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Air
Force Women
Officers Associated |
Web Site: www.afwoa.org FEBRUARY 2007 President: Pat Murphy,
From Pat’s
Pen
We've joined with other military organizations in
petitioning Congress to pass the Call Home Act of 2006. This
legislation directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to undertake
efforts to reduce telephone rates for deployed members of the Armed Forces. |
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1. East Coast 2. West (CA, AZ, 3. 4. Cruise
(4 days) from or We hope you enjoy Vivienne Sinclair's look back on her Air Force experiences (pgs 5-8). Thank you for your dues and contributions. Pat |
AFWOA
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ReminderAnnual Dues for 2007 are due(Please check your
mailing label to see how many years you are paid through. Electronic users can view this info on-line
at http://www.afwoa.org/members/.) |
Send $10 to Air Force Women Officers Associated
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News from our Members
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Karin Killeen is currently a member of the Massachusetts National Guard at the 102FW at Otis ANGB, and she also just started working full-time at Hanscom AFB as an Acquisition Project Manager. |
Kathy Smith wrote a note to tell us that she
retired in March 2006. She now works
overseas in the |
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Rosanne Greco just celebrated her First Wedding Anniversary in November. Rosanne got married on November 5, 2005 –
this was her first marriage – at 57 years old to boot! They honeymooned in |
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Betty Ann
Patterson-Pope wrote from |
Vivian Scott had a second surgery for glaucoma in her left eye in July
2006. Her first surgery had failed;
she located a glaucoma surgical specialist who succeeded and stopped the need
for the eye drops, which had caused awful side effects for > 12 years. |
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Nelda Peterson sent a hearty Merry
Christmas note to “old and new friends”. Joy Wood reported that she received a great
honor from |
Virgie
Mahan continues to
volunteer for the Armed Services YMCA – 23 years now. She’s also aligned herself with the
new-to-Fort Leonard Wood |
Feedback
Vivian Scott sent
in her musings and memories about uniforms.
She thinks that the new service-dress prototype looks like a WWI version
of a Marine’s blouse. She hated the
box-jacket— “it was no joy for us tall people trying to get it long enough to cover
our skirt bands.” “The cotton cords of
the 1950s were impossible to keep pressed and looking neat, and I never liked
the berets of duck bill hats. I wore the
flight caps most of the time.”
“I was forever referred to as a Meter Maid when I wore that duck bill hat to reserve meetings. It was heavy, and gave me a headache, or blew off my head. The way enlisted women and CAP cadets wore the beret was a disgrace, especially when it was worn like a stone sitting on top of a bee-hive hair-do. The best uniform hat I wore was the WAC Hobby hat, which I still have. It didn’t crush one’s hair-do, and was a God-send for us gals who wear glasses. Some of the WACs in my company when they could no longer wear them and ever-so many bought them for souvenirs, as I did.”
Special Extra Earnings for Military Service
If you are getting near taking Social Security, here
is a web site that might result in a few more dollars in your pocket.
Evidently, we can get an income credit of $1200 per year for our active duty
time up until 2001 on top of our current military income. http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/military.htm
2
From Therese Strohmer – She requests your stories:
My
name is Therese Strohmer and I am an Air Force
Veteran who served as a Russian linguist from 1980 to 1986. After nearly two
years of training, I spent three magnificent years in Germany and my final year
in Maryland at the National Security Agency where I attained the rank of E-5.
My Air Force years gave me the most memorable experiences of my life…something
that I did not fully appreciate at the time.
One
of my most vivid memories is from the day I arrived at the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, CA. ---fresh out of basic training and just days after
turning eighteen. Due to overcrowding in the Air Force barracks, I was assigned
to a room in the Army quarters. As I entered the building, I was eager to meet
new friends so I approached several female soldiers conversing in the hallway.
They quickly ceased their discussion, looked me over, and cried with some
distress, “Zoomie” and then immediately walked back
into their rooms leaving me standing alone in the hallway with my suitcase--a
most unforgettable welcome. Yet, soon several Army women would be my most
cherished friends and now more than a quarter of a century later, I still count
them among my best life-long friends.
