Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Beverly Roddy was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
This is Beverly Roddy. She was born March 18th, 1945. She lives in Rockville, Indiana. She served with the US Navy from May 20, 1985. She retired as a commander on June 1st, 2005. Today is August 9th, 2005. My name is Emmy Huffman. We are doing this interview at the Rockville Public Library in Rockville, Indiana.
And so what made you decide you wanted to join the military?
Well, I was in seminary, and there was a Navy chaplain who was doing advanced studies at the seminary. She invited me to a very nice thanksgiving service at a nearby Navy station. And one of the things I specially liked was all of the chaplains from the different faiths working together and having beautiful services, so that got me thinking about possibly serving in chaplaincy myself. So that was my beginning in choosing the Navy. I applied to the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy. I was over age, or coming up to the age limit, so I really didn't have a lot of options. The Army turned me down. The Navy accepted me more or less, at least they gave me an application, and the Air Force turned me down. So I filled out the application for the Navy, and then they denied me because I was too old, because of certain nondenominational issues. I was endorsed by the United Methodist Church, and they have a two tier ordination system, so you have to be a deacon first, and then nine, you know, with final orders. So because I hadn't been very long in that denomination, there was another denomination that said, "Oh, we will take you under care," and they only have a one tier ordination system, so I went with them. So I had an endorsement with them at that point. So I put in another application to the Navy, and apparently, they lost my application. When they finally found it, I was too close to ordination, and too close to getting my Masters Degree, and the Navy said, "No. You should have applied for chaplaincy and not the theological student program." So I was turned down a second time. Then I was ordained and received my Masters Degree, and my recruiter said, "Go ahead just update your paperwork. You've done all the hard work on this, and put it in one more time." And I did, and I was already 40, and I said, "Well, this is pathetic. It will never happen." And they said yes, so they took me at my age.
Why did you stick with it so much?
I went to seminary in Berkeley, Pacific School of Religion, and when I wanted to do prison ministry, a lot of people, my colleagues, fellow students, said, "Why do you want to work with these losers?" And they didn't support me in that. When I started looking at military chaplaincy, again my student peers said, "Don't do it. Why would you be in a destructive organization such as the military. They're out to kill people." So I took that as kind of a challenge that that's probably exactly where I needed to be. So I pursued it.
So how happy were you the third time when the Navy --
I was thrilled. I could not believe it, so yeah. Yes. I was thrilled.
So were you then commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant or a lieutenant JG or --
JG, right.
Was there a big celebration there after you personally achieved that?
Um, I was doing an internship in Columbia, South Carolina, so I didn't have any family members and anything like that, so it was just the formalities of signing paperwork, but I was thrilled. I was thrilled. My friends, they all gave me presents when I went away to my basic course, my basic training, and they wished me well. And so it was a great deal, a great deal.
When did you go to basic camp?
Newport, Rode Island in the summertime. It was tough duty.
What kind of things did you have to learn there?
Well, one of the things, because I was a great couch potato, was getting myself in physical shape. So we got up early in the morning at the crack of dawn, and we did pushups and situps and hangs, and because we have to hang on a bar for the Marines and our mile and a half run, and then we extended that to three mile run. We had to learn how to march. I did not know how to march, and to be honest, I still don't. So -- so that was one of the things. So we did that. And then we also learned Navy resources, if we were counseling a sailor, a marine, what might be some of our resources at family service centers, and our counseling and assistance center for alcoholism and drug related support. And just how the Navy runs. What it would be like to brief a commanding officer. What's it's like on ship on board. We went on field trips. We went on ships. We went on submarines. We went to different bases. We did helicopter OPS where we would go up on a helicopter and then have to come down on a -- with a horse halter as we were landing on a ship, and then we hulled back up. Those kinds of things. It was a lot of fun. We did hikes. We were in camouflage, and then, you know, do hikes, and then when we got to a certain areas then we would do field first aid, and then would hike back. And the day wouldn't be over even at that point because we would then see films, real footage, say, of Vietnam, and things like that, and very serious -- I mean, very serious stuff, grim stuff. And then afterward we'd even have an extended discussion of what we saw, what our feelings were, what was done right, what was done wrong in our view. So it was pretty incredible. And we did worship services at different bases and hospital visitations, and, you know, a variety of things that we'd have to stand watch every now and then, and we'd have to stand inspections. We had inspections, and all of our major uniforms, and our rooms would be inspected, and that kind of stuff. So we'd have to spray lemon Pledge all over the place, so it really smelled clean. That's all. So, and then different tests on different stuff that we were supposed to be learning, how to tell different ranks, what the different insignia are, command structure and things like that.
