Oral History interview with Christine Filler Warren Hall, 2015

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Christine Filler Warren Hall
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: 29 April 2015
[Begin Interview]
TS: Today is April 29, 2015. This is Therese Strohmer. I'm actually in the Hope Mills Library and I'm with Christine Hall to conduct an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Christine, I know we talked about this a little bit—about the way you want your name on the collection—could you go ahead and tell us what you'd like?
CH: If we could put Christine Filler Warren Hall that would be great.
TS: Okay. We'll try that.
CH: All right.
TS: Well, Christine, thanks for meeting me today. Why don't we start out by having you tell me a little bit about when and where you were born?
CH: Well, I was born in Washington, D.C. in Freedmen's Hospital [renamed Howard University Hospital], and it's no longer there, but I used to live on Rock Creek Church Road, which is right near the Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C.
TS: And when were you born?
CH: In November [22] 1971.
TS: Nineteen-seventy-one?
CH: Yes.
TS: Okay.
CH: I was the—after the wild days of the sixties. [both chuckle]
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TS: That's right. And so, do you have any brothers and sisters?
CH: I have two half-brothers and two half-sisters, and I didn't grow up with them, I grew up as an only child. My grandparents raised me—my paternal grandparents raised me—and it was a little different. I had my great aunt and great uncle, they lived right above us, and my cousins used to come over and we'd play dolls or house or whatever and it was pretty neat. I went to public school until seventh grade and then I went to Catholic school right there in D.C. I kind of—After that I kind of moved around a little bit, but I went to Catholic school for a few years.
I went to a boarding school for one year. It was after my grandmother's brother passed away, and she was dealing with a lot of grief and stress. So I went to boarding school for one year; that was my eighth grade year. It was pretty—It was pretty—It was just different because I had always been at home and my grandmother, she was a beautician, so she always washed my hair—my hair was like really, really long. So I had to learn how to do that and it was—it was like wow. My daughter is in eighth grade this year—my next to the youngest is in eighth grade this year—and she has really long hair, too, but she's been doing her hair for years. [both chuckle] But I just—My grandmother was just like, 'I'm going to do your hair.'
TS: It was something you had to learn.
CH: Yes, it was something I had to learn. I didn't have to do laundry because my grandmother, she did the laundry and everything. I mean, I didn't really have to do anything but homework and piano lessons and that kind of thing. It was always, "education, education, education." So that was like the big thing in our house. So—
TS: Now, it was just your grandmother that raised you?
CH: My grandmother and my grandfather.
TS: And your grandfather. What did your grandfather do?
CH: Actually, my grandfather was a veteran too.
TS: Oh yeah?
CH: Yeah. Actually, I'm the fourth generation army, and my two oldest daughters were also in the army, so they made the fifth generation army.
TS: Holy Pete. So you go back to your great-grandparents?
CH: My great-grandparents, yeah.
TS: Oh, wow, that's pretty neat.
CH: As a matter of fact, my grandmother was born in The Philippines. Yeah. 3
TS: Wow. What service were they in?
CH: Army.
TS: All army?
CH: My dad was in the army and the air force. I think his last bit of service was the air force. I mean, cousins, great-uncles, lots of army; lots of army.
TS: Definitely a tradition there.
CH: Yes, it's very much a tradition.
TS: So your grandma, she's raising you, and actually you're a nice only child.
CH: Yes, I was raised like an only child.
TS: And you had piano lessons?
CH: I did. I had—
TS: Do you still play the piano?
CH: I don't.
TS: That's okay.
CH: I think I would like to go back to playing—doing music. I do sing in the choir, and my son, he actually plays sax [saxophone] and guitar and a couple of other woodwind instruments, so music has continued.
TS: That's pretty neat. Tell me a little bit more about boarding school, then. Where was it that you went to?
CH: I went to Notre Dame Academy in Middleburg, Virginia, and I don't believe it is there anymore, but we actually had sisters there running the boarding school. That was my first time away from home, and learning all those things that, of course, my kids now take for granted. So it was just one of those things; I had to, like, hurry up and grow up to be—
TS: Did you have your own room, or did you share a room?
CH: No, I shared a room. My—When I first got there I shared a room with, I think, like, twelve girls.
TS: Oh, okay. Kind of like a bay?
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CH: Kind of like a bay. And then as you moved up in responsibility and showed that you could take care of your things then I went to a two man room. But we were in the little cottage because I was in the eighth grade and then—I actually was a seven-day boarder. They had five-day boarders and seven-day boarders. So for, like, the first quarter all the eighth graders were in the little cottage. And then they moved the eighth grade seven-day boarders to the main building, and then I was in a room with five other girls.
TS: Okay. A little smaller.
CH: There were six of us. It was smaller than the bay but there was just six girls in the one room, and it was fun then because you didn't have to go walking to the cottage in the rain or anything else. You could be in the same building that we had our classes in and it was pretty cool. It was pretty fun.
TS: Did you get to go back home?
CH: Yeah. For some of the holidays I got to go home, but for the most part I stayed at the school for the whole year. I think I had two big breaks.
TS: Well, did you like school?
CH: I did like school. And I was nervous because when you grow up as an only child your parents are there—or my grandparents were there—and they were like, "Oh, you have to study, you have to study." Well, there I did have a senior, because they paired you up. So the eighth graders had a senior that would buddy up with them, and so I had my senior buddy, but they're your buddy, they're not your parents saying, "Hey, you need to do your homework." [both chuckle]
TS: Right. True.
CH: And I almost failed science. I was so nervous. And I was like, "Oh, my grandmother's going to kill me. I'm going to fail science."
And my teacher—Sister Mary—I can't remember—but anyway, she would look at me sternly and she goes, "You know you can do better than this." [both laugh]
And I was like, "Yeah, I know. I know." And I did. I had to buckle down and I actually—I passed, I went to ninth grade, so it was good. But I almost failed science. It was like, "Oh. What are we going to do?"
TS: Was that because you weren't studying as much as you would have been?
CH: I wasn't studying, I was off goofing off. I was in eighth grade, I was like, "This is so much fun. My parents aren't here!" The sisters were regimented. You had planned study hall and all that other stuff, but I was goofing off.
TS: What kind of stuff were you doing for goofing off?
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CH: Oh, running in the hallways, playing with my friends. Or I'd sit and watch TV or—whatever it was.
