Mary Thompson Thompson
Era: Persian Gulf
Military Branch: Navy
Thompson, Mary
Mary Thompson (nee Koch) from Aurora, Minnesota served in the U.S. Navy from 1988 to 1996. She trainined as an Aviation Electrician's Mate.
Ms. Thompson served in Europe, participated in operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and was with the Antartic Development Squadron Six.
Ms. Thompspn also served aboard the aircraft carrier USS. Abraham Lincoln. During that time they sailed the western Pacific to Hong Kong, Singapore, the Persian Gulf, and United Arab Emirates.
Since her service in the Navy she has returned to her hometown in Aurora. She works as State Jr. Vice Commander with the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars)
Oral History
Veterans Memorial Hall Oral History Program
Interview with Mary Thompson
April 9, 2022
Interviewer: Pippi Mayfield
PM: Pippi Mayfield
MT: Mary Thompson
Track 1
00:00
PM: My name is Pippi Mayfield. I am volunteering for the St. Louis County Historical Society. It is April 9, 2022 and I am here with Mary Thompson. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me a little bit about your background first. Where did you grow up and your family?
MT: I grew up…I was a Navy brat. My dad served all over the place. We started off in Florida, we were in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In my first grade I was in three different schools. I was never really affected by that as a kid. I just thought it was fun always going somewhere new. I wasn’t like, “oh my friends”. (LAUGHTER) I was like, “yeah new friends!” I didn’t mind the traveling around, it was how I grew up. We finally ended up in this area. My mom is from the Grand Rapids area, my dad is from the Bronx. So we ended up here. I pretty much went to school here, right in Aurora. I signed up, I joined November 17, 1987 and I signed up on delayed enlistment for January two months after I turned 17. I was ready, I was like let’s get moving.
PM: Do you think it was because of your dad’s involvement?
MT: Absolutely. I always loved the stories he told when he was in the service and the amazing places that he got to see out of the branches of service. That is where I went with the Navy as he did. Kind of a tradition, kind of wanting to try to fill that role myself. Not realizing at the time that it was a little bit more limited what I could do, versus what he had done.
PM: Oh really…
MT: I have an older brother who also served. He signed up a year before I did so I got to witness his journey, when he started and I said, “that was for me”.
PM: Yeah.
MT: Just kind of a rootless existence.
PM: Where were some of the places? What were some of the stories that your dad told you that made you think, yeah, this is what I want to do?
MT: Just the places that he got to see. He went on a Mediterranean cruise. He got to see all of Europe and how you got to see it. It wasn’t the main stream places that the tourists were going to. So you got to see the real outposts, really digging into the country.
PM: Right, so you signed up at 17.
MT: Yeah, two months after I turned 17 I signed up for delayed enlistment and my parents of course had to sign me in and they were ready to get rid of me. They really were.
PM: I was going to ask if you had your families support, but apparently so.
MT: Absolutely, yeah. When my brother had went in a year before, it was this big to-do. They had to drive him down to the cities and there was crying and…no so much for me. I got dropped off at the bus station in Virginia and my mom didn’t even take the day off and my dad barely wanted to. I got dropped off in Virginia and he didn’t even wait for the bus to leave. I just kind of had to sit on it while he was already gone. So, there wasn’t any crying either.
PM: That was quite the sendoff…
MT: I was a pain. I was ready to start living my life and they knew it.
PM: Great, so where did you go once you got on the bus.
MT: So I went down to Minneapolis. I processed through the Minneapolis MEP station. I was still 17, I had graduated high school. I was supposed to leave in November and I got a phone call while I was working the grounds keeping at the school in August and they said we can send you now if you want to go, and yep. I didn’t care what job I had or anything I just said yes. So September they sent me out, September 11, 1988 actually. Many years before, but I get to remember September 11. Then I went to Orlando, Florida for basic training.
PM: Okay.