Right. Did you have any problems with, especially with the physical fitness part? Were you much older than everyone else in the group and got challenged?
I was a lot older than a lot of people; however, they allowed some people even older than myself. There was one person that was 56.
Wow.
And he was very overweight. And I mean, we were very concerned for him because he'd get really red in the face when he ran, so...
It wasn't focusing on you?
No. It was not on me; although, I'm a slow runner even on a good day, so that erked me, and erked everybody around me because we tried to be a team.
Right. How long were you there at Newport?
Eight weeks.
It was a very busy eight weeks?
Yeah, it was. It was very intense. My roommate and I slept in one morning. We were supposed to get up before dawn, so, to do our counseling, and situps, pushups, and generally people would go down the corridor and they would pound on peoples' doors too for us to get up. Well, for some reason we slept through. And so the light comes, a dawn arrives. The room gets light, and my roommate and I wake up, and, oh, no. We got in our P.T. group gear, and ran down to the field, and everybody was already doing their stuff. and "Where were you?" You know, we were unauthorized absence, you know, big deal. You know, sorry, you know. So anyway, but so, it was -- that was a big deal. Another time I was in my robe, and I had gone up with a ladder to go to the women's restroom, the women's head because we didn't have a women's head in our barracks deck. So I was just kind of in my own world, kind of thinking about things, and instead of going down the ladder again, I came out on the wrong deck. And so I'm in my robe in the morning, like Saturday morning, or something, and I see all of these very large young men around me. Oh, my gosh. Suddenly somebody shouts out, "Attention on deck." And whenever anybody shouts, "Attention on deck," everybody races, you know, you're just like, so. So anyways, we are on our robes and skivvies or whatever, and I race like that, and a guy leans over to me without breaking his brace, and he says, "Ma'am, we're doing this for you." And so I quickly have to say, "As you were, you carry on and got out of there." But that was really funny.
That's funny.
That was cute.
Where did you go after Newport?
I went back to the inactive reserves, and I attached to a unit in Norfolk, Virginia. It was a chaplain's unit, and at that time there were only about seven pay billets for female reserve chaplains.
Wow.
So I was assigned to a unit with lots of male chaplains, and they all got paid for their weekend and I didn't. They got paid if they went on -- if we went on training. We all went on training with the unit to Washington, D.C., for example. They got their hotel, their per diem, and got paid for points, and I didn't. I was so shocked.
I bet.
I said, "Wait a minute. No wonder you don't have women in the chaplain corps." So that first summer after I had been trained, they recalled me to two months of duty in the Pentagon with the chief chaplain's office, and what they wanted me to do is to help to think through why we didn't have women in the chaplain corps.
Because they don't get paid.
Duh. So anyway -- but anyways, so one of the questions was, "Okay. Chaplain Roddy, how come you're not on active duty?" Because they wanted active duty Navy chaplains of the female reparations (ph). So anyways, I didn't want to make a big deal out of being turned down and asking for active duty and not getting it. You know, it's one of these things I realize I was over age. And within two weeks, I was on active duty, so then I went to Meridian City. Of course, everyone says, "Well, who did you get angry at the Pentagon to end up in Mississippi?" And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
So what was it like when you were on active duty and you were assigned to your first real duty station?
It was just a different world. It was the aviation world, Navy Air Station Meridian. I counseled a lot of young sailors as they were going through their initial training, A school and C school. That was very intense. There were times when I would be counseling sailors, and I would be speaking to so many people. I nearly lost my balance. I mean, it was -- it was so intense, because people had gone through boot camp, and they realized that they hated the Navy and they wanted out.
Right.