TS: We don't have the texting or—
CH: No, there were no cell phones then; I was still using the pay phone. I would call my brother who was in Nevada—living with our aunt in Nevada—and I would use my laundry money to talk to him on the phone. I'd be putting, like, three dollars in the pay phone just so I could talk to him for about five minutes. And that's how I kept in touch with my older brother. But it was fun. It was a fun time. But I did learn, okay, you've got to buckle down and you've got to do the work in order to pass the grade, or else your grandmother will be really upset. [both chuckle]
TS: Yeah, you had to keep her happy, I'm sure.
CH: Oh yes, because like I said, her father was in the military and you didn't just spread the bed, you had to make the bed. Even when I was a little kid.
TS: Really?
CH: Oh yeah. It was like do the quarter thing on my bed when I was growing up [military standard in basic training is to keep the sheets and blanket very tight using hospital corners so that if you drop a quarter on the bed it would bounce]. So when it came time for me to go to basic training and everybody is like, "Oh, the drill sergeants are so picky."
I'm like, "My grandmother was so much worse." [both laugh]
TS: You were well prepared.
CH: Oh, yeah, I was well prepared. I said, "Oh, these drill sergeants have nothing on my grandmother. You wouldn't really want her to be here because she'd tear you a new one."
TS: Well, tell me a little bit about, then, before you went to the boarding school. What kind of things did you do for play as a young little girl growing up in Washington, D.C.?
CH: Well, my grandmother was very, very cautious. She would say all the time, "No, you're not going out front to play with those hoodlums out there. You don't know what they're going to be doing."
So I would be in the backyard and if my cousins weren't over I'd be playing with the dog and the cat in the backyard. [both chuckle] And we had a fenced-in concrete back yard and I would ride my bike around in the backyard, and I'd be by myself or I'd be with my cousin when she'd come over for spending time with her grandmother. It was a little lonely but—
[Speaking Simultaneously]
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TS: She tried to control your environment pretty well.
CH: Very much. She was very controlling, very strict, but she had her reasons for doing that, and I know it wasn't, like, out of meanness or anything like that. She just—She wanted me to be prepared for the hard way of life but—I mean, I think she prepared me.
TS: Yeah?
CH: Yeah
TS: Was your grandfather, like, the go—
CH: He was the easy-going—
TS: I was just going to say—
CH: He was the easy-going guy. Grandpa would sneak me bags of Cheetos and he'd be, like— take me to Church's Chicken and we'd be eating—sneaking chicken on the way home and then we'd get home and, "Oh, I'm not hungry, Grandma."
And she'd be like, "I just cooked this big meal. What do you mean you're not hungry?" [both chuckle]
Everything she—Everything was fresh made and my grandfather, he was a baker; like the master—chef master.
TS: Oh, nice.
CH: Yeah, and he worked at the Jewish bakery, and all the time we had fresh bread and fresh pastries and fresh cookies. I mean, you would have—think I was three hundred pounds because—
TS: I would have been had I been there. [both chuckle]
CH: —all of this fresh baked goods would be coming through, and I mean—so he worked at the Jewish bakery and he also worked at Hogates, which was a—
TS: What was that called again?
CH: Hogates.
TS: Hogates, okay.
CH: It was a restaurant on the water, downtown D.C., and part of the Marriot [hotels] corporation. I don't think it's there anymore. But he used to make these rum buns that were like small plate size with the—they looked like hot cross buns with the icing overflowing. 7
[Speaking Simultaneously]
TS: Oh nice. Like really big cinnamon rolls but they're rum buns.
CH: Oh yeah. With raisins and everything—
TS: Okay, now I'm hungry.
CH: Oh my gosh. [both laugh] I mean, he would bring those home, he would make those. And I remember my oldest brother, he would be like, "Grandpa, you've got to give me the recipe to those." He passed on. He didn't pass—
TS: He didn't pass the recipe on.
CH: He didn't pass the recipes on. I mean, you would think when he makes them he's making them by these huge trays, so okay—five pounds of flour and three pounds of sugar, and so you can't make it for home size.
TS: No, that's true. You can't reduce that to just two people or something.
CH: It's not easily converted. But all the time we'd have all this bread and cakes. It was just amazing. I had my confirmation at the boarding school and my grandfather made the cake—our confirmation cake—because of course it was a whole—almost a whole class of us with our confirmation, and we had this huge sheet cake with the icing and the lettering and all that. He did all that, and he made this big batch of brownies for all of us girls for our confirmation.
TS: Nice.
CH: Yeah. So our class lucked out for our confirmation. [chuckles]
TS: I guess so. What's your confirmation name?
CH: Bernadette [Saint Bernadette Soubirous].
TS: Bernadette.
CH: Yes. She spoke to me.
TS: Is that why you picked her?
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CH: That's why I picked her. I mean, like I said, there were a lot of areas where my grandmother was very strict, but my grandfather would sneak behind and he'd be like, "Here you go." I was very spoiled, I really was; I was really spoiled.
TS: But she just wanted to make sure you were in a real safe environment.
CH: Oh, a very safe environment; I never had to worry. Basically, she would take me to school, and then she would pick me up from school, and I never had to ride the school bus or anything like that in D.C. I mean, she protected me as best she could. I mean, when I was born she was in her late sixties, so—
TS: Oh, is that right?
CH: Yeah.
TS: So she was older when you were going through high school.
CH: She was older. Oh, yeah.
TS: Where did you end up for high school?
CH: So when she was—when my father was young she bought this property in Caroline County, Virginia, and she bought a small piece and then she bought a larger parcel of land. And so, I think it was my sophomore year—the end of my sophomore year—we actually moved to Caroline County. My junior and senior year I spent at Caroline County High School.
TS: And where is that?
CH: In Milford, Virginia.
TS: Milford, Virginia. Okay.
CH: Yeah. Near Fort A.P. Hill.
TS: Near—
CH: Fort A.P. Hill.
TS: Oh, okay. Oh, A.P. Hill. Okay.
CH: Here I am surrounded by military installations; from my great-grandfather and my great-great uncle to my grandfather being in World War II, and then my dad with Vietnam and other little things, and then myself with the First Gulf [War], the Second Gulf, and then—
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[The Gulf War took place 2 August 1990 to 29 February 1191. Codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia, and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase, it was a war waged by coalition forces from thirty-five nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait]
TS: Right, a long history.
CH: Yeah. And then my two oldest daughters with OIF, OEF [Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom].
TS: Have they been deployed too?
CH: My second oldest, yeah, she was deployed to Iraq. But it just—it really makes me proud that we continued that tradition on. Even though my grandmother, she was adamant, adamant. "No, you're not going in the military. Women don't do that."
And I was like, "Really? Sure they do." [chuckles]
She was like, "No."
