Oral history interview with Chely McAninch, 2010

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Chely McAninch
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: August 9, 2010
[Begin Interview]
TS: This is Therese Strohmer and today is August 9th, 2010. I’m at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This is an oral history interview for the Women’s Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Today I’m here with Chely McAninch?
CM: That’s correct.
TS: And we are going to talk about her time in the army. How would you like your name on your collection, Chely?
CM: I would like it to appear as Chely McAninch.
TS: Okay, excellent. Well, Chely, why don’t we start out by having you tell me when and where you were born?
CM: I was born in Weslaco, Texas, on May 12th, 1968.
TS: And what kind of town is that?
CM: It’s a small border town near McAllen, Texas, which is I guess the main—largest city nearby there.
TS: Is it rural at all?
CM: It—you know, I really don’t know at all, because we only lived there when I was a child, a young child, so I don’t really have any vivid memories. [chuckling]
TS: Where do you call home?
CM: I grew up—my mom moved to Mexico when I was nine, and so from the time I was nine until I turned eighteen, I lived in Mexico.2
TS: Where in Mexico? That’s kind of a big country. [laughs]
CM: Yeah, near Monterrey, Mexico. So it’s about four, four and a half hours south of the border with Texas. The city is actually called Saltillo, it’s the capital of one of the states there.
TS: Neat.
CM: So it’s a fairly large city. Now, it probably holds three quarters of a million to a million, so.
TS: Pretty good size.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
CM: I have one brother.
TS: One brother. And—older or younger?
CM: He’s four years younger than me, he was in the air force for a while.
TS: Oh, he was?
CM: But he didn’t make a career out of it. [laughter]
TS: Okay. Well, so why was it that your mother decided to go to Mexico?
CM: She got divorced from my dad, so.
TS: Oh, I see.
CM: Yup.
TS: Well, that would make the choice.
CM: She went back to her family.
TS: So what was it like growing up where you grew up?
CM: It was different. I always felt like I never fit in.
TS: How come?3
CM: Attended an all-girls Catholic school, very rigid, had difficulty adapting to the changes from being in the United States to then being in Mexico. I always felt kind of like an outsider.
TS: What—how old were you when you left?
CM: I was nine.
TS: Nine?
CM: Yeah. So it was just—it was different. I—it was—I mean, it was great having my mom’s side of the family there, you know, lots of cousins. My aunts, uncles, grandparents, all that was great. But it just—it never felt like it was really truly home for me.
TS: Did you visit your dad?
CM: No. I’ve had no contact with him.
TS: So once your mother went back, that was a break in the contact.
CM: That was, yeah, it was a clean break.
TS: What kinds of things did you do, growing up?
CM: Wasn’t very active with sports, sports have never been my thing. I did like theatre a lot, dance.
TS: Oh, really?
CM: Yeah. So I would say I was more the artistic type than really anything else. But again, it was just kind of, I don’t know, odd. It never felt like I was really going to be there permanently.
TS: Really?
CM: Yeah.
TS: Now, how were you treated by your classmates?
CM: Again, it was just—it’s an odd situation. For me, having been in a public school, you know, where there was boys and girls and it was a mixed thing, to then being shoved into this all-girls Catholic, very strict, run by nuns with a uniform and, you know, just—it was very—
TS: Restricting?4
CM: It was very restricting, yeah.
TS: Yeah. So you went through like four grades, then, in the public school in the United States.
CM: In the United States, correct. Yeah.
TS: So how did you feel about your education that you received, though?
CM: Oh, it was great, the education was top-notch. I was in the best school in the city, you know. But it just—I don’t know. For example, English was a mandatory subject through high school, and I didn’t really feel like I had to take it, so I would skip on the class, and because of that, I ended up having to do summer school for English, of all things. So it was just—you know.
TS: Because it’s like, I already know English.
CM: Right.
TS: Why do I have to take this class?
CM: And the teacher would get mad at me, because I’d correct her pronunciation, and so it was just—you know, so.
TS: Kind of an antagonistic—
CM: Yeah.
TS: How about your other classes? What other classes did you—
CM: Everything else was fine, I mean, I loved biology, I actually thought I was going to be a marine biologist, but obviously that didn’t go that way. [laughs]
TS: No.
CM: Science—were always strong classes for me. Math was not—to this day, I don’t like math.
TS: Well, did you have a sense then, as [to] what you wanted to do when you grew up?
CM: No, not really. I mean, like I said, I really enjoyed the theatre, I enjoyed acting, I was in several plays. But obviously that’s not a career that my mother was inclined for me to pursue. Neither was marine biology, because that would have meant I would have had to have moved away from where we lived. So then I think she was being just—she felt frustrated with my indecision.5
TS: What did your mom do for a living?
CM: She was a trained chemist, but she didn’t work as a chemist. She worked for General Motors as a traffic controller, moving parts in and out of the plant they had there. Because of her English, again.
TS: Right.
CM: So she decided, you know, that it’d be a good thing for me to maybe come to the States for a year to graduate high school in the United States so I’d have my high school diploma from the States, so that’s how I ended up in Michigan.
TS: Really? So how—that’s a long leap, get me through that a little bit.
CM: Right, right. She had a very good friend that she had grown up with, you know, when she was young, who was living in Michigan at the time. So my mom contacted her, asked if I could stay with her for a year so I could attend high school and graduate and she said “Of course, no problem.”
So I go to Michigan, and I think, you know, it was one of those career counselor type visit days, and the recruiters came by, and I was like “Wow. This sounds very interesting, you know, and I think I could do this,” and by the time I was already eighteen, because I’d already graduated, you know. So I didn’t need anybody’s permission.
TS: Ah, I see. Well, before we get to when you went in, what about that—did you have any kind of cultural shock going from where you were in Mexico to this much more colder climate? [laughs] And different environment?
CM: Right, yeah. It was very much so. I think probably the first two, three months, I didn’t really talk a lot in school. Though I understood everything and, you know, it was just kind of a reverse culture shock. But I knew I wanted to do something, and I don’t know, I just—it was different, it was strange, but at the same time it felt right and I really can’t explain it.
TS: So you kind of saw it as an opportunity.
CM: Yeah. Yeah.
TS: Not really sure how you were going to use that opportunity, but you felt like there was one there.
CM: Right. It was just something where you got to make—
TS: Make the best of it.
CM: You got an open door, let’s see what happens.6
TS: I see. Very interesting. Because—your circumstances of how you came about is a little bit different.
CM: Sure.
TS: From a lot of the women that I talk to that went into the military.
CM: Yeah, I mean, there’s no history of military service in my family. Obviously, in my mom’s side of the family, and/or my dad’s, as far as I know.
TS: Yeah. Well, how about being apart from your family, all the way—
CM: It never bothered me.
TS: Really?
CM: I wanted—I love to travel, I love to move, I look forward to moving. So that’s not something that ever bothered me.
TS: Were you able to still do, like, theatre and things like that with—
CM: I did, when I was in Michigan that one year.
TS: Yeah?
CM: I did. And you know, like I said, that’s always something that has attracted me, that I felt comfortable with. Probably why I went into the career field that I did.
TS: Yeah. So, let’s talk about that. So the recruiters, they came to the high school.
CM: Right.
TS: And—was there anything in particular that, like, caught your interest about the military?
CM: I don’t recall something specifically, but I thought “Wow, here’s an opportunity.” At the time, I was also taking a foreign language, I was taking German during that semester. So you know, they talked about this, they talked about being able to travel and—again, so it was like “Hmm, this is interesting, I think we can do this.” You know, so I took the ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] test and I did fairly well on it, you know, and—looking, now, back at it, you know, you can—having the experience now, you go, man, that recruiter really did his job, you know? Because they promise you the world. So. But it worked out great! I mean, I got what I wanted.
TS: How did you pick the service?7
CM: The air force said no, because they weren’t interested in, you know, somebody who had glasses or who didn’t have a perfect 20/20 vision. I wanted to go into pilot.
TS: Oh, I see.
CM: And so they said “No, can’t do that. You can do anything else, but,” you know.
And I said “Okay, thanks a lot, see you later.” [laughter]
TS: And navy didn’t interest you?
CM: No, navy didn’t, no.
TS: Marines?
CM: No.
TS: So it was really, like, between the air force and the—
CM: Right.
TS: —and the army.
CM: Yeah, yeah.
TS: Okay, so then, when you—after you took your testing—and you had some interest in the language—
CM: Right.
TS: —did you know—did you sign up knowing what your job would be?
CM: I did. Because—because I had scored so well on the ASVAB, I guess, one of the things that now I know, you know, they’re always running low on military intelligence, because those scores need to be high. So of course they pointed me in that direction. And one of the things they were looking at for me was to do signals intelligence, which, once they gave me—you know, they sit you down in the cubicle, they show you this video, and it had headsets on it, and you were going to be listening to radio traffic the whole time.
And I said “No, that’s not for me. I’m a people person.”
And they said “Oh, well, then we have this other job that kind of fits your area of interest.”
TS: How did they describe that?
CM: As somebody who would talk and interview people. And I said “Okay, I think I can do that.” You know, and foreign language, and you get to travel, so again, I asked, and I got it in writing, to have German as my language. So I got guaranteed to go to DLI [Defense 8
Language Institute] and then I was fortunate enough to go to Germany on my first assignment.
TS: Neat. So—so tell me about—the assignment—so Bay City Michigan in, what was it, 1988.
CM: Correct. No, actually, ’87. I signed up in eighty—
TS: Delayed enlistment?
CM: Yeah. I signed up in ’87, I had a delayed entry program for a year, because I had braces on. So I—
TS: So you had to wait to get those off?
CM: Right.
TS: Okay.
CM: So I graduated high school in Michigan, and I go back home, and I said “Mom, I know what I’m going to do.” [chuckles] And I pulled out the pink contract and she about lost her mind.
TS: Did she?
CM: Oh yeah.
TS: So what did she say to you?
CM: She was not happy. Not at all.
TS: Why—what was—why was she disappointed in your choice?
CM: Because it meant I was going to be gone. I mean, she—you know, again, she didn’t want me to do marine biology because that would have required me to move five, six hours away.
TS: Where there’s water.
CM: Right. And now I was moving, not just further away, but to another country, you know, so. But again, I was eighteen.