When they were in boot camp, they would just focus in getting through the challenge, and nobody wanted to drop out, but once they got to their A school they were thinking about it. They were able to go out on town and have a nice meal, whatever, talk more to their family, write, et cetera. And a lot of the women got pregnant and wanted to get out that way. So there was an awful lot of counseling for people that wanted to get out.
Did you feel you were well-prepared to help families?
I thought so. I thought so, but emotionally how do you stand up to the strain of that? I knew that it was the worst part, I think, of not having that emotional support.
How did you cope with it?
I had my friends. I did lots of running, a lot of PT. I -- you know, I went to the movies. I tried to just do the best I could. There was a certain amount of sexism. I joined the local Mysteria (ph) Association in the military in Meridian, Mississippi, and at first there was just terrible sexist jokes. And finally, after about the fourth month with them and every month at the monthly meeting they would say something, say some sexist joke. About the fourth month I was saying to myself, how much more am I going to endure? Because I was just considering just dropping out. And finally, there was one month when they didn't have to crack any sex jokes. I said, "Oh, I'm home." So I stayed with them through the entire two years I was there.
Were they able to then to help you deal with the sort of overwhelming amount of --
Yeah, in somewhat in a collegial way, yeah, too, so that was nice.
Do you have any special experiences from your time in Mississippi?
In Meridian, not really. It was -- it was long hours. It was a lot of counseling. I tried to get backseat qualified so I could go on one of the little fighter jets, and I made some good progress, but I didn't quite get it. I went into the simulator. We had a cockpit simulator, and we called it spinning puke, so it gets you spinning, and then it simulates different weightlessness, and different Gs, and then they give you different tasks to do. And so, you know, just to get used to the way some of the -- so I did that and chamber where it simulates going up and losing oxygen, and the pool qualifications, wearing a flight suit, boots and everything, and swimming and floating. And so it was kind of fun. And generally, when I'd be in the different classes because they went over some classroom stuff too, everybody, all of the teachers would say, "Okay. Now, here you are. You're getting all this training. If you're having difficulty because all these sailors and training for the little jets" -- and they said, "Okay. Folks, now, when you have problems, emotional difficulties, problems in your marriage, et cetera, what can you do? They all turned to me and said, "Talk to the Chaplin." So that was great.Emmy Huffman:: Where did you go after Mississippi?
I was at Kings Bay, Georgia with U.S.S Ken battalion (ph) out of a submarine.
What was that like being on board a ship?
It was a brand new experience for me. Just finding my way around the ship and finding my way to my office, and then out again because everything looked the same, up ladders, et cetera. So it was easy to get turned around being out at sea which is wonderful. I just loved it. The porpoises would greet us. They would get all excited when we were heading out to sea. They'd pop up on one side, and go under the keels and pop up on the other and chatter at us, follow us. The dolphins would surf in our -- where we cut -- our bow, cut the water. They would surf for hours well underway. It was really neat. Once in a while we were out at sea in the Atlantic. We were barely north of Kings Bay, Georgia. Anyway, we were out the Gulf stream. It was a bright day. If you've ever been out at sea when it was bright, everything glimmering. The sun glances off of the water and it was very bright. So anyway, one of the watches reported that he thought he saw a glinch (ph) on the sea. So the skipper says, "Okay. Well, we're going to turn this thing around." It was 600 feet long. We had 1,250 people on board. It was a big deal. So we turn around, and we head into the direction where the sailor said that he saw the glinch. And lo and behold, there was a cabin cruiser, four people on board. It ran out of gas. They had run out of battery power. They had shot their last glare over us. They had seen us over the horizon. They were drifting in the gulf stream, and they would have ended up, you know by Iceland. They would have died of exposure. So anyways, so that was a huge thrill to rescue these people.
I bet.
Oh, it was wonderful.
It must have been odd to be in the boat, see this big ship and come up.
I know. We were huge. So that was fun. We went into dry dock in Baltimore, Maryland. That was Maryland. That was an interesting experience.
Why was it interesting?
Well, just to see all of the apparatus. We were out in the middle of nowhere. People didn't have their vehicles. We had to have shuttle buses take us into town. Drill bits, the noise. We could take a look, and you could see the dust hanging in the air and, you know, the grit. We had to change the air filters, you know, hourly. It was -- it was awful. It really was a huge stress for us.