I
am currently in the graduate history program at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina. My focus is to study the history of
military women. Specifically, I am working on a project that will allow me to
document the experiences of career servicewomen who served between 1948 and
1976. I decided to make ten years the minimum for a career because most women
would have to reenlist at least once, probably twice and thus demonstrate a
long-term commitment. Certainly little scholarship exists for servicewomen in
general, but my research so far has shown there is no history for women who
made the military a profession. I start with 1948 because this was the year of
the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act, which granted military women
permanent status for the first time. I chose 1976 for an end date because it
was when women entered military academies for the first time--- and this
opportunity offered new career opportunities for women not previously
available. In between these years, many professional military women faced
limited opportunity for promotions, gender restricted job options and other
hardships. I am certain there are also many wonderful experiences.
My
project intends to capture the distinctive American experience of career
military women by examining their everyday lives as professional women. We are
familiar with the caps on promotions and restricting regulations and rules in
place, but we know very little about what career servicewomen actually
experienced. I am interested in learning why women joined during this period
and then later reenlisted. I have many questions, but here are a few. What
years did you serve? Why did you make the military a career in spite of the
restrictions? How did you spend your free time? How did you deal with
limitations on promotions? Did you enjoy your job? Did you experience any form
of harassment? Did you interact with other services? What did you like best?
What did you like the least? Where were you stationed? Did you marry or remain
single? Did you intermingle with enlisted? What rank did you attain? What is
your family background? What is your favorite service memory? What do you think
about your experience? Mainly, I would like to hear about your experience in
your own words.
I
am grateful for this opportunity to learn about your military career. I can be
reached best by email at either tmas123@yahoo.com
or my school address tmstrohm@uncg.edu.
If your service years fall outside the years 1948-1976, I am still happy to
correspond with you…it is a work in progress and the dates may need some
adjustment. I am also happy to receive regular mail. I will respond promptly.
My address is below.
Thank
you again for this opportunity to tell you about my project on career military
women. I am most appreciative and I look forward to hearing from you.
Therese
M. Strohmer
1208
Foxhaven Drive
Greensboro,
NC 27455
3
You can
find current addresses and phone numbers in our Website Directory:
The
AFWOA Member Directory is on-line in a password-protected "Members Only" area.
Contact
the Webmaster (webmaster@afwoa.org)
to receive the User ID and Password.
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Address Corrections |
New Members |
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Madeline Chavis 703-729-5074 Karin S. Killeen 31 Valleyfield Street Lexington, MA 02421 Kramer, Margaret E 2790 Arnold Ave. Monument, CO 80132 Angela Layman 1131 Chapel Crossing Rd
#395 Brunswick, GA 31524-2002 Anna Mooney CHANGE name to ANNA STAWITZKE MOONEY |
Nancy Peters-Janover 310 Country Club Dr. Novato, CA 94949 Lorraine Potter 1 Towers Park Lane Apt 1916 San Antonio, TX
78209-6439 Smith, Kathleen A. PSC 71, Box 2000 APO AE 09715 Timmerman, Virginia New area code 763 Betty J. Williams wasp446@aol.com |
Lisa C. Firmin Colonel Active Duty Current Assignment:
Professor of Military Science UTSA Dates of Service: June
1980 to present 18215 Summer Springs St. San Antonio, TX 78259 (210) 354-7728 Lisa.Firmin@UTSA.edu Husband: Mickey Firmin |
Susan I. Galante Maiden Name: Irving (AKA
Meador) Colonel, USA (Ret) Last Assignment: DLA at
Ft. Belvoir Current Job: GS 15 at DLA
at Ft Belvoir 13 March 1974 - 30 June 2004 3024 Jenny Lane Woodbridge, VA 22192 (703) 490-5276 SULENGALANTE@comcast.net Husband:
Len Galante - |
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Lost in the Mail |
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Gloria J. Domann Lois C. Jones |
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FEBRUARY IN the HISTORY of Air Force Women Officers
1991
Desert Storm On Feb 27th, the
Iraqi military was scattered and defeated and Kuwait was liberated!