TS: Right, so she—
CM: Right.9
TS: —she could not do much about that.
CM: Right.
TS: What did your friends think?
CM: I didn’t really keep in touch with them. I mean, I—the group of kids that were my close friends, there were about twelve, fifteen of us, for some odd reason, most of us were not from that city. So they kind of all moved away for different reasons as well, so I never really kept in touch with them.
TS: So you kind of lost touch?
CM: Yeah. I’m not in touch with anyone from my high school years.
TS: From high school.
CM: Either one of them, you know, so.
TS: Yeah. So you took—what’d you do for that year, while you were waiting to go in?
CM: My mom thought that I would change my mind, and, you know, maybe I’d back out of this whole thing, and so I enrolled in college and did a semester in communications. So, again, talking to people and interviewing and stuff.
TS: Right.
CM: So it was fun and it was great, but.
TS: And then when the time came—so where did you go?
CM: I actually shipped out of San Antonio, Texas. Yeah.
TS: So you went to San Angelo?
CM: No, I—
TS: No, I’m sorry, you went in the army, I’m thinking air force.
CM: Yeah. Yeah, no, no, no, basic training, I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
TS: And how was that?
CM: Odd. Very odd.
TS: Why was it odd?10
CM: Well, you have to—I mean, think about it, I lived in Mexico, I grew up in Mexico, you know. Though it’s—you’re in a group of Hispanic population. I go to Bay City, Michigan, it’s a very white, predominantly, area. Especially the high school that I was in. There was probably—
TS: What high school did you go to?
CM: Bay City. Handy—Handy T.L. [T.L. Handy High School]. You know, I think there was maybe three Hispanics and one black in the entire school. You know, nine through twelve, and I don’t remember how many students were in the high school, but, you know, it was—
TS: A small minority.
CM: A very small minority.
TS: Right.
CM: And I never really thought of it. I don’t think I—I mean, I—race was not something that really played a big role in my life up until that point, and then I go to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and I’m thrown into this, you know, fifty girls living all together, is not a good thing. So it was—it was very difficult at times, you know.
TS: When you say fifty girls living all together is not a good thing, give me some examples of what—
CM: Oh, women, you know, a bunch of women hanging out together, fifty of them having to live in close quarters, you know, it—just not—
TS: What kind of problems would come up?
CM: Just cultural differences that, now, I can think back and go “Man, was that stupid,” but, you know, you don’t realize that black—I didn’t—that black people don’t use hair spray, and that ended up throwing a big, you know, ended up being a big argument between another girl one night, because I had insulted her because I had asked her if she had hair spray. I didn’t know.
TS: I see, little, like—little cultural things.
CM: Cultural things that, you—you know, again, just simply having not grown up around different races, it just never crossed my mind, you know.
TS: What other kinds of things did you experience, in basic?11
CM: It was—well, the battalion that I was assigned to was an all-women—I mean, there was still segregated.
TS: Oh, it was still—okay.
CM: Yeah. So I think there was—there was four buildings, and I think the last, you know, if we were on the first building, I think the last building was a male company. But it was still all segregated, I think they’re integrated now, at some point they integrated, I don’t know when. So it’s just odd.
TS: So what were you thinking about your choice, in basic training? Your decision?
CM: It was an adventure. I mean, I was like “Okay, whatever,” you know. I’m—again, I was oblivious to this whole thing about race being an issue, there was some white girls that were very anti-blacks and, you know, I was the only Hispanic, and there was—like I said, I think there was fifty or fifty-six of us. You know, I was the only one of Hispanic heritage. It was either black or white. I was kind of caught in the middle, you know, so I didn’t really fit in anywhere, and it was just—
TS: Again, you’re used to this, right?
CM: Yeah. So. But it went—I guess, graduated that, and—
TS: Well, was there anything particularly physically difficult for you, since you said you—you didn’t play a lot of athletic activities growing up?
CM: I didn’t think it was that strenuous, to be honest. I mean, I did well on all the events, I never—I didn’t have any problems. I was not in the fastest group of runners, but I wasn’t in the slowest group of runners, so it was just kind of average, in the middle.
TS: Right. And then the other parts of it, like the emotional aspect of it?
CM: Again, it did not bother me. There was a lot of girls that had issues with—they either had boyfriends or, you know, they missed Mom and Dad and this and the other, and for me, you know, I never got a letter while I was there the whole time, and I could have cared less. It just didn’t bother me.
TS: Yeah. And you’d spent that whole year—
CM: Away. Right. I had—I was in, you know—
TS: Wasn’t your first time away from home.
CM: Right, right.12
TS: Interesting. So—and I didn’t mean to interrupt you earlier, were you going to say something more?
CM: No, I just, from there—I think there was two of us, or maybe three of us, that had to go to the Presidio in Monterey, California, to attend language training from there. You know, you’ve been to DLI, you know, imagine leaving basic training, I don’t know if you did, at the same time, but you go from this very regimented, structured, can’t even blink without asking permission, to showing up in Monterey, California, and I distinctly remember telling the bus driver that dropped me off “No, I think you took me to the wrong place,” because, you know, it was a Friday afternoon, like 3:30, 4:30, and here I am reporting in uniform and there’s beer bottles being thrown out of a building, and—you know, it’s like “Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?”
TS: So it was more—much more casual environment?
CM: Oh, much more so. And, you know, I think—I don’t know, I got lucky. I got there, there was a lot of new incoming soldiers over the last two or three weeks, they were out of billets in the enlisted, junior enlisted quarters. So I ended up going to an NCO building, so I was rooming with just one other girl, we had our own private bathroom, you know. It was great.
TS: How long were you there?
CM: I was there for almost nine months.
TS: That was for the language school?
CM: Yes.
TS: How long were you in that billet with the—
CM: The whole time I was there.
TS: You were?
CM: Yeah.
TS: Oh, I am so jealous. [laughs]
CM: I was in the pink buildings up on the hill, you know.
TS: Oh yeah, because—did they still—did they still have the A Company and C Company, the two companies for the army, one at the top of the hill and one at the bottom of the hill?13
CM: Yeah. Not in the Russian village, but, you know, I guess the Russian village was past the PX, so that was way up top of the hill, but right below the PX. There was like three or four pink buildings, I was in one of those.
TS: Okay.
CM: And they were nice, I mean, like I said, there was a day room on each floor, it was like a mini apartment, you know.
TS: They must have been like BOQ or something, before.
CM: I don’t know. They were brand new, I mean, when I got there. I think they’d been open for like a year. Like I said, I just lucked out.
TS: Right. Interesting.
CM: So it was a great time.
TS: So tell me about language school. How was that for you, to—you had some background with German. How was it different—was it what you expected, I guess, is what I want to ask?
CM: It was, it was—I mean, it was all day intensive training, you know, you did that from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. And again, because I knew another language, I thought it was—I thought it was easy, you know. I didn’t struggle with having to just learn something that I couldn’t grasp. I remember when I started there, I almost—it was just kind of—just flew. You know, it was easy. I didn’t struggle with it. Some other people did struggle quite a bit with it. I was still very young, you know, nineteen, so. I don’t know that I could do it now. [chuckles]
TS: Did you have PT or anything [unclear]?
CM: Yeah, we still did the PT in the morning. You know, and you had certain events in the afternoon. You know, soldier-type events, marching around and stuff like that. But primarily, the day was dedicated—it was kind of like being in school again.
TS: Right.
CM: You know, you had a listening lab, you had a speaking, you had—but it was—everything was language. So.
TS: It wasn’t a total immersion like the Russian—the Russian one came, it was just a lab that you went to, like that?
CM: Yes.14
TS: Now, did you have off-duty time?
CM: Yeah, I mean, I think once you—the first few weeks, you were required to attend an after-hours, like two hours of after-hours remedial training if you needed remedial training, or just common study, like a study hall type of set-up. But then after like your first eight weeks, I think it was, then you—you know, if you had a good enough score, then you didn’t have to attend any more. And so I did—I mean, so basically, the afternoons were yours. Once you got done with school, you went to class from eight to three, and then you were done, you know, until the next morning. Get up, go to PT, go to class.
TS: And how about your weekends?
CM: Weekends were free unless you had to pull some type of, you know, duty. But, I mean, those didn’t come around that often.
TS: So how is it—so you spent nine months there. What kinds of things did you do on your off-duty time?
CM: Went downtown a lot, enjoyed shopping, I mean—tried going to the beach once, Monterey, California is not a sunny beach, you know, not warm weather.
TS: [laughs] Right, true, Monterey Bay is chilly.
CM: Yeah, it’s, like, freezing. You know. But, went down to the aquarium, walked around the downtown, did the shopping, you know, just—
TS: Yes. Did you take any weekend trips anywhere?
CM: I did a couple times, but nothing that stands out like—just—
TS: Just—
CM: Yeah.
TS: Did you have—you kind of have this theme in talking about where you didn’t fit in in certain places. How are you feeling about fitting in the army, now?
CM: It—you know, at that point, I don’t think it really had clicked, because it didn’t feel like I was in the army, you know. I mean, sure, we wore a uniform from, you know, eight to three, but it was like “Oh, okay, this is great, now I have my free time, you know. Nobody messes with me on the weekends, I can do whatever I want, you know.” So it didn’t really feel like the army.
TS: Didn’t feel like the army yet.15
CM: No.
TS: So, did it when you went to your first duty station?
CM: Well, and then after—so you graduate language school, then you go to your AIT [Advanced Individual Training], you know, and that was Fort Huachuca—
TS: Oh, right.
CM: —Arizona.
TS: It’s like the technical aspect of the—
CM: Right. The technical aspect of learning your job. And I remember, again, it was like culture shock, again, because—so now I show up in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and, you know, I show up in shorts and a T-shirt, because of course, you know, I’ve been in Monterey for a year, almost.
TS: [chuckles]
CM: And I remember this drill sergeant “Oh my God, we must have another interrogator showing up right now.” You know, and he had very Southern accent, and it was like, oh boy. “You better brace that wall and, da-da-da-da-da,” you know, and so it’s just like, oh my God. Okay, now, I’m in the army. And I think I was there for like three months or four months to go through that training. And now you were in the army, you know. You did PT every morning, you marched everywhere, you were in uniform everywhere. You were lucky if your class didn’t get in trouble or you had some free time, you know, from like five, six Friday afternoon until like four or five on Sunday afternoon. But you had to make formations, you know, you couldn’t go anywhere.