TS: Well, when you were going along through schooling, what did you think that you were going to do?
CH: I didn't know. I was so nervous about just growing up, period, because my grandmother was very regimented and she was very strict, and I was like, "What am I going to do?" When I went into eighth grade, like I said, I didn't know how to wash clothes. I didn't know how to wash my hair. I was like—I had to learn all this stuff. And of course, you go from eighth grade to ninth grade and you're building all on that. But then I was just nervous. I was like, "What am I going to do when I graduate high school? What am I going to do?" I didn't know, and I didn't really decide until after I graduated.
TS: Yeah. Well, had you considered going to college?
CH: I thought about it. Like I said, education was really, really important in my family. My dad was a nurse, but I didn't want to be a nurse. I mean, I do have that compassionate, caring aspect, but I didn't think I wanted to be—I didn't think I wanted to go in the medical field. I just thought that was too cerebral for me or something. I don't know. It was just too much to think about.
[Speaking Simultaneously]
TS: Yeah. It just wasn't something you wanted to do.
CH: I was just nervous. What if I dosed somebody wrong or whatever— 10
TS: Oh, too much pressure?
CH: I wasn't great in math, so I was like, "Oh, what if I make a mistake and somebody's life is on the line?" So I was like, "No. No, I can't do that."
But I was twelve when I went to the recruiting station for the first time.
TS: Twelve?
CH: I was twelve.
TS: Who'd you go with?
CH: I went by myself. [chuckles]
TS: You did?
CH: I did, I went by myself. And I went and I saw this recruiter and he was like, "What are you doing here?"
I was like, "I want to see how I do on this test;" the ASVAB test [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] that you go in and you're—
TS: Yeah. You don't take it at twelve!
CH: I took it at twelve.
TS: You did?
CH: He said, "Sure. Why not? Go ahead." And I took it and, yeah, I don't think I did very well, but—or maybe it was like the little pre-thing they give you, whatever. He was like, "What are you doing here?"
And I was like, "I just want to see if I could do it?"
And he said, "Yeah, you could do this. You could do this."
And I was like, "Okay. Well, I'll think about it."
He goes, "You've got plenty of time. You're twelve. Why would you even—" And that's when I went to downtown D.C. to the recruiting station—
TS: By yourself?
CH: By myself. [chuckles]
TS: Now, did your grandmother find out about this?
CH: Oh, much, much later; much, much later.
TS: Oh, but not until later. Oh, you kept it hidden. 11
CH: Oh, yeah. I was a sneaky devil. [both chuckle] Yeah, I was a sneaky devil.
So I went downtown and I talked to the recruiter and he was like, "Yeah, come see me when you're eighteen." And of course I didn't see that same guy when I turned eighteen but—
TS: Well, when you got out of high school, then what did you do?
CH: Well, kind of got to backtrack a little bit because I got married at sixteen. I got married at sixteen and I had my oldest daughter between my junior and senior year. And then graduated high school. And then I got pregnant again and had another baby. So before I even came in the army I had two kids already. And of course, I did the whole—you've got to take the tests and everything—talk to a recruiter—and I did that, and it was because I couldn't—I couldn't find any work. I was working as a waitress at Cracker Barrel and I sucked at being a waitress. [both chuckle] I was terrible. I hardly got any tips. I was like, "I can't do this. This is hard work." My wrist was hurting and I was tired and I said, "Oh my gosh. I have two kids at home. I come home and they're screaming still," and I'm like [unclear] what to do. And I said, "Well, I mean, if I go in the military at least I'll be able to—medical and I'll be able to feed them and we'll have housing and—"
TS: Did you think of all that yourself or did anybody say, "Hey, did you think about this?"
CH: No, I kind of knew about that already. I think even—
[Speaking Simultaneously]
TS: Were you a single mom at this time or were you still married?
CH: No, I was still married; I was still married. And my husband at the time, he wasn't really thrilled about it. We were having our own little difficulties at that point anyway, but I was just like, "Look. We need work and we need money. We're still living under Grandma's thumb," because she made sure that I got through high school and living with the kids—
TS: So you're still living with your grandmother?
CH: Well, yeah. I mean, we were living in the house she had. I mean, she wasn't in the same house with us but she—we weren't paying really rent or anything like that, so she just made sure I had a roof over my head still, even though me and my husband were married. I mean, he was working, but he was traveling, like, an hour to work every day so it was just like—oh my gosh, we were gone more than we were at home. We weren't making a whole lot of money and it was just like, "Okay. What do we do?"
And so, I talked to the recruiter and he was like, "Your scores look great. You have really great scores. You can do whatever you wanted to do." 12
And I'm like, "Okay, so what are the options?"
TS: Right.
CH: And he said, "Oh my gosh. Look at this. You could be a programmer."
And I was like, "Well, what is that?"
And he said, "You can work with computers."
And I was like, "Okay. And? Whatever."
TS: It didn't sound that interesting?
CH: No. I was like, "You're trying to pull a fast one on me."
TS: Is that what you're thinking?
CH: Yeah. I was thinking, "He's trying to pull a fast one on me. It's probably something that's god-awful."
And he goes, "No, no. Look at this. You've got to watch this video."
And it showed this tent and all this other stuff with all this equipment, and I was like, "I don't know about that."
And he goes, "Well, it's better than all these other jobs;" I mean, almost every job that I got selected for was in the Signal Corps.
So I said, "Well, obviously communications is where I should go if my test scores showed that I have a propensity for that." So I said, "Well, let me see this programmer thing again." [both chuckle]
And so, I thought about it, and he goes, "Yeah, the only thing is, if you sign up for this programmer job you have to sign up for six years."
And I was like, "Six years? Gosh, that's a long time."
And I'm like—He was like, "Well, you better take it because you don't see this every day. This is not something you see every day."
And I was like, "Okay, well—"
TS: Did you get a bonus or anything for signing up?
CH: No, no bonus. You got six years. You got to sign the dotted line for six years. Well—I mean, he wanted to make sure that this was something I wanted to do—go in the army—and he's like, "Do you think you're aggressive enough to go in the army?"
I was like, "Aggressive enough?"
He goes, "If somebody came in your house and pulled a gun on you or whatever."
I was like, "Do I have a gun?"
He goes, "Yeah."
I said, "You're shot first." [both chuckle] "You're down. You're down for the count."
And he's like, "Really?" 13
I go, "Oh yeah. My family comes first. Before anybody else, my family comes first."
And he goes, "Okay. I think you could do this." And then we were talking about the programming thing, he's like, "But you have to sign up for six years." And I didn't tell my husband that.
