Oral history interview with Elizabeth Taggart, 2012

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Elizabeth Pedro Taggart
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: November 2, 2012
[Begin Interview]
TS: Today is November 2, 2012. My name is Therese Strohmer. I’m at the home of Elizabeth Taggart in Greensboro, North Carolina to conduct an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Elizabeth, could you state your name the way that you would like it to read on your collection?
EPT: Yes. I’d like it to say Elizabeth Pedro Taggart.
TS: Okay. Okay, Elizabeth, why don’t we start out by having you tell me when and where you were born?
EPT: Okay. I was born in Suwon, South Korea, May 29, 1962.
TS: Okay, and did you have any brothers or sisters?
EPT: Yes, I have one brother and one sister, but they are much younger.
TS: Are they?
EPT: Yes, they are from a second marriage.
TS: Where did you grow up?
EPT: I grew up in a place called Incheon, which is a suburb right outside of Seoul, because my father was in the army and he was in the Incheon army base at the time, and I was about—I grew up there until I was about five.
TS: Oh, okay.2
EPT: That’s when we came to the United States, because I remember having my fifth birthday in San Francisco.
TS: Is that right?
EPT: Yes, because we first came to San Francisco and we were there, kind of—and he was at the Presidio, if you recall, before it closed.
TS: The Presidio of San Francisco?
EPT: Yes, because it was a[sic] army property at the time. And then we moved to Monterey, California for a tour of duty there.
TS: Oh.
EPT: So, that was a really nice town at the time.
TS: What did he do in Monterey?
EPT: He is a communications specialist, and so it was called Fort—I believe it was called Fort—
TS: Fort Ord?
EPT: —Ord. Yeah, before it closed. Yeah.
TS: Right.
EPT: I was young; things are a little fuzzy there. I remember going to first grade, and we left there as I was finishing up second grade.
TS: It was very beautiful.
EPT: It was. It was. I remember going dune buggy riding on the beach, and I remember the town being really quiet, generally speaking. We lived on the base. You know, on base housing and—but we would go into town to go, you know—go to a restaurant or something like that. Years later when we went back it was not like that at all. [chuckles] It was very—
TS: Much more bustling.
EPT: Very crowded, yeah, and still beautiful though.
TS: Yeah.
EPT: Still beautiful, so that was—that was good memories.3
TS: So, after—after Monterey where did you go?
EPT: We went to Augusta, Georgia.
TS: Big change.
EPT: Very different. Big change. Apparently—exciting for me, but apparently very, you know, trying for my mom because that’s when he—my dad went to Vietnam, and he was with a Green Beret unit at the time—
TS: Oh, goodness.
EPT: —and—as a communicate—one of the people that lay the wires in the forward end, you know? Kind of like—very much like what you see in the movie Green Beret.
TS: Okay.
EPT: He brought back home movies that looked just like that years before I actually saw the movie, and I said, “Hey, that looks just like your camp you—”
He says, “Yes, that’s the way it really looked.”
TS: That’s what we did.
EPT: “That how we did it.” You know, with all the drapings and the gate and the—so, of course, you know, he didn’t show me all the potential dangerous stuff, only the life that’s happened in the little compound. Anyhow, so—
TS: When was he in Vietnam?
EPT: He was in Vietnam in the late sixties.
TS: Okay.
EPT: He went for two tours, yeah. He came back—he was in there for two years and then came back for a while and then he went back—he came back. And when he came back he was wounded so he couldn’t go back.
TS: I see.
EPT: Yeah, so. Anyhow, he—so, it was—yeah, went to Augusta, Georgia. Again, Augusta back in the late sixties was not the golf capital of the world that it is now. [chuckles]
TS: What was it like then?4
EPT: It was small; very small. We lived in a very small community, and it was the first time we really lived in an integrated community. And so, that was kind of tough for my mother, I think, you know? She did not know how to drive, and so she had to learn how to drive really quickly before he left to go to Vietnam. So, I was maybe about eight, maybe nine, because I remember third grade—yeah, right around that age my brother and my sister was just born—my brother was, like, two and my sister was just born. They were like Irish twins, you know. [chuckles]
TS: Okay.
EPT: Fourteen months apart.
TS: Sure.
EPT: And then he had—he left to go to Vietnam, and like I said, it was, I think, a rude awakening for her because, you know, living in Korea she was able to get a lot of domestic help. You know, her culture, her language. And even in San Francisco and in Monterey we had family nearby. Like when my brother was born, you know, they came down from San Francisco to help her, and there was just a lot more of the mixture of the Asian population in California back then.
TS: On the Pacific coast and—
EPT: On the Pacific coast in general. Then the coming out to the—Georgia, you know, in the late sixties, it wasn’t like that. Like I said, I was somewhat oblivious because—
TS: Were you?
EPT: Yeah, I was a kid, but I think my mom, for her it was not oblivious. I think she must have gone through some—some trying times, you know, so.
TS: Did she work outside the home?
EPT: No. She was—well, with the three of us, no. [chuckles]
TS: She kept pretty busy.
EPT: Yeah, she kept pretty busy. But luckily she—we did meet a couple of good neighbors who, kind of, adopted us. You know, an elderly couple who was—who had a deep southern accent, and when we learned English—when my mom learned English—English is like my first language, but when my mom learned English in Korea she learned the Queen’s English, you know.
TS: Okay.5
EPT: You go to Georgia and they’re not speaking the Queen’s English. [both chuckle] So, I do remember our next door neighbor; called the Smalls. Turns out that they’re the parents of a guy named John Small who was the fullback for the Atlanta Falcons back then.
TS: Oh, okay.
EPT: It was a big deal—
TS: Sure.
EPT: —but not—we had no idea. [chuckles]
TS: But you didn’t know, right.
EPT: We didn’t know, because when my dad came back from—and he’s a big football fan. Not a Falcons fan, but a big football fan, you know—he was really into the Vikings actually; Minnesota Vikings. It was kind of great for him. He got to go to a couple of pro football games with the Smalls, which was nice.
TS: Sure.
EPT: But the whole time he was gone the Smalls, kind of, looked out for us on things that—when, like, a storm came and things happened to the house, or one night we had, kind of, an emergency with our—with my brother who tends to get croup [a breathing difficulty due to swelling of the vocal chords]—
TS: Okay.
EPT: —and he was just really suffering and my mom didn’t know what to do. She was crying and upset, and so I ran next door to the Smalls, you know, and knocked on their door, and they came rushing over in their bathrobe and slippers, which was great. I thought, “Oh, great. The Smalls are finally here.” Well, the first thing they did was they dropped to their knees and started praying. [chuckles]
So, then finally my mom said, “Okay, we’re not getting anywhere here.” This is before 911 and all that other stuff.
TS: Okay.
EPT: So, when everybody calmed down they put Ed, my brother, into the bathroom with the steam, and they sat there and he calmed down and everybody else calmed down and things got okay. [chuckles] But I still remember that because I was so scared because my mom was crying, you know.
TS: Sure.6
EPT: And my sister who was an infant, she was crying but she couldn’t do anything for her because it was my brother; she was holding him and he was—he couldn’t breathe and so she was trying to get, I think, some orange juice or something. So, I don’t know what to do so I just ran over next door.
TS: Well, sounds like it was a good idea.
EPT: Yes, right.
TS: Well, now—so did you live off base then? Off post?
EPT: Yes, yes. We lived off base. Far as I know, Fort Gordon was what it was called; it closed also. I only—I don’t remember Fort Gordon at all, or going in there very much at all. I presume it was very small.
TS: Okay.
EPT: My mother would go there, you know, probably once or twice a month to go to the commissary to go shopping. Then she’d come back with all these grocery bags and then I usually stayed next door with the Smalls, or, you know—or she did it during the day. But she would—back then, I think, you don’t take babies to places like that so she’d have to find a place to have both my brother and sister, you know, so.
TS: Right, or maybe she wanted a break from you. [chuckles]
EPT: Maybe, I don’t know, you know, so.
TS: Who knows?
EPT: Yes, right.
TS: How long did you stay in—
EPT: Georgia?
TS: —in Georgia?
EPT: I think we were there like three years.
TS: Okay. So, you’re still a little girl, then.
EPT: Yes, because by the time I got to—the next duty station was Fort Huachuca, Arizona. That was fifth grade. We arrived there right around fifth grade. Then—yeah, and so—and then we stayed there for a long time. That’s where my father retired from; is in Fort Huachuca. So, he retired there. So, fifth grade. So we bought a home off base again, but you know, we—it was an army town; Fort Huachuca was fairly large, and Sierra Vista, 7
which is a town right next to it, is pretty small, especially back then. And it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s near Bisbee, near Tombstone, but both those places are more like tourist towns. Not really places that are metropolises. The biggest town is Tucson and that’s seventy miles away.
TS: Okay.
EPT: But also sixty miles north of Nogales, which is Mexico, you know? And so—and the base is probably the biggest thing going, and so we went there a lot for recreation, like, the base had the movie theater, the base had the bowling alley, the base had—they even had stables, you know, for horses. Because Fort Huachuca used to be what they call the buffalo soldier territory.
TS: Oh, okay.
EPT: You know? And so, we used to go there a lot and all the kids from town. I mean, they’re army brats, you know, practically. We had residents who had lived there for a long time and folks that ran alfalfa farms and places like that, but majority of the people there were army brats. The base had an elementary school and I did go there for one year. That’s right, when we first got there we lived on base housing and then we moved out, because then for middle school and for high school I went to the public high school there in Sierra Vista.
TS: Where did you go; what’s the name of the high school?
EPT: The high school was called Buena High [School].
TS: Buena High?
EPT: B-U-E-N-A, and then the junior high was just called Sierra Vista Junior High [School]; SVJH.
TS: Did you like school?
EPT: I did. I loved school.
TS: Yes?
EPT: I always loved school. Even when we were in Korea I went to—I went to the DOD [DoDDS - Department of Defense Dependent Schools] school there. You know, the kindergarten.
TS: Right.
EPT: And I remember, you know, as a five year old having to take [a] big old army bus. These are the double decker green buses.8
TS: Right.
EPT: So that the people, both army and navy, could put their big seabags overhead, right? Well, they would send one of those buses for, like, about five kids, you know, to take them over to the—there was one DOD school in Seoul, a place called Yongsan, which was very large. So, any kid, any dependent within fifty miles radius would come there. Apparently, I didn’t know this at the time, but all the other kids got their assignments by radio; ham radio.
TS: Oh, really?
EPT: Yes. I mean, they got their books shipped to them, but they have to get any kind of instruction or any kind of—any additional help—
TS: Right.
EPT: —by radio.
TS: Did you get—so you didn’t have that?
EPT: I did not. I think it was, as the crow flies, about twenty-eight miles, but it seemed like it took hours to get there every morning. Because I left when it was dark, and then—and then got there, and you know, it was kindergarten so we left right after lunch so it was a short day. But then by the time I’d get home I’d be, like, exhausted. [chuckles]
TS: I bet you were.
EPT: Exhausted, you know? And so—but every morning, you know, like, we’d have to catch the bus right in front of the gate at the base; at the army base, and that was maybe about four or five miles away from where we lived; we were living out in the economy. So, we’d take a taxi to the front; we share a taxi, you know?
TS: Okay.
EPT: We’d go to the front gate because it was very—it was not—too far to walk, especially that early in the morning, and we’d all wait there. Then we’d get on the bus, then they’d take us, we’d get off, then we’d walk to the bus station from Yongsan—and then go all the way back. And then do the same—repeat all over again. So, I’m looking back now I’m thinking [unclear] we used to run around on the buses; no seat belts back then, you know.
TS: Still, not a lot of seat belts.9
EPT: Exactly. Used to go back and forth and drive the bus driver crazy. So—but we had fun, I mean, you know, we’d—sometimes some of us wouldn’t eat breakfast, so the moms would literally give us a box of cereal to—pass, you know—just eat it dry.
TS: Have something in your stomach.
EPT: Right, right. Exactly.
TS: Well, neat.
EPT: So, it was—it was fun, I thought, you know.
TS: Sure.