MT: I did my two months of basic training and then I went to Millington, Tennessee for A school, for aviation electrician. Basically, women didn’t have a lot of choices for orders for out of the group, the 30 guys that were in my class, they all got to pick out their great orders and everything else, but they only had billets in two places for women. One was in Rhoda, Spain and the other was in Bermuda. Bermuda didn’t have a last name to me, but Rhoda did…so I went to Spain. That was my choice there and I ended up at a reconnaissance squadron in Rhoda, Spain.
PM: Okay. Did you think about the unfairness that they had all these options and you had two?
MT: No. No because it was the norm. It was the norm for all of us. Yeah, for a second you think about how unfair it is, but you really can’t do anything about it. There is only so many slots allotted for women anyways. I felt lucky to have that spot. So send me where you may.
PM: Sounds like you were very open minded about the entire process?
MT: Yes, I was very…wherever the wind blows you. That was what I wanted to do. Kind of throw a dart at a map and that’s where you go. I don’t know that I would have chosen better for myself.
PM: Okay, so what about basic. Tell me a little bit about that.
MT: Basic training?
PM: Yeah.
MT: It was interesting because I was the youngest in the company. So of course, at 17 I probably looked 12. It showed within my company. It was the first experience I really had with women that were seasoned in the world and I’m still a high school brat, pretty much. Those that know me, I have mouth that runs. It doesn’t know when to shut up. So I got to learn really quick who I should talk to and who I shouldn’t. There were words that I had heard that I had never heard before in my life. I was even called some of them and I was like, I don’t know what it means so it doesn’t hurt my feelings. So you go into this world, where people are from these big cities and they have been doing things with their lives and I was just showing up for high school every day and I thought that was important.
PM: Right.
MT: You know, there were older women that were there, in their late 20’s and 30’s that had lived so much of their life already. So being in basic training at 17 I got a real taste of the outside world, that I didn’t get being from a small town here.
PM: Right, were there a lot of women?
MT: I had 80 women in my company for basic training. And it was 80 that just didn’t get along. I don’t know that too many of us liked each other and I was oblivious to that. I thought that we were all going to be friends and shipmates. Well…I was wrong. But I ended up in a position of marching where I was the right, because I was short or because I was whatever, but I was selected to be the port watch right guide. If the Navy people remember what that was from basic training. My job was basically to make sure the company marched straight. Wherever we marched to, they followed me, which I thought was pretty important at 17, that I’m like…but there were many times that I just didn’t march straight. I had a lot of pebbles in my hands from the grinder from chip n seal that they used out there on purpose to do pushups while my company marched on in a straighter line than what I could do.
PM: I hope you learned quickly?
MT: I didn’t. It was Florida, there was geckos and all kinds of things that I hadn’t seen. I was distracted a little bit. I did grow up eventually, I think.
PM: 17 is a young age to start?
MT: It’s amazing when you are 17 and what position you were put into in the military and the responsibilities that you have. You mature a little bit, but you also don’t. You learn to also continue to your immaturity. The one thing that I have always said to people was people will thank you for your service and it’s a humbling thing to be thanked for your service. But there is also a part of you that is like, if you only knew part of it. There was a lot of things that people wouldn’t be thanking a lot of us for and I participated in most of it.
PM: Okay, so you finish up in Orlando and then you head to Tennessee?
MT: Yeah, I did my technical school in Tennessee which was six months long. That was a challenge. The first day of my class, being the only girl in the class. There were three guys that said to me, when you fail out of a class in the Navy they called it rocked out…you are going to rock out. And I was told the first day that they would see me rock out. They were looking forward to me failing. Which anybody that knows me, that just became a challenge. It was not happening, I don’t care how many coffee grounds and no sleep stuff I had to eat, I was not failing. We would eat straight coffee grounds just to stay awake. It was happening. I got to watch as two of those gentleman failed out of the class and I waved goodbye to them. I ended up graduating second in my class.
PM: Wow, impressive.
MT: I might not have done that had I not been told I was going to fail. So it was a lot of work, but I did it.
PM: Do you feel like you made any closer bonds there then you did in basic?
MT: No, it was really so separate. The guys had their own barracks and you are the only girl. So when you are in the barracks with the other women, they are all in different classes. They are not part of what you are going through, so I would say the six months that I was in my technical school I didn’t make many friends. It was an alone time because…that was why I did so well because that was all I could do was study.