I'm curious to know, how does counseling differ like if you're at a land base as opposed to aboard ship? Are there different issues that people confront?
Well, when you're out at sea, of course, this was in the '80s, people didn't have cell phones and things like that, and so communications with families was very limited, so that was a concern, how are families dealing with different issues, financial issues, marital issues. The Canopus had a lot of women on board. We had more women than men.
Wow.
So that in itself created some friction because a lot of the men did not like the new Navy that they found themselves in, following orders from women, et cetera.
Uh-huh.
So that was kind of tough, or shipmates fell in love and maybe they were married. And when we went under deployment, we would have people, shipmates paring off. There was also issues of when we went out to sea, and there was a hurricane or something like that. Whenever there was a hurricane on that coast, and it looked like it was going to be hitting the Georgia Coast, we had to go out to sea because otherwise the ship would bank against the pier and break the pier and ruin our health, so we would head out to sea. So then our family would be back in the hurricane, and we would leave our homes with tape across the windows, and, you know, turn off the gas, and, you know, just hope for the best. Our cars would be in the parking lot, et cetera. We wouldn't know what was happening back there, so that was a huge concern.
I bet.
Other things, how do women -- well, of course, this was land base too. What the young sailors who are female, how do they manage with a very nontraditional job and seeing themselves still as feminine, wearing boots, wearing utility uniforms, you know, grease under your fingernails, you know, chipping your knuckles on deck, chipping paint, et cetera, so --
What advice did you have for them?
Oh, I don't know. Probably thinking in terms of maintaining personal identification rather than just trying to maintain a professional -- but realize that we leave our professionalism kind of 9:00 to 5:00, or if we have a watch, whatever that watch is, and we ourselves go forward with our relationships, with different interests, pursue education, et cetera. So we are not our job. We are more than. So, but it was kind of difficult.
I bet.
And especially because the male sailors will hit on female sailors and tell and undermine their confidence by saying, "Oh, well, you must be a dike," or something like that, and then so women might be more inclined then to have sex with their male shipmates because male shipmates they will tell them, "Oh, no" -- you know. And so they have sex and get pregnant, and --
You're talking this is the '80s. How was pregnant seawomen dealt within the '80s?
Well, they had the option of getting out. So our male peers really thought lowly of people who got out because they got pregnant, because the males, the male sailors, they may have hated the Navy, hated going out to sea, hated being separated from their loved one and yet, they didn't have that option of getting out; so they resented it like crazy. And then also anyone who was pregnant would get off the ship. They would be -- they would have a temporary assignment someplace else because you cannot be pregnant and on the ship. You can't be underway and pregnant, so there was a lot of resentment for female shipmates, and they are just seen as not pulling their weight.
Do you think that's changed at all?
I don't know. I haven't been on active duty in a long time. I haven't seen that as an issue for a long time, so I don't know how it's dealt with these days.
Right. How long were you there aboard the Canopus?
Two years.
And where did you go after that?
Camp Pendleton, California.
Were you relieved to have sort of a long sea-going duty again?
No. Because we were building up our forces in Desert Storm, so no. I was getting ready to deploy. So no, that wasn't much of a relief. In fact, the Canopus was a piece of cake.
Were you nervous about having to deploy in support of a war and how it might change your job?
Yeah.
What were some of the things you were thinking about?
Well, I had never trained with a gas mask for starters, and I wasn't trained before I left for Saudi Arabia either. They basically said, "Well, this is a gas mask, and you fit it over, and hopefully you'll get a good seal, and here you go." And actually, they literally held the gas mask up to the light and said, "Okay. Well, this one looks okay. It doesn't look like it got any pinholes in it." Because by the time I went to Saudi Arabia, they already sent a lot of troops over, so I went over in January. People had been deployed since August. So by the time I went over, I was getting the crappiest equipment. I mean, literally held my stuff up to the light to see if it had any holes in it, and I had never gone through gas mask training. I never done it with a canister of gas to see if I could actually do it.
Right.