EPT: Yes.
TS: As you’re growing up what kind of—you said you liked school. What kind of parts about school did you like best? Did you have a favorite teacher?
EPT: Oh, I always had a favorite teacher. When I was at the 8th army school, the DOD school, there was a lady, her name was Miss Morris. I think she was an unmarried lady. She was an ex-army major. She had retired apparently and she was teaching; she was our kindergarten teacher. In some cases some of the kids who were in kindergarten, they were, you know, obviously like us, products of mixed marriages, so they’d speak Korean in the home and English here so there’d be all this confusion going on so she’d take extra time with them to make sure that they got the English part right, you know? She’d bring us—I remember her bringing us treats and walking us to the bus stop. And, I mean, we were a little afraid of her because she was this very tall—seeming to me very tall, curly-haired American lady. Somewhat stern, it seems like, you know, but very, I think looking back now, warm-hearted.
TS: Yeah?
EPT: Yeah. So—And took good care of us.
TS: Very nice.
EPT: I liked that and I liked, you know, all the stuff that we did in school and the homework that she gave us. And so—And then after that I did well in school so, you know, you get that kind of attention, and so I liked pretty much everything about it. By the time we got to high school and junior high I was a cheerleader and was in all the different clubs and stuff, so there was a good social aspects of it too.
TS: What kind of clubs were you in?
EPT: I was in everything. [chuckles] I—10
TS: What did you like best though?
EPT: Best? Let’s see. I’d have to say that cheerleading was first and foremost because, you know, this—in our high school was—even though it was a small town it was a feeder school for all the other small towns, so it was very large. So, we were like, I think, Quad-A football, so football was it. It was like Friday Night Lights [an American sports drama television series], you know?
TS: Okay.
EPT: The booster’s club was bigger than the PTA [Parent-Teacher Association] type of thing, okay? The entire town would have caravans; sixty cars, to the next—you know? So, cheerleading was a big deal, so you’d have to really dedicate yourself to it. And so I liked cheerleading. I was the captain of my cheerleading squad, so you’d have all these additional responsibilities that you felt important about. I was in student government and I was president of a couple of clubs, like Kiwanis Club; there was a student version of that.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And I was one of those—you know how they have the Elks Club and Kiwanis “Teenager of the Month” type of thing, and so we’d go to their breakfasts in the morning. And so, they were talking about starting—they had a Key Club for—which is a high school version of—of the Kiwanis, and they sponsor that. So—But it turns out that the Key Club was only for men, or it was only for boys back then. It was an all-male thing just like Kiwanis is all male. So, I questioned that because I felt like I was coming to Kiwanis Club breakfasts and, you know, I was adding to that conversation and I’d been going on a regular basis, because I was like the Kiwanis “Teenager of the Year,” or something like that, but I couldn’t join the Key Club. [chuckles]
TS: What happened? What came out of that? Anything?
EPT: Yes. Yes. I started a—well, first I started out as a Keydets, you know, which, like, looked the female vision of it. I didn’t like that either. I did that for one year, but then we did get—then we went to convention with the Key Club and we were the biggest group there; all the girls. You know, my side of—there was the Key Club and the Keydets. The whole deck thing, kind of, bothered me, too, like, you know. And so, finally they did change the charter, and so there was one Key Club, both male and female, and I was the president [chuckles] of that, so—and it became a huge club because it’s a service organization.
TS: Right.
EPT: You know? And the idea was to—and also I think it became a huge club because it became co-ed, because it’s more fun when you have boys and girls in the same club, you know? As opposed to, well, boys go off and do whatever and girls go off and do 11
something else. At first there was a little bit of contention, I thought, you know, because there was a—the—in fact, a good friend of mine was a president of the Key Club side, then I was the president of the Keydet side and we were supposed to work together. And we did, but they wanted to do certain things their way, and we wanted to do certain things our way, and you know, I don’t know if it’s the nature of the development, but in general I think it’s true that girls at that age, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, are probably a little more mature than boys that same age. I think—I mean, you don’t want to generalize, but I saw that. And so, the girls that were responsible for club—committees, for anything that you assigned them to do, they got it done. Whereas the boys, you know, they were—they spend a lot of time joking around and, you know, and so I remember at this one meeting we just felt like we had to have a coup. [both chuckle]
TS: The girls had a coup?
EPT: Well, first of all, we were having a joint meeting and hardly any guy was there, whereas the classroom was full of the girls.
TS: I see.
EPT: We were doing a pretty big project, at least in our mind, and that was—Sierra Vista had a—you know how on of those entryways when you first say “Welcome to Sierra Vista” and it was just like a little cinder block thing with—you know, this is the desert so it was like a little rock garden.
TS: So, as you go into the town?
EPT: Exactly.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And so, we wanted to renovate that and, you know, at the time it seemed like a big deal; you have to get truck full loads of rock and cactus. You know, we do the lettering and all that other stuff, and so it was a work party and it’s also, sort of, out of town. So it’s not like you can just run to McDonalds and get something to eat, so you have to plan, you know, food and all that stuff. And I really, I guess at the time—it’s amazing I can remember this so clearly. You can tell I was incensed by it. [laughs] When I took roll, and I was—I have to tell you, also, for a fifteen, sixteen year old kid I was pretty wrapped tight.
TS: Were you?
EPT: I was. I mean, I think I had fun, but when I go back to the—to reunions and stuff like that, people tell me, “Oh yeah. You just—you were just so,” you know, “exacting—”
TS: Pretty intense?12
EPT: —Pretty intense; so serious; so “had to have it right now; got to do it this way.” And yes, I guess I was that way.
TS: Where do you think you got it from?
EPT: [laughs] Probably from—probably from both my parents, really.
TS: Yes?
EPT: You know, my mom is considered pretty laid back for an Asian lady.
TS: I don’t even know what that means. [phone rings]
EPT: Yes. Excuse me.
TS: Sure. I’ll put it on pause here.
[Recording Paused]
EPT: Okay.
TS: Here, let me—I’m going to go back on and ask you a question. Okay, had to take a short pause there. Let me ask you, when you say, like, “Most Asian women; she’s more laid back.” I don’t know what that means.
EPT: Okay. Well, culturally, especially at the time, and I think even so now to a certain extent, Asian moms tend to be, compared to American moms, more strict—
TS: Okay.
EPT: —because culturally the expectations of behavior and just, sort of, everything, you know, is considered high—higher in terms of their standards.
TS: Okay.
EPT: It was particularly true, I think, when I was growing up. Even now—I don’t know if you heard that book called Tiger Mom [Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua]?
TS: I have heard of that.
EPT: Yes. That whole thing comes from—because Amy—
TS: You can explain that to people that are maybe reading this—maybe listening on this tape they don’t know.13
EPT: Oh, yes. The whole tiger mom concept—the gal who wrote it, you know, she grew up in the generation I grew up. She’s a little younger than me, but these are folks that are immigrants from China or Japan or Korea, you know, who come to the United States. They bring their children here for all the opportunities. But they don’t necessarily like some of the freedoms that the kids get; they think it’s too much.
TS: Okay.
EPT: They think it’s too liberal. They think it somehow reduces their sense of responsibility and opportunities. And so, growing up, you know, for me to go to a prom was a big deal. For me to—
TS: To get permission to go, you mean?
EPT: Yes, to get permission to go. To—For me to go to be a cheerleader was a big deal.
TS: Oh, okay.
EPT: If I wasn’t getting perfect grades, the chances of me doing that would have been—would have been low. And by the way, this was coming from father and not from my mother which was—but, you know, he grew up in that generation and I think he—I was his daughter, so he wanted—he just kind of wanted to keep me close to home, you know; not get into any trouble.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so—but I was allowed to actually do all those things, and my—my mom actually got some criticism from the Korean community for allowing me to do that.
TS: Oh, really?
EPT: Yes, she did, you know. Yes, she did.
TS: You know how she handled that?
EPT: Yes, she handled it passive-aggressively, [both chuckle] which is the only appropriate way in her culture. She would say, “Yes, you’re right. Thank you very much for saying that,” and just ignore it [laughs] because, you know, she grew up the youngest daughter of older brothers, and so she was even—she grew up even more strictly, and a lot of it is out of love; it’s out of caring; out of making sure that you don’t get yourself into these bad situations, but it limits you. It’s the opposite of empowering, you know?
So, she told me that she wanted to raise me as an American; whatever that meant to her, and I think what it meant means to have more freedom; to have more empowerment as a female; have more, you know, decisions that I could make.14
TS: Choices and opportunities?
EPT: Choices, absolutely, and if—and for instance, in her family she did not get to get the level of education that her brothers got because that wasn’t considered important for girls.
TS: Right.
EPT: Yeah, so.
TS: Well, we talked before the tape started a little bit about the era in which you were growing up.
EPT: Yes.
TS: Do you think that had an influence, too, when we talk about—well, in the late sixties, early seventies, social changes?
EPT: Right.
TS: The cultural revolution really going on.
EPT: Right. It’s a little bit past the sixties.
TS: Women’s—
EPT: It was the aftermath, yes. It’s like that when—you look back now, you talk about the latchkey kids and all the women going back to work, and you know, which is so totally different than the fifties and sixties.
TS: Right.
EPT: That’s sort of like when it all started, yes.
TS: But the women’s movement was really strong at the time.
EPT: Yes, it was. Yes, it was. I remember Gloria Steinem, and NOW [National Organization for Women] was big back then, you know?
TS: Right.
EPT: So—but yes, I kind of lost a little train of thought here, but—so, she—that’s what I meant by “an Asian lady.”
TS: Right.
EPT: She was considered not very strict. She was considered permissive with me, you know.15
TS: I see. And you didn’t feel that way?
EPT: I—I felt—I didn’t know what I felt. I felt like I—I got to do—I never felt like I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know? I didn’t get to do all the things that my friends got to do, but I didn’t really miss it because—I mean, when you think about it, I went to school early to—because they had early classes, and I came home from school late because afterschool activities and cheerleading, so where would I have had the time to do anything extra?
One thing I didn’t get to do was I didn’t get to do too much weekend activities. Once I was home, I was home unless I had something specific to do at school, that is not something—oh, and I didn’t date.
TS: No?
EPT: At all.
TS: No dating?
EPT: Not even high school.
TS: No?
EPT: Not till I got to college.
TS: So, how—but you did get to go to a prom you said?
EPT: I got to go to all the important dances. I went to homecoming; I got to go to prom. And occasionally there’d be like Sadie Hawkins dances and things of that nature.
TS: Right.
EPT: So, I got to go to those things but not much else; [chuckles] not much else.
TS: How did you feel about that at the time?
EPT: I felt fine with it.
TS: Did you?
EPT: I felt pretty good that I got to go to those dances, and also remember, as a cheerleader I had—I was out socially, practically, two or three times a night anyways during season, because cheerleading was so big. Of course, football season was big, right? We’d have a 16
home game and an away game in the week. Then there are these scrimmage things that you show up to, and then all the other sports got a little incensed if you didn’t show up, so we had to go to everything from wrestling to swim meets to volleyball, you know, just to show up.
TS: Right.
EPT: And then the pep rallies, you know. So, we were exhausted. [chuckles]
TS: Yes, I bet you were.
EPT: I don’t know how some of my friends who were—you know, had boyfriends and stuff went out afterwards. But—and also I was really, kind of, a bookworm and, you know, I don’t think it was a compliment back then but they used to call me “computer brain” behind my back. [chuckles] Now, I think it’s considered a good thing, but back then I don’t think it was considered a—so they called me “computer brain.” And so, you know, I was—that’s what I—that was really my identity; was to be a good student.
TS: Yes. Now, so growing up and in what you’ve just described and you feel like you had a lot of opportunity, what did you see your future? Did you have an idea of what your future would be like, as a young girl looking forward?
EPT: You know, I remember feeling as though I could do anything, but I didn’t really think about what that particular thing was.
TS: No?
EPT: No, and the dynamics of parenting has changed also in that my mom and my dad, they were just so happy that I was going to college. They didn’t seem to care what I majored in; what I didn’t major in. You know, they never put the pressure on me to major in this, that, or the other. And so, I thought at the time one of the teachers that had a great impact on me, she was our psychology teacher. So, I ended up a psychology major, but that’s not what I used in my current work now, you know?