TS: Even on the weekends?
CM: Yeah.
TS: Yeah.
CM: So, again, big shock. At this point, it’s like “Okay, now I’m in the army.”
TS: And how was it for your training, I mean, how was the training for you?
CM: It was good. I didn’t think it was very difficult, you know—they had a lot of people that fell out and would have to recycle through the course. I, you know, passed through it the first time around. Again, talking to people, it’s easy. You just—everybody has a story, you just got to learn to listen.
TS: Yeah.16
CM: Kind of like you.
TS: [chuckles] Yeah. Well, what—did you know that you were going to go to Germany, next, for your first duty assignment, or—
CM: No. No. I think we actually found out when—we found out when we graduated from DLI. There was four of us that were in a class that were interrogators. I think there was ten of us total, were in the class. Four of us interrogators, two came—no, one came here to Fort Bragg, and then the other three, we actually all went together to Fort Huachuca and we all three went to Germany.
TS: And where in Germany did you go?
CM: Darmstadt.
TS: Darmstadt. Okay. So now, how’s your mom feeling about you being in the military, is she still—
CM: I think she gave up. [laughter]
TS: Okay. Well, now you’re going all the way to Germany.
CM: Right.
TS: Okay. I was wondering if that, you know.
CM: I mean, at this point, you know, what can she do?
TS: That’s true, that’s true. So how was Germany?
CM: It was great. Loved it. Absolutely loved it, from the first day I was there. Obviously, knowing the language presented you with a great opportunity. I wasn’t intimidated by going downtown and asking for this or that or going out to eat or, you know, taking trips. I traveled lots.
TS: Where did you go?
CM: Everywhere.
TS: What were some of your favorite places to go, then?
CM: Munich, loved Munich. Salzburg, I remember. I went there probably within the first six months of being there, and just absolutely loved it. Still one of my favorite cities to date. Up to Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy. Traveled to everywhere.17
TS: Did you ever get to Trier? [Trier is a German city on the banks of the Moselle River, considered the oldest city in Germany.]
CM: I did, yes. Trier. The Porta Nigra [2nd century Roman gate in Trier].
TS: Cute little place.
CM: Yeah. Loved it. I just enjoyed it, you know, the Moselle [River], going up and down the Moselle and stopping at the wineries.
TS: [?] Castle, and—
CM: Yeah.
TS: Yeah.
CM: Yeah, so it was good. I—I was very open to travel, you know, so it’s—so I thought the recruiter did great. He promised me—get me to DLI to learn German, I got to go to Germany on my first duty assignment, got to see the world, loved it.
TS: And how are you liking your job?
CM: A lot of training, so I mean, as an interrogator, you didn’t really do much, you know, other than train, train, train.
TS: Right.
CM: You know, this is 1989, 1990, nothing happening, you know, train, train, train. Go to the field. But again, it was great, it was fun.
TS: Well, you do have a little bit of like, things happening behind the Iron Curtain in those years.
CM: Right. Well, and I actually had the opportunity to go down to Munich and work with a unit there, and was able to do some of the debriefings of some of the refugees that were coming across.
TS: That were coming across.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Excellent.
CM: So that was very interesting. But again, I mean, not per se an interrogation.
TS: Right. Because there’s not a war.18
CM: Right.
TS: Or something like that. But it is a very interesting time to be in Germany, with what’s happening.
CM: Oh, absolutely. You know, I was in Munich when the wall came down.
TS: And what was that like?
CM: It was a party, I mean, oh my God. It was great, everybody, you know—I remember going downtown to the local plaza, and just—everybody was celebrating. It was great. You know, it was history in the making.
TS: Yeah. Yeah. And that was—when did the wall come down?
CM: It was like November of ’90, I think? ’89? [November 9th, 1989]
TS: Think in ’89. I’m trying to remember. Because the Soviet Union, then, was ’91, was it? Yeah. I know I should probably get those dates. But yeah, right then, I know it was like ’89, ’91, in that period, you had—
CM: It was like November. I—because I was actually there for a class and so it was just—
TS: You happened to be there at that time.
CM: Yeah.
TS: How many years were you in Germany?
CM: Total, out of my career—
TS: But to start.
CM: To start, three.
TS: The first three.
CM: The first three.
TS: So that first duty was three years.
CM: First duty was three years, yes.
TS: Okay. And so how are you traveling around, are you driving, are you taking the train?19
CM: Tours.
TS: Tours? Okay.
CM: Yeah.
TS: That you do through the, like, the agency—
CM: Through like the travel agency on the bases, you know, put together weekend tours, go to Paris for three days, you know, so. Yeah, why not? What else am I going to do? Stay in the barracks?
TS: So can you describe like a typical day in Germany for you, like a work day?
CM: Get up in the morning, go do PT, come back, have the morning formation, go to the motor pool, check on the vehicles, check on the equipment, you know. Again, as interrogators, you didn’t really have a job, per se, you know. Train, train, train—
TS: Be prepared?
CM: Read some manuals, you know, pretend to work on your language, but wait a minute, if I’m in Germany, I should just go downtown, you know?
TS: [chuckles] If I did some shopping, that’ll—
CM: Right! [laughs] I tried that, didn’t work. But, so, it’s just—kind of—Mondays through Fridays were kind of, okay, whatever, let’s get to the weekend, come on.
TS: So it’s like a job and you’re just ready for the weekend?
CM: Yeah.
TS: So how are you—now how are you enjoying the time in the army?
CM: Loving it. I mean, I really—it was good.
TS: When you initially signed up, what was your expectation for how long you would stay in?
CM: I didn’t know.
TS: Yeah.
CM: I didn’t really know. And then at a certain point, there, I ended up getting married, not to my current husband, and it was kind of just, you know, young and kind of—20
TS: In Germany?
CM: Yeah, but to an American.
TS: Okay.
CM: Who was just there kind of visiting his parents, hanging out, not really on a job, so. All of this, we can probably omit. [chuckles]
TS: So that just happened when you were first there, and then—
CM: Yeah.
TS: Okay.
CM: And so, I re-enlisted and did a PCSing [Permanent Change of Station] back to the United States.
TS: After Germany, okay.
CM: After Germany, I went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
TS: Fort Monmouth. And what kind of duty did you have there?
CM: A lot of the same. Train, train, train, you know, read manuals, do this, go to the field, set up facilities where we would eventually, someday, you know, if we ever had to go to war, set up and practice interrogations and this. But again, a lot of training. While I was in Germany the first time, Panama happened, but again, I was in Germany.
TS: Right.
CM: Panama was over here, Fort Bragg got to participate. Nobody in Germany. Even though, hey, I’m a Spanish—native Spanish-speaker, wrong continent.
TS: Yeah, wrong continent. Couldn’t attach you to another duty, so.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Did you have any kind of culture shock when you came from Germany back to the United States at all?
CM: Absolutely. It was just—
TS: Can you talk about that a little?21
CM: Driving down the roads, seeing all the billboards. It just—it is overwhelming. Your senses get overloaded with all the advertising, all the infomercials, the different choices. When I was in Germany, we had, I think—I still think we had only the one channel that you could watch on the bases, you know, an English channel.
TS: The AFN [American Forces Network].
CM: The AFN network. Which was heavily propaganda’d by the military, you know, everything was about operation security and serve your country and this and that and the other. Coming back to the States and now having all these channels—and this is when AOL came on, you know, and so now we had the internet, and it was overwhelming.
TS: Well now, the Gulf War would have happened when you were in Germany, too.
CM: It did, yes.
TS: Okay. How was that experience, do you—
CM: I didn’t go, I was assigned to Fifth Corps. Seventh Corps deployed.
TS: From Germany?
CM: Yes.
TS: Ah. Were you disappointed, did you want to go?
CM: I wanted to go, I had friends who were assigned to Seventh Corps and they deployed and so I, you know, mailed boxes to them of goodies and stuff and letters. But again, Fifth Corps didn’t get to go. Seventh Corps did, Seventh Corps got folded, you know, and they went away afterwards. But yeah, Fifth Corps units did not deploy. So.
TS: So, I’m sorry, I had forgotten to ask you about that, when you were there. And then you also had—you’re in Monmouth and you’re in New Jersey.
CM: Correct.
TS: And we were talking about the culture. Was there any other cultural aspects of—
CM: It just—no, it just—the overwhelming choices that were out there. You know, in Germany, stores closed at six during weekdays and only were open until twelve on Saturdays. Everything was closed on Sunday. Here, the land of 24/7, you know. So it took a while to get used to it. I was only there for two years. During this time, Somalia happens. The unit that I was assigned to did send a very small contingent of soldiers, primarily those who were Somali linguists, which I am not. Therefore, I didn’t get to go.
TS: So it was part of—you could have, had you been—had that language.22
CM: I was in the right unit, just had the wrong language.
TS: Wrong language. So you missed out on that one.
CM: And it wasn’t, you know, Arabic was one of the other ones that was used, or they took some of the Arabic linguists, they took the Somali linguists. But yeah, no German speaker, yeah. And so, I was the wrong language that time.
TS: So how were you doing with, like, how are you feeling about—you’re getting promotions, things like that?
CM: Yeah, at this point, I got there—I’m trying to think. I got my E-5 stripes right before I left Germany, so I’d been promoted within three—within three years, I’d made sergeant E-5. Got to Fort Monmouth, did really well, had some great mentors there, two warrant officers, and got promoted to staff sergeant. And they started talking to me about applying for warrant officer and becoming a warrant officer. Became the platoon sergeant, served as an acting first sergeant for a while, so I was doing great. You know, and at this point, I knew by then, at probably the four-year mark, five-year mark, that I was in it for good.
TS: Did you originally sign up for four?
CM: I originally signed up for four.
TS: Okay.
CM: So—and I had to re-enlist when I was at Monmouth for four more.
TS: Okay.
CM: So I re-enlisted for four more, that would have taken me up to eight. But that that point, you know, I—like I said, I had decided I was going to submit my warrant packet, I was going to make a career out of it, yeah. And I did, I submitted my warrant packet and I got accepted and I got selected and I ended up going—wait, no, that’s wrong. Why am I missing something. [pause] Monmouth—
TS: And then the next thing you have on here is Augsburg.