So plus that because I had bad eyesight, and when you do a gas mask in those days, the gas mask insert was part of the gas mask. So I take my glasses off I'd be blind as a bat, because I had 20/450 vision, really bad. So it came away really bad, and then I'd be blind for a minute until I put that darn thing on, which I never trained in doing. So that was one thing. That was very nerve wracking. Another thing that was nerve wracking was that they couldn't tell me exactly when I was leaving. So I'd get ready, and they'd say, "Oh, sorry. We're not sending you." I had to get ready again, and they'd say, "Oh, sorry. Not this time." I'd get ready again. They sent me for my battalion which was deployed, in deployment with my Marine unit. They sent me temporary duty to the base, and they sent a male chaplain with my unit because they didn't want female chaplains over there. So finally they realized because they had a lot of female troops over there, that they'd better get female chaplains over there. So then they -- that's when they sent me. Yeah, you're going.
What were your first impressions of Saudi Arabia when you got there?
How flat it was. Absolutely flat as a pancake. There was just a massive disorganization. We arrived. Nobody knew where we were going. We finally got a bus to take us from the airport over to our base where they would process us in. When we were on the bus going over there, the driver stopped in the middle of nowhere. Here we are, middle of nowhere, just sand, and the driver gets out and takes a crap. Finishes his stuff, comes back in, starts up the bus, and on we go. It was -- it was different.
I bet. How long did it take you to get to your base and settle in?
A couple hours. I shared a tent with a communications officer, so she had been there for quite a while. She had begun chewing tobacco.
Why? Did she say why?
Because she was bored. She got there in August when it was really hot, and I guess chewing tobacco creates some saliva. So anyway, she had a bad habit, a nicotine habit. But in any case, the nice thing was that she had the tent all setup, and we had -- she had put little Christmas lights. See, I arrived right after Christmas, and she had the little Christmas lights in the main pole in our tent with the little battery operated thing, so it was very cheery. And then also a poinsettia, you know, a plant. So, and she knew where the best showers were. She knew where the best -- as they call them -- shitters, the restroom. In fact, I have two stars on my ribbon, my Saudi Arabia, and just to kid around, I tell people one star is for the outdoor toilet, and one is for the outdoor showers.
Did that take some getting used to?
Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did, but, you know, life goes on.
Yeah.
It was just, you know, very minor.
What were some of the issues you were dealing with as a chaplain there inside Saudi Arabia?
Single parents trying to maintain contact with their whoever was taking care of their kids. Issues about obeying orders in the middle of nowhere, issues of not wanting to be there, and thinking we were there for oil. Some people were unclear about why we were there, and they resented it. Other people were recalls to active duty from the reserves, and they weren't very well prepared. Things happening back with their families, babies born, deaths, and we couldn't send anybody back to the states on emergency leave because we were just stuck. And when you're in harm's way generally you can't take emergency leave. So, you know, try do deal with it the best you could.
Right.
But sometimes the caretakers of the family said, "I've had it with these brats. I can't take care of your kids anymore. You got to come back and take care of them, either that or they're going into child protective custody." And we couldn't send people back, so they'd be just, you know, beside themselves. They'd be absolutely distraught.
Right.
So that was certainly something that happened. People were nervous about their relationships back home, were their loved ones being unfaithful? Were they wiping out their finances and moving and divorcing? You know, all that kind of nervousness, and not having confidence about their family.
Right. We had some dependent who broke the law to get in jail so that the children would be put in child protective care, and they thought that by doing that they would force the military to send the service member back to the states, and that didn't happen. So, you know, there was just all kinds of craziness that happened. Of course, there were the issues of actually being in harm's way. There would be enemy aircraft, hearing gunshots at night or on the periphery, or riding out doing a reckon out in the desert and finding booby traps and enemy ordinance, people picking up enemy ordinance and taking off and taking a hand, and, you know, killing somebody, and then the rest of the unit would have to go out and look for a body part. The fires in the oil fields made the sky so dark that we couldn't even see our shadows at noontime. It was awful, and people were getting sick. We had to take all kinds of medications in case we were gassed. And people got sick from that. So people were sick and unable to continue that prophylactic medication. People getting shot. People dealing with body bags. People taking body parts as souvenirs, our people taking body parts as souvenirs. They were trying to mail ordinance back, or trying to ship it back because a grenade or something like that could go off and, you know, kill lives and take lives. People having nightmares and daymares about killing, and wanting to kill, and being angry at the cease fire because they hadn't killed anybody, or others who had killed, or people who dealt with the enemy, prisoners of war, because enemy prisoners of war, they just gave up in droves and walked over to Saudi Arabia. And we had so many people in our enemy prisoners of war camps that we couldn't feed them right. We didn't have blankets for them, and we were afraid of them rioting because there were so many of them, so strike back out of fear, you know. And so some of that stuff haunted us.