TS: Right.
EPT: And so—so, it’s interesting, but—so yes, at the time her classes—her AP classes was—had a lot of impact on me; the whole concept of the human brain. She was doing stuff in school back then that wasn’t happening, you know, before that. It was beyond the reading and math, and straight biology and other courses.
TS: That gave you greater interest in that?
EPT: Exactly, yes. So, I thought at the time I might consider going into—become a psychologist; clinical psychologist.17
TS: I see.
EPT: Because she got a master of psychology and then she started teaching, you know. But I didn’t see myself as a teacher like her, and so I thought, “Well, psychology is certainly a very interesting topic for me, so I will go and be—get a psychology—be a psychology major.” I didn’t even think about grad school or anything like that. I thought college was great in itself because I am the first female in my family to go to college.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know? So.
TS: So, there was that expectation that you would go to college.
EPT: Absolutely.
TS: Okay.
EPT: Absolutely.
TS: There was something I was going to ask you about with—oh, lost my—lost what I was going to ask you, but—
EPT: It’ll come back.
TS: Maybe. [both chuckle] It may not. Well, when you say that you weren’t sure what it was you were going to do, other than the psychology—
EPT: Right.
TS: —and—but then you went to college, and you’re the first woman in your family to go to college, where did the—oh, I know what it was I was going to ask you. Did you have an accel—did you graduate from high school on an accelerated pace, because—
EPT: Yes.
TS: How did you—how were you able to do that?
EPT: You know, looking back now—again, as another army person, because the whole town was full of army people. When I came from Georgia and came to the Arizona public school system, they, you know—my teacher, Mr. Pierce[?], he was the assistant principle of the Carmichael Elementary School, and another stern gentleman; I was a little afraid of him. But he saw something in me, I think, and he started just giving me all these books to do and I didn’t question it, I just did it all. Turns out that they were—they were, like—I was in sixth grade and they were seventh and eighth grade books, you know. So, I was just working like mad going through them, and so he called my mom and dad into school 18
and back then, you know, people didn’t pop into school like we do now to go and volunteer. I mean—so people go to school, their kid’s in trouble. [both laugh]
TS: Okay.
EPT: And so, my mom got all nervous, and she got all dressed up and she, you know—she went in to speak with him in his role as the assistant principle and not as my teacher.
TS: Okay.
EPT: I remember waiting outside in one of those small desks, you know, just like, “What did I do?”
TS: Right.
EPT: It’s horrible, you know?
TS: And you’re, like, in sixth or—
EPT: I was in sixth grade.
TS: Sixth grade, okay.
EPT: I was in sixth grade and it was, like, halfway through; we weren’t done. And then after they were talking talking talking, and then—and then of course, you know, they don’t talk to me and say stuff like, “Oh, what happened?” or like that anymore; like we do now.
TS: Right.
EPT: They just went on talking by themselves, adults, and then there were other people in the room and it just felt like a great to-do. You know, I’m sitting here. Turns out that Mr. Pierce thought that I knew—I covered all the topics that he could cover in a half a year, including seventh and eighth grade math and English. Social studies and stuff like that, they have—by law, you got to do it at a certain time frame. Then they also—they even tested me on—I forgot what; kind of like given a battery of tests. He said that he felt like I really needed to be accelerated and he’s got a friend who—you know, in middle school, and back then middle school was seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. So, what he was suggesting to my parents was to have me go through seventh, eighth, and ninth grade in one year, you know, because by law I had to take seventh grade PE [physical education], eighth grade constitution.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know? And so, you have to be there for that otherwise, you know, my college diploma—I mean high school diploma, is not good. 19
TS: I see.
EPT: You know? And so—so, that’s what he suggested; that he is going to suggest that and he’s going to turn me over into the care of a counselor in middle school to—to know that—so I can do seventh grade PE, eighth grade constitution, and take all my other classes as a ninth grader, because all the other topics, in his mind, was covered.
TS: I see.
EPT: You know?
TS: So, you needed to be challenged more?
EPT: Exactly. And so, that’s what I did. I did seventh, eighth, and ninth grade in one year, and then moved to high school, so I matriculated in as class of ’80—
TS: I see.
EPT: —and I left as class of ’78.
TS: I see.
EPT: It was kind of weird because two years later my friends who I did my seventh grade PE with, I was a junior and they’re coming out to the school because the schools are side by side.
TS: Right. How did that—How did you do that emotionally, because, like, you’re ahead of your friends then that you’ve gone to school with?
EPT: Within two—after two years it didn’t seem to matter anymore, you know?
TS: No?
EPT: And because I did most of my classes with, I guess—that was a little intimidating because I remember I was kind of smallish for my size—my age, and so all of a sudden to be a seventh grader mixed in with ninth graders, you know, who—because a lot of things happen between thirteen and sixteen, you know.
TS: Oh, yes.
EPT: I think I was thirteen, maybe twelve; I forgot; because my birthday’s in May. So, that was a little awkward, but since I couldn’t date or couldn’t go out it didn’t matter. [both laugh] You know?
TS: But the academic setting and the social setting? I mean, you’re a cheerleader; you’re doing all these clubs.20
EPT: Yes.
TS: You’re, you know, putting the hammer down for the one club you’re in.
EPT: That was in high school. [chuckles]
TS: But still; you’re still younger.
EPT: Yes. Yes. Yes. I didn’t mention that at all for a long time. A lot of people didn’t know that.
TS: They didn’t know?
EPT: No, they didn’t know.
TS: That’s really interesting.
EPT: You don’t advertise that.
TS: No? I suppose you don’t want anything to seem different, right?
EPT: Yes, you’re right. As a kid you don’t—you don’t think about that. But no, I—even in middle school I remember, right—because they had a seventh grade annex, an eighth grade annex, a ninth grade annex, and I remember having—in between classes having to—
TS: Run?
EPT: Yes, run, you know, from Point A to Point B to Point C.
TS: I guess you would.
EPT: But I still did cheerleading, and I met with, you know, our counselor. Gosh, I see his face so clearly but I can’t believe I forgot his name.
TS: Oh, you might remember it.
EPT: Yeah, I forgot his name. I met with him once a week to make sure I was, kind of, handling it. But then within about a month or two he said, “You know? You don’t need to meet with me. You need to—but come see me if you have any issues. If, you know—ask—tell me if you’re—” he was concerned about being picked on and stuff like that.
TS: Right.21
EPT: Back then we didn’t use the bullying and stuff like it is—but he wanted to make sure that— “Are any upper classmen picking on you? Are they saying anything?” But no, I never got that. I always—the few upper classmen that—that I got to know—I call them upper classmen, but they were sort of—you know, they were in my same algebra class, you know? They were very protective of me, you know? They were very—very nice to me, I thought. And this—I remember this one girl; I thought she was really cool and a very beautiful girl and very popular. A few times somebody said something, you know. I remember her saying very clearly, she said “It’s because you’re nowhere smart as she is.” So, she defended me in that particular case, you know, so I thought that was kind of neat.
TS: So, you had a lot of people on your side that supported you?
EPT: I thought so. I never felt—yes, I never felt like I was at—ill at ease or anything, but I found out earlier on that I’m a fairly self-contained person, you know. That you—given a situation I can feel uncomfortable but I never feel [pause] overwhelmed, I guess.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know, pretty—pretty—and I’m not sure why because I really haven’t been through undue hardships or anything like that [chuckles] that would test me, and you know, you hear that’s how you get your strength.
TS: Yes. But you’re even-keeled.
EPT: Yes, definitely. You know, kind of, whatever issues come up you’re going to deal with it. You’re going to take a deep breath and move forward.
TS: Okay. So, you graduated from high school in 1978.
EPT: Yes.
TS: What did you do after that?
EPT: I went to the University of Rochester in New York—upstate New York, and—on an ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] scholarship.
TS: So that’s like all the way across the country.
EPT: Oh yes.
TS: How’d your parents like that decision?
EPT: Like I said, they were just agog with the thought of me going to college.
TS: Okay.22
EPT: They were just so excited it didn’t matter. Looking back now you wondered, you know—because I know that when—with our children, my husband and I spent a lot of time subtlely guiding them. With my mom and dad, they never even looked at the application. They just wrote the check, you know?
TS: Is that right?
EPT: Yes. They never—
TS: So, you filled everything in?
EPT: Yes. I filled everything out. I went to the—to the counseling on my own, and I—even the test, ACT; back then it was the ACT test for the west coast. They never checked my homework. They never—they never did any of those things and they just, kind of, trusted that I would do all that, you know. Every nine weeks I brought home the report card and that was pretty much it. But when I needed something like art supplies or needed to get, you know, school supplies Mom would drive me to the appropriate places and I would go get it, you know?
TS: Right.
EPT: And she would patiently wait with all the other parents too, after—like, when we came home from away games, and sometimes—back then there were no cell phones, and sometimes there was no radios, even, in those buses.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so, sometimes we’d break down in the middle of nowhere, you know? [chuckles] And then—and so, we’d be getting in at two in the morning after they got somebody out there, you know, to get the bus.
TS: Right.
EPT: But she’d be there in the parking lot to take me home, because they know that, “Oh, we’ll be there around 11:30.” It takes—some of the away games, they were an hour and half away. So, they did those things, but in terms of coming to school and being the involved parent there was none of that. It was—looking back now compared to all the time I spent in school, you know, being the PTA president and all the other stuff, no, they didn’t do any of that.
TS: No?
EPT: They were very, sort of, very respectful and intimidated by the whole school structure. But again, that’s sort of cultural. In Korea, even now, school teachers are a big deal. The respect that they get and what they say goes, you know. You don’t go and second guess your teacher. That’s how things are.23
TS: Right.
EPT: You know? So—You don’t go home—you don’t come to school and say, “Hey, my child’s not doing well and it may be your fault.” [both chuckle]
TS: Wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind to do that.
EPT: No, it would not. You would not do that.
TS: Well, how did you end up with the ROTC scholarship?
EPT: Because I was thinking of going to the Navy—to the [United States Military Academy at] West Point—
TS: Okay, tell me about that; —
EPT: —to pay for school.
TS: —how you were thinking about that.
EPT: Well—
TS: Just West Point? Was that the only—
EPT: West Point because we were an army town, and West Point is an army academy and I thought that would be a great way to get a college education, and—because it was expensive. We—my dad was enlisted, and so, you know, we were—we never felt—I never felt growing up that we were in any way poor or less than average because all of our folks—all the people around were the same. But looking back now, yeah, we were, like, I would say, lower middle class. You know, kind of, working people. So, the idea of college at a private school or—would be—would have been really hard. And the financial aid situation back then was nowhere near the way it is today. I mean, it’s amazing to me, I think today any kid who wants to go to college can go to college. There should be absolutely no excuses. I’m telling you, you know, other than their own decision to want to commit to it.
TS: Right.
EPT: Absolutely. No matter what your grades are even, you know.
Anyhow—So, yes, I started looking at West Point, but that is one time that my father didn’t interject and said, “You know what? I’m really excited and proud that you want to serve. However, as long as you decide that you want to serve, why don’t you consider the navy?” and that’s the first time I ever said that, that to me [?].
TS: After all the time you spent in the army.24
EPT: Yes, I never even knew a navy person till that point. “What?”
TS: Okay.
EPT: Every person that was influential to me and all the folks that I grew [up] around, they were army. Because there was another gentleman who—ex-army lieutenant colonel who retired and started teaching; he was my history teacher my eleventh grade, and he’s the one also who identified me in a class and said, “You know what? There’s this contest coming up. It’s called ‘Voice of Democracy’ and” you know, “I need you to enter that.”
And I’m going, “I’ve never heard of that.” It’s one of those oral type of things where you have to actually record it in a sound studio, and that just seemed overwhelming to me, like, “I have to record it, like, at a studio?” And my dad was away on TDY [temporary duty assignment]. I mean, I can’t imagine going home to my mother and saying, “We’ve got to go to Station WHRO whatever,” and that would just, kind of—so I said, “Oh, I don’t think I can do that, but I’ll write the essay.”