Mobilization for the Gulf war included an unprecedented proportion of women
from the active forces (7%) as well as the Reserve and National Guard (17%). It
was the largest female deployment in U.S. history. Over
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40,000 US military women served in key
combat-support positions throughout the Persian Gulf Region. Women in Desert Storm did everything the
male troops did except engage in ground combat - they could essentially get
fired upon - they just weren't, by existing regulations, theoretically
allowed to shoot back! 1995. Feb 3rd U.S. Air
Force Lt. Col Eileen M. Collins became the first woman to pilot a
space shuttle. She was at the helm of Discovery. See Air Force Times 55:4
Feb 13 '95. |
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2002 AFWOA became members of The Military
Coalition. Three of our Washington
area members, Anne Farrer, Rosalyn Knapp
and Liz Bustamante have combined their talents and efforts to
represent AFWOA at Coalition meetings. Membership in The Coalition is
an important step toward moving AFWOA toward a more proactive stance.
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After reading Carolyn Patrick's
dramatic and touching story of her experiences serving in Iraq, Vivienne
Sinclair shares her experiences as the Air Force marks its 60th anniversary
as a separate service. Vivienne notes that her story is not as dramatic as
Carolyn's but contains elements of which the careers of today's young
officers have been molded.
2007 - A Banner Year by Vivienne Sinclair
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The year 2007 is a banner year. It marks the U.S. Air
Force’s sixtieth anniversary as a
separate service. And for the 22
members of Officer Basic Military Course (OBMC) Flight 58D - which included
me - it marks the fiftieth
anniversary of our commissioning and basic training. We reported to Lackland Air Force Base for active duty on 15 July 1957.
During 1957 and ’58 the Air Force had a goal to recruit 200 women to expand
the number of female line officers
from 500 to 700 – out of a total force of well over half a million Air Force
members. OBMC was the answer: as an incentive to join we were offered direct
commissions. We put on our bars the first time we put on our uniforms. We
also began drawing pay and rations at the exact same rate as our male
counterparts with “comparable grade, duties and length of service.” The draft
was in effect, so pay was low, but it was equal. (Per month a second
lieutenant received $222.00 as base pay and $47.88 for rations.) Fifty years later receiving the same pay
for the same work is still not a foregone conclusion for many women in
civilian life. After three months at Lackland,
our flight scattered to technical schools or permanent assignments. My
roommate Jeanne Charlene Hjort and I headed for
training at the Armed Forces Air Intelligence Training Center (AFAITC), then
at Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas. At our first class one of
the male NCO instructors quipped “We haven’t had any female students for two
years. You’re going to fail. You won’t be able to do the math.” He made this
claim even though the director of the course was (then Major) Albina “Binnie”
Shimkus – whose name is now on the AFWOA In Memoriam list. The NCO had to
eat his words three months later, when Charlene and I both graduated with flying |
This a photo
of OBMC Flight 58D, which graduated from the Officer Basic Military Course at
Lackland AFB in October 1957. In our self-produced
class booklet, the photo's tongue-in-cheek caption, which is a quote from a
recruitment brochure, reads "Throughout your training and in future assignments,
you will take your place on equal footing with your male counterpart." Who are we in the photo? TOP ROW, left to right: 1st Lt Mary
C. Rogers,, 2nd Lt Mary R. Turner, 1st Lt Louise L. Groves,
2nd Lt Vivienne C. Sinclair, 2nd Lt Marjorie A. Fields, 1st Lt
Verna S. Kellogg, II, Capt Wanda M. Stahley,
2nd Lt Jeanne C. Hjort, 1st Lt Carol M.
Edmunds. MIDDLE ROW, left to right: 2nd Lt Judith
A. Stermer, 2nd Lt Dorothy E. Whately,
2nd Lt Hariett J. Armstrong, 2nd Lt
Virginia A. Ford, 1st Lt Jessie M. McGraw, 2nd Lt Jean
M. Goen, 2nd Lt Marguerite D.Allen,
Capt Margaret E.Cook, Capt Lillian Lewis. FRONT ROW, left to right: 2nd Lt
Ann I. Hawthorne, 2nd Lt Rose M. Beal, (OBMC Staff: Capt Joseph
M. Roché, Ass't Director;
Maj Frances M. Ellison, Director, WAF OBMC;
1st Lt Charlotte L. King, Tng Officer; 1st Lt Mary
M. Brooks, Tng Officer) 2nd Lt Herta
I. Butte. (Class member 1st Lt Helen M. Stovall is not in the photo.)
The seven
names set in Italics designate class members who served until
retirement. All are/were members of AFWOA. The names of three of the seven,
Margaret Cook, Verna Kellogg and Lillian Lewis, are, sadly, on the
In Memoriam list. |
colors. That NCO’s demeaning attitude was not unique. All of us in
Flight 58D – and women in the Air Force as a whole – lived through similar
situations in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, even at the top.