CM: Right. Yeah, I submitted my warrant packet, but I was not accepted.
TS: The first time?
CM: The first time, I was not accepted. That’s right, yeah. And then I re-submitted when I was in Augsburg and got accepted there.23
TS: Oh, at Augsburg, you got in.
CM: So I got accepted out of Augsburg and then I went to WOC School [Warrant Officer Candidate School/WOCS] from Augsburg.
TS: Was there—you talked about having a couple of good mentors, do you want to talk about them at all?
CM: CW2 John Menina[?] was probably the most instrumental person in me deciding to go warrant. He was a great leader, I really, really admired him. He retired, and he’s here in the Fort Bragg area.
TS: Yeah. You still keep in touch with him?
CM: I’ve not seen him in a couple years, I saw him probably two or three years ago. But—great guy, I mean, really knew his job, took the time to mentor and teach, so, yeah.
TS: What was it he said about being a warrant officer that appealed to you?
CM: I got to see what he did, so it was his role modeling, his teaching, his actually—you know, taking the time to take a soldier and show them and groom them to do their job, you know, and—I was not liking, at this point, like I said, I was a staff sergeant, I was a platoon sergeant, I was doing a lot of paperwork, I was getting pulled more and more away from what I saw being the technical aspect of the job, to managing and babysitting soldiers, and I really wasn’t in it for that.
So I remember having a conversation with him one time, and he said “Well, you should do this.”
And I said “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Well, you’ll never know unless you apply.”
And so, like I said, I got rejected the first time, and he said “Don’t worry about it, apply again next year.” And after that, I PCSed, went to Germany, and I did. So, and then that’s when I got selected.
TS: You got selected. So then, how long were you in Augsburg?
CM: I think I was only—I was in Monmouth for two years and I was in Augsburg for two, almost to the day.
TS: Two years.
CM: Yeah.
TS: On a three—it’s usually a three-year gig, right, so—
CM: Right.24
TS: So you had—so you got accepted while you were in Augsburg, but before we get to that, how was your tour in Augsburg, then?
CM: It was very good, I—you know, like I said, I was a staff sergeant at that point, I had started working up in the battalion staff, I had some pretty good friends that I interacted with, I was working on getting my bachelor’s done at this point, so I was taking evening courses as well. You know, just trying to stay current, trying to keep my civilian education going.
TS: Right.
CM: So I mean, it was a good job. I had a great battalion commander, got along with him great. Got along with the leadership great, so.
TS: Were you still doing a lot of traveling?
CM: Some traveling, not as much as I did when I was a younger soldier, because, you know, at this point I’m actually more responsible for things and people and, so.
TS: Right. So you have more obligations to—
CM: Right. Plus, going to school really cut down on my traveling. But it was one of those things where, you know, one of the things that I didn’t have when I was at Monmouth was that education, and so it was one of the things that was looked at as being weak on my packet.
TS: I see.
CM: So—
TS: So that’s one of the reasons that you took some of the classes there, too, besides wanting to build yourself.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Excellent. So, you’ve talked a little bit about having great relationships with a couple, like your company commander and this chief warrant officer. Menini?
CM: Menina.
TS: Menina. He—and so, did you find that you had a lot of support from a lot of male role models in the army?
CM: I had probably strictly male role models in the army. I can think—I mean, clearly, John Menina was a great guy. Captain Lawford[?], I worked for directly in Augsburg, Lieutenant Colonel DeSoto was my battalion commander there, he was great. But it was 25
primarily male role models. I cannot think of a single female that I can think that I said “I look up to here and that’s who I want to be like when I grow up, you know, when I get older.”
TS: Why do you think that was?
CM: There were simply not that many around.
TS: Really?
CM: Yeah.
TS: It wasn’t—it was for lack of having women in those positions, do you think?
CM: For lack of having senior women. I think maybe staff sergeant was a senior rank for a female, that I had come across up until that point. Maybe an occasional lieutenant here and there. But for the most part, you didn’t really see senior women.
TS: Was this because of the career field that you’re in, do you think?
CM: I don’t think so, because, I mean, of all fields, military intelligence and signal would be the two that would have the predominant amount of women in them. I just—I don’t know if it was—I mean, I can’t think, again, of any—there was a lot of my peers, you know, there was probably, I wouldn’t say a fifty-fifty mix of male-female, but maybe two-thirds/one-third, but some—
TS: Of males to females?
CM: Right, but at some point, those women would either get married and get out or simply do their time and get out. You know.
TS: So they weren’t staying in long enough to—
CM: They weren’t, no.
TS: —get to senior leadership positions.
CM: Correct, yeah.
TS: Because sometimes, I mean, even in—we’re in the ‘80s, late ‘80s, early ‘90s, you know, men were seen as having a negative view of some of the women in the army.
CM: Right.
TS: Did you experience that in any way?26
CM: I don’t think I experienced it personally, but—I can see how—I mean, without a question, it existed, you know. I can’t think of an instance where it affected me, personally.
TS: Yes. Did you have—when you were having—as a staff sergeant.
CM: Yes.
TS: And you said you were having to manage people, what was—was there anything that you enjoyed about that position?
CM: Just being able to, I don’t know, I guess lead people. You know, being in charge, being responsible for something. And again, I had—I was fortunate enough to have good role models, even though they were males, that I could look up to and go “That’s the way it’s done,” you know. “It’s done this way, this is the right way to do it.” It just—it became more and more something I wanted to do.
TS: Do you think that—well, I have two questions for you, here. What was it that you didn’t like about it?
CM: How competitive it could be.
TS: In what way?
CM: Always had to try harder, always had to be better than your male counterpart to get the same recognition or close to the same recognition, you know. I don’t know if any other women have shared this analogy, but, you know, if a guy yelled and screamed, he was assertive. If a woman did it, she was bitchy. And—just trying to walk that fine line between being a professional and being taken serious and, you know—it was a very tight rope. You didn’t want to come across as being a jerk, but at the same time you couldn’t come across as being too soft, because then you’d get run over.
TS: Do you think that part of it might have had to do with your age? Because you were promoted pretty quickly.
CM: I was promoted fairly quickly. Yes, you know, two years ago when I retired and went to work for a company, a large contracting company, one of the male counterparts there, first two or three days of the job, goes “Oh, so you’re new, so where’d you come from?”
And I said “Well, I just recently retired.”
And I got “Retired from what?”
“The army.”
“You don’t look old enough to have retired.”
“Okay. Don’t hold that against me,” you know. I’d get that a lot.
TS: Yeah, because you were able to retire at a fairly young age.27
CM: I was.
TS: Because you enlisted really young.
CM: Right. I retired at thirty-nine. So. You know, and I guess I’m blessed with good genes. [laughter]
TS: Yes, I would say. So—so as you—when you decided to become a warrant officer and go down that path, did that happen when you were in Augsburg, then?
CM: It did, I got selected from Augsburg, and I went to the Fort Rucker course for eight or nine weeks.
TS: Where is that at?
CM: Alabama.
TS: Oh, okay. That was an experience.
CM: It’s—oh yeah. Actually, it was a good time of year, because it wasn’t too hot, it was like February, March. Actually, in March, April. I showed up there to attend the Warrant Officer Candidate School, kind of like your basic training, all over again, exactly eight years to the day from the time I attended basic training, so. Yeah, I did get promoted quickly, you know, and that was basically a “How bad do you want this?” you know. Stand on your toes for twenty minutes, you know. Silly drills to see, you know, who’s really going to make it through.
TS: Yeah. So mind games and physical games, and—
CM: Yeah, a lot of mind games, a lot of physical games, just, you know, again, who’s going to do it.
TS: You seem to have taken it kind of with a grain of salt in basic. Did you feel that way in this school?
CM: Pretty much.
TS: Yeah. That it was just, bide your time, do what you have to do?
CM: Bide your time, keep your mouth shut, stay out of trouble, work with the group, put your personal differences aside, you know. Cooperate to graduate, kind of thing.
TS: Right.
CM: So, yeah, it worked.28
TS: Was there anything especially challenging for you in that?
CM: Physical endurance. By this point, I had had knee problems a couple times. The physical portion of it did get to me, and you know, it was through the class working as a whole, the class protecting those that were not quite as able that we were able to graduate several people that were otherwise may have had to go through the course again.
TS: So at different levels and in different areas, you just kind of wrapped your arms around everybody and kind of tried to go forward together.
CM: Right. As a group, you learn to, okay, we had one kid who could just not set up his closet, his display rack, you know, and so the group set it up for him. And “Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it!”
TS: Yeah. Once we’re done with it—yeah.
CM: Some of us were placed on duty specifically during a day that we had a very challenging event to ensure that we were not singled out as the instructors knew who had difficulties, you know.
TS: Yes.
CM: But it was, again, it was one of those, you work as a group—I mean, obviously the instructors knew this, but it was set up for you to allow, you know, are you guys smart enough to work as a group?
TS: Now, you talked a little earlier about different places in your life where, again, you’re like—you’re the one Hispanic or, you know—did you have that—what was it like at school, at this school, at Warrant Officer [Candidate] School?
CM: At Warrant Officer [Candidate] School, I think we have fifty-six—no, we had forty-six students in the class, we had twenty-three that were prior service and twenty-three that were straight out of high school and were going to become pilots. So those kids, high school to flight school, they’re going to become warrant officers, so we had a fifty-fifty mixture there. Of the forty-six, we lost one due to appendicitis, there was five women, again. So you know, here again, it’s a very small percentage of the females. There was one National Guard girl, she was out of Puerto Rico, myself, a black girl, and two white girls. So just, it varies.
TS: Kind of diverse within the women.
CM: Yeah, within the women. But you know, everybody managed to get along just to get through it. We all had one objective, and that was to graduate.
TS: So there wasn’t a lot of, like, competition against each other, it was more of a teamwork-oriented—29
CM: Yeah, it was—absolutely, it was cooperate so you can get out of here. Yeah.
TS: So then when you were finished with that, did you go back to Germany?
CM: No, I went to Fort Huachuca for additional training, another two, three—four months, and then I ended up going to Fort Drum, New York. And was there for about four years.
TS: What—so what did you do—now, what—I want to ask you a million questions here. How was being a warrant officer different from being enlisted?