And so, I did and he—and he—and he wrote it—and he looked at it and he said, “All right, I’m going to take you myself,” you know. So, he picked me up, he took me—he arranged it with a sounding—sound person, you know, and then we—it was early in the morning so we had to do it in, like, one take. [chuckles] And so, we did and I thought, “Okay, that was fun,” and you know, the paper was for a grade so that was good. So, I kind of forgot all about it. Then about four or five months later he invited me to—he belonged to the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars]. The “Voice of Democracy” is sponsored by the VFW and Mr. Curry[?], you know, belonged to that, and so he invited me and my mom, because my dad was away again, to this “Voice of Democracy” dinner because he said that I had won the local contest.
And I said, “Well, great,” you know. So, we went there and I—it was—but when we got there my mom was, again, agog at all these people, and I didn’t know enough to know that there was more going on than the local VFW because it was at—was a big deal to us; a lot of people; a lot of mics [microphones]. There were newspaper people and some television people there—
TS: Okay.
EPT: —going on. And so—so we did, and then they asked me to do the speech, which I did, and then—
TS: In front of everybody?
EPT: In front of everybody during dinner; —
TS: I see.
EPT: —after dinner, and so I did and I sat down. And that’s when bunch of people came up and they told me, “Not only did you win the local, you won the county, you won the regional, and you won the state.”25
TS: [chuckles]
EPT: And I was like, “Ahhhh!” [chuckles] So, that was kind of—kind of a big surprise, and my mom was like, “Wow,” you know.
So, I got to go to Washington [D.C] to—because it was an all-expense paid trip, you know, to go to Washington. [James Earl Carter, Jr.] Jimmy Carter was president.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And Jimmy Carter sent all of us winners, of each state, to the [United States] Naval Academy. That’s when the concept of the Naval Academy potentially rose up.
TS: I see.
EPT: You know? But—So, then—so, that’s when the idea of the navy did—like, “Okay, instead of West Point, the Naval Academy.”
TS: Did you get to meet the president?
EPT: Yes, we did.
TS: Oh, you did?
EPT: We got to meet the president, and John J. Rhodes [Republican Representative from Arizona] was the senate minority whip at the time, and so since I was the “Ms. Arizona,” so to speak, and that’s what they called us, they—I was sponsored by him and I got to sit with him during the banquet. It was a big deal; I had no idea. The VFW had a lot of—national VFW had a lot of pull, and looking back now it’s like—I was so like their representative, so—I mean, they even came to the airport and, you know, brought me flowers and got—we all got these special jackets with—you know how the VFW is fond of all those little pin and stuff?
TS: Oh, sure.
EPT: So, I got pins from all the VFW members. It was like—it was overwhelming, but it was a great experience for a small, you know—I mean, I still consider myself a small town girl at the time; Sierra Vista, going to Washington D.C. Back then you don’t go on plane rides too often, you know, and I mean, we went on vacation but we went to, like, Tuscon or something like that, you know. We don’t hop on planes and go to—across the state. I had never been to Washington D.C., but the whole week for all the winners they did a fantastic job of—I mean, the Naval Academy; all of the Washington D.C. monuments; we laid the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. We went to what they call The SUCCESS Symposium and they had people from all walks of life, including General Omar [Nelson] Bradley. You know, Judge [John] Sirica. We had Steve Cauthen, who was the Kentucky Derby winner. All these very important people from all walks of life to 26
come, kind of, mingle with us a little bit and talk to us, and those are the three people I know—remember because I mingled with them. [chuckles] I actually danced with Steve Cauthen.
TS: Oh, did you?
EPT: With the Kentucky Derby winner that year.
TS: Oh, nice.
EPT: Debby Boone came and sang “You Light Up My Life,” during one of our dances, and General Omar Bradley came to one of our dances and one of the—he was in a wheelchair. Of course, he being an army general I was very interested in meeting him.
TS: Sure.
EPT: And—and who knows? Just a lot of—so, it was a very—very gratifying experience for me, and again, because of this army—ex-army person who, you know—who went out of his way to, kind of, help me, because he didn’t have to do that.
TS: Right.
EPT: You know? And so, a lot of things like that happened to me a lot, with—like I said, with my sixth grade teacher who skipped—I don’t know if he did me a favor, [chuckles] but maybe he did, but he really felt strongly that, you know, that had to happen. He said, “You shouldn’t keep her back. She should move forward,” and told—I mean, I guess my parents always felt like I was pretty well schooled and I was smart, but hearing that from a professional person I think they felt really good about that. And then saw a good potential future for me.
TS: Yes. Well, it sounds like a lot of people saw a good potential future for you.
EPT: Yes. Yes. Then in high school Ms. Dory[?]; she was my psychology teacher. She was this southern lady from Texas; different than the army people. She was kind of a—kind of a free spirit, you know. She wore these long skirts and, kind, of, these beads and stuff back when—in an army town back when things were pretty straight-laced, you know.
TS: Okay.
EPT: But she was very—what’s the word? She believed in higher education for women, and she was an alumni of University of Rochester and SMU [Southern Methodist University, Texas].
TS: Oh, okay. Is that how you got—
EPT: University of Rochester.27
TS: —interested in going to Rochester?
EPT: Yes.
TS: Oh, okay.
EPT: Because she nominated me for an alumni scholarship on top of the—because you know the ROTC scholarship pays for tuition, not room and board. And so, that would help with the room and board piece, you know.
TS: So, how did you end up then not deciding to go to the Academy, but going to—through ROTC?
EPT: I was too young.
TS: Oh, okay.
EPT: [laughs] They figured out when they looked at it. When they looked at it they went, “Uh, wait a minute.”
TS: How old were you at the time then?
EPT: I was sixteen.
TS: Okay. Had to be eighteen or seventeen?
EPT: Well, there really wasn’t an official legal age limit, but remember, that’s when the Plebe Summers happened.
TS: Okay.
EPT: They did not want to put a sixteen year old—just turned sixteen years old, by the way—through Plebe Summer. Plebe Summer can be—can be—
TS: Traumatic?
EPT: —traumatic, yeah. And that’s—and they do it for that reason. They say they want to break you down and build you back up, but some kids may not build back up, you know. And so—and they do it with good intentions. I’m not so sure if some of those things are—are as helpful. I don’t think they’re harmful, but I don’t think they’re that helpful, and—having been through some notions of that. But—so, they realize, you know, not a good idea; “So, how about ROTC?” And the idea was, “You know, you can spend a year in ROTC and you can come back to the Naval Academy at that time.” Then by that time—I didn’t know back then, but a lot of people told me, “No, you can’t. You cannot 28
go to Naval Academy and not go through Plebe Summer with your class. You would be an outcast.” Because you have to, sort of—
TS: Bond?
EPT: —bond. That’s the time you bond.
TS: I see.
EPT: For you to come and just, kind of, fit in there and try to be not part of that, that would not have worked. And this is coming from the other Naval Academy grads, and this is also only two years after the first women came to the Academy.
TS: True; it’s fairly new, right?
EPT: Yes. So, for another woman to come a year later without going through Plebe Summer—you know? I didn’t know that, but then—but then by that time I was firmly entrenched in ROTC. Another reason why I looked at the University of Rochester was at that time the University of Rochester had the largest ROTC unit in the country.
TS: It did?
EPT: Yes. It did. They had two hundred midshipmen. That was considered huge.
TS: How many of those were women?
EPT: In my class? Two.
TS: That’s it?
EPT: That’s it. That’s it’s. But in the entire unit there were, like, six of us.
TS: Okay.
EPT: But it’s also the size, you know, and a lot of the—a lot of the colleges back then, their ROTC units were coming back. Remember, because of the war, the post-Vietnam—a lot of the ROTC units left, you know, the—
TS: Campuses?
EPT: —campuses and they were reemerging, but the University of Rochester, it certainly went through an unpopular period apparently, but they kind of hung in there and they stayed strong, and so that was another reason why I wanted to go into a strong ROTC situation and not be, like, one of ten people on the entire campus, you know, to have a, kind of, ROTC presence. 29
TS: That’s true. That would be a pretty large—
EPT: Yes.
TS: Well then, how were you treated as a female in this environment?
EPT: It was great. I—
TS: You didn’t have any—
EPT: I did not have any problems.
TS: No?
EPT: No, not whatsoever. I mean, as long as you can keep up, I mean, academically and everything else. In fact, looking back now—I’m doing a lot of looking back because I went to the—I went to an ROTC reunion last year, and then this year we went to our thirtieth, and you know, it’s interesting the impressions you have thirty years later; looking at all the pictures and all that.
I mean, I didn’t have any—I didn’t have any—feel like I had any problems, but at a larger perspective as an adult, you know, what I was interested in back then was just fitting in. Coming to college, it’s like a big pond now compared to my high school. And so, I probably was oblivious of a lot of these things, tell you the truth. I don’t remember if I remember there should be a problem, so therefore there was none. You know what I’m saying? But I personally did not feel in any way like we were treated differently.
TS: No?
EPT: No. No.
TS: Well now, you said you weren’t quite sure what exactly your major was going to be for a while, and you’re far away from home.
EPT: Yes.
TS: And you see in the ROTC—now, are you seeing that as a conduit into the navy, or you see this as just to get you through school with a few years? Or do you have any idea of what, you know, your vision was for how you intended to use the ROTC.
EPT: To (a) get through school, and then (b) to get some job experience, because you had to give back four to five years depending on what area you go into.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And so—and my father was right in that in the navy at the time there was a lot more job—different kind of career paths you can go.30
TS: Oh, yes, we didn’t finish that conversation about why your father wanted you to go towards the navy instead of the army.
EPT: Right, and that’s reason why. Because he felt like for women at that time there were fewer career choices, because army—the army’s whole role is to be, you know, the ground soldiers, and since women were barred from that, what’s left are the smaller supporting roles. And the navy—and they segregated them more, in his mind, you know [in the army].
And also, he felt—I don’t know if this is really true because I don’t know if he really had any experience with navy folks, because if you really truly felt that way I think he would have steered me more toward the air force, you know, because I went to the navy—I remember, looking back now, looking at the three services and having had some interaction with all three services, it seemed like the air force was more geared toward a dual-sex environment, you know, even back then.
But anyhow, he felt like—that the army was—could be tough on women, and I think he saw that personally. You know, for the few women that were in at the time. He didn’t see it from an officer perspective because he was not an officer, he was a non-commissioned officer. He saw it from—from an enlisted perspective he thought it was harsh.
TS: I see, okay. And he—and that actually was right when the Women’s Army Corps was being disbanded.
EPT: Absolutely.
TS: And the women—
EPT: And they were bringing in the—as regulars.
TS: Right. Whereas, in the other services that had already happened.
EPT: Correct. So, I think he was right, looking back, because, you know, certainly in ROTC we didn’t—I didn’t have any problems. I mean, we all—as midshipmen we all had our leadership positions. We all had our mini fitness reports. We did our summer cruises. And I didn’t really have any problems in any one of those times.
One time I got some flack, I’ve got to tell you. It was from another woman. I was shocked.
TS: Why?
EPT: Really shocked.
TS: Not why were you shocked, but what was the issue about?31
EPT: She was from the Naval Academy, too. I was on my senior cruise; in fact, it was in Norfolk [Virginia]. We were on board an oiler, and she objected to the fact that—I’m not even sure what happened, but I was small and, I guess, considered cute, you know, and so people reacted to that.
TS: People, as in?
EPT: Men, because they were all men.
TS: Okay.
EPT: So, they would give—they would be very helpful, whether I liked it or not.
TS: You got a lot of attention.
EPT: I got a lot of attention. And so, like, she started calling me “Little Princess” and stuff like that, you know. So, we were on—we were on topside on a black—we were doing operations at night. We were doing what they call vertical rep and unrep, which is underway replenishment. We are practicing in the—in the dark on—as an oiler, you’re hooked to another ship fueling them. We’re also hooked up to some helicopters, you know, fueling them at constant speed. It’s dark, it’s cold, and we’re scared because we have never done this, and so some guy brings me a kapok, which is a—it’s a, you know, warm jacket. But everyone should have that. She had a kapok on, and so she really thought that was kind of—kind of—
TS: Preferential treatment?