PM: Right, was it all about…more of an isolating thing?
MT: It was very isolating. The women really struggled. There wasn’t a lot of the social part for us. One, we didn’t know each other and we were just trying to get where we are at. We are trying to make friends with the people that were in our classes with and it was so separate. I don’t believe it is like that now, everybody is all inclusive, which is fine. But it was challenging.
PM: Okay, was there any point or time where you thought why did I do this?
MT: No. No, I was still 17 so you don’t ask those questions. I turned 18 the day I graduated from boot camp. I did move onto 18. But I was no different than 17. At 18 I didn’t really ask those questions. I didn’t dig that deep into the why’s. This was what I was doing and I had an end goal and eventually I was going to get to it, which was out of the school and into your job, what you were doing.
PM: So after Tennessee then you head to Spain?
MT: Yeah, I had orders to Rhoda, Spain and I was…when you first get there you don’t really work in your position. You are TAD so I got to work in the galley for the first six months I was over there, out of my two year tour. Which, once again, I didn’t care because the off time was fun. So whatever job I had, I had. I was just the cashier at the galley, so it wasn’t like I had to serve food. I just had to take people’s money as they came in. I got to meet people from all over because the fleet would come in and they would eat at our galley. We had the USO tours over there and they would eat at our galley because there was nothing else. So I got to meet Randy Travis, Sylvester Stallone, and Bob Hope. Bob Hope actually commented, because I was standing in the squadron by the door and I was a late watch and he made a comment to me, “wow you look so tired”. I was, but I got a little rejuvenated after that. It was difficult too…because it was mostly guys coming through and you were looked at like, you are kind of cute. It gets old. The guys paying attention to you is one thing, but I’m over it. I’m over it.
PM: What was the ratio of men to women?
MT: Oh, probably 1,000 to 1. Especially when the fleet came in because the fleet, there was no women, plus there was supply ships, but it was mostly warships that were coming in. It was mostly guys and Marines. The ratio was never in favor of women where I was at.
PM: Okay.
MT: So you were treated like you were the next person they were going to date. I was like, nah.
PM: So you were there for two years…were you building relationships a little bit more?
MT: Yeah, over in Spain at 18, you are so far from your family and your home, from anything that is familiar to you at all. So, yeah, you establish relationships over there and those were my brothers and my sisters. They were the closest relationships in my entire career that I had forged, was the first duty station. It was amazing, because they would show up later on down the road at other duty stations, it was like you never left them.
PM: That’s cool.
MT: So the bonds that I made in the military were some of the strongest I’ve ever made.
PM: Are you still in contact with some of them?
MT: Absolutely. Yes, I just had a friend two years ago that retired from the Navy as a Master Chief, he did 30 years, which I was in my first squadron with him and we were friends then. I was invited out to his retirement in Maryland a couple of years ago. I did go. So those relationships are still there and they are strong too.
PM: So what about contact with your family when you are over in Spain?
MT: That was when I found out what the Red Cross does. So, yeah I struggled. It was hard to write letters home. It was before email and anything. We had one phone on the base it was at the air terminal and you had to spend your entire paycheck for a phone card to call and I was not having that. There was other things I was spending my money on and it wasn’t phone cards and it wasn’t stamps either.
PM: So you really had no contact?
MT: I had no contact. My mom had sent me a cassette tape recording. It was basically, an ass chewing from abroad of why I hadn’t called or wrote. I didn’t really think about it. It was one of those things that I was homesick, but if I wrote letters or tried to call home it would make me more homesick. So I just continued on with what I was doing and oblivious to it all. My command master chief called me into the office and said he had received a message from the Red Cross that my parents would like me to either call or write home. As I sat there…I was like the Red Cross? Really? And he made me write a letter and call directly from his office, witnessed, stamped and he mailed it. Two weeks later, my mother was in Spain.
PM: Oh, wow.
MT: Because I was alive and she knew she was coming to see a physical body so she bought a plain ticket. Then I got the chewing in person. And my command master chief was kind enough to grant me leave while she was here…I think he was in cahoots with her. So that…yeah, so it reestablished that connection back home to that I was so easily giving up. That was a mistake.