And I said, "Okay;" signed the dotted line for six years.
And I came back and I told my husband and he had a cow. He was like, "What? What were you thinking?"
TS: What part did he have a cow about? Just signing up?
CH: Six years.
TS: The length, not just signing up.
CH: Oh, yeah.
TS: He knew you were going to maybe sign up.
CH: He knew I was going to sign up, but he thought two years or four years or something like that. Six years. Like I said, we were really rocky at the start anyway. And I went to basic training, and he came to graduation with the kids, and proceeded to argue, argue, argue.
TS: At the graduation?
CH: Yeah, at my graduation. I mean, after all the ceremony and everything.
So then I go to AIT [advanced individual training], and we're on the phone all the time, and that's still pay phones back then. There were no cell phones—
TS: Right. It's 1991, right?
CH: Yeah. There was no cell phoning going on back then. So it was always, "Call during this timeframe," and hopefully I wasn't on duty and—because we had fire guard. Nobody could go to their floor because all the females were on the third floor, and you didn't know who these guys were on the second floor and stuff; you couldn't let them upstairs.
I remember one drill sergeant, she got on us really, really hard, and I was like, "Why does she have to be so mean?" And she really, really tore into this one girl. She had the girl hyperventilating and—I mean, her eyes were bugging out and she was—I thought she was going to have a heart attack and she's, like, younger than me. And I finally went to the drill sergeant, I was like, "What's wrong with you? Why did you do this?" Because she let the boys—the young men—come up on the landing where we were supposed to be pulling fire guard and they were talking. She didn't let them upstairs, but she was talking, and the drill sergeant had a fit. And I was like, "You shouldn't do that. Why would you do something like that? Now she's so afraid she's not going to want to do anything." She literally was so nervous that—and right then and there I was like, "Yeah. 14
I'm already knowing some of these NCOs [non-commissioned officer] I'm just not going to get along with." [both laugh]
TS: Yeah. Did you get chewed out by the drill sergeant when you—
CH: Oh yeah, she had me—she had me in the front leaning rest too [a physical training position where the soldier lays in the prone position with arms extended as if about to do a pushup]. But I was just—Grandma was a mean cookie, so I was just like, "Whatever."
TS: How was basic for you? I mean, just the basic training.
CH: So basic training, I had this short little female drill sergeant, and then we had this really tall male drill sergeant. But the short little female drill sergeant—her name was Drill Sergeant Sanders, and everybody hated Drill Sergeant Sanders because she was mean. She wasn't really mean, she was just very "by the book." So if you went by the book, everything was cool.
But she would yell at you when you were in the chow hall line and—"Get in line. Stand at attention. Stand at parade rest while you're standing in line." And she'd come by and she'd inspect and—"Oh, your t-shirts weren't folded right," or whatever; "Your boots were scuffed," or what have you. She was just "by the book." And that's the way she wanted things, and if you did that you were good for her. But she used to yell up and down, "You're getting on my nerves, Third!"—because we were in Third Platoon [both chuckle]—"You're getting on my nerves, Third!" She would yell at us, and she wouldn't call cadence, because she said that we weren't squared away enough, so we had to be squared away for her to call cadence.
TS: Before she would call it?
CH: Yes.
TS: That's an interesting reward, huh?
CH: Yeah, because we always loved to call cadence; that was, like, really awesome.
I remember we had to go to Victory and I am deathly afraid of heights. I am deathly afraid of heights. I'm like, "Oh my God." I'm almost hyperventilating as we're doing the ropes and we're climbing and rappelling and all that. And I'm like, "Oh—" And when the day was over, and I could look back, and I'm like—I look at this huge, massive Victory Tower and I'm like, "I conquered that. That's awesome. That was—"
[Victory Tower is a basic training exercise where recruits must navigate through several obstacles at extreme heights, including climbing and traversing rope ladders and bridges. They must then rappel down a 50-foot wall]
TS: That was something. 15
CH: That was something, yeah. That was really something, because here I am, I'm nineteen years old, and I'm like, "I don't—" when I get there I'm like, "I can't do that." And when I leave I'm like, "Yeah, I did that." That was—
TS: Was that empowering for you?
CH: It was; it was very empowering. It was like—and I mean—and we all helped each other out. It wasn't just, "I did that singlehandedly," either. I mean, it was team-building, but it was also confidence-building for your own self; self-confidence building. So you knew that you could do it, and you knew that you could help your buddy make it through.
TS: Was that the hardest thing for you then, was the Victory Tower? Was there anything else really hard physically for you?
CH: I had some difficulties with sit-ups, and I learned later that I had to kind of retrain my abs, because I was using tendons and stuff instead of using my actual muscles to do the sit-ups. And I had to see the doc [doctor] about that, because it was like, "I don't know why I can only do, like, twenty-five sit-ups. Why am I struggling?"
She said, "Have you had kids?"
I was like, "Yeah, two." And she goes, "Yeah, that's probably why."
TS: Really?
CH: Yeah. And so, she gave me some exercises to do, and after that—eighty sit-ups? No problem.
TS: Is that how many you had to do?
CH: I can't remember, but eighty-two or eighty-six was, like, the max at the time.
TS: So you maxed out?
CH: No, I didn't max out, but I was getting close. I was getting close.
TS: That's pretty good from going from the twenties to [unclear].
CH: I know. I know. It was another one of those confidence-building things. It's probably what ultimately ended the marriage—the first marriage.
TS: Oh, because you started to gain—
CH: Because I started to gain that confidence and become a more—
TS: Assertive? 16
CH: Assertive, and just more sure of myself, because at sixteen when I got married I was just like, "I don't know what I'm doing." And then here at nineteen and I passed basic training and I passed AIT and I'm like, "Okay. Now I know what I'm doing. This is the plan." It didn't work out too well.
TS: But it worked out for you.
CH: Yes, it worked out for me, but it didn't work out for the relationship.
TS: Right. Tell me just a little bit about AIT, then. That training, that's for your schooling?
CH: That was for my schooling, and I came in the army and was supposed to be—well—and I was a 74 Foxtrot, which was a programmer analyst. And so, I learned COBOL [common business-oriented language; a computer programming language] and I learned all about programming languages and how to write code, and all kinds of signal stuff. I want to say my training was twelve weeks. I think that's how long it was. It wasn't very, very long.
TS: Right.
CH: So I think April to June was basic training and then June to August was my AIT. And then my first duty station was Alexandria, Virginia. I went to work at the Department of the Army Personnel Command.
