The Hebrew word for life looks like this: ‘n. The word is tattooed on the inside of her wrist. Her license plate reads AHVA AHT, the phonetic spelling of “one love” in Hebrew. Why does Natasha Ortega have such a fascination for all things Hebrew?
Ortega took a trip to Israel with her parents when she was 13, and fell in love with the country, the culture and the language. When she joined the Navy as a linguist, she chose to study Hebrew.
“I hoped to return to Israel,” says Ortega, a City College nursing major. “So far it hasn’t happened, but I will.”
Ortega is a petite 27-year-old, with long brown hair, soft brown eyes and smile lines like quotation marks on either side of her mouth. Smiles punctuate her every word. She grew up in Elk Grove, joined the Navy and returned to Sacramento two years ago. She is a student, a reservist, a veteran, a daughter, and a sister, and takes each of those roles as seriously as the next. Well, as seriously as someone who smiles all the time can.
“Why did I put AHVA AHT on my license plate?” she repeats, smiling. “Because one love was already taken in English and Spanish.”
Ortega joined the Navy when she was 17, and spent six years traveling around the United States and the Mediterranean. She joined the Navy because she wasn’t serious enough to go to college yet.
“I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money, and I wanted to get the hell out of town,” she says.
She left the Navy in 2006, returning home to Elk Grove because she desperately missed her family. While her parents’ living room is exactly the same as it was when she left, her brother is home, and she says that is a big change. Ortega grew up essentially as an only child, because her brother, Josh Ortega, 33, had already left the house.
“Now he’s home, and I have a brother to play with, but we’re both grownups,” she says excitedly. “He’s like my best friend.”
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Her brother echoes her sentiments, like best friends do.
“I’m proud of my sister for serving our country, but I’m happy my best friend is home,” he says.
Ortega is completing her pre-nursing requirements at City College this semester. She wants to be a nurse because of the job security, the high salary and the many different paths available to her in nursing.
“I can be a trauma nurse, a pediatric nurse, return to school and then become a nurse professor,”
she says. “As a nurse, I can have a very long career and never become bored.”
It’s hard to imagine Ortega is ever bored. She attends school nearly full time, works a full-time job and is a drilling reservist with the Navy Reserves.
Her supervisor, Samantha Lavine, says she seems to make time for everything. “I think there are more hours in Natasha’s day than everyone else’s,” she says.
Ortega makes sure to make plenty of time for her family or playing cards a few times a week. She visits with friends, both new and old, and travels a few times a year for the Navy Reserves.
She’s a busy gal, but she says she has responsibilities. “To my country, my family, and myself,”
she says — with a smile.