EPT: Preferential treatment, you know, because somebody brought me a kapok and things like that. So—so, she would just say these things and I had never encountered that and I really didn’t know how to handle it.
TS: How old were you then?
EPT: I was eighteen.
TS: Okay.
EPT: I was eighteen, and I just looked at her and I went like, “What is the problem?” There were two women, just her and me. In fact, back then it was very difficult—
TS: On the ship?
EPT: On the ship; midshipmen; just midshipmen.
TS: Just midshipmen.32
EPT: Just midshipmen. In fact, they were the only two women, you’re right, because there were no women on board. Back then they had—you could not be the only woman onboard, you know, so they made sure there were always at least two. And we got preferential treatment whether we liked it or not because, like, if you were a man and you were a midshipman you would be thrown into a nine man berth. But if you’re a woman you can’t be thrown in with a nine man berth with the seven of the other guys, so we had to kick out the XO, the executive officer; second highest guy, I think, because he’s the only other guy besides CO that has a private berthing. So, she and I share that, and so she—we both got preferential treatment because we were. That’s just the way things were unless we wanted to share that, you know, and so you took it in stride. What you try to do is not make anything else an issue if you can make it possible. But yes, I didn’t want to shower with seven other guys. That’s all there is to it, you know.
And so, you try to keep up and you’re careful not to try to get any preferential treatment, but a lot of it has to do not so much back then with you but with the guys. For instance, when I came on deck, and I was assigned to the deck gang which is considered the toughest crowd; they call them deck apes. They are the ones who are strong and they pull the lines, and you know, they—a lot of rough language and a lot of that going on, so I—first day I reported, you know, I’m bright and shiny new. I came on—I came on deck and this one chief was cussing; saying words I’d never heard before and just yelling and screaming, and all of a sudden everybody in front of me were going [makes gesture], like this. And he’s going, “What the hell is going on?!” and “What the eff—!” He turned around and he saw me, so I was standing there going [makes gesture] [laughing] with my—
TS: Looking a little sheepish?
EPT: Looking a little sheepish and I’m saying—saying, “Chief, I’m here to report to duty.”
And he went, “Oh, shit. [whispered]” [laughs] And he said, “All right, fall in line!” But he did tone down and it’s not—that’s him; it’s not me. You know what I’m saying? Because he was taught as a male you don’t do that around—around women; around young women, and a lot of them were old enough to be my father. And so, you saw a lot of that, you know, but that was probably the thing that I encountered the most, is this unasked-for protectiveness. Kind of like “for your own good” type of thing.
TS: Right.
EPT: As opposed to “you’re not good enough” type of thing. Like, it was more like “I don’t want you to have to do that.”
And I’m going—I would say, “Why not? That’s my job. This is what I do,” you know. And so, you spend a lot of—the first years of my career I spent a lot of time going, “I’ve got to do—You got to let me do my job.”
TS: Do you think there was this tension that at this time between trying to protect women and trying to give them equal opportunities?
EPT: Absolutely. 33
TS: And in the middle; who do you think is caught in that?
EPT: The women; the women. Us, you know. And then I saw my peers—a lot of my peers, in my mind, trying to overcompensate. They try to be; they try to act tough; talk tough; be tough; not really be themselves; try to, kind of, blend in as one of the boys. Then the other women that didn’t, you know, they were sometimes unfairly accused of using feminine wiles, and that’s not really true; I don’t think. And then there were some people that were in between, and so it was—it was a little confusing.
TS: Where would you put yourself in that?
EPT: I put myself in a category of trying to stay away from all of that. Like, I don’t—I mean, I can’t care about any of that. This is the way I look. This is the way I talk. This is the way I walk. And I’m going to follow the regulations. I’m going to do the best I can. And when I find anything overt I’m going to address it, and there were a couple of times it was overt. Like, one chief called me “honey.” That did it. That was like, “All right, stop all presses there,” you know. “I’m your boss. I’m your senior. You don’t call me ‘honey’. You don’t call any person in my unit ‘honey’. Period. Even if she asks for it.” So, that was that. And then that didn’t happen again.
TS: So, that was—that took care of it?
EPT: That took care of it. Most of the time that kind of talking, private or sometimes unfortunately publicly, took care of it. But—and then—but then there is the protectionism going on from senior officers. You’re talking about, you know, you’re a young officer and you’ve got an executive officer—a commanding officer who’s got a daughter your age, or you know, who—and he wants to make sure that you’re okay. You know, he’s always asking you, “Are you okay?”
And I’m going, “Yes sir, I’m fine [chuckles]. Is there anything specific you’re talking about here?” I felt like, “Are you asking Lieutenant So-and-so if he’s okay?” You know? And so, you had that going on and that, kind of—but you can’t do something—you can’t do too much about that either. If you try to fight that I think you do yourself a disservice, because they’re coming from a good place and you can’t change culture by just pushing back. It just—it exhausts you, you know, and that’s something I learned early on. And I learned that not in the navy or in the military but culturally, because I have uncles who have been in this country for thirty-five, forty years, but they still are back in the old country when it comes to how they deal with children, women, siblings, you know. And for a while it just really bothered me because I felt like, “You’re here. You’re not there anymore.” But that’s how they are, and so you have to work with them, as opposed to trying to, you know—because push back to the point where it does neither—it just hurts relationships.
And so, when I—so, knowing that they’re coming from a good place, that they’re looking out for you the best they can, what you do then is, like, for example my uncles. When I talk to them I talk to them the best I can the way they expect me to, which is with reverence and a certain tense. And then—and deal with them that way. It doesn’t make 34
any sense to try to change them after fifty or sixty years. But then they also—they must also know in the back of their minds that I’m different because when they need some real help, when it comes to legal matters or things of that nature, they call me. They call—actually, take that back. They call my mother to call me, [Therese chuckles] because that’s the right way, but then I call them.
TS: That’s the chain of command.
EPT: That’s the chain of command. Yes, exactly. So, when my uncle I told you earlier had a liver transplant, what happened was is that I got a call from my mother crying on the phone saying, “Your uncle is dying. You must come out. He wants to see you one more time before he dies.”
I’m going—this is in November right before Thanksgiving; right around this time. And I said, “We just saw him in September. He was fine. He was golfing.”
And he goes, “Yes, but he’s very sick now and he is—he’s dying, and so all the family’s gathering and we’re going to say goodbye. So, you need to be out here.”
So, I said, “Okay. What happened?” What happened was—is that—I told you sometimes—he had Hep[atitis] B when he was younger; it was rampant in that area—that time frame, and so he was getting some of the symptoms from early onset of liver disease. What happened was that he got the symptoms, meaning he got the extended belly and he couldn’t eat, so he was really not feeling well. And so, he’d go to a Korean doctor who’d tell him—who basically told him, you know, to go home, eat some soft foods, and “We’ll do the best we can.”
So, I said, “Well, did he go to an American doctor? Did he go to an emergency room? Did he do this? Did he do that?”
And my mom goes, “I don’t know. He needs you.”
So, I said—meaning to see me. And I said, “Okay, well, I can’t have this.” So, I actually called my friend who was an army doctor; he’s an internist who was a neighbor and I said—I told him, “John, this is totally off protocol, but you’ve got to help me out here.” And I told him, “This is what’s happening. What would you do?” You know, not knowing—seeing his charts; anything like that.
TS: Right.
EPT: He said, “Well, I would call the—” you know, he lives in Los Angeles. “I would call the UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles] Medical Center and send him in there in an ambulance. Once he gets admitted they will take care of the symptoms. Then they will see what’s really going on. But it sounds like he’s suffering from the symptoms. If he can’t eat and he’s dehydrated that—and he’s elderly, that’s an issue. That’s what he may be suffering from more than anything else. And if his belly’s extended they can do something about it.”
And so, I called my cousins and I told them, but they were all crying, and you know, they were just—you know, these are college educated people but they can’t help but being the people of their culture; a Korean doctor told them this is what’s going to be so they’re going to, you know—35
TS: Prepare to die?
EPT: —prepare to die, and I said—and I’m going, “No.” So, I called UCLA. I call the nurse, and I did all the thing—and I have to—probably say this. I basically bent the truth and said, “These people speak no English. I must speak for them. [laughs] And I must—So, this is my uncle. He’s doing this. You must speak to me. As soon as he gets there you must speak to me. I must talk to the doctor,” blah blah blah. So, long story short they got there, went to the emergency room. They took care of his immediate things. Within twenty-four hours, you know, with a saline drip and all that, he was feeling better. He was eating. Within forty-eight hours he was feeling fine. He got accepted into the UCLA program on geriatric internal medical, where they did a liver transplant and he—it worked fine. So, stuff like that they, you know, call me because they must know instinctively that I will know stuff that they don’t. But when I’m back at their domain the expectation is that I will speak to them a certain way because that’s what their comfortable level is, you know. They accept me, to a certain extent, this way, and I must accept them that way.
So, I took that same concept and brought it into the navy. It’s not that all these men are chauvinists, and maybe they are, but it doesn’t all come from a bad place; it comes from the way they were raised. And so, you can’t fight that and be ugly with them, and then expect that you’re going to get results. What you do is you prove them wrong one day at a time, or—and prove them wrong in small ways. They’re never going to apply that concept to everybody, but they may apply to you.
TS: Right.
EPT: And they may apply to the next person that they meet. That’s what it comes down to.
TS: Did you—Did you think though that if—so, if a woman in the service at this time exceled it was a reflection on them personally. If a person, a woman in the military, failed it was a reflection on all—
EPT: All the women. Yeah, to a certain extent. To a certain extent I think—I certainly felt like we felt that way. Whether it was really true or not, we felt like if we did something that was negative it would have been attributed to the women at large, whereas our triumphs were personal. So, yes, I think—I think it was pretty rampant.
TS: But did you think, too, that maybe other women were harder on other women because of that?
EPT: Absolutely; absolutely. I had to be real careful, personally, when it came to the few female, you know, people that I had, that I did not do that to them. But—and also had to try very hard not to seemingly play favorites, because there were some women that I saw that I wanted to spend a little more time with to try to get them on the correct path, so to speak. And so you have to be willing to do that with everybody and not just the women, too, right. So, I had to make a conscience decision to try not to do that.36
TS: Well, we’re getting into some things I usually talk about later, but I want to stay on this because you’re—now you’re talking about mentoring a little.
EPT: Yes.
TS: And you had talked earlier as a young girl, basically there were people who picked you to mentor, you know, as a—
EPT: Yes.
TS: And so then, as you’re in the navy do you see that happening still? Do you see other people saying—you know, saying, “Oh my gosh. Elizabeth, she looks like a great candidate for this or that.” People who are, you know, lifting you up and helping you along the way, and then as time goes by, you’re doing the same thing for others.
EPT: Oh, yes. I think—I don’t know why, maybe because I’m the first born and used to, kind of, being the second mom to my brother and sister, I can’t help but be a mom to a lot of people if I see the need. And in your role as a division officer, even though I was considered young, that role is exactly that. You are, sort of like, this person that’s supposed to help everybody professionally, personally, educationally; in every way you can because you’re responsible for a) them doing a good job for the navy, but b) moving them forward in their career, and whether it be through education or whether it be through giving them more opportunities if you see a—something in them. Or making sure they stay out of trouble, you know. So, yes, that’s sort of your job, and—
TS: What’s that job title that you have, then, at this point?
EPT: At that point? Division Officer. It’s like a first line supervisor, you know, to—and my first line supervision job, it was at the Navy Regional Data Automation Center [NARDAC] and I had a hundred and forty-two people; a lot of people. So, you could barely get to know all of them, let alone, you know, really try to do mentoring. You do spend a lot of time with the top ten percent and the bottom twenty percent.