PM: Did you stay in better touch after that?
MT: Yes, yes. I was more afraid of my mother than anything else because she would show up.
PM: I think she proved that.
MT: Yes. Yes, the military should have been afraid.
PM: So you mentioned that you were not spending your money on stamps or phone cards. What did you do in your off time? That you can talk about…
MT: They had discothèques in Spain and they were open from 10:00 p.m. until 5:00 in the morning. They didn’t close. I didn’t have a lot of money, so it was basically my uniforms and food. I had an apartment in Spain and I don’t even know how I got the apartment, I just had it. I never washed my clothes over there because my landlord was this 90 year old Spanish lady and I didn’t know in the rental agreement that she just got to wash my clothes. Because I would come in from work and all my uniforms were stacked nicely and I’m like, “okay”. Here is your 400 Pesetas. So my off time, I liked the discotheques, I liked going dancing. I didn’t have a lot of time. I was one of the few that deployed in my squadron, even as a women. I’m not sure how I ended up in that, but I was deployable. I would be in Rhoda for 30 days and then my people would deploy to Sigonella, Sicily or Naples, Italy or Souda Bay, Crete. So there wasn’t a lot of base time to just hang out. I was constantly on the move.
PM: Okay.
MT: I don’t know what I really spent my money on. We didn’t have a lot of money. Hersey bars…we didn’t have Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups over in Spain so I had to go buy peanut butter, Hershey bars, powdered sugar, mix it and make my own. I think I lived off that. My mother brought over, when she came to see me, like five bags of Funyuns because we didn’t have those either. I lived off of junk food. But I did buy souvenirs and different things. Alcohol…I liked Sangria.
PM: So tell me a little bit about your job after the cashier stint.
MT: So after that, once again, TAD. We had to learn the airplanes. I worked on the EA3B’s. So I had to learn that airplane before I could go into my official job. So I was a plane captain. Basically, you handle the airplane, everything about the airplane. You learn the movement of the airplane, the ins and outs of it, you have to take fuel samples, just make sure it is ready for flight. You do a preflight as well as the pilots do. You are the last one to sign off on that plane before the pilot. It was a big responsibility. I did that for a year and then I finally got to go into my job as an electrician. I’m glad I got to be the plane captain because I learned that airplane. Going into it as an electrician, my job was easy then.
PM: So what was your job as an electrician?
MT: I was in charge of navigation systems. All the lighting, the wiring, different things like that. Anything electrical on the airplane was mine, including the engine electrical, which then became my goal in life was I loved working on the engines on the airplanes. So I went more specifically into, you can delve into a more specific job, so then I became a Tess electrician where the engines were mine. That was specifically my job.
PM: That’s a huge responsibility too?
MT: You don’t look at it like that. You know…they have trained you well enough to know your job. They are not going to let you go be free on it if they don’t trust you can do the job. So yeah…I enjoyed every bit of it.
PM: So you were in Spain for two years?
MT: Two years and then I received orders to a test and evaluation squadron in California, which deployed to New Zealand and Antarctica.
PM: Oh, wow.
MT: And it was…the mission of the squadron was different than any other military mission because it was for the science foundation. We did direct support for the science foundation. So our airplanes, we had C-130’s and UH1N’s. The C-130’s were ski equipped, which was cool because they had to land on the ice in Antarctica. I thought that was fascinating. We would deploy from October to March every year in support of the science foundation down in Antarctica. I did that off and on for three years. I didn’t really feel like I was in the military so much. We got to stay in a hotel down in New Zealand. We got good per diem and I saved up all my money there and I came back and outright bought a truck, my first vehicle and I paid cash.
PM: So by then you are in your early 20’s?
MT: Yes, I was only…I hadn’t even turned 21 yet. I missed my 21st birthday everybody. Because when you fly to New Zealand you leave on the 12th, my birthday was on the 13th but we arrived on the 14th. So the 13th just didn’t happen.
PM: You celebrated some other time though?