How long were you there?
I was there about four months.
Were you surprised how quickly everything was over, or did it seem like much longer because dealing with those issues?
Well, we still had incoming fire after the cease fire, so for us it was still -- all we wanted to do was just get out of there. It was very frightening. We had scud missiles. During the conflict, we had scud missiles disrupting our sleep sometimes twice a night, sometimes most often three times a night. We had to get up out of our of bunks, get our uniforms on, boots on, battle rattle, et cetera, the helmet, and grab and carry our gas mask and go to a safe area, had nothing over it. We could see the scud missiles going over us. The closest one hit probably about 10 kilometers away. And we could feel the detonations, and so our sleep was scrambled. And then, of course, after that there was an all clear because, see, we were right in the trajectory of where the scud missiles with Riyadh. So every time -- word Riyadd, our sensors would go off, and we'd have to, you know, head out to under our barracks at the bunker, but the bunker was just a hole in the sand that we dug up, and if it was raining, we had water in the bottom, so we couldn't even sit down because we're not going to get our uniforms all wet because we don't have access to laundry. And at times we were so crowded in our bunkers because we were a transition camp, and so an admin camp, so people would be processed in a minute and be sent up north. So at times we had way too many people for a bunker, so crowded the bunker, lots of confusion, which barrack is supposed to go to which bunker, et cetera. So at times it was so crowded in the bunkers that people would move and their rifles with the weapons were on their shoulder. They would hit somebody in the face and bloody a nose, et cetera, break a tooth. So at the all clear siren, then we'd climb out, out of the sandy hole, and look around and say, "Oh, you know, you're bleeding," or "I am?" you know, whatever. It was just because we were so packed in there, so -- but when I got back to the state, when I heard a siren, I would, of course, go into extreme fear, and look overhead and see what the problem was. Our siren sounded very much like a 10-ton truck that gears up like that. When I would hear that first gear, I would -- I would get really scared, so I'd wake up. I'd sit up in the middle of the night in my bed and in my apartment when I got back, and I would hyperventilate if somebody would open the door. I was in the church building, if someone opened the door, I mean a billion miles away, I mean, I knew it, so it was tough. Yeah, it was tough.
I bet.
And when I was shipping out, I was leaving Saudi Arabia, so I'm finally on the manifest. I'm out of here. Incidentally, they had sent my body guard before me, and chaplains don't hold rifles. We don't carry weapons, so my body guard left, and things were so disorganized. People, they were just trying to get people out of there fast because of the month of Ramadan had already started. So anyways, so because we were collecting body parts and in the ordinance as souvenirs, we had to have dogs go through all of your stuff before we would get on the airplanes. So here I am, and it was a long serpentine line of people. We're finally on the manifest to get out of there, a long line and stuff. We all got our sea bags, heavy as all, get out, and we're making our way to this concrete pad where the dogs are going through our stuff, make sure we didn't have any, what we call, biologicals ordinance. And right by the concrete pad are some port-a-lets, and overflowing, and it stinks, crap, the mud is nasty. So I'm walking up there. I'm approaching this pad and getting closer and closer, and I'm looking at that mud. I'm saying to myself no way I'm putting my sea bag down. I am not taking that back with me. So I got way up in the concrete pad. I'm the next person. They say, "Okay. We'll stop. I am the next person, and I'm bound to determine I will not put my sea bag down. So then they said, "Oh, we can take one more person, so go." I never did have to put it down in all that bad stuff. But when we got back to the states, we had people who wanted to give us booze, and we had a lot of people lining the streets as they were trying to welcome us back. We were tired and probably dehydrated after a long flight, and so whenever we'd get to a stoplight or a stop sign there would be people on the side of the road trying to give us cases of beer, and I was sitting shotgun in one of the buses, and so this guy -- my window was open, and he put his face up and close to me, and he said, "Do you want some beer?" And I turned around, and I said, "Does anybody want some beer?" And everybody said, "No. I don't think so. So I said, "No. I don't think so." And he put his face really close to me. His face was bright red, and he said, "Well, what's wrong with you?" I just said, oh, man, get out of here, you know. And so some of the troops did drink on the buses, so we got back to Camp Pendleton, and they were drunk and falling all over. And, you know, I just thought to myself, what a terrible reunion with their families, here they are drunk. So it was -- but it was -- it was very emotional. I had, I guess, ingested or taken in so many chemicals that when I held my arms up you see my muscles jumping. I had eventually lesions popping out of my legs, on my hands and on my feet. I didn't know if I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And then I was taken off active duty.