CM: Being a warrant officer, then, allowed me to stay more in the technical aspect of the job, so, you know, leave it to the NCOs to manage soldiers, troops. As a warrant, I could focus more on the training of the soldiers. It was different, though, because now I’ve gone from being not necessarily at the top of the pecking order, but you know, somewhere in the middle.
TS: Were you like an E-6?
CM: I was an E-6, to now being a W-1, which everybody, you know, is like “Oh my god, you know, what do you know?” So you’ve got your senior warrants going “Oh, you’re the wobbly one,” you know, you’ve got your commissioned officers, who go “Oh, chief, you’re the technical expert, you know everything,” you know, to the NCOs going “Oh, you’re a traitor. You know, you just couldn’t cut it, so you’re there.”
TS: Really?
CM: You kind of, you know.
TS: You couldn’t cut it as an enlisted?
CM: I guess. You know, that’s the way some of the NCOs—“Why’d you leave the NCO corps, blah blah blah, this and that. You know, I was going to do that, too.” Why didn’t you?
TS: So did you—someone else has described it as kind of being an in-between status.
CM: Yeah. Pretty much, you know, but I thought I had the best of both worlds.
TS: Because?
CM: Because officers didn’t really know how to treat you, what to do with you, you know. NCOs were kind of were like afraid of you at some point, you know, kind of left you alone, you’re that technical expert, so you’re kind of in the middle and you’re like—my husband described it one time, I don’t remember where he—I think it was coming back from Bosnia, and they stopped over somewhere in England or Ireland, and the plane had 30
to refuel, whatever. And so, you know, all the soldiers get out. My husband’s a commissioned officer, he goes—there was like five or six of us, we all went to the bar that was there, you know, he’s like “All the officers were standing in one corner, going ‘man, I really wish I could have a beer’. NCOs were over in the other corner going ‘man, I really wish I could have a beer’. Up walk two warrant officers, go to the bar and get a beer.” You know? And it’s like, yeah, exactly. Who’s going to tell me no?
TS: That’s a good story, that’s an interesting way to put it. So you settled into it just fine.
CM: I did. I—you know, and again, I was able to find some good peers that I could kind of relate to, look for advice, look for help when I needed it. It just kind of came naturally. I very much enjoyed it.
TS: Yeah. So, okay, now you go to Fort Drum.
CM: Yup.
TS: And so what is—are you doing the same type of work that you were doing before when you were an NCO?
CM: Pretty much, but now I’m in charge of managing the training for the soldiers, you know, I get to put—develop how I want the soldiers trained, I got really involved with that. Had—I think we had fifteen or so in the platoon that were all [humangers?] you know, and so. It was a good assignment, we did a lot of field time, lot more than I ever wanted to. They called Fort Drum “the land of the frozen chosen”. It was very cold there, but I enjoyed it, I mean, it was fine. Got into, at one point, starting to manage the language program there, and became in charge of the language training for all the soldiers in the unit that I was assigned to. Like a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and twenty linguists, making sure they were trained, that they went and did their testing, that they qualified, prepared training plans for them if they didn’t pass their test, et cetera.
TS: Did you enjoy that?
CM: Very much.
TS: What was it that you enjoyed about that part of the job?
CM: Working with languages.
TS: Yeah.
CM: Working—getting a chance to put together, develop a program where you can get somebody who is failing at what they should be proficient at and then developing them into somebody that actually, you know, passes and exceeds the standard that they’re supposed to have.31
TS: So you see an end result, right?
CM: Yeah.
TS: That’s neat. And then you had your hands in it, so.
CM: Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, I went during that time frame, the unit that I was assigned to in Fort Drum was deemed to have the worst language program of Forcecon[?] units, of any Forcecon unit. And yeah, I took it from that and by the end of that two years that I was in charge of the program, it became the best language program. It was great, you know, we send teams out to DLI to represent us in the Language Olympics. Took first, second, third a couple times, so there was a lot of personal satisfaction in knowing that the soldiers I trained, they’ve gone through the program I put together, have excelled, and are now coming back and bringing back recognition for this unit.
TS: Excellent. And now, was Fort Drum an assignment that you like had on your wishlist or anything, that you had chosen?
CM: No, not at all. [laughs]
TS: Is it because there’s a slot and you’re now a warrant officer?
CM: That’s basically what it was.
I was supposed to come to Fort Bragg, and for whatever reason, the assignments manager called me and said “You’re not going to Bragg, you’re going to Drum.”
I said “But—” because at this point, my friend John Menina had retired and he was here, so I was looking forward to coming here, to have somebody that I looked up to nearby for advice. Instead, I went up to Fort Drum, New York.
TS: [chuckles] Where you probably didn’t know anyone.
CM: I didn’t know anyone. Not a single soul.
TS: Now, are you still single?
CM: Yes. And I did meet my husband at Fort Drum. So that’s a good thing.
TS: Well, there’s a good thing, too.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Well, how about other material aspects of being a warrant officer compared to an NCO?
CM: You get more pay, you know. Anybody that goes “Well, I was going to do that,” why didn’t you? If you knew at some point you were going to make this a career, look at the pay scales. You know, look at the twenty-year retirement. How can you not?32
TS: Right. And then I know you had this really cush housing in DLI, but did you get any other type of perks like that as a warrant officer for your housing?
CM: You get better quarters, you know, obviously you have—your on-base quarters are seg—or, yeah, segregated, junior enlisted, NCOs, officers, senior enlisted, senior officers, you know. Once again, there’s that warrant officer, where do you put them, you know? Put with the mid-level officers, so, yeah, quarters were better.
TS: Now, you’ve been in, you’re going on ten?
CM: Going on ten—yeah, nine years. Yeah, nine, ten.
TS: Nine years, I guess. So from ’88 to ’98, did you see any change in the army as far as cultural changes?
CM: There’s a lot more women at this point, even in a unit like Fort Drum. You know, there were a lot more women by this point. Though again, you see not so much—you see a lot of junior enlisted women, probably those that joined right after high school, who are kind of just looking for an escape, you see some junior officers, a lot of them academy graduates who are so, you know, doing their first tour. You don’t really see, still, a lot of senior NCOs in the women’s, you don’t really see a lot of senior officers. There was a female first sergeant, up at Fort Drum. I think that was probably the first senior enlisted woman I had ever come across.
TS: After almost ten years.
CM: Yes. You know, I can think of a handful of staff sergeants, female staff sergeants before then. And you know, obviously a lieutenant, and maybe a captain here and there, that I can’t really think of a female major up until that point. Or a senior NCO.
TS: Did that strike you as odd at the time, at all, or did you not really think about it?
CM: Not really. I mean, I am the oldest of the grandchildren in my mom’s side of the family, and then there was like this seven boys. And then another girl, so I grew up with a bunch of boys, you know, cousins. I just—it didn’t strike me odd. I have always been able to have better relationships with guys than with women.
TS: Why do you think that is?
CM: I think women tend to be their worst enemies. We kind of sabotage each other every single time we get—I’ve always just found it easier to make friends with guys.
TS: It’s interesting, because I remember talking to a woman who was in—probably in the late ‘50s and she talked about how women were so—at that point, it was very difficult to get promoted, and so they saw some of the other women kind of as competition, and 33
therefore, even though you would think that maybe the women would team up together, but they actually were afraid that they would get promoted above them or, you know, that they would get their job. And so that kind of kept them—
CM: Apart.
TS: —yeah, apart. And not necessarily, you know, at each other’s throats or anything like that.
CM: Sure.
TS: But not that they would want to mentor someone younger to come up, because they saw—
CM: As a threat.
TS: As a threat, yeah. Whereas the men that you talk about just saw a good soldier.
CM: Right. And just—you know, I can only recall having one good female friend who was my peer. She was a maintenance warrant, so she wasn’t really in my field, she was in the same unit as I was. But she was the maintenance tech, you know, she dealt with the motor pool, the vehicles and all that. She was not an intelligence professional. There was another female warrant who was a military intelligence professional, but she and I did not see eye to eye, at all, on anything. So it just—again, maybe that’s why, because Amy was not a threat to me as far as career progression, you know.
TS: That’s interesting. I just—it’s just something that I think about, mentoring, in general, you know. Who’s going to help who to get where, so.
CM: Right.
TS: That’s good. So Fort Drum, you’re at, you’ve met your husband.
CM: Yup, sure did.
TS: Yeah. And so, was he in the military?
CM: Yes, he still is.
TS: He still is. In the army?
CM: Yup.
TS: Oh, you said he was commissioned officer.
CM: Right.34
TS: So he outranks you, then.
CM: Yes.
[laughter]
TS: Be sure to tell him I said that.
CM: I will.
TS: So what does he do?
CM: He’s an MI [military intelligence] officer as well. We were actually in the same company for a little bit.
TS: Yeah. Did they have to, like, separate you when you got married, or—
CM: We were actually dating when we were in the same company.
TS: Is that like a no-no?
CM: No, I mean, it was good, because I was a warrant, he was an officer.
TS: Yeah, okay.
CM: You know, it was just kind of strange, because we both wanted to keep it separate, we didn’t want the soldiers to find out, so it was just kind of weird.
TS: I see.
CM: But the company commander happened to be a good friend of his, and his wife and I became good friends, because she was about my age and, you know, liked—we had the same interests and likes, and so we ended up doing getaways with them on the weekends and stuff, and eventually everybody found out, and by that point, we were married, so.
TS: There you go. So what kind of getaways did you do?
CM: We went to West Point one time, my husband graduated out of West Point. This guy’s uncle was an instructor there, and so we went and stayed there at the uncle’s house, which was kind of cool.
TS: That’s neat. Did you do any—because you liked to travel over in Europe, did you do any more traveling on the East Coast at all?35
CM: We did—my husband loves to ski.
TS: Where’s he from?
CM: California. [laughs]
TS: Okay.
CM: Huntington Beach. Not a lot of skiing there.
TS: Not a lot—no, there’s not.
CM: But he loves to ski, so we would go to Lake Placid every chance we could.
TS: Oh, nice.
CM: Yeah. To go ski there. Went to Stowe [Vermont], went to Killington [Vermont], went to a couple places in New Hampshire. Yeah, we’ve continued the traveling. Montreal, Quebec City. Yeah.
TS: So now, you’re definitely seeing yourself as career.
CM: Oh yeah, definitely.