MT: Yes, I did. That was fun…they made sure everybody got their turn in Antarctica. I did get to see it. I’m glad I didn’t work there. Because it was like Minnesota. Everybody was like…oh brr…I’m like, it’s t-shirt weather. Are you kidding me. It was there summer’s over there when it was our winter here. Then after I was done there that was when the whole world turned around because Congress repealed the women in combat, on combat vessels in 1993 that was repealed by Congress. Somehow my name came up that there was a Tess electrician down in New Zealand that needed to go to a ship. That was when they were starting to staff the USS Roosevelt and the USS Abraham Lincoln with women. I was due for shore duty orders, which I was excited about because I was going to go and be a drill instructor or something fun. I didn’t even get to, I had four months left and I called the detailer and he was like, “nope, we already got you going to the east coast or west cost”. So I stayed on the west coast and that was the USS Abraham Lincoln. I was the third woman to step foot on that ship. (CLAPPING)
PM: Wow, so what were your feelings at that point?
MT: I was mad. I wanted shore duty so bad. I didn’t even think about the combat aspect. I didn’t think about the glass ceiling that was about to be shattered by us women. I didn’t think about that, I wanted shore duty. And I remember, you just don’t take it in entirely until I showed up in the parking lot of where the ship was at and I look at the ship and its way far away and its parked right next to the Carl Vincent, which is another aircraft carrier. I’m like, wow. That is when I knew I was in the Navy and I had been in for six years. I was like, welcome to the Navy Mary, here it is. The real Navy. The ship kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I was like, wow. That was the first time in the military that I was scared. I was like what the hell did I get into with this. Like I said, I walked on the ship, you have to have a confidence about you or its going to eat you alive. So even if its not true confidence, I had to pull it out of somewhere. I stepped on board the ship and they didn’t want us there to begin with and you could feel it. You could feel it in the air. My hair wasn’t right, nothing was right. So they were just picking and you just had to rise above it. I did. Being once of the first on there, there was an officer on there, there was a senior enlisted and then there was me, which was nice, so I got pick up rack where I wanted to sleep. Anybody who has ever been on a ship, you know that makes a difference. So I wasn’t three high, I was two high and in the corner. So nobody could be by me, I had the best.
PM: How many women were on the ship?
MT: So out of, when we had the air wing fully deployed, there was 5,500 to 6,500 people on board the ship, there was 500 women, entirely. When we didn’t have the air wing on board, with just the ships company it was about 2,500 people and I would say there was maybe 50 women. It was always a stark contrast and difference. It didn’t seem like any of us liked each other.
PM: You would think that you would come together?
MT: You would think…but no. It might have been competition. So some of you might see that in me now, and I try to not be like that but I’m so used to already being treated that way. So you are just stand offish to begin with until you meet and talk to people. So, I’m not stand offish, I try not to be. Don’t think I’m a big crab, I kind of am, but not really. So a history on how I got to be the way that I am. You put yourself out there to the women and then you are just ran into the ground, so its not always the most comfortable position to be in. With the guys, I didn’t care what they thought. They didn’t matter. It was the women that needed to be accepting of the other women because we needed to build that and we just couldn’t pull it together to do it.
PM: So how long were you on the Lincoln then?
MT: So I did a western Pacific on the Abraham Lincoln, a west Pac. We went to Hong Kong, Singapore, Jebel Ali, Dubai (several times), Perth, Australia and Hawaii. So I was basically on board the ship for almost two years. And I was ships company, I wasn’t air wing so I didn’t get to go back to my base. I lived on the ship.
PM: You got to see a lot of places though.
MT: Yeah, I really did. I knew I was going to be held hostage at all of them, something was going to happen.
PM: So were there any memorable experiences in that two years on the ship that you want to share?