5
Some of the limitations that women faced were codified in
law. The AFWOA membership and In Memoriam lists contain the names of over half
a dozen women who served as WAF Staff Directors until the position was
abolished in 1976 because “it was no longer needed.” Their rank is shown as
Colonel, but it is often forgotten that until 1971 there could be only one
female temporary full colonel line
officer on duty at a time – the Director. She was limited by the “Integration
Act” of 1948 (Public Law 625) to four years (extendable by the service
secretary) at full colonel level. When she stepped down from the job, she
reverted to her permanent grade of Lt Colonel until she retired at “highest
grade held.” Why couldn’t a female line officer routinely be considered for
0-6? Or 0-7? Or 0-8? The answer given us at the time was that there were not
enough of us to justify having even a permanent Colonel, much less General
Officers. Strange answer, considering that women in line positions in the Air
Force were never relegated to a separate corps. They were considered for
promotions alongside their male cohorts up the grade of 0-5. (A more likely
answer was that male planners did not cotton to the idea that men would have to
take orders from women).
The Integration Act also said that women “may not be
assigned to duty in aircraft while such aircraft are engaged in combat
missions.” All of these provisions are explained in much more detail in
Chapters 10 and 22 of Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm’s superb history, Women in the Military, An Unfinished
Revolution. If you haven’t read it -
or reread it - since its 1982 printing or 1992 updating, get a copy and dig in.
It will give you a greater appreciation for the fact that today women in the
Air Force can make decisions that in the past were made for them without regard
to their competence, abilities or goals.
My career path took me through fourteen years in the Air
Intelligence field and seven in Education/Training and Personnel Management,
moving from squadron level to wing to numbered Air Force (12th and, later, 7th
), and major Air Command (USAFE), with a detour through AFAITC as an
instructor, a tour at the Air Force Academy as a professor, a stint at AFMPC
and an assignment in the Pentagon. It also included deployments as a squadron
Intelligence officer with an F104 squadron to Boca Chica
Naval Air Station during the Cuban Crisis and, twelve days after it ended, a deployment
with the same squadron to Moron Air Base in Spain.
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Attached above
is a photo and caption from a newspaper report during the 1962 Cuban
Crisis. It shows me in in front of an
F104 our hangar at
Boca Chica Naval Air Station, Florida. The
photographer caught me couriering classified material, so I've got on a
38 in a shoulder holster. |
Both deployments occurred when “women did not deploy.”
Still I went on deployment because, among other things, I was the only
squadron member fluent in Spanish. My language capabilities were particularly
necessary at Moron AB because the officers of our counterpart Spanish
squadron on base no hablaban
inglés.
There was no BOQ space for me at Moron AB, so I set up my “room” in a
storeroom in the squadron ops building. The base commander was not amused. He
ordered me to move to San Pablo Airfield, 30 miles away, at Sevilla, where the hospital was located and the nurses
were billeted. The base commander expected me to fold and request to go home
because there was no regular morning or evening transportation between San
Pablo and Moron. I called a friend at Bitburg AB,
in Germany, and asked if I could borrow/rent one of the two cars I knew he
had. He said “Sure,” and he drove one
car to Spain for me. During these deployments – and at other times – I
was called upon to courier classified material. Couriers were normally armed.