TS: Oh, okay.
CH: PERSCOM.
TS: Did you apply for that?
CH: No. No. And then when I got my orders the drill sergeants were all like, "Well, who do you know?"
And I'm like, "I don't know anybody. Why would I want to go back to Alexandria? I just came from there." [chuckles]
TS: Yeah, no, really.
CH: But I didn't know anybody in DA [Department of the Army] at the time, so I don't know how I got that assignment. Just luck of the draw I guess.
TS: Was that good for your family to have it?
CH: It was good in the fact that I was close to family because, like I said, my marriage ended and there was a lot of traveling back and forth with visitation with the children and everything. But I learned a lot while I was at PERSCOM. I mean, I was there for five and 17
a half, almost six years. It—Because I got there the end of August and I left—I want to say I left in January of—
TS: Ninety-six.
CH: —ninety-six, yeah.
TS: So you caught part of the Gulf War when you went there?
CH: Yeah. My job when I was at PERSCOM was—I worked in the accessions branch, so I was working on programs that helped the people who were making the assignments after soldiers came in. So I would run this program on a weekly basis and it would show the number of personnel coming out of AIT in these different MOSs [military occupational specialty], and then it would go over to distribution branch and they would assign the orders to wherever they needed to go. And that would kind of filter back to the folks in accessions branch to say, "Okay, we need now more infantrymen," or, "We need more signals people," or, "We need more ordnance people;" whatever. So I didn't really get into what each of the data categories were. My job was just to make sure that program ran on a regular basis, and that it was—
TS: So the program behind all that data to keep compiling that information. That's what your job was.
CH: Right. That was what my job was. It kind of evolved from there, because I got a new officer that came in, and he was like, "I want you to learn how to swap out components in these computers."
And I was like, "What is that all about?" Because I didn't know anything about that. I didn't learn that in AIT.
He's like, "Oh yeah. Okay. Come here. Let me show you this."
And I was swapping out cards in computers and new hard drives—
TS: All the hardware stuff?
CH: Yeah, all the hardware stuff. I was like, "I never touched the hardware stuff." It was all the internal aspects; coding, and writing out spreadsheets, and charts, and flow diagrams, and all that other stuff. This is new. It was interesting. So I was like, "Okay. Hey, great."
And then I got into documenting. So then I started documenting a lot of this stuff; a lot of the processes on where the numbers go. And then I did PowerPoint presentations and all that other stuff. So I was doing all kinds of things by the time I left.
TS: What was the most interesting part of your job for you at that time, during that period?
CH: I think the coding was pretty interesting to me.
TS: COBOL?
18
CH: Well, actually, as soon as I got to PERSCOM—here I'd been twelve weeks learning this programming language to come to a job where I didn't use that programming language.
TS: I was wondering about that.
CH: Yeah. So I had to go to another class—I think two weeks or whatever—to learn this fourth generation language called FOCUS [For Online Computer Users], and that was all fine and dandy but you had to use another language to kind of get to that language. It was—Well, what I eventually did was I automated myself out of a job, because when I got to PERSCOM I was running these reports every Tuesday, but I had to sit at the computer and hit the 'escape' key every time the screen filled up, because the computer I was on was an 8088 [Intel brand central processing unit used by IBM and other computer manufacturers], which was—I mean, it was huge. It was a big honking box.
TS: About the size of a desk or so? Maybe less? Not quite?
CH: Not quite the size of a desk, but it took the majority of the desk. I mean, it was pretty big. So when the screen would fill up on this big CRT [cathode ray tube, used in TV and computer screens] I'd have to hit 'escape' or the program would just halt. It would just pause.
TS: On every page?
CH: On every page. So I'm like, "This is getting old.' I'm sitting here for hours hitting the 'escape' key."
TS: That's pretty boring, right?
CH: It was pretty boring. So I learned—Oh, I don't even remember what language it was—but it helped me—I had to find some really old books that were out of production in order to use this coding to automate the program to run in a mode where I didn't have to be there; unattended mode. So I would have it run at, like, 5:00 in the morning so when I got to work at 7:30 it'd be done. And if I needed—
TS: You just went and did this on your own?
CH: I did. I did. So that was my—My aspiration was to automate myself out of a job, and I almost did; I almost did.
TS: Yeah?
CH: Yeah, I almost did, because still it would do that, and I would email the report to myself and to other people who wanted it emailed to them. But then some people wanted printed copies, so then I still had to take it and send it to the printer. And at first the printer was in the room with me. It was a high-impact printer [dot matrix printer]. It had this cover over 19
it and it still was as loud as could be with the little holes on the side [of the continuous form paper].
TS: Right, tear roll.
CH: Tear roll. Eventually I got it down to the basement printer where I didn't have to hear it print out. [both chuckle] So like I said, all this—automate myself out of a job. When manpower came—I don't know, I'd been there a couple of years already—manpower came and they were asking people basically, "How many hours do you put in and what do you do to veri—to basically say, 'Yes, this is a valid job'?"
I'm like, "Oh, yeah, well, I do this and I do that and I do this," but it wasn't all just the programming anymore. By the time they came I was doing a lot of other things.
TS: Yeah.
CH: I was doing administrative stuff, and keeping calendars, and doing flow charting, and I was doing other things other than hitting that 'escape' key, [both chuckle] because I didn't want to do that anymore.
TS: Yeah, I don't blame you.
CH: Yeah. But it was fun; it was fun. I remember I had a female NCO and she was like, "You should—" because by that time I had made specialist. I had gotten to specialist and she's like, "You should be—you should go to the promotion board."
"No, no, I don't want to be a sergeant. That's too much responsibility for me. I don't want to be a sergeant,'' because by that time I had child number three—I had my son by that point—and I was just like, "No, no. That's too much responsibility. I've got three kids I have to worry about. I don't need to be responsible for anybody else. Just me." And I was married again by that point, and I was just like, "Yeah, I have too many kids at home. I really don't need any more responsibility."
And they were like, "No. No. You need to go."
And I mean, I did a couple Soldier of the Month boards, and I was just like, "That's too much stress. That's too much responsibility for me." I was like—I was still kind of like pushing that responsibility—
TS: Just wanted to do your job.
CH: I just wanted to do my job and nothing else. And then it was time for me to get my assignment to go someplace else, and I was almost done with my six year enlistment and I was like, "Okay. What should I do?" And of course, the kids have their medical and their dental and I have a roof over my head, and I'm like, "Okay. I think I'm too nervous to get out of the army now." [both chuckle]
TS: Because you had that sense of security.