TS: And in the middle—
EPT: Yes, they sort of get lost, but they—but then you have chief—if you have a good chief—a good non-com[missioned officer], you know, they will do a good job of taking care of them. And not everybody needs you. They’re there to do their job. They’re there to get their paycheck. They’re there to do their thing. It’s not like they want to have this personal relationship with you, only—but if they need you for something then the idea is for them to come and see you.
And so, one of things that I think I’m very—feel very good about is that I did send a significant number of people through college; through the Navy’s BOOST [Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection and Training] program. You know, you take—you have an enlisted person who didn’t go to college before for whatever reason. He’s been in the navy for two or three years, or she’s been in the navy for two or three 37
years, and she’s doing well. They want to—they don’t mind reenlisting for four or five years. As soon as they say they want to reenlist I say—first question I ask them is, “Do you want to go to college? Because as long as you’re reenlisting and going to give the navy six years, why not go to college, you know, and get that and then—and then get commissioned? You’ll get paid more and you’ll get more responsibility.” And so, yeah, that was fun.
TS: Yeah, that sounds like fun.
EPT: Yes.
TS: Well, let’s go back to the ROTC for a minute and tell me—so, you—you went through the program at Rochester.
EPT: Yes.
TS: Then you’re—you graduate.
EPT: Yes.
TS: And then you’re commissioned.
EPT: Yes.
TS: Tell me about how it went from that date when you got—how did—you know, you can tell me about the experience of being commissioned, but you’ve already been, kind of, in the navy for a while.
EPT: Yes. Yes. We spent four years being midshipmen; not quite as intense as the Naval Academy because at—ROTC program is Tuesdays and Thursdays you’re in uniform. You go to navy related classes during those days, and you go—and you have drill and that’s where you go and you practice marching and drilling. You practice navy protocol, so to speak. And some of the folks that we considered gung-ho, typically the marines, you know, they meet extra so that they can even drill better. They do precision drilling. You know, the drill team and all that. Then—so—and I actually joined that for a semester and—because I thought that, “This is really cool,” because I’ve always been into the extreme, but twirling the rifles and I knew I wasn’t going to be a marine option so it made no sense for me to be with the marines. But anyhow—
TS: But you got to try it out.
EPT: Exactly. I got to try it and I can twirl.
TS: Can you?38
EPT: I can, yes. I learned how to do that. You use the—they’re like, really, dummies, but they weigh the exact—they weigh exactly the same amount; just fourteen pounds.
TS: Oh, they do? Okay.
EPT: And they got all of these straps to make that snapping sound that—when you do, you know? Anyhow—so—so, you do that and—so, it’s not as intense, but you are—you do feel like you’re in the navy, so to speak.
TS: So, starting in ’78 you started going through ROTC—
EPT: Yes.
TS: —but then you’re not commissioned, actually, until ’82.
EPT: Until ’82. Yes. You finish graduation and then usually the next day—I mean, of course, you’re preparing along the way. They’re doing your back—they’re finishing up your background checks. You’ve got your IDs. You even have your orders already all set because—because the ROTC unit obviously gets a list of all the folks that are eligible to graduate. As soon as they get that, which happens in March really, unless you really mess up, you know. So, they have to prepare in advance, and they’re meeting with you to talk about, “Which area are you going to go into?” The guys are going to go fly; they have to go down and interview. My husband actually interviewed with Admiral [Hyman G.] Rickover, the last year, too.
TS: How was that?
EPT: It was—he was pretty intense. [chuckles]
TS: I’ve heard that that is pretty intense.
EPT: Exactly. So, he actually interviewed with him. And so, they go through that process, and the women, who are Unrestricted Line [Officers] were not looking at these opportunities. Where—which areas are we—get to choose. Now, we get to choose one, two, three, but there’s no guarantee, you know. They’ll send you where there are openings.
TS: What were you interested in?
EPT: I was interested in—in being in Norfolk more than anything else.
TS: Just a geographic location?
EPT: Geographic location, number one, and number two, I didn’t really have a huge preference. I didn’t want to go to a shipyard, though; I don’t know why. But that’s the only—but I was up for anything. And first line—first job for the navy is always division officer, so it didn’t really matter where.39
TS: Why did you want to go to Norfolk?
EPT: Because my husband and I were engaged at the time and the best place for us to be together long term was Norfolk because it has the most opportunities.
TS: Is that how it worked out?
EPT: Yes, it did. He had to graduate—because remember, they’ll send you—once you’re in the navy, you’re in the navy. You don’t have choices. You have to understand that first and foremost and there’s no guarantees. So, he was going through the Nuclear Power School [technical school that trains enlisted navy personnel for shipboard nuclear power plant operation] pipeline, so he wasn’t going to be at a duty station for close to eighteen months. And so—and in order for him to get his choice he had to graduate number one or number two, you know. And he did. He graduated number one, I think. But—so—
TS: That’s a lot of pressure.
EPT: Yes, a lot of pressure, but then he—but then when they asked him, “Okay, where do you want to go?”
He said, “Norfolk.”
And they looked—“What?” [Therese chuckles]
TS: He had just graduated number one?
EPT: Yes. Yes. Yes. “You can go to Hawaii. You can go to San Diego.” Everybody wanted to be, kind of, on the West Coast.
TS: I see.
EPT: He says, “No, my fiancée is in Norfolk,” so he went to the USS Atlanta, which was a newly commissioned attack submarine in Norfolk, and that’s where I was. That’s why we took the double tour, because he didn’t arrive there until almost two years into my—almost two years into my tour, and so it made sense for me to take another tour in the—in the area.
TS: So, double tour?
EPT: Same location.
TS: You mean that you extended it? Or were you just immediately—
EPT: No, two different jobs. Yeah, two different jobs.
TS: Oh, I see. 40
EPT: Two different jobs in the same location.
TS: Okay.
EPT: So—which would—which would lengthen your stay in that location. Typically you would be in one place no more than two or three years, but we were there for four and half.
TS: I see.
EPT: Yes.
TS: Well, tell me about that first duty station.
EPT: That was at the Naval Air Station, Norfolk [Naval Station Norfolk] at the Navy Data Automation—Navy Regional Data Automation Center which was a data center that took care of all of the West Coast air craft parts.
TS: Okay.
EPT: They—and this was a main frame station where they had these big reel tapes, you know. And we had, like I said, a hundred and forty-two enlisted folks who was—that I had—was a Division Officer to, and they were predominately naval technicians—naval IS—essentially, you know, the computer technicians or analysts; people that fixed them and people that actually ran the—because the operation was twenty-four by seven.
TS: So, describe, like, a typical day.
EPT: A typical day we start out with—with morning call with everybody lined up, okay, and we do the plan of the day, you, know, and tell them what’s going on. If there was any special—a special, like—anything special attention, like an award—a mini award or something like that, we would do those. Any inspections; we would do those. And we would literally tell them—tell all the folks there what the plan was, and then we’d break up and the folks who were on that first shift would go and do their work. I’d go into my office—actually I’d go into officer’s call next with our executive officer and the other officers, you know, who was assigned there, and then we’d talk about the budget and the—everything from urine—the next urinalysis to the captain’s mast; all navy stuff.
And then—because we also did—we also had, like, our own professional jobs, if you will, and I was an analyst.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And so—but majority of my job was really—really taking care of the folks, because there were so many—at any given moment there was either a captain’s mast going on—
TS: Do you want to describe what a captain’s mast is?41
EPT: A captain’s mast is the navy’s judicial system. This is the system—this is the judicial system where if it’s—if an infraction happened, let’s say drunk driving, or you know, some kind of a minor infraction that we don’t turn over to civilian—anything really serious, you know, that goes into—beyond us. But then they go into captain’s mast and I have to, kind of, be the defender, if you will.
TS: Oh, you did?
EPT: Yes. I’m either the—I speak on behalf of the person.
TS: Okay.
EPT: But I prepare the package for the captain basically saying, “All right, Seaman So-and-so is—he got positive on a urinalysis. This is his first time; you know, THC [tetrahydrocannabinol]. I’ve already interviewed Seaman So-and-so and he told me what happened. He was at a party. He didn’t know. He didn’t inhale;” whatever. Then I look at his record and I talk to my chief and we talk about, “Well, do we give him another chance or is this a guy who’s going to cause problems for us,” you know. And we, kind of, put a little bit of our own subject into it. Then we recommend whatever—what the punishment could be. Which could be, like, oh, he’s going to give up some vacation, or he’s going to be confined; in other words, he’s not going to get any liberty for a while. Or he’s going to get double duty, or sometimes they’ll get fined money, but we tried very hard not fine money to these folks because they’re already on pretty low paychecks. And then we have a, you know, captain’s mast where the captain comes in and he reads what’s going on and he—he figures out what happened and he renders the punishment. It’s like a little mini court session.
TS: What are the typical things that you had to appear for on behalf of the sailors?
EPT: At that time it was—if they get caught out in the civilian world being rowdy or—you know, being rowdy or an altercation like a fight or something like that; —
TS: Okay.
EPT: —number one. Number two: drunk driving. Number three: being positive on urinalysis.
TS: Like drug testing?
EPT: Drug testing, yes. So, those are the three things that we spent the most of our time. Anything significantly more than that we don’t really—you know, we don’t really do too much with. Anything beyond that it goes to the civilian authority.
TS: I see. 42
EPT: Yes, so—or anything really serious, and they decide to take a court-martial, that goes—that goes to the navy judicial system beyond the court—our own internal, you know.
TS: Right.
EPT: And also, the seaman will have to—they have to choose to take internal punishment versus civilian punishment.
TS: Okay.
EPT: I’ll ask them, “You have a choice; captain’s mast or I turn you over to the sheriff,” and they always chose captain’s mast.
TS: Always?
EPT: Pretty much, yes.
TS: They felt they’d get a fairer treatment?
EPT: I think so, because we were kind of—I think they have a better sense of “we know them better”.
TS: I see.
EPT: And so, if they go out to the civilian they’re going to get the same regardless—whatever—you know, whatever the punishment is at the time. Internally, they have a better chance, especially if you got—if they’ve got a good record.
TS: Work record, nobody’s going to look at that in the civilian world necessarily.
EPT: No, not really. “You did what you did and that’s what you get.”
TS: What about the break down for gender in these kinds of things—and I don’t know how many women were here in Norfolk in your station, but did—were there a lot of problems with the women, too? I don’t mean a lot, but I mean, like—
EPT: Like you mean more or less?
TS: Well, disproportionate or proportionate to the population of women in the—
EPT: In my—in that particular duty station I had a significant number of women. It wasn’t half-half, but it was at least thirty percent.
TS: Okay.43
EPT: Because this is one of the jobs that women could do; this is a computer facility; it’s a shore facility because these jobs do not go onboard ship, for instance; this is a shore rotation. And so—and—but in terms of disproportion—I think there were about the same. I mean, there’s some women that got in trouble. They’re a different kind of trouble. I had less women pop positive on urinalysis, for instance.
TS: Okay.
EPT: Majority of the people that popped positive on urinalysis were men. There were less DUIs, but women had credit issues.
TS: Oh, really?
EPT: A lot of women had credit—seemingly credit issues.
TS: So, what kinds of things would they go before mast on?
EPT: Like when they owe money; you know, they don’t pay their bills.
TS: Oh, so that came up before—
EPT: Yes, yes.
TS: How would you deal with that?
EPT: The same way, and that is—that is that they need to, you know—that they need to get that under control because, you know, you’re getting calls from creditors, right?
TS: Right.
EPT: And that looks bad on your record.
TS: I see.
EPT: And so—and we would send them to places where they—we could help them with their credit where—or a portion of their pay, if they chose, can go directly to that—creditors. You see? You could do that kind of stuff, you know, so help them control themselves. [chuckles]
TS: Right.
EPT: Because, remember, a lot of these people, they’re young women with a credit card for the first time, you know. And so, yes, they went out and bought stuff that they probably couldn’t afford and then the bill came due, and then after a month or two—you know, when you’re in the navy you’re not a private citizen. You’re going to get phone calls, and before they call you—they’ll call you, then they’ll call, you know, the division officer. 44
[chuckles] So, I get, “Oh, okay. Let me figure this out.” And then they started getting these notices; you know, these crediting notices, and that’s not good. See, when they have those kinds of things happen, if they have those kind of issues, what’s happens is that they cannot go up for the exam for the next rate. You see what I’m saying?