In the 1950’s and 60’s Air Force policy was that women did not qualify in
small arms. It was a catch 22. I qualified, and when I was required to be a courier
I carried a 38 in a shoulder holster. In 1965 I volunteered for duty in Viet Nam. I was told “We
will never send women to Viet Nam.” My reply to the personnel officer was
“Yes, you will, and I will be sent as a non-volunteer.” I was right. I served
at Tan Son Nhut in 1970 and ‘71 – where I met many
of you – including AFWOA member Eleanor Skinner. |
6
Policy changes vis-à-vis women in the Air Force were already
afoot at official levels, spurred by the gutsy efforts of women willing to
challenge restrictive Air Force policies and prompt changes to unrealistic or
unfair ones. One policy in particular comes to mind. Women in the Air Force
could be married, but the moment they became pregnant or adopted a minor child,
they were automatically discharged. When Eleanor Skinner and her husband tried
to get a waiver to the policy so that they could adopt a young boy, their
attempts were thwarted until Jeanne Holm stepped in. Their case was just one
among many in the various services. (Read Chapter 20 of Women in the Military for the tangled details of the policy
challenges and the court cases that resulted from the military services’s general reluctance to change.)
Since I came into the Air Force with a BA and an MA both in
Spanish, I also volunteered for duty as a professor at the US Air Force Academy
in 1965. The Foreign Language Department was ready to request me, but the
Superintendent’s Office stated that no female officers would teach at the
Academy because there were no female cadets. My comment, that cadets would have
to work with female officers once they graduated, so they should meet them
while they were still cadets, fell on deaf years. I reapplied to the Academy in
1970, on my way to Viet Nam. I paid my own way to the Academy, enroute to Travis AFB, and I hand-carried my application to
the Foreign Language Department. I even made the calculated move of showing up
without an appointment, so no one could tell me “Don’t bother to come.” Again,
the Department was delighted with my application; since I was fully qualified
and had prior experience teaching Spanish as a TA at my alma mater, UCLA. This
time the new Superintendent, General A. P. (Bub)
Clark, was actively in favor of women professors. I joined the staff of the
Foreign Language Department upon my return from Viet Nam as the first female
professor at the Academy. My welcoming sponsor was Naomi McCracken (AFWOA), who
was assigned as the registrar at the Academy. The second female professor,
Joanne Ververka-Tauber (AFWOA), joined the staff of
the Geography Department the following year. By 1974 the Academy had been
instructed to prepare plans for possible admission of female cadets. I worked
on the planning group. The off-the-record comments I heard from group members
went something like “We’re doing the planning as directed, but we’ll never have
female cadets here.” (See Chapter 21 of Women
in the Military.)
You know the rest of the story. Women cadets were accepted
to the Academy in 1976. By that time I had been assigned to the Pentagon, to
the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, as Special Assistant for
Women in the Air Force. That position replaced the WAF Staff Director’s after
the last Director, Bea Trimeloni (AFWOA in Memoriam),
retired. As my sponsor, Maralin Coffinger
(AFWOA) helped me transition into the pressure cooker atmosphere at the
Pentagon. Soon after arriving I had the distinct pleasure of traveling to the
Academy and watching that first contingent of female cadets march in. Four years later I joined many special friends,
including Maj Gen Norma Brown (AFWOA In Memoriam), to
watch the first 97 women cadets graduate as members of the class of 1980. By
then I had retired from the Air Force.
Many landmark changes in Air Force policy vis-à-vis women
occurred during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. For me, they began with the promotion of
Jeanne Holm, then WAF Staff Director, to Brigadier General in 1971. The glass
ceiling cracked open. In 1976 women pilot-candidates entered under-graduate
pilot training. It was the first time since the Women Air Service Pilots (WASP)
had flown in World War II that women could train to become pilots of military
aircraft. Women navigator-trainees followed in 1977.
The legal restrictions against women flying in aircraft
engaged in combat missions took much longer to be changed. While I was serving
as Special Assistant for Women in the AF, (and concurrently as Executive
Secretary of DACOWITS, during my last six months on active duty) the Armed
Services were called upon to define “combat” for Congress. The various services
could not agree on an official definition, although it could be boiled down to
two simple facts: (1) Individuals in combat zones are vulnerable to being
killed. (2) They may also be armed and capable of killing others. It was not
until 1993 that Secretary of Defense Les Aspin opened
combat aviation to women – both officers and enlisted. The first combat sortie
flown in an Air Force fighter aircraft occurred in the 1995-96 tour of Lt Col
Martha McSally in Kuwait.
