and her siblings and parents live next door to us. Their people are Yazidis, a persecuted minority, who live in northern Iraq among the Kurds.

Diana Elias fled war-torn Iraq 15 years ago, finding refuge in Lincoln. A week ago, she was in Washington, D.C., driving for VIPs and troops during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Elias, a 2016 Lincoln High School graduate and petty officer third class in the U.S. Navy, applied to join the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region, which provides support in high-profile ceremonies, including the 60th presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

“I thought I was not going to be picked because there were so many people that applied for it,” she said. “I was the only one from Nebraska that got selected.”

Elias joined about 5,000 other service members across all branches of the U.S. military to provide ceremonial and operational support for the inauguration.

Nebraska Guardsmen who are members of the 72nd Civil Support Team also helped with crowd and traffic control during inauguration events in the nation’s capital.

The inauguration task force assigned Elias to be an executive driver, in which she drove around military personnel and members of the president’s and vice president’s families, including Elizabeth Trump Grau, Trump’s oldest sister and only living sibling.

For Elias, the opportunity was another way for her to give back to the country that took her in when she fled her war-torn home when she was 11.

“I always want to help the president and provide security because where I came from, it was so dangerous to be part of something bigger, to be part of the history,” she said.

Elias enlisted in the Navy just two days after graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a criminal justice degree in May 2021.

“Since I came here as a refugee, and America has been helping me so much, I said, ‘OK, now I’ve settled in. It’s time for me to give it back,’” Elias said.

Elias spent three years on active duty stationed at Naval Station Everett in Washington. She was on standby in the Pacific Ocean off the the California coast when a Russian spy ship was spotted in international waters near Hawaii in 2023.

Elias entered the Naval Reserve in May 2024 and returned to Lincoln, where she is a corrections officer at the Lancaster County jail. She is working toward her dream of becoming a police officer. Elias said in Iraq women were seen as only fit for the medical field, and they couldn’t be in law enforcement.

“I want to break that barrier,” she said. “I want to be there for females, the younger generation. I want to be their role model.”