TS: Oh, okay. So, they have to get that all out of the way.
EPT: You got to get that out of the way. So, it was—it is in their best interest and in my interest to help them clear those kind of—those issues. They can’t sit for those exams, which means even though they’re qualified they can’t do the exams, and if they miss the exams then they can’t get promoted, which means they have to wait for the next cycle, which means they’re behind their peers. You know, like, their peers are getting paid more or have got their crows on or their stripes on before they are, and they don’t want that.
TS: Right.
EPT: So, you’ve got to really help them do that.
TS: Interesting.
EPT: That’s important.
TS: Now—so, when your husband got to Norfolk what were your housing conditions like? Did you live off—
EPT: Yes, at that time I actually lived on base at the bachelor officer’s quarters until he arrived, and then when we—and then when we got married we bought a townhome off of—in Virginia Beach which is about thirty miles way.
TS: Okay.
EPT: Yes, so then we—then we commuted into the base. He was working at the—what they call a DNS pier, which is the naval operating base. DNS pier is what destroys the submarines, because he was on the USS—and then I was still at the naval air station, you know, at the—which is right adjacent to each other but they have different gates.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And then that’s where they had—the naval air station had pilots—I mean, had pilots and mostly helicopters, you know, and so—but that’s where the Navy Regional Data Automation Center was located.
TS: Right—that’s where you were.
EPT: Yes.45
TS: Well, what kind of things did you guys do on your off time?
EPT: We went to places—we went—took little locale trips, like, Williamsburg [Virginia], and then we went to—we would go hiking and fishing and the beach was right there, but we didn’t really have too much off time because he was on a submarine and his working hours were absolutely brutal, especially as a—as a junior officer.
TS: JO?
EPT: Yes. Because when you’re a junior officer you come to the submarine for the first time having just qualified as a nuke. Now, it’s a race for you to qualify as engineer, so not—you not only have your regular job as either an electrical officer or damage control officer or reactor control officer, you also have to qualify as an engineer. Which means every spare moment you are studying so that you could pass the engineering board, because if you don’t then, you know, you’re just—you’re just not considered good [chuckles] and you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to not qualify engineer.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so—And then, remember, on a sub if—when they’re out to sea they’re gone, they’re working probably fourteen, fifteen hours a day, because you have your normal day to day rotation and then you have your watch on top of that which is four hour shifts. Then you’ve got to sleep and eat sometimes, and then you’re studying for your engineer exam. Then when you’re in you have—junior officers typically have watch; you know, overnight watch every third night. Okay?
TS: They’re pretty busy.
EPT: Yes. SSN stands for Saturdays, Sundays, and Nights. [both laugh]
TS: Okay. I haven’t heard that before.
EPT: Yes, that’s what they call them. And then—and so, I took a lot of meal onboard. Sometimes the only way we can see each other is, you know, when he’s on duty and things are quiet and he’s having dinner I can just join him for dinner on board.
TS: Oh, you could?
EPT: Yes, we could. Then—because while’s he’s—he has to eat dinner and then, you know, it’s kind of routine, everybody else has left for the day and then there’s the watch crew on board and they take care of overnight rotate—there’s stuff always going on.
TS: So, they’re just in port?46
EPT: They’re always in port, yes. And then, even though they’re in port they also have train—what they call trainers, and trainers begin at eight p.m. and goes to midnight once a week. So, just think about that. Trainers—
TS: Did he pick this field?
EPT: Yes, he did. He did.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And he knew—he knew that this would be tough. They worked the submarine officers pretty hard, and they have to because nuclear safety is very, very important, as you know. And I don’t know what’s going on back then; you know, just the whole strategic deterrence thing was considered very important. They had to be operational.
TS: So the Cold War; the Soviets.
EPT: Absolutely, and Chris was one of the first—his boat and him personally was one of the first folks to go out and qualify on the over-the-horizon Tomahawks. And so—so, he got to do some exciting stuff. I mean, they like that, you know, and actually I worked at—the next duty station was Operation Test and Evaluation Force where they do all of the testing for all the navy’s incoming weapon systems, and so there’s a little bit of overlap, if you will, of what I did and what he did. So, I got to understand, you know—
TS: This is at—still at Norfolk for that second tour?
EPT: Yes, second tour; second tour at the Operational Test and Evaluation Force.
TS: Now, is there anything in particular that you really liked about your jobs that you did?
EPT: It’s the variety, I guess. You do get to do a little bit of everything. At NARDAC, I really haven’t been around computers much because I’m a psychology major, okay? I took one course in statistics. During that time I had to run a small simulation and—you know, those IBM stack cards?
TS: Yes.
EPT: That’s it. And the whole concept of personal computing was not there, you know. But you go in there and all of sudden a wall full of mainframes are staring at you, and you know—and I told my CO [commanding officer] —I said, “Sir, I know nothing about computers.”
And what he said to me was, “You’re not here for that. You’re here to lead.” He says, “Officers—you’re here—is—are for leadership and care and feeding of your troops. You don’t have to know; they know,” you know. “They are the ones who run the equipment. You are there to take care of them.”
So, I said, “Aye, aye.” 47
But then, you know, you have to know something, so I took their qualification book; you know, they’re called—there’s the A book and the C book. A is the intro and C is the, you know, more advanced. So, I took their book and, kind of, studied up on it a little bit so that I could at least understand the language.
TS: Talk the language?
EPT: Understand their optempo [operational tempo, pace of work]. But then—and you get it pretty quickly. You go in—because remember this is three shifts, so one of the things I have to learn to do is to be present at every shift; every one. Not all the time, but every once in a while you walk in at midnight, you know. Every once in a while you got to—you stay behind to, kind of, catch the mid shift, and then every once in a while you come in really early in the morning. So, that’s what you got to do to, kind of, sort of, stay connected.
And then I want to try to also rotate the people because some people get very comfortable from, like, midnight to seven and you never get to see them. You know, you want to see what’s going on, right, so you—you want to make sure you rotate the shifts sometimes so that the night people become day people and vice versa.
TS: Did they—how did the soldiers—sailors think about that?
EPT: Well, you know, they grumbled at first but they—but, you know, you—they get used to anything as long as they understand number one, what’s going on, and b) if you’re being fair.
TS: So, if you’re communicating well?
EPT: Yes, you come in, you know, with a box of doughnuts. [laughs] You come in—Dunkin Donuts back then—there was no Krispy Kreme back then, it was Dunkin Donuts. You come in with a box of doughnuts and some coffee, and you know—and you just, kind of, sit there and talk to them. You don’t even do anything. You just talk to them so they feel comfortable with you. If they just see you from far off—I’ll show you some pictures, but in the mornings there’s a hundred and forty-five of them lined up and you’re up in front. It—you know, you don’t get that sense of familiarity, but when you talk to them only for, like, fifteen minutes even though every other word out of their mouth is, “Ma’am,” you’re still talking.
TS: Right.
EPT: And then you remember them and say, “Hey, Seaman So-and-so. How’s that going?” and you get that little bit of connection.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so, I was probably in overwhelm but I was a single gal without her fiancée so you put a lot of time into your work. You know, back then I lived on base, I ran on base, and I 48
worked on base, so I was sort of, like, consumed with work, you know. There was nothing else. My family was, you know, two thousand miles away. What am I going to do? So, I pretty much stayed at work a lot. I created a little volleyball team, you know, for—and so, we went out and played volleyball. We did basketball. You know, we try to do—have these programs where people could get together and, kind of, know each other, you know, socially.
TS: Right.
EPT: There’s always—it doesn’t matter whether you’re in shorts or whatever, there’s always this hierarchy, believe me. But at least you, kind of, see each other in a different frame of mind, because—especially because I wasn’t very good at volleyball, you know, but that’s what they wanted to do so I go out there and play volleyball.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so—and so, that’s what you do. And that was fun.
TS: Do you think that’s where you get the idea that there’s more of a sense of family, sometimes, in the military than in other jobs?
EPT: Absolutely; absolutely. Because, you know, there’s a—there’s enough healthy dose of complaining and not being happy with the navy and stuff, but I know when things—a few times when things got tough for a couple of people, people really just pull together, you know. And so—even people that I thought had bad attitudes, for that short period did not have bad attitudes. [chuckles]
TS: So, they would be all?
EPT: Yes, exactly. So, that was good.
TS: Was there anything for you during your time in the navy that was particularly difficult, either emotionally or physically?
EPT: [pauses] Not so much physically. I think most of things I was asked to do I could handle physically. I tried to—but I worked at keeping fit, and you know, being able to do those things, because I actually went to what they call damage control school. Damage control school is where you are simulating a rupture in a ship, you know, and then—you’re literally in a tank, you know, and they’re—cold water is coming through and you have to patch that up. In a real life situation that would be, like, horrible because it’s the pressure as well as it’s cold and it’s salt water, you know. So, even then it was okay. I mean, we were able to make it through—in the back of my—in the back of our mind, of course, we knew that they’re not going to drown us but it seemed that way because, you know, you’re down there.
Emotionally, yes, I got close to some people, yes, and it was hard to keep the distance sometimes. You know, in terms of trying to be the boss—49
TS: Right.
EPT: —and you wanted to help them above and beyond but it really wasn’t appropriate.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know. But you can find ways around—around—you call the United Way. You call some other folks to say, “You need to touch base with Seaman So-and-so. She could use the help right now.”
TS: So, whatever tools you have, to try to—
EPT: Yes, and that’s what you got to do. You can’t personally give somebody a loan, or you can’t personally house them, you know. [chuckles] You just have to be real careful with that.
TS: But your heart, kind of, goes out to them?
EPT: Yes.
TS: Do you think that the—well, that the military has those kind of tools to help the enlisted, especially?
EPT: Yes, they’re very focused on the enlisted, which is the way it should be. The officers are usually fine.
TS: Yeah?
EPT: Yeah. [both chuckle]
TS: Why is that?
EPT: Yeah, they’re usually fine, because they usually come with a pretty good network. A lot of—there’s many, many reasons, especially back then, that people come into the military, and—but you’d be surprised how often I hear it’s to get away from home.
TS: From the enlisted?
EPT: Yeah; get away from home. They had some—they had to go someplace, so. When you come in with—with really no support structure, if you don’t have that in the military, you know, you’re going from—from the frying pan into the fire. So, you have to have that.
TS: Right.50
EPT: You have to have that, and if you—if you come in with a good group of people that does that for you without getting, what I call “gangish” then that’s great. Sometimes, sometimes, you know, is does get, I call “gangish” because they want loyalty from you no matter what because they’re giving you that support, and sometimes that—sometimes what they’re asking you to do is not the right thing.
TS: You mean, like, in a group that you might—
EPT: Yes.
TS: —you get in that is not necessarily beneficial to you in that way?
EPT: It’s beneficial in that they look out for you and they’re, kind of, like, your mini family, but what if they’re not following protocol?
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know? What if—what if they’re getting too far outside, you know?
TS: I see.
EPT: Then you’re part of this—this—this thing that’s wrong—
TS: I see.
EPT: —and you don’t want to rat anybody out. You know, that kind of—
TS: Oh, the loyalty—
EPT: Yes.
TS: —that becomes a detriment.
EPT: Yes, it becomes a loyalty to that group and not to the navy and not to the cause, and that’s when you have to be real careful. I mean, you will always be loyal to—to the person next to you, but you got to be sure for the right reasons.
TS: That’s a very interesting way to put that.
EPT: Yeah. I mean, because people say, yes, you know, after a while you’re not fighting for the navy, you’re not fighting for country, you’re fighting for the person next to you. But that person must represent, in my mind, the country and the navy.
TS: Right.
EPT: You know? So.51
TS: No, that’s well put. I think that’s very well put.
EPT: Yes, so.
TS: Did you ever get to go on TDY, or temporary duty, somewhere?
EPT: Yes. Yes. I went to oil spill school. [chuckles]
TS: Oh, is that what the—what you were describing?