The fact that the draft conscription of men for military
service ended over three decades ago, in 1973, certainly has had an effect in
stimulating policy changes, especially the opening up heretofore closed
specialties to qualified women officers and enlisted women. When you need to
fill critical vacancies, you cannot afford to ignore half of your population in
the search for capable candidates. The fields of maintenance, civil
engineering, flight operations, and missile operations – to mention only a few
- have all seen an influx of women over the decades. The percentage of Air
Force personnel who are female has risen steadily to today’s 24%. (In DOD it’s
19%.)
7
I realize that my comments may seem strident, but remember
that since the establishment of the Air Force its women members have been
beating the drums to effect changes to historically entrenched policies. Many
proposed changes were not popular, no matter how sensible they were. Still, our
efforts and those of organizations such as the Defense Advisory Group on Women
in the Services (DACOWITS) paid off. Changes occurred. Ultimately these changes
were applauded by the supportive, positive, open-minded people – men and women
alike – that we worked with.
Of the 22 members of Flight 58D who came on active duty 50
years ago this July, eight of us made it to retirement. Of those eight, Louise
Groves, Ann Hawthorne Lewis, Jessie McGraw, Virginia Ford
and I are all current members of AFWOA. Three former members, Margaret Cook,
Verna Kellog and Lillian Lewis, are,
sadly, listed In Memoriam. (See us in
our graduation photo.) We were all part of a long line of men and women devoted
to service in the Air Force. There are some wonderful stories to be told by
those of you who served before, as well as after, us. I hope that more AFWOA
members will join me in writing about the unique moments you lived in Air Force
blue.
Vivienne
Sinclair
P.S. Even
retirement has not broken my links to the Air Force. In 1992, when my husband
Leo and I retired from teaching - in my case, my second career - we moved to
Helsinki, Finland. We spend nine months of the year here, where Leo can do the
research he wants to pursue in his field, political science. The other three
months we spend in Spain, where yo puedo hablar
español. Soon after we arrived in Helsinki the
Finnish Air Force purchased FA-18 Hornet aircraft. Five people – including me –
were hired for two years to teach technical English to the maintenance
personnel and pilots destined for training in the U.S. I was the only U.S. Air
Force officer in that group of five. Of course, I had to apply for and I
received both U.S. Air Force and State Department approval to accept the
position.
Several
years later, at a U.S. Embassy Fourth of July party in Helsinki, I was
introduced to the U.S. Air Force colonel who was the current Defense Attaché.
He immediately said “I know who you are.” It turned out that he had been a
USAFA cadet and had graduated from the Academy while I was teaching Spanish
there. He hadn’t taken Spanish, but he remembered seeing me. It is a small
world.
Wild
Blue Yonder
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Crum, Suzanne, Lt.
Col, USAF Retired, died Dec. 1, 2006 in San Antonio, Texas at the age of 79.
Born in Lodi, Ohio on September 24, 1927 she graduated from school there and
received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio
in 1949. She also earned a Master of Public Administration Degree from The
University of Pittsburgh in 1965. She entered the Air Force in 1950 and
served for 25 years over half the world retiring in 1975. She has resided in
San Antonio since then. She is survived by two brothers, Richard of East
Lansing, Michigan and James of Cleveland, Ohio. She was active in the San
Antonio Women's Golf Association and the ladies golf associations at Kelly
and Randolph AFBs. In accordance with her arrangements made many years ago,
the body has been donated to the University of Texas Health Science Center at
San Antonio. There will be no services and no burial. Those who choose to do
so may make memorial contributions to The Annual Fund, Mount Union College,
1972 Clark Ave., Alliance, OH 44601-9986. |
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Zenobia Skipworth, Lt Col USAF Ret., died on December 21, 2006. She was a
long-time member and was known by many of our members. Submitted by Mary A. Delsman |
Betty Fiester Patton passed away about a year ago. Vivian Scott wrote to say that she knew Betty from when they were both in the Army during WWII, and met when they went through Air Force OTS in February 1952. Betty was a long-time member of AFWOA and was a member of the Women’s Army Corps Veteran’s Association. |
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Nona Cook Woodburn
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