20
CH: Because I had that sense of security, yeah. I mean, the only thing I hated about being in the military was the PT [physical training]. I hated push-ups, sit-ups, and the two mile run. I hated running. I hated running. That was the biggest struggle for me, and it remained the biggest struggle for me because it just hurt so bad, just running. That was like my nemesis right there. [chuckles] But then you start thinking about it and you're like, "If the worst thing about being in the army is just the run, then why not stay?"
So usually if you work PERSCOM you can kind of pick your exit assignment, and at the time my son was still—my son was eight months old when I left PERSCOM, and the assignment manager wanted to send me to Korea for a year, unaccompanied, and I was like, "Are you kidding me? No way. My son's only eight months old. Why would you do that?"
And my sergeant major, he was like, "Where do you want to go?"
I said, "Well, my family's in Caroline County. How about I go somewhere close? Somewhere on the East Coast at least. I can at least visit family."
So I ended up going to Fort Lee [Virginia]. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't even get out of the state." [both chuckle] But I mean, I learned a lot at Fort Lee as well.
TS: That was in '96, to '98?
CH: Yeah, '96 to '98. They finally convinced me, because when I got to Fort Lee my boss was a civilian, and then the next ranking—the highest ranking military was this corporal, and eventually we got a sergeant in. We had a sergeant for a while but then he got orders to go somewhere else. So this is this corporal, he's there, and he's annoying the heck out of me, and I'm like, "He's a corporal. He's an E-4 just like I am. Just because he has stripes and they say he could be in the leadership position or whatever, he gets to tell me what to do? Forget that." [both chuckle] And so, I was like, "Ugh. I can't stand working for this guy. This guy's driving me nuts." So that was my motivation for making sergeant, because I didn't want him to boss me around anymore. It was like, "Ugh. I can do a much better job than he can."
TS: Well you must have known, too, when you re-upped that you're going to have to make rank, right?
CH: I was going to have to do something.
TS: Yeah.
CH: Yeah, I was going to have to do something. I only—Actually, to get the assignment to Fort Lee I only had to extend—I extended my contract—so I didn't re-up for, like, two years, or four years, or six years. I just extended my contract for—I don't know. It was to make the assignment so it was probably just—
TS: It was another year almost.
CH: Right.
21
TS: Okay. So you hadn't re-upped yet.
CH: I hadn't re-upped yet. [chuckles]
TS: Okay.
CH: It was like, "Hmm, that was kind of the best of both worlds; I get to stay in but not at a whole big—"
TS: Commitment.
CH: "—commitment to—" Because it was like, "Do I stay? Do I go?" Because at that time I had gotten an offer to go work as a contractor for forty thousand dollars a year. And I was like, "Forty-thousand dollars a year? That's it? How much is forty-thousand dollars a year?" [chuckles]
TS: What were you making?
CH: Well, I was a specialist with over four years—yeah, a specialist with over four years—so I was making a little over a thousand dollars a month, I think. I mean, it wasn't a lot, but—
TS: But you had your benefits and a roof over your head.
CH: Yeah. I was thinking, "Okay, all these benefits; forty-thousand dollars a year."' I just didn't see the correlation.
I mean, you get those little things from the army saying, "This is how much you would be truly making if you were in the civilian sector," but I heard all the stories about, "Yeah, but that's not really true," and all that. I didn't know what to believe.
So I'm like, "Could I make it on forty-thousand dollars a year with my three kids and still have an apartment and a car and medical and dental and all that."
TS: Was your second husband in the army?
CH: He was at one point, but he wasn't by the time it was time to move to Fort Lee.
TS: You went to Fort Lee?
CH: Yeah, he wasn't in anymore, so it was like, "What to do? What to do? What to do?" And so, I extended and went to Fort Lee, and then my second husband and I, we parted ways while I was at Fort Lee. So three kids; single mom; making sergeant; going to PLDC—
TS: What's PLDC? Like a training?
CH: It was training before you made the rank of sergeant.
22
TS: Oh, okay.
CH: Primary Leadership Development Course.
TS: Okay.
CH: And that was at Fort Knox [Kentucky], and by that time it was well established that Specialist Warren—because that's who I was at the time—Specialist Warren had terrible feet; I had horrible feet. [laughs] I had fallen arches and everything else, and at PLDC, and for my whole tour at PERSCOM, and for basically my whole tour at Fort Lee, I wore my Class "B"s, which is you wear a skirt or slacks and the green top with flats or concords[?] or whatever. Normal kind of shoes.
TS: Right.
CH: You go to PLDC and you're in boots. You're marching, you're—I hadn't been doing any of that stuff. I hadn't been doing any of that stuff. Yeah, formations? Got it. Marching? No. Boots—
TS: And you were just running in regular tennis shoes.
CH: Yeah, running in regular tennis shoes, but lots and lots of marching. And my arches fell and I went to sick call, and they made me cork arch supports, and I ended up with bruises on my feet. Our small group leader, he was actually a medic in the army—regular army. His special duty was being a small group leader at PLDC, but he was an actual medic when he finally went to his regular job. And they were all wondering, "Where did Warren go?"
I'm on my bunk. I'm like, "I don't want to move. My feet hurt so bad."
And they were like, "What is up with you? We're hanging outside. We're going to do this. We're going to do that."
I was like, "I can't stand."
They were like, "What are you talking about?"
I was like, "Look at my feet." I had these bruises on my feet.
They were like, "Oh my gosh."
And I said, "I'll be—"
TS: When you say it hurt, it really did hurt.
CH: Oh, yeah. I was never one to say—I was never one to just complain to be complaining, and I would tell you straight up I'm always cold, and if I tell you my feet hurt, my feet really hurt. That was just the way it was. But I was always cold, and I still am; I'm always cold.
TS: Well, you're in computers.
CH: I know. You're always in the air conditioning and everything else, right? 23
TS: That's right.
CH: So they're like, "Oh my goodness. Your feet hurt really bad."
I was like, "I'll be fine tomorrow morning. I just don't want to do anything tonight." And they went and ratted me out to the first sergeant. [chuckles]
They called the first sergeant and they were like, "Warren's feet are, like, bruised. They have wide bruises on her feet. What is she going to do?"
And he came, he's like, "What are you going to do?"
I'm like, "What do you mean, 'What am I going to do?' I don't have time to do this over again. This is—I'm going to do it, I'm going to get it done, and it's time to move on."
He said, "Are you sure?"
I'm like, "Heck yeah, I'm sure. I don't have time to come back here. I have kids to see. I'm missing out on a whole month of seeing my kids."