MT: It was…you were incorporating women into, onboard a combat vessel. So you just did your job and you did your job to the best of your ability and beyond that. Because you had something to prove. You always had something to prove. It wasn’t just you got to show up and work. So I signed up for everything. I was the department damage control petty officer. I started my enlisted aviation warfare, I wanted that designation. I was going to have everything. So anything I could sign up for to be a part of…a repair locker on a ship…I needed to be out there and show that I’m doing the work that we need to do, along side these guys. That we can do it. I did prove myself and I think I helped in the long run of women being accepted. Because I got down and dirty with the rest of them. As far as experiences, it was…when you are on a ship it’s 12 on and 12 off. You are constantly working and sleeping, working and sleeping. I got lost in China, I didn’t think I was ever coming back. Somehow I made it back, I got on a train, wherever it goes and luckily I made it to Hong Kong. I wasn’t leaving the ship after that .
PM: Were there any places that you really enjoyed? Any countries?
MT: I enjoyed all of them. It was just taking them in, learning the place of everything. When I was in the middle east, it was the hardest place to be, because women had no place. With me being me, I got to Bahrain, I was going to go, I had to stay in the barracks and I was going to go sightseeing in Bahrain. What was I thinking? I started off in a tank top and shorts. Okay, well I was not indoctrinated on what to do when I got to Bahrain. I was like, be free Mary. I went downstairs and our barracks was guarded by the Saudi Arabian soldiers and he said nope. So I went back upstairs…I put on a long sleeved shirt and pants and it was 3,000 degrees outside but I was still going. I went out, I made it about a block and I wasn’t sure where I was going to go. Then the mosques started prayer and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do because everyone around me was doing their thing, they are locals. So I went right back to the hotel and the five days that I was in Bahrain I sat in the barracks. I didn’t know how this was going to end and I wasn’t that dumb. I wasn’t going to go and explore too much. I tried…being in a world where, yeah, you just didn’t belong there. I like where I’m at.
PM: Okay, so were on that tour for two years. Then what was your next step?
MT: Then next step was freedom, I got out of the service. I was done. I was exhausted, mentally, and I was wore out physically. That was close to 9 years of straight sea duty, deploying all the time, never having shore duty or being in one place. I got to see people around me sign up for the education benefits and go to school, to have time in one place. I just didn’t feel like this was coming my way so I made the choice to leave the service.
PM: And you were around 26ish?
MT: Yes, I was. I was 26. I stayed in the reserves. I still felt pretty young. I didn’t feel like I was late in the game getting out. I went to college. I went through paralegal school and that was fun. I liked that. I never worked a day as a paralegal, but I liked it. I ended up leaving California and coming back home. I needed a job so I had skills as an electrician so I applied at LTB Still Mining Company and I was accepted into the apprenticeship there and became a field electrician in the mines, till they closed down. I just shut everything down as I went along. Then I had my daughter and she is autistic so I ended up working at the school because that was easiest for me. I wanted to work at the school where she was at, where she was having all the trouble she has had. I worked with other kids to help them. So for seven years I worked as a para-professional with the disabled kids and that was the most fulfilling of all my jobs. In the course of that, my physical disability from the military just kept breaking down more. I ended up where I couldn’t work. I am 100% service connected veteran at this point. I just wore out.
PM: Do you feel like those nine years fulfilled everything you thought you were going to get out of the service?
MT: Yes. I would do it exactly the same way all over again, right down to being one of the few women where I was at. I think I represented us as best I could.
PM: I was going to say, you talked a little bit about how you felt your time on the ship paved the way for some other women?
MT: Yeah, it was a hit or miss with some of the women that were there. There was a lot of women that didn’t want to be there that would do anything to just get out of it. So when we had the guys that didn’t want us there, we also had the other women that didn’t want to be there that were trying to pull that back. So you had double the fight to say we do belong here and let me show you how. This is what we can do to belong here. Its no different. I’m not…there are things that go on, but for a woman being different from a man, but in a combat situation on a ship, I’m not going to be like excuse me, I have to go take care of something. We just do what we do. So the fight was always there, but it was always there with the men and the women to show that. At first, I thought I was one of the women that didn’t think women belonged there, but when I was there, we belonged there. We have a lot to offer into it. (CLAPPING)
PM: So now you are active in the VFW?