TS: Okay. And did you have any sense, then, did you want to get back—was there like a perfect job that you wanted to have or an assignment or anything?
CM: No, no, not really. Germany.
TS: Just anywhere in Germany?
CM: Pretty much, yeah.
TS: Get back there so you could use your language more?
CM: Get back so I could travel again.
TS: [laughs]
CM: So I could live there, yep, that was pretty much it.
TS: So after—so you enjoyed Fort Drum. Was there anything in particular—well, you told me what you enjoyed there. It was the training and teaching and setting up the language and having—36
CM: Yup.
TS: —your kudos from the DLI wins and stuff.
CM: Yeah, it was good, it was good.
TS: And then you went back to Germany.
CM: Went back to Germany.
TS: Did your husband go also?
CM: He did, he—at this point now, so we’re into Bosnia and again, Tenth Mountain[?] deploys.
TS: Oh, so this is like mid ‘90s, then.
CM: This is ’98, ’99.
TS: Late ‘90s, okay.
CM: Yeah. Actually, just before that, I got there in ’96, just before that, they had come back from Haiti, the first time.
TS: Oh, you missed out on that one, too.
CM: I missed out on Haiti. Because I was in training. So I’m there ’96 through 2000. In the late ’98, ’99 timeframe is when the division starts—gets a group of soldiers and we sent out, I think it was twenty-two or twenty-four to go to Bosnia. And then one of the infantry brigades, or one of the battalions, actually, one of the battalions, the one my husband was assigned to ended up going, and so we sent people out and stuff. But again, I don’t go to Bosnia.
TS: How come?
CM: That first group, the MI battalion actually sent out, like I said, I think twenty-two. I was going to go, I was on the list, battalion commander said “We need to send our leaders to this training event,” so I went out to Huachuca to get this training, you know, took leave, was getting ready to go, get back, show up and they changed the roster. And all the twenty-two that were going were males. There was two or three females on the original twenty-two list, and—
TS: Why do you think that changed?
CM: No explanation was ever given.37
TS: Why do you think that it was changed, though?
CM: My personal?
TS: Yeah.
CM: Our battalion commander was an Airborne Ranger, MI guy, but Airborne Ranger, and I don’t think he thought that the women could do it. So he changed the roster, even though he had sent me out to get the training. And we had a very good relationship and I respect him very much, so he actually was the officer that retired me.
TS: Yeah.
CM: You know, but I don’t think that at the time, he thought it was a good idea.
TS: He didn’t want it on his watch or something, maybe?
CM: Right.
TS: Kind of protective in some way?
CM: Right.
TS: Interesting.
CM: Yeah.
TS: So how’d you feel about missing out on this one?
CM: Well, you know, what are the odds. But no, I didn’t go.
TS: Yeah. But your husband went.
CM: My husband went, with one of the infantry battalions, he was the MI officer assigned to them. You know, I called branch and said “Hey, extend me here for another year,” so I did four years at Drum instead of three, and then when he came back, now at this point we’ve gotta manage joint domicile, two careers, et cetera, et cetera. So career managers got together and they found us an assignment and that was in Germany, so I was happy. That was good. So we go to 66 in Darmstadt and you know, then it’s—being in the same unit is proving to be a challenge.
TS: Together?
CM: Yes.
TS: With your husband?38
CM: Yes.
TS: Why was it proving to be a challenge?
CM: Because at this point, you know, I am not one to bite my tongue very quick. I like to call it as it is, and he’s concerned about how this is going to impact on him. So now we’ve got to start playing this political game about “You can’t be antagonizing the guy that’s going to give me command with your ideas about how you think training should be done for your soldiers.” So, created some conflict. It was a challenge.
TS: Interesting. So how did you resolve it?
CM: Walked a very fine line between what to push and what not to push. Yeah.
TS: Sounds like you struggled with that a little.
CM: A lot.
TS: [chuckles] Okay.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Okay.
CM: You know, it’s not—to this point, I’ve done and said what I thought was always right, whether I was right or not, it didn’t matter. I spoke it, I argued for what I thought was the right thing for me and my soldiers. Now I’m having to watch that because—and my husband’s right, I mean, unfortunately, people cannot separate that.
TS: What rank was your husband? At the time.
CM: At the time he was a captain, waiting to get company command.
TS: I see. So that’s what he was hoping for, was the company command.
CM: Right.
TS: Didn’t want to make any waves.
CM: “Don’t ruffle any feathers, because what you do will impact on me.” And he was right, I mean, you know.
TS: Yeah. Interesting. Because the dynamics of military couples, you know, some where maybe the husband is a dependent, or the wife is a dependent, and then having to mix 39
them, too, in military, one warrant officer and one commissioned officer, too, you know, you have all those different—
CM: Right. And, you know, again, up to this point, nothing I’ve ever said or done has impacted my personal life in that manner, you know.
TS: Yes.
CM: There were instances where, clearly, things I said and did reflected on him, and it became very difficult. At one point, we—you know, we had our rating chains, but our senior rater was the same guy. He was the brigade commander. And so then, you know, how do you go to a New Year’s reception, you know, you’re going through the line, I come through first as the woman, you know, my husband standing behind me, greeting, you know, I’m extending the hand out to the commander and he grabs his arms and hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I’m a soldier in his formation. He didn’t do that to my husband, but I was a woman, right? Little things like that.
TS: Yeah. Did that kind of stuff irk you?
CM: You know, it did, to a certain point. I was expected to participate in the coffee groups for the spouses, you know, and sometimes—you know, again, women are—they’re our worst enemies.
You know, here are these women sitting around complaining about what Bobby and Joe and Dick do—“Don’t you realize I work with these guys every day? I don’t want to hear about what he does and doesn’t do with you. I have to look at that guy in the face the next day.”
TS: Did you tell them that?
CM: A couple times.
TS: [chuckles] Yeah. But mostly—
CM: And then, you know, but mostly you’re like “Oh my God.” You know?
TS: Yeah, you did have to wear a couple different hats, then.
CM: Several. [chuckling] You became a good master at changing them, you know.
TS: I can see, yeah.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Well, that’s really—it’s quite interesting, the—having, you know, with more women in the military and having to fit them in, men and women together, at particular duty stations. It doesn’t always work out that way.40
CM: Yes, right. Yeah, and we were very fortunate, where we always had the same duty station. I mean, we were separated a few times by six, seven, eight months, but for the most part, we were assigned to the same duty stations.
TS: So then, you’re here—you were three, how many, three or four years and then?
CM: We were in Darmstadt from—well, we were actually only there like sixteen months or so and then we moved down to Bad Aibling [Bad Aibling Station, Bavaria].
TS: Oh, right.
CM: It was a three-year tour, but we got split, my husband got command.
TS: Oh.
CM: Of course, the brigade commander and whomever, in their infinite wisdom, give him a company command which is four hundred kilometers south of Darmstadt.
“Oh, we’re sorry, we forgot you guys were dual military.”
You know, really?
TS: You forgot?
CM: You forgot? So now they had to move me. They had to make a job for me, actually worked out of my field for a while there.
TS: What’d you do?
CM: Still in the unit, in the same organization, but, you know, not really doing my job, just filling an officer slot. You know, but really? You forgot? You don’t wear the monkey suit [uniform] just for the hell of it, you know?
TS: So how long—eight—how long were you in that—
CM: I think we were there for—it was just over two years, so like twenty-five months, twenty-six months, maybe. Total.
TS: So what year are we getting to be, then?
CM: We’re in 2003.
TS: Okay, before we get to 2003, then. So when 9/11 happened, you would have been in Germany.
CM: I was in Germany, yes.41
TS: Do you want to tell me about that experience?
CM: I was assigned to a unit that did theatre-level collection. Our unit, per se, did not deploy as a whole. We deployed individuals. At this point, I was pregnant with my middle girl, and therefore, again, I did not get to go. Yep. September 11th happened, I think it was a Wednesday or a Thursday, we watched CNN [Actually on a Tuesday]. They were reporting on the first plane, we watched the second plane hit on live TV. That Friday, I had a doctor’s appointment, so—I had had several miscarriages at this point, so it was a high-risk pregnancy and it took three and a half hours to get through the gate to go to that appointment, that I could not miss because I was getting medication.
TS: Wow.
CM: Yeah. So. Yep, but I was pregnant, so as we started ramping up individuals to get ready to deploy them, et cetera, once again—
TS: Just a couple days after the attack?
CM: Yeah.
TS: So what did you think at the time? When you saw that? What was the reaction of the people around you?
CM: I can’t remember the name of the guy, but everybody was kind of just watching the TV, dumbfounded, phones were ringing off the hook, you know, people going “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it,” and we had one crusty old W3 [Chief Warrant Officer 3, CW3], that was yelling “We’re at war, don’t you people get it, we’re at war.” You know, and sure enough, we changed all the threat levels and it became a nightmare to get through and in and out of gates, and it was a very difficult time being overseas, because you felt kind of—very vulnerable, I think.
TS: Even in Germany?
CM: Even in Germany, yeah. It happened that that week had been a very important conference at an installation, and a lot of the leadership for our organizations was back Stateside. So it was very bizarre. My husband was in southern Germany attending a course, getting ready to take command, to take command. And he said it was a nightmare, it was like four hours to get through the gate, you know.
TS: So it just changed like that [snaps fingers]? For security?
CM: Yes.
TS: And did it stay that way?42
CM: It did, for like two, three, four weeks maybe, and then it started, you know, procedures were put in place, people figure out what to do, how to do it, and everything kind of changed again, but, yeah.
TS: In what way did it change?
CM: It became more organized, you know, so the traffic jams stopped and you could go in and out of base within a reasonable amount of time.
TS: So what did you think about the period of 9/11 and what transpired?
CM: It was just very surreal, I mean, again, at this point, you know, I’m again, not getting to participate in another conflict. This time, I have a very good reason, I was four, five months pregnant now, at this point. Yeah. But it was just kind of, I don’t know. I was like “Damn!” [chuckling]
TS: Your number’s just not coming up.
CM: No, it’s not, you know. I mean, back up for a few moments, in 1996 to 2000 at Fort Drum are probably the only four years that that division, as a division, as a whole, has not been anywhere. Those were the years I was there.
TS: That you were there?
CM: Yeah.
TS: That’s interesting.
CM: It just—again, didn’t happen.