EPT: Yes.
TS: Did you volunteer or did you get volunteered for that?
EPT: I volunteered because that was part of my job, and because part of my job—my third job was as a—I volunteered for that job because I was supposed to be admin[istration] officer and I told my XO, “You have plenty of people up here doing a lot of admin. Is there any place on base that you need somebody to fill the gaps?” and he sent me down to the service pier.
And part of the service pier’s job was to prevent oil spills, you know, for any small craft that come in. Because Hood Canal—I don’t know if you’re familiar with the geography of Washington state, but Hood Canal comes in deep all the way to Seattle and it is what they call—the Coast Guards calls Class A pristine waters; it’s very deep; it’s glacier cut; that’s why it’s perfect for [trying?] submarines, which—draft is very deep. You don’t have to—have to dredge like [Naval Submarine Base] Kings Bay, you know, Georgia.
TS: Okay.
EPT: Anyways, the water is very clean so they want to make absolutely sure is stays that way, and so you have all this oil spill equipment and things of that nature, and—but nobody from my area, except the folks that transferred in that have some experience, had that experience. So, I volunteered and said, “I need to go to some kind of school or something that I can know what oil spill prevention means,” other than just putting pads out when you see a little shine here and there, you know, because we have a potential for big spills. Now, the Tridents [class of submarines with Trident Ballistic Missiles] are nuclear, but there’s a small diesel component of it, and there are quite a few small craft come in that have diesel that will spill, you know, oil if it’s not handled correctly.
So, I went to—yes, to Texas. It was—oh gosh, it was not Houston; Corpus Cristi.
TS: Okay.
EPT: It was a civilian oil spill school, but they taught the people in rigs—handle rigs; [U.S.] Navy and Coast Guard, all in commercial because—52
TS: It’s like the premier place for this kind of—
EPT: Exactly.
TS: —training?
EPT: Yes, because everybody is concerned about—with oil spill.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so, yes, we go out there and it was hard [chuckles], you know, to go out there and to run the small crafts and maneuver and understand the dynamics of how quickly you’ve got to get to some spills; how to do the booming correctly; what kind of booms you use. It got very technical. You—I cannot recognize booms from the draft; all of them. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, that’ll be good for that.”
And also, I commanded tugs called YTBs, which is the large—they push and pull the giant Trident submarine. A Trident submarine, when it is above—when the sail is above the water they’re like beached whales; they can’t maneuver very well. They’re very large so they have to get pushed and pulled into—into these really small berths, you know, that they got to get into.
TS: Right.
EPT: And then—so, those are the main job of what I had. As a service pier, I was what they called the ops boss, you know, and so—but then we had about fourteen, fifteen small crafts, everything from a little dingy to, kind of, a—like, a—it’s a flat craft that—it’s a—that floats. It’s got several motors on it, but it can hold a lot of gear. You know, like a pontoon boat almost, and—with a little shack in front, because then you can put all the booms there. You have to—you stack them a certain way and then you have to let it go, you know, so that it—
TS: So they come out one by one?
EPT: Come out one by one and then it drops, because you’ve got to boom the entire Trident submarine. Trident submarine is five hundred and feet, okay, long.
TS: That’s a lot of boom.
EPT: A lot of boom. You got to have a certain distance because divers go down there sometimes to set certain wires and things of that nature, you know. So, you got to be careful of that as well. And then you got to be able to get off in a hurry and like, if—like, in a hurricane situation or in a weather situation, you know, a lot of those guys had to go out to open sea; you could not leave them in boat.
TS: You’re probably thinking about that during this—53
EPT: Absolutely. Those guys—
TS: —Hurricane Sandy.
EPT: Absolutely. Well, luckily there weren’t any boats there, but if there were big weather happening in Washington, they—all the big boats have to get out which means we got to get them out of there; we’ve got to get my tugs out there in a hurry; got to my pilots on there. Because another thing about a lot of these Trident submarines’ captains is that they’re very good out in open ocean because they have all the equipment to navigate. When they come into foreign waters, or tight quarters, you got to have pilots that understand totally that particular geography. And so, they give up the command of their ship temporarily, and my pilots go on the sail and they maneuver those ships so they don’t run aground.
TS: Right.
EPT: So, now we got to get them out there, you know, and then—of course, in the middle of the night; this always happened in the middle of the night. You know, they call you up and you’re down there and you’re rallying to get folks out because, you know, you do not want damage to a one point five billion dollar craft.
TS: No. That doesn’t go over very well.
EPT: And we feel responsible to help them do that, so the whole pier could be, like, bustling with activity to get them out in open water, make sure they’re safe, and then we’ve got to bring them back.
TS: Did you ever have to use that oil spill training?
EPT: Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, we had several pretty big incidents down there. Nothing compared—you know, compared to what you see, like, the Exxon-Valdez [oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989], you know, but unfortunately you spill more than ten, fifteen gallons and the sheen could be seen for miles, and so it looks really bad so you want to try to get that as quickly as possible, you know, before it starts foaming and churning.
TS: I see.
EPT: And then—and it breaks up into this really thin thin thin thin sheen, so you got to get out there and what you do—first thing you do is you got to boom it off so it doesn’t go anywhere, and then in that short—in that smaller category you do the initial mop up and get the big gloppy stuff off, and then you do the fine mop up to get the sheen off. Then the little bit that stays in you’re not going to be able to do much it but keep it contained until the plants and the natural biodegration reabsorbs.
TS: I see.54
EPT: Yes, so you got to do that. So, yes, we do that, and you come back and—you know, we teach the basic practices to the folks that’s running the booms and things of that nature. But they’re handling the equipment that’s—they’re handling the equipment. It’s very heavy and it’s unwieldy. They got to plan very carefully otherwise they got to fold and refold.
TS: Sure.
EPT: You know?
TS: Yes.
EPT: And no matter how tired you are you can’t just dump it. You got to—got to—
TS: Lay it down properly.
EPT: Yes, because you don’t want to waste a lot of time folding and refolding, so you want to unreel it this way and you want to rereel it that way.
TS: I see.
EPT: And you want to have it done just right so that when in an emergency you could load it and go, as opposed to, “Oh my God, now I got to—” you know, so that was—we had to be really strict about that because you never know when that emergency’s going to occur.
TS: Right.
EPT: And so—so, that was one part of the thing, and the other part is search and rescue. You know, we are—we were—we share that waterfront space with a lot of civilians. I mean, the base owned about three kilometers, you know.
TS: Now, is this you’re talking about in Washington?
EPT: Yes. My crew had to do search and rescue. We were the first responders for search and rescue in that Hood Canal area; after that the Coast Guard, but it takes a while for the Coast Guard to get there, so you know.
TS: Yes. You have any stories you want to share about that; search and rescue?
EPT: Search and rescue? A lot of them are, kind of, pleasure boaters. You know, outside my office I can see—because see, now remember, the base has about three—three kilometers or so of the—of the shore, right? But then they don’t own, or they don’t have control of, the entire Hood Canal. It only goes out, maybe, four, five hundred feet, and then beyond that, you know, like, if a pleasure boater or a family or whatever wanted to use that space 55
to get from point A to point B, you can see them far off. They just can’t get too close to the base, but you’re still in the same piece of water.
TS: Right.
EPT: But if they get in trouble out there and I can literally see them—and Hood Canal water is cold even in the summer; it’s sixty-eight degrees, sixty-nine degrees. So, if we don’t get out to them they’ll get hypothermia immediately within, like, twenty, twenty-two minutes. So, when that happens we’re the first call, and we rally up our small craft with the big heavy engines and we rush out there and pick them up. We got to bring them to our place, [chuckles] and then we—you know, then they leave by land. So, most of the time it’s things of that nature. We don’t do stuff that are way out there, but things that are within the geographical five miles or so that is within our call, we got to get out to them within thirty minutes if possible because even in the summertime—and that’s the only time they would do that, is they go out there in one of those dinghies or whatever, you know. And we know especially with kids, hypothermia sets in, so we’ve had several, you know—I remember one time with one family these two little kids, they were small and shivering, and so we took them down to try to get them hot chocolate and all that kind of other stuff before, you know, they can get them off base. So, things like that. Those are, kind of, fun stuff. Nothing—nothing dangerous.
TS: Nothing tragic.
EPT: Nothing tragic.
TS: That’s good.
EPT: Well, nothing—the one thing that—tragic that happened was to the navy people and not to the—not to the—
TS: Civilians.
EPT: —any civilians. And that didn’t really happen with us, you know, at Washington, but it actually happened at Kings Bay and we started using that as a training film as a wake-up call, in that one of the tugs during maneuver, you know, got sucked into the rotor of a submarine and the bow part below the water was cut, and so, you know, it sunk so fast that everybody in the engine room, you know, we couldn’t save them because they’re working with Mickey Mouse ears [referring to headphones?] so they don’t hear so the water just [makes noise] rushed in. I mean, they happened to have somebody filming topside because they were doing it as a—they were doing, I think, some kind of a transfer—personnel transfer, and they filmed it and I think they said they sank in, like, eighteen seconds.
TS: Oh my goodness. No time to react.56
EPT: Yes. From beginning to—no time to react. The few people that jumped overboard, you know, they were saved but they were lucky that they didn’t—also did not get sucked in, because that—the Trident propulsor is forty-eight feet in diameter, so it’s got [unclear] the catitation[?]
TS: Wow.
EPT: Pretty tough.
TS: Yeah, that is pretty tough. Now, what year did you and your husband go to Washington?
EPT: We went there in 1986; it was almost—it was ’87—because—December of ’86. I want to say ’87 because remember—I remember we got there in time for Christmas.
TS: Okay.
EPT: So, really we didn’t start our jobs until 1987.
TS: And this was in Bangor?
EPT: Bangor, Washington—or Silverdale, Washington, yes.
TS: Okay, Silverdale.
EPT: It’s called Bangor—Bangor Base—Sub[marine] Base Bangor [Naval Submarine Base Bangor, now part of Naval Base Kitsap].
TS: And that was a Trident submarine base?
EPT: Yes, it was. It was the—the newest Trident. There’s only two. Kings Bay was first, and then—and then Bangor Sub Base opened.
TS: So, for—so, how this works for joint assignments, did your husband get sent and then you had to find a billet there, or did you both get billets together?
EPT: We got billets together.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And we worked really hard for that, and that’s why they, sort of—when we did the double assignment they, sort of, put us on the same path timing wise.
TS: Okay.
EPT: You know, so that we could arrive at the same time and get, you know—and get detached at the same time. And so—so, we arrived there at the same time and, you know, looked 57
for jobs at the same place. Essentially, he had to get his job first and I had to find a job—because there’s more jobs for me than for him. I mean, a submarine officer can only go so many places; where there are submarines, you know?
TS: Right.
EPT: So, whereas I can go practically anywhere.
TS: Right. So, you need to follow him more? That’s why—that’s what I was wondering about that.
EPT: Yes. Yes.
TS: Because I know in some fields that’s it. One is more specific than the other.
EPT: Correct.
TS: Or less or more flexible.
EPT: Exactly. Exactly. He was less flexible because he’s on a path—now that he’d qualified engineer, you know, after his first shore tour, now he had to go to a—I’m sorry, his sea tour. He had to go to a shore tour and then his next assignment would have been engineer.
TS: Okay.
EPT: And so, he went to a squadron to be—to be on a shore tour for that—for two years, so I went with him. And, you know, my detailer, who is the person who takes care of the job, she offered me Brussels [Belgium] which was fantastic, and she thought it was really a great place for me and—but there was no jobs for him there, so I gave up Brussels for my husband. [both laugh]
TS: Do you remind him of that?
EPT: I do. I do, a lot. I do. But I hadn’t seen—even though we were married at that time for about three years we had hardly seen each other. I think we calculated that we probably spent maybe eleven months of that together.
TS: Oh, really?
EPT: You know, in the same place; same town. And so, we thought that, you know, since—as long as he has his shore tour it’d be good to—good to be in the same place. If I was in Brussels it’d be tough.
TS: Yes, it would. That’s true.End of Part One.
Interview continues in Part Two.