And he's like, "Okay."
And so, at the end I guess there was a lot of grumbling going on about things weren't fair, what have you, at PLDC. I'm sure you get that anywhere you go, but I guess it was more than what the first sergeant was used to and he called me out. He was like, "You see this soldier right here? This soldier right here—"
I was like, "Oh, no."
TS: [chuckles]
CH: "What did I do? Why is he calling me out?"
"This soldier right here, she could have gone home. She could have just quit. She didn't quit. She pushed through. She persevered."
And I was like, "Wow. Okay. All right. I could do with that pat on the back." [both chuckle] That was pretty good.
TS: Right. Sure.
CH: And I made the Commandant's List [analogous to an honor roll]. So I made the Commandant's List, first time going, everything—Did land nav [navigation], and a lot of time, although I was popping Motrin like candy because my feet hurt so bad. [chuckles]
TS: Right.
CH: But he was like, "She never complained. Not one time."
I was like, "Yeah. The only time I complained was like 'I've got to go to sick call,' that was it. I just had to go to sick call." And then I got my arch supports and then they just tore me up. I was like, "Oh, great."
But made it through, and by the time I got back to Fort Lee, my duty station, in less than a month I got pinned E-5. And then my first—my first duty as new sergeant was to go and counsel the corporal on him not doing what he was supposed to do. [both laugh]
24
TS: And that was a good day, I'm sure.
CH: I was nervous.
TS: Were you?
CH: Yeah, because here I am, I'm now the section NCO and he was the section NCO, and I had to have the platoon sergeant in there. My platoon sergeant had to come in there and she was like, "Are you ready to do this?"
I'm like, "Why do I have to do this?" [laughs]
"Well, you're going to be the section NCO. You have to give him his counseling."
I was like, "Oh my gosh." And he blew up.
TS: At you?
CH: He blew up at me, with my—
TS: Your platoon sergeant?
CH: —with my platoon sergeant sitting right there. Yeah, it was a hot mess. [chuckles]
TS: Yeah.
CH: But I went on to kind of learn that a lot of things that happen to a female enlisted or to a female—female soldiers was, you kind of had to wonder where these guys were coming up with their—whether they had common sense or whether they had—what was screwy in their mind where they didn't want to listen to you because you were a woman.
TS: Oh, really? Okay.
CH: Yeah. That wasn't the first time that happened to me. That was—
TS: That had been ongoing?
CH: Yeah, throughout my career it was kind of—not everywhere—not everywhere was it like that, but there were certain situations, it was like—
TS: Where it was really bad in certain places.
CH: Yeah, it was really bad in certain places. Like, when I was at PERSCOM it wasn't a problem. Maybe because I wasn't an NCO, or I wasn't telling people what to do, so to speak. I mean, I would tell them, "Hey, we have to get this accomplished. I need help making it happen."
But when I got to that level of being an NCO, where I had to direct junior soldiers and they were males, they were like, "Why do I have to listen to you?" 25
I'm like, "You have to listen to me because I have the chevrons. You don't. So here we go." [chuckles]
TS: And then would they do it, but grumbling?
CH: Sometimes they would do it, no problem. Other times they would do it with grumbling. Sometimes they would do it with a lot of grumbling.
TS: Yeah. But they'd do it.
CH: Yeah.
TS: Well, were there a lot of women in your career field at that time?
CH: I didn't see—I didn't see a lot of other soldiers—female soldiers, even male soldiers. A lot of times I was very isolated into what I was doing because of the nature of what I was working on. When I first got to PERSCOM, I was the only person to do what I was doing. I didn't have, like, a team of people. The specialist that was there before me, he was like, "Oh, I'm so ready to get out of the army." He taught me what I needed to know and then he was gone. And for a while I didn't have an NCO, and then I had an officer, and then I had an NCO.
TS: So in your field, you're actually responsible for helping other people facilitate their job through the computer.
CH: Right.
TS: You're not working with a team of other computer programmers or whatever.
CH: No, I was literally—
TS: You're like the one.
CH: The one, yeah. I was the one.
TS: Okay, so you're in a lot of different environments that aren't your—Well, it's your field in what you're working on, but that bigger environment is something different.
CH: Right.
TS: Okay.
CH: Yeah. So a lot of times I was solo. Yeah, I was in a platoon or I was in a squad or whatever, but what I did was very solo. I mean, it was by myself. Or later on—like when I came to [Fort] Bragg [North Carolina]—I had a team, but—
26
TS: Working on a special project, or something like that?
CH: No, actually the job was more of a team effort. But when I was at PERSCOM, and even when I was at Fort Lee, it was just me; me and civilians; or me and one other soldier. And that soldier may or may not have been mine. So for a while I didn't have any. And then after that corporal left I didn't have anybody for a while. [chuckles] And then I went to Korea after Fort Lee.
TS: So you did have to go to Korea.
CH: I did have to go to Korea.
TS: Was it unaccompanied?
CH: It was unaccompanied; I had to leave my kids behind. Yeah, it was a hard year. It was a really hard year for me. Yeah, I left my kids behind and I went to Korea and I was, like I said, single mom, divorced twice. I was like, "I don't know about this relationship thing. I must not have that down." [both chuckle] So I said, "Well, I'm going to stop looking, because obviously I don't know how to pick them." And then I met my current husband in Korea.
TS: In Korea? Did you?
CH: He picked me, so it worked out. Yeah, so I got over there in February—
TS: This is '98?
CH: February '98, and I stayed until February—well, January, actually—January '99; I left early by a few weeks. And I went—While I was in Korea I worked in the consolidated building. Basically I was the exchange administrator, so I worked email. I had two soldiers—I had two soldiers working for me—but I was also given the responsibility of being the barracks NCO, so I was responsible for the entire female floor, [chuckles] making sure the latrines were clean and the hallways were clean and nobody got locked out of their room.
TS: And you were living in the barracks?
CH: I was living in the barracks. Yeah. But, I mean, that's—you've got some pictures of me in the color guard in the—
TS: Oh, right, in Korea.
CH: In Korea. That was fun times. That was the first time I had done something like that. It was more like—it was more military stuff, I mean, because —
TS: Okay. 27
CH: Yeah.
TS: Explain what you mean by that. Why was it more military than back at Fort Lee?
CH: Because at PERSCOM it was like going to your 9:00 [a.m.] to 5:00 [p.m.] job. I mean, yes, you did PT on your own, and, yes, you had times when you had to go to the company for certain things—training or what have you—but for the most part it was, you get in your car, you go to work, you work your eight hours, and you come back home.