TS: That’s interesting. So you’re in Germany, and—do you have a sense of how much longer you think you’re going to stay in? So you have a little girl.
CM: I have a little girl now, and it’s trying, it’s—you know, wow, how hard, really—I was not prepared for how difficult, physically challenging it would be, you know. Wow, staying up all night with a screaming baby. Now we know she was probably just hungry, but at the time, we were like “What the hell is wrong with this kid?” you know? And then going to work the next day, it was like wow, you know. How do you find childcare overseas?
TS: Was it difficult?
CM: It was extremely difficult.
TS: Didn’t have any base care, or anything?43
CM: The base care was not very well—it was not adequate. Six weeks old to two year olds in the same room, you know, so we had ups and downs. We tried different things, we ended up finally getting a nanny to come live with us, to help us, you know, because at this point, we’re still both active duty, we both have the same requirements, you know.
TS: Did the nanny work out, then?
CM: It did, and we pretty much kept that role model going for the remainder of my career. Even now, just because it’s what works best. But you know, I still love the army as much as I did before, you know, I still wanted it to be—that was what I wanted to do.
TS: Yeah.
CM: Girl or no girl, you know, sleep or no sleep.
TS: You were still going to get out, put the uniform on, and—
CM: Yup.
TS: —go to work.
CM: Yup.
TS: So after your—was there anything else in Germany that you wanted to add, that you had for that period?
CM: You know, at this point, like I said, my husband’s now in command, so I’m having to play the role of, you know, hosting these coffees and becoming part of the social—
TS: Oh, how was that?
CM: It was kind of different, again, you know, it’s—and it depends on what the expectations are, you know, it can be very fun, it can be actually a good team-building experience, a good sharing, bonding experience. It can also be a bunch of gossip, and it’s really what you make of it, you know. I tried to make it the fun type of bonding thing.
TS: So, because you’d be the hostess, you have better control over that.
CM: Right. Or if you’re the person that’s in charge of this group, you know, and—because, now, in my husband’s case, it was a blessing. His company command, his headquarters was up in Darmstadt, so, you know, we didn’t have all the other senior people around us. It was kind of us, this huge company, you know, and so he was the senior guy, you know. So it was kind of like, okay, this is our house, you know, we do what we want down here. But yeah, there was another dynamic. Now, you know, you’ve got to work with the spouses.44
TS: Yes. So you’re kind of giving me the impression that you don’t like to play those little political games.
CM: It can be very tiring at times. I don’t like to be on guard all the time. And as his career has progressed and he is given additional responsibilities and opportunities, I feel like I have to be more and more on guard.
TS: Because you don’t want to reflect badly on whatever opportunities he can have.
CM: Right, right.
TS: Right, I understand.
CM: I, at one point, next assignment, shared some personal opinions about something and it got back to him and, you know, he’s like “What the hell are you saying this for?”
[chuckles] “Keep my mouth shut from now on,” you know?
TS: Yeah.
CM: So.
TS: Interesting. And so what assignment was that, back at Fort Huachuca?
CM: Yeah, so then we go to Fort Huachuca.
TS: Okay.
CM: And we get there and lo and behold, we find out that I’m pregnant again. Damn! That was a surprise.
TS: How’d that happen?
CM: I don’t know. [chuckling] You know, of course, not a surprise, of course we knew what we were doing, but—no, not really planned, because at this point, you know, the girls are only twenty-three months apart. We were not—not looking for another kid right away. But it happened, you know, so. So now we’re there, he’s got a very important position—
TS: What’s his rank, now?
CM: He’s still a captain.
TS: Captain, okay.
CM: But he’s working for the commanding general for Fort Huachuca. He’s the aide, and so he’s got a demanding job. You know, whatever the boss says, that takes priority over everything, 24/7. So now I’m still active duty, have a toddler, fifteen months old, I’m 45
pregnant, and I’m an instructor. I’m on platform, you know, teaching. And yeah, life is getting to be really difficult by this point.
TS: You’re kind of busy.
CM: Yeah. You know, and then we have our second girl, Emily, and she’s—has some challenges, medical challenges, right off the bat. And it becomes really, really taxing. So much so, emotionally, it just became overwhelming.
TS: Yeah. So is this when you thought about getting out?
CM: Yup. I actually drafted up paperwork and I had—I’m trying to think, at this point, it was 2005, so I had sixteen years in, fifteen years in, and I was ready to do a REFRAD [Release From Active Duty] and just get down and out, because I couldn’t take it anymore. Physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, you know, husband’s up and all over the globe, traveling with his boss. Have a nanny who’s unreliable at the time, actually, she ends up leaving. My mom has to come live with us for a while to help out with the girls. Have a teenager, who is at this point, fifteen, sixteen, you know, really testing me.
I’m ready to call it in quits, and the battalion commander I had at the time listened to me, looked at my papers, and said “Take it back, I won’t sign it for thirty days. If after thirty days you come back and tell me that’s what you really want to do, I’ll sign. But I don’t want to see you before then.”
So I walked out, and I just couldn’t believe that he would not let me go. It’s like, I’ve done everything the army has asked of me up until this point, and you know, I’m done. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. And things changed over that thirty days, you know. It was a great thing, and I owe him a lot. Somebody else would have just said “Okay, whatever, go.” Yeah.
TS: Did he have some idea that you wanted to stay in but just didn’t have the—
CM: No, I think it was actually personal circumstances. He had very recently re-deployed, also a dual military couple, and had gone through a bitter divorce. Her fault, not his. Found himself as a single parent, and I think, had the compassion to understand. So I think, had it been anybody else, or even him under different circumstances, he would not have hesitated and just said “Whatever, you know, what’s it to me. You want out, go, you’ll get nothing.”
TS: Right.
CM: Yeah, so.
TS: So in those thirty days, you said, circumstances changed.
CM: Yeah.46
TS: So you decided to stay in?
CM: Yup, I did. We found out that we were going to go to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Branch found a job for me there, because, per se, there was not really a requirement, valid requirement for me, but it was a good opportunity to do some testing to see if an individual with my experience was needed there, and so I became a guinea pig, I think. And I mean, it worked out for the best for everybody.
TS: So there was a position that was valid?
CM: Now there is, but at the time, there wasn’t. For somebody in my specialty.
TS: Right, but by putting you in that slot, then they are creating one.
CM: Right, yup.
TS: Interesting.
CM: So it worked out for the best.
TS: What kind of things did you get to do there?
CM: There, I became what’s called an observer controller, and got to travel a lot. I was gone a lot. Every unit that deploys to either Afghanistan or Iraq goes through an exercise, a major exercise, and these exercises are put on by the group that I was assigned to, and we evaluate how they do and certify them ready to go to war and execute their mission.
TS: I see. So you traveled around the United States, mostly.
CM: Yes. And Germany, Japan, Korea.
TS: Oh, so all over.
CM: Yeah. Hawaii, yeah, everywhere.
TS: You went a lot of places, then.
CM: Yes.
TS: So you kind of deployed in—[laughs]
CM: Well, it wasn’t deployment, because it didn’t count as—
TS: That’s right.47
CM: —it didn’t count for your dwell time [period of time between returning from deployment and reporting for active duty], you didn’t get hazard duty pay, you didn’t get any of the benefits, but you know what, you weren’t sleeping at home, and as far as my girls were concerned, who at this point are not like one and a half, two, three and a half, four, you know, were sick of the army, were sick of Mommy traveling, why doesn’t Mommy ever come home, why doesn’t Mommy ever stay home. You know, my husband deployed to Iraq, why isn’t Daddy home, you know.
TS: So they were left alone sometimes, because—
CM: With the nanny or with the grandma, or whomever.
TS: I mean, without their parents.
CM: Yeah, right.
TS: But every military couple has to have those contingency plans for when you’re both not there.
CM: Correct. Right.
TS: Or one or the other.
CM: Right, yeah.
TS: Was it hard on you, too?
CM: Emotionally, it started to get harder and harder and harder. You know, the guilt factor of “I don’t want you to go. Another business trip? Why do you have to go? I don’t like the army, I hate the army.” And that’s not what I want them to grow up with, you know. So we made the decision that, since I had twenty and I could retire, and my husband obviously still doesn’t have twenty, that I would go ahead and retire. The army was my life choice, it shouldn’t be theirs. And if you ask my eight year old, now, every so often she asks, you know “Do I have to go in the army?”
TS: [laughs] Does she really?
CM: Yeah.
TS: Oh my gosh.
CM: “No, honey, you don’t have to go in the army.”
“Okay.”
TS: Wow.48
CM: You know, and I always tell her, I say “That’s what I decided to do. I wanted to join the army, that doesn’t mean you have to. You know, be thankful that there are people that want to do that.”
TS: Interesting. So you’ve been out just two years?
CM: Just over two years, March was two years.
TS: Did you find any, you know, we keep talking about transitions and—was there a transition for you, that was easy or difficult, to go back to civilian life? Since you didn’t know it since you were nineteen, I think it was?
CM: Yeah. I started working for a major contractor, one of the big contracting companies, two weeks before my terminal leave ended. So I was still technically on active duty, but on my transition leave.
TS: Right.
CM: When I was already working, doing not necessarily the same thing, but related. So there was really no break there, and—but this was out of Kansas. And then my husband re-deployed, he was already stationed here. The family and I moved down here, and so then I was without a job for a while. We moved in December and I didn’t get another job until about March time frame, just kind of a little part-time job to kind of keep me busy. I was, you know, inventorying the pantry and washing and scrubbing things daily and, you know, I was really going nuts. I just—
TS: [laughs] Climbing the walls because you were so used to being so busy?
CM: Exactly. And so I did that, and that really was just kind of a waste of time, you know. It was just trying to stay busy. And then I worked—came to work back on base, and I’ve been here now for almost a year.
TS: And is your job associated with what you used to do?
CM: What I’m doing now, very much so, yes, you know. I’m coordinating training for MI soldiers, that’s—
TS: So when you say, as far as going from military work to civilian work, now, it’s not—since it’s so similar, is it—
CM: There’s, yeah, I mean, the only big difference, I would say, is that if I used to get it before when I was in uniform, as far as “Do you really have that experience?”, now it’s even more so. Again, I’m not being vain here, but I know I don’t look my age.