Did they say why?
Yeah, it was a reduction in force. So I and about three other chaplains, we had all come in our basic course together. We were all with the Marines over in Saudi Arabia, and we were all -- They said, "Sorry. Bye."
What did you do?
Well, I worked part-time at a church. I took some classes at a community college trying to figure out what I wanted to do, applying for different churches, and eventually got pastored in Monterey and continued in the reserve.
Were you in paper at this time?
Yeah. Oh, incidentally, when I was in Washington, D.C. That first summer I was working as a Navy chaplain, the first instrumentally opened female chaplain, so it was huge, a huge achievement for me.
So when you were a pastor there in Monterey, did you ever think that you would be recalled active duty again?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Why did you feel that way?
Well, as a chaplain I prepare people for that event, actually, and I take it very seriously so that our training in the reserves is, you know, augment the activity duty. So while some reservist say, well, I'm just going to do it so I can fund my college education, or just a little, you know, an extra adventure on the weekend or whatever. And no, I take it very seriously.
So when were you called up again?
It was in '95, and that was with Cuba.
And why were you called up? What was the world situation then?
The Cuban detainees had originally been sent to Panama and they rioted there. People were killed. And so Panama said maybe put them in Guantanamo Bay. So the U.S. then moved the detainees to the camps in Guantanamo Bay.
The earliest detainees from?
Cuba. Yeah, they were trying to get from Cuba to Florida, basically, in a cabin cruise. You see rafts, et cetera.
And you were --
They were interdicted or whatever they call it in at sea and taken to these camps. We had -- at one point our highest population was probably about 50,000 detainees. It was a huge operation. We had tent cities in three major areas on the Bay, and one was a golf course. Completely flattened out a golf course and put a tent city on it with raised towers. Another was one of the flight lines. Completely closed down flight line areas and put up a tent city, thousands of detainees, and the other one was what was called radio range, and that was an iguana preserve. And the world, you know, just cried, Holy hell, but we just, you know, cleaned it off and put seven or eight camps, you know, thousands of detainees in each.
Were these people supposed be being processed back into Cuba?
They were in the holding cabin. We didn't know if they'd get to the U.S. We didn't know if they'd get to other countries. At first we thought, well, maybe they would be there for a couple years, maybe as many as five years. We started putting up common structures for them to stay there awhile, then the state department or the legislator, whatever it was, changed policy and began processing the Cubans to go to the U.S. So then we get state department people in to process them. There were the long lines, hangars, just long lines of people being processed to go into this facility.
So your job there was, were you counseling them?
The detainees.
You were?
Yeah.
Wow.
The detainees and my camp personnel too.
What was it like talking to some of these people who were trying to flee Cuba?
Well, they would talk about the different experiences that they had in Cuba. One, for example, was a major in the Army, Cuban Army, and he defected, wanted to get to the U.S. He was very nervous about having to go back to Cuba.
I bet.