MT: I am. I am post commander for the Hoyt Lakes VFW. I am District 8 adjutant for the VFW Minnesota. I am secretary of the charitable association for the Department of Minnesota VFW and I just received a national appointment for finance and internal organization committee for the VFW.
PM: Wow, that’s great. Is it important for you to stay active and involved in service organizations?
MT: It is. I feel like…this is the hardest for me. It is self-worth. Being disabled…the disability I have keeps me from being the physical person I was before. So excuse me…you have to give back and that’s how I do it.
PM: Great, do you want to talk about the physical disability.
MT: No, because it is not just physical its mental as well. They kind of go hand in hand. Sorry everybody, it’s a Mary moment.
FEMALE: She is going to be the first female VFW Commander in Minnesota. (CLAPPING)
MT: And the way I get there is with your support because this is hard. It’s hard.
FEMALE: Haven’t you had problems with District 8?
MT: I’ve had more than my share…not just with District 8, it’s been on a department level. It’s a department level. It’s easy for so many of us to walk away and say I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to make it a place for all of us to be and that’s a fight. Because what happens once again is you are battling the men and the women and we belong there. We belong in this organization, the VFW. I belong there, I’m a combat veteran. I have information for claims, I have been through the wringer on all of it. I have information to help other people. We belong there. So when…what you are talking about with that, when I show up at a VFW thing and it’s the guys, so to speak, I’m welcomed within that rank when we are doing business, when it’s committee meetings and business meetings I am an equal. I have always been treated as an equal. You step outside of that and you go into the more social aspect of the VFW and you become nobody. You don’t have a place. the guys can no longer talk to you because their wives are with them. You are seen as a threat to all these men, because I want to date all of the 70 year olds. You get it also from the women’s side, auxiliary side as well. The auxiliary side is mostly women, however there are men within these ranks. But the auxiliary is supposed to support all veterans no matter what. I’ve run into where these women, some of the women in the auxiliary don’t like what we are doing, where we are at, don’t like that we work side by side with their men. So you get treated poorly on that aspect as well. It has been a fight, but I haven’t walked out on it yet. It’s always going to be a fight for us. I wish for the day that it’s not going to be, but it always is going to be and I wish everyone would take their part in it and do a little bit. It’s hard to do, but when you show up, you show up. We need the numbers. That is why this is so important that these women are here doing what they are doing because they are out there saying we exist, we are here.
PM: And everybody is lucky to have you fighting for them.
MT: Sometimes I think that. It’s a struggle…this is therapy for me, what I’m doing within the VFW. It would be so easy for me to wake up and say I’m not doing anything and give up and not fight the fight. But every day I wake up and say today is the day I’m quitting, I’m walking away from all of it. I don’t want to be a part of it, I don’t want to do any of it. I don’t want to go to this group, I don’t want to go to the Legion, I don’t want to go to the VFW. And every single day I feel that way. But I have to tell myself its not for me, its for everybody else. They need it, and I gotta show up. So that is my therapy, showing up and so far its working. I’m three, four years into it and I keep showing up. It makes me value myself more where I didn’t have that so long ago. So it’s therapy.
PM: We have covered the questions that I have. Is there anything more you want to share about your time?
MT: No. This group has been great, it’s been a struggle for me in this group to. I want to be a part of it and then I remove myself from it. It’s hard being honest, if I’m being honest, being around the other women we have to build each other up and I’m always scared that we are not going to. So you get nervous about that and you question your friendships. I hope I don’t when any of you and I want to be all of your friends. And if I can help you in any way, I will.
FEMALE: And if you need any help, you can ask any of us.
MT: It’s not always that easy to ask.
FEMALE: I know….right.
MT: It is…I’ve reached out a few times to this group and I have been rejuvenated in my fight. Its not an inside thing, but you have seen my struggles. I’m going to keep fighting the fight because you guys allow me to do that. So thank you very much.
PM: And thank you for sharing your story, I appreciate it.
End of recording
Track 1
46:33
Transcribed by Heidi Guenther
Sources:
Albert J. Amatuzio Research Center | Veterans Memorial Hall (vets-hall.org)
Salute to Servicewomen traveling exhibit produced by the St. Louis County Historical Society.