TS: Right.49
CM: And so, now that I’m not in uniform, I feel like sometimes I have to, you know, bring up the fact that I was active duty and retired, to gain almost instant credibility. You know, people just assume that, I guess, I don’t have any background because I don’t look old enough.
TS: Because you’re so young-looking, right?
CM: Yeah.
TS: That’s interesting. So it’s—age has been, like, the barrier to try to get that level of respect.
CM: Part of it.
TS: Not like being a female or like that, it’s like—
CM: Yeah, part of it.
TS: Part of it? What’s the other part?
CM: Yeah, and—to a certain point, being a female. You know, again, having to always—or feeling like I have to work twice as hard as my male counterparts, just to get the same level of recognition as they would instantly get, just because they were a guy, you know. And knowing that, in a lot of instances, they were nowhere near close to as good as I was. And being told, in confidence, you know “We know you’re better, but—” That’s not fair.
TS: So, what, how would that come about? Can you give me an example of something like that?
CM: I can’t think of a specific, you know, example right now.
TS: Like a special duty, or?
CM: A rating.
TS: A rating?
CM: Yes.
TS: So, if you were a guy, we’d give you this better rating than being a female? Although you certainly must have gotten extremely stellar ratings.
CM: I did, but again, I felt like I always had to work harder. Always had to put extra effort, you know. I had my bachelor’s in nine, ten years, taking classes at night, you know. Full load, fifteen semester hours, you know, as an active duty soldier, with a family. And remember, you know, and this is what I tell a lot of my male peers. “You go home, your 50
house is clean, your meals cooked, your laundry’s done. You know, who does that for me? I do.” So the day you walk in my shoes, that day is the day you get to criticize me if I yell at somebody, you know, if—don’t judge me, you know. Try to be the parent, try to be the housekeeper, try to be this and try to also do your job.
TS: So you still think that there’s a lot of the gender roles between males and females, as far as that division of household, is still pretty much the same?
CM: I don’t think that women see it that way anymore, but I think a lot of the guys do.
TS: So if the women don’t see it that way, and the guys do—
CM: They just accept it. I think a lot of women just accept it as, you know, that’s my role. You know, I’m very fortunate in that my husband and I have divided the household duties, not necessarily equally, but whoever’s there will get it done, pretty much. But I also have a lot of friends that, you know, a very good friend of mine who walks in the door and expects his wife to pick up his shoes and his, you know, top and bring him a glass of wine and serve him his plate and pick up his plate and—now, could that be cultural, too, because they’re Hispanic? Potentially, but you know—of course, now, she doesn’t work outside the home. I’m not saying that that’s not a job, but she doesn’t work outside the home, so should he expect that? Maybe, I don’t know. I’ve never been in that position, you know. Is that her job? But if you live here too, shouldn’t you pick up your own dirty socks, I mean—[chuckling]
TS: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, that’s interesting, because the—especially when you have so many deployments going on, for men and women, and then we still have this issue of what’s going on in the home and who’s in charge of what, you know?
CM: Right.
TS: So it’s an interesting dynamic to talk about. I was going to grab my paper and see if we missed anything, because I know we’ve—
CM: Okay.
TS: Well, one thing I was going to ask you about was, was it what you expected?
CM: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think if I didn’t have young children, I would have definitely stayed in.
TS: What did you like best about it?
CM: The change.
TS: What does that mean?51
CM: It’s—being part of something bigger. Everything changing, constantly. You know, feeling like you’re a part of this huge thing and you get to move along from one part to another, to another, you know. And just like I said, for me the traveling is great. I’m like “Okay, when do we go?” you know.
TS: So you never got tired of picking up and moving household and going to a new base.
CM: No, absolutely not. I’m a pro at setting up house. Two days.
TS: Is that right? Two days? Really?
CM: Everything where it needs to go.
TS: Might have to call you soon. [laughs] What did your mom think about you making it a career? You know, I just—I come back to this because she was so—she didn’t exactly like—you said she kind of had to get over it, because you were of age, but. But she got to go to different places and—
CM: Yeah, she got to visit a lot, I mean, she got to travel, she got to come see me, she got to go on some trips, you know, that I took her along with. She got to travel to Hawaii, basically, you know, once. She got to go to Germany several times, so—I don’t think she ever fully understood what I did, or really cared. Just kind of accepted that I was going to do whatever I wanted, pretty much.
TS: So it was like a job to her, then.
CM: Yes.
TS: Became like that.
CM: But never really understood what it entailed or the differences that it has from, you know, though I did not have to deploy, it wasn’t for lack of wanting. It wasn’t for me doing something to prevent it, it was the card—the way the cards fell. You know. There are many soldiers who deploy and are less than stellar performers. Just because you didn’t deploy should not take away from your service. You know, I don’t think she fully ever understood how much, really, the army becomes a part of you, and how much you become a part of it, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes, you know. It wasn’t easy for me to leave my kids, but that was the job I wanted. It’s what I wanted to do, you know.
TS: And you’d done everything you could to make sure that they were taken care of when you weren’t there.
CM: Right, and put procedures in place to make it work to allow me to do what I want to do.52
TS: I almost don’t need to ask this question, but before you went in the army, did you consider yourself an independent person?
CM: Yeah. [chuckling]
TS: Do you think that the army changed you in any way?
CM: Yes and no. No, because I have always been a very independent thinker, I have always spoken my mind, very rarely do I bite my tongue. But the army helped me focus and channel my energies. It is a very good discipline, and I think that everybody would do good in having some type of discipline like that. Maybe not a military service, a compulsory military service, but something to channel you when you’re that young and you don’t know. Because like I said, I don’t think that, during my first three years, I—there’s no way I had any idea that this was going to be a career. But by presenting a left and right limit and keeping me clean, it allowed me to see those opportunities, and then make them, you know, take advantage of them. Whereas if you are misguided and you don’t know, you know, you don’t know any boundaries, you could go wrong, and once you go down a steep slippery slope, it’s really hard to get back up. So it just helped channel you, I think.
TS: Interesting way to look at it, yeah. Did—you talked about your daughter, I’m going to really think about how she said “Do I have to go in the army?” But if she did want to go, or your other daughter, if they decided on a—to join the military, how would you feel about that?
CM: I would support it.
TS: Yeah.
CM: My son’s an air force ROTC cadet right now. [laughs]
TS: That’s right, you were talking about that.
CM: Yup. So, I think it’s good, I mean, I really do. I think both of the girls would excel at it, maybe because both of us, my husband and I are military, have that military lifestyle, the girls are very disciplined, you know. [chuckling]
TS: Right.
CM: Little troopers. So I think they would both do very well in that. You know, obviously David’s already getting ready to take an oath here—
TS: That’s right.
CM: —[unclear] and so.53
TS: You have to get in that [referring to uniform, possibly].
CM: I know, no. You sure you don’t want that uniform?
TS: [laughing] No, no, I think you need to wear it. He needs you there to do that, so. In that uniform. Would you—what do you feel about the different opening—like opening up combat positions to women?
CM: I don’t think it’s for everyone. Whether you’re a male or a female. There are many women who I think would do exceptionally well, but that’s only part of the equation. The other part is, would they be accepted? And if they’re not accepted at face value by their male counterparts, then it’s going to be a failing proposition. And there’s just those dynamics, I mean, you can’t—there are differences, psychological and physical differences between men and women. Would the team work as well if there was women in it? Hard to say. Does that mean that every woman is not capable of doing it? No. But is it worth it to compromise the integrity of the team? Probably not.
TS: So we’re not there, yet, for that.
CM: I don’t think so.
TS: What do you think about those who say that women don’t belong in the military at all, because it’s about, you know, the macho, fighting wars type of thing?
CM: I think there’s a lot of women that are much stronger than a lot of men. You know.
TS: Mentally and physically, or—
CM: I don’t know about physically, necessarily. Mentally, much tougher, yes.
TS: Is there anything that, during your twenty years that you were in, that you would change, that you did? If you could?
CM: I don’t think so. I mean, again, the only thing that I would do any different is if I didn’t have young kids, I certainly would not have retired.
TS: You would have stayed in?
CM: Absolutely. The reason I have this job is because it allows me to, in a way, keep influencing the training of soldiers.
TS: So you still get your fingers in it.
CM: I do. Absolutely. To shape training, you know.
TS: Well, there’s one question that I ask about patriotism.54
CM: Yes?
TS: But, what is patriotism to you?
CM: [pause] Hm. Putting others before you. Again, being part of something larger than just you.
TS: You feel very strongly about that. Yeah. We’re about at the end. [chuckles] [unclear] through the end, so. Well, really, is there anything—we’ve talked about all your assignments and I know it’s just a snapshot of all the things that you’ve done. Did you see yourself ever—you’ve talked about how you never saw women in senior leadership, or rarely saw women in senior leadership. Did you ever see yourself as a role model for other women, in any of the positions that you’ve been in? Or men, men or women, just a role model.
CM: A couple times. Specifically, with women, I can think of one particular soldier who really, really looked up to me and was trying very, very hard to make this a career. But her personal family situation just got in the way, so unfortunately for the army, she had to leave. And several instances, I mean, I’ve brought in probably seven or eight NCOs into the warrant officer ranks.
TS: Oh, so you’re doing—
CM: Like a recruiting effort.
TS: [Like] Menina did, right? That’s right. Excellent.
[chuckling]
CM: Yeah.
TS: So you take them under your wings and make sure that they’re—
CM: I did, and a couple of them ended up getting selected and going through the course while I was an instructor at Fort Huachuca, so—
TS: Oh, really?
CM: So it was really neat to actually see, you know, that young NCO now come through the class and, brand new W1 and so it was very—
TS: You like the finished product, too, I see, because—55
CM: Yes! Loved that.
TS: That’s excellent.
CM: It’s getting to see it, you know, it’s kind of like raising a kid from little all the way to adult, and then you go “Okay, go out the door.”
TS: That’s right.
CM: “Go do bigger and better things.”
TS: Well, because even in—like in your type of job you do, you just get little pieces of things, too, you never really always—although sometimes you can see everything, the whole.
CM: Right.
TS: So that makes a difference. Well, is there anything that you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about, that you might want to—
CM: I can’t think of anything right now. [chuckles]
TS: Okay. Well, thank you so much, it’s been really wonderful to talk with you.
CM: You’re welcome.
[End of Interview]