Most of the people were very well educated. They had gone up through the university system. They had pharmacists. My musician in the chapel was a concert musician, so, but it was very interesting. We had a lot of kids. We had school. They had little uniforms. We brought in different ministries, puppets and musical groups, et cetera, to kind of break the monotony. We had lots of pregnancies, lots of babies born. I think, if I recall correctly, it was like 70 a month.
Oh, my goodness.
Births, and all we had port-a-lets. We didn't have the running water for the port-a-lets, so the pregnant women really did struggle.
I bet.
How long were you in Cuba?
I think I was there for three months.
And when you came back did you get your job back in Monterey?
No. I went on -- I was -- at that point I went on three months of active duty in Norfolk, Virginia. I helped them because they had a chaplain go to Getmo or Guantanamo Bay as it's called, Cuba, Getmo and serve with the detainees down there, the Cuban detainees. So I backed for him so the base could still run the operation, the base chaplain.
I see.
But then, no. I had resigned my job at the church, and then did an internship with the Department of Corrections in Columbia, South Carolina, and then got the job here at Rockville Christian.
I see.
And all that time, you know, working with the reserves, different reserve components.
I was going to ask how you got to Rockville from Cuba.
Yeah. Yeah.
So you retired this past summer?
Uh-huh.
What was that like?
It was a wonderful achievement to go 20 years, and especially sweet because I had come in when I was already 40, and the Navy said, "Well, you know, you probably won't be able to retire because you're already 40. There's no way you can make 20 good years by the time you're 60." Of course, so it was just extra sweet that I could do it. I felt that I had accomplished a lot that I served my nation. I had served people. I had served God. All these things coming together in that ceremony. So it was really a nice affirmation.
What does it mean to you to be able to say that you are a Navy Veteran that you devoted 20 years of your life to the services of your country?
Well, it really hasn't hit yet. Now, I've used veteran services since Desert Storm, and the VA system has helped me with different medical issues; so that's something that I had quite a history with, and I think very highly of the VA services, actually. I've had some biopsies and breast tumors removed after Desert Storm.
Do you think that was caused by --
I think so. I don't know what else would cause it, because all of a sudden out of the blue got these different lesions and different things popping out all over my body. All of that seems to be resolved now.
Good.
But I did have some tumors removed, some growth tumors. So anyways, but the fact that I'm a retiree and I have my retiree card, beginning to get my retirement pay. I don't know. It just gives me a lot of satisfaction. I'm just grateful for the opportunity. It was a huge adventure. It was a huge challenge, and so many wonderful moments of being with people and shedding tears with them, being right beside them as they were standing cargo inspections, doing retirement ceremonies up on top of a deck of a ship, and, you know, for having to undergo the physicals and everything, getting mandatory shots or something like that all together. So and hopefully, I've been faithful to my calling, because I see my calling from God as higher than my calling from the Navy. In fact, we wear -- as Navy chaplains, we wear two different insignias. Rank is right, so we have our rank device, and then the other one is the cross, or if you were a Jewish, your Star of David, the tablets for the Muslims, they had a million stars. Now, we actually have Buddhist Chaplins, so we've done away with those different insignias on our crest. But in any case, and I've always considered my cross to be much more than that. That is my ultimate calling. So to be able to share what I understand God's love is, and God's call for us to be virtuous, and share that in harm's way in very odd circumstances has been a real thrill.
Good.
And a real honor. I'm honored. Real honor.
That's all the questions I have for you. Is there anything else that you'd like to ask?
No. I don't think so. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Obviously, I still got a lot of emotions from being in harm's way. I didn't realize -- how long has it been now? It's been 15?
Yeah, 15 years.
15 years, and I've still got tears over it but, obviously, meant a lot to me when I was in Saudi Arabia. I was concerned because my mother had supported my brother in Vietnam during that era, and here I get into the service, and here she has to go through it all over again. So I -- when I was in Saudi Arabia, I wrote to my mother every single day.
Oh, wow.
Whether just a little post card note, or a full letter. And my mother indicated that she has all my letters from Saudi Arabia, and I dated each of them, and she said that sometimes she would get a pile of letters and then she would go for days without getting anything. But she and my sister had letter parties and they would go through my letters.
It's really neat. Well, thank you so much for coming down today. I really enjoyed listening to you.