TS: Right.
CH: And then at Fort Lee I worked at the headquarters garrison, which it was a little more military because you definitely had to meet for PT every morning, but still it was, you meet for PT, you go back home, you change, you come back to work, and you work 9:00 to 5:00—or 8:00 to 4:00, whatever you did—and then you go back home. Whereas when I went to Korea it was military 24/7, in a sense that it wasn't like you could drive down to the mall.
TS: Right.
CH: It was—You were safe on the installation and when you went off the installation you had to deal with local people who you couldn't talk to. I mean, you could try to talk to them, but they were speaking in Hangul [the Korean alphabet] and you're speaking in English, and you don't look anything alike, and so you're thinking—I mean, it was total culture and language—it was every kind of barrier that you could think of, and I mean, I had never been out of the country before. I had never been off the East Coast before, so I was just like—total culture shock. I was very, very nervous.
And so, I was hanging out with some other folks that came in around the same time. And we would be doing stuff together but it was like we were always on the installation. We went bowling. Okay, everybody goes bowling. Or we went to the movies, and everybody does that. But when I met my current husband he was like, "Oh, no," because he had been in Korea for a year already. He's like, "Come on, we're going to go eat at this Korean place."
And I'm like, "Is it safe to eat?" [chuckles] I'm like, "I don't know. I know it's probably safe for them to eat, but is it like Mexico where you don't drink the water?" I mean, that's what you hear, right?
And he's like, "No, no. It's all good. We're going to go here and we're going to go there." He took me downtown and we went in some underground shopping whatever. It's just total culture shock.
But while I was there I learned that there's no place like home. There's no place like the USA.
TS: What kind of things taught you that?
28
CH: When I saw—I saw this Korean mom put her two year old out on the sidewalk and went in the house and closed the door, and I was like, "Oh my God. If somebody did that in the U.S. they'd be going to jail."
And he said, "Yeah, you see that all the time because the little kid wasn't listening or whatever, and it's a big deal in their culture to be shunned by their family."
And I was like—
TS: At two years old?
CH: At two years old? I mean, that would be total shock. I couldn't imagine doing that to my kid, because at the time my son was almost two, so I was like, "I couldn't imagine doing that to my boy." It was just—They eat differently. They have this jjigae soup [a type of kimchi (fermented vegetable side dish) stew] that looked like dirty wash water and they were eating it up like it was going out of style. And I was like, "I don't know if I could do that." Here I'm learning to eat new stuff—and the language—and we had KATUSAs that were trying to teach us the language and the culture.
[Korean Augmentation To the United States Army, or KATUSA, is a branch of the Republic of Korea Army which consists of Korean enlisted personnel who are augmented to the U.S. Army, and was developed during the Korean War to cope with a shortage of U.S. Army personnel]
TS: Explain what the KATUSA is.
CH: Well, they're like—they were more like college-aged guys that were serving their requirement in the military. So in Korea, the requirement is for the men to serve two years in the Korean army. So if you were lucky enough you were sent to the KATUSA program, which—those particular men worked directly with the U.S. in certain aspects. helping the U.S. soldiers with learning culture, learning—acting as basic liaison between the Korean army and the U.S. Army.
TS: Are they assigned to particular units?
CH: They were embedded in our units.
TS: Okay.
CH: Yeah. They had their own barracks and everything, but we—they sat next to us in the offices and everything.
TS: Worked with you.
CH: Yeah.
29
TS: Did they help you learn the culture? Were they useful?
CH: Yeah, they—That was kind of like their—part of their job description was to help us out. [chuckles] We got to learn a lot. They were lots of fun.
TS: Did you ever learn to like Korean food, or kimchi or bulgogi [grilled marinated beef] and all that?
CH: Oh yes. Oh yes. My husband, to this day, if he could eat Korean food every day he probably would. [chuckles]
TS: He loves it?
CH: Yes. Even the kids love it.
TS: Yeah?
CH: Yeah, even my kids love it.
TS: Speaking of your kids, when you went on this unaccompanied, what did you have to do with your children?
CH: So I had to—I had to make sure that I had a family care plan. All the single parents, whether male or female, they have to have a family care plan. And so, I had to basically implement my family care plan. So my first ex had the oldest two kids, and then my second ex had the last one, and basically I was calling from Korea going, "Hey, how are the kids doing?" Still no cell phones at that point [chuckles]; still no cell phones. You still had, like, long distance calling.
TS: You had email though.
CH: Yeah, we had email then, so a lot of emailing back and forth. A lot of pictures coming back and forth over email and stuff like that. But it was a challenge—it was a challenge—and I came back for my mid-tour, in the middle of my—in the middle of my—
TS: Now, you had re-upped somewhere in here?
CH: Yeah, I had to re-up to go to Korea. [both chuckle] I did; I had to re-up to go to Korea. It's like, "Well, if I've got to go I guess I need to pick when I want to go." So I re-upped to go to Korea. I think I did two years.
TS: Yeah, two years.
CH: Two years, and then when I was in Korea I re-upped again.
30
TS: For how long?
CH: I re-upped, I think, for three. And I called my buddies at PERSCOM, because at the time, like I said, I met my current husband in Korea and he had re-upped to actually go to his hometown, which was Tampa. And so, he re-upped to go to MacDill Air Force Base. And so, he's like, "Well, I'd really like for you to come down to Tampa."
And I'm like, "Well, we'll see if it happens. How about that?" [both chuckle] And—So yeah, when it was about time to leave Korea, I called my buddies at DA and I was like, "Hey, can you get me to Tampa?"
And they were like, "You don't want to come back here?"
I'm like, "No."
TS: "I met somebody." [both chuckle]
CH: "Maybe next time." Because I'm from D.C., so it's not like I didn't know how to get around, and that kind of thing. But I wanted to do something different. I'd already been—
TS: You'd been in Virginia.
CH: I'd been in Virginia twice already. I was like, "Ah!"
TS: And then you went to Korea without your family.
CH: Without my family. So I really wanted to go somewhere where we could have some fun. Go to [Walt] Disney [World Resort] or something.
TS: Yeah. So MacDill.
CH: I went to MacDill afterwards.
TS: Now, that's an air force base.
CH: It is an air force base, but there are two joint commands at MacDill, and we were at Central Command, and of course got there before September 11th.
[The September 11 attacks, or 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning 11 September 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people and injured over six thousand others]
TS: Nineteen-ninety-nine.
CH: Nineteen-ninety-nine. And from '99 to 2001 we had quite a bit of family time.
TS: Oh, you did?