All across America and around the world. This is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio.
And now your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And welcome to Veterans Radio. My name is Dale Throneberry, a CW-2 type helicopter pilot in
Vietnam in 1969. I know that's a couple of weeks ago. But I want to welcome you to our program.
We got a special group of people that I'm really anxious to introduce to our audience.
These are our board members. Remember when we talked about Veterans Radio, I think it was about
three years ago, we decided that we were going to become a non-profit, which we are, under the name
Veterans Radio America. And we are a 501C3 non-profit organization now. And so we are deciding we're
going to introduce all of our board members over the next couple of months so that you can see
who's actually running the show, not me anymore. It's all of them. So if you get mad, just send
emails to the board members and they can take care of them. So we are going to talk to three of our
women board members today because, no, it's International Women's Month. And I thought it'd
be really interesting to have you meet these women. We are just amazing backgrounds. We have Army,
we have Coast Guard, we have people that are teaching at Army War College now. We'll fill
all that in as we go along. So before we get into introducing them, I need to thank our sponsors
because without them we can't do this program ever. So first of all, is Legal Help for Veterans and
Legal Help for Veterans specializes in veteran disability claims. If you have a question, give
them a call at 800-693-4800 or you can go to their website, legalhelpforveterans.com.
The National Veterans Business Development Council, better known as NVVDC, is the nation's leading
third-party authority for certification of a veteran-owned business. For more information,
you can go to their website, that's NVVDC.org, or give them a call at 888-237-8433. These folks,
the NVVDC, it's really important. If you are a veteran-owned business and you want to do business
with the federal government or many corporations, you need to be certified as a real, live,
veteran-owned business. And so these are the folks that can get you certified and get you into that
marketplace. So NVVDC.org, check them out. The Charles S. Kettles VA Medical Center here in
Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information, go to va.gov. slash annarborhealthcare. We also want
to make sure that we thank our local veterans organizations for their longtime support. That
would be the Erwin Prescott and America Legion Post-46 and the Charles S. Kettles Vietnam
Veterans of America Chapter 310, both of Ann Arbor, Michigan. And we also want to thank you for
helping us out with our fundraising attempts and activities. And if you'd like to support Veterans
Radio, you can just go to our website, that's veteransradio.org, and click on the donate button.
Since this is our 20th year, actually we're going into our 21st year, we're just asking for 20 bucks,
20 bucks for 20 years. So if you click on that button, we would greatly appreciate that.
All right, so here we go, the official part of the program. So joining me right now,
let's see, I don't know how to do that. I guess I better do it by rank.
Something like that. So I'm going to start out with our highest ranking board member,
and that is Dr. Slash Kernel, Christine Cook. Christine was in the Army, she was in the
Reserves, she was in the National Guard, she deployed, so I'm going to introduce her. So
Christine, welcome back to Veterans Radio on the air. Good to be here. So fill in what else you've done.
What else have I done? Well, I basically was commissioned in 1986, and I served for 30 years,
so I retired in 2016. I was first in three different National Guards, New Jersey,
then Pennsylvania, and then finally in Michigan before coming over to what some people refer
to as the dark side in the US Army Reserve, where I was for eight years before I retired.
Then I went back for a, my PhD got that, and about a month later, a job opened up at the
War College again, and I'm there now. Okay, and you are originally from where?
I am originally an Army brat, so I am from nowhere and everywhere, but my father retired
to this area, which is near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I am from Ann Arbor, Michigan now.
Okay, thank you. Next on our list is Kate Meltzer. Kate was a captain in the Army.
I always like to brag that I know an amazing woman helicopter pilot. So Kate, tell me a
little bit about your background and how you got here. Thanks. I joined the Army after 9-11.
I was working in the US Senate at the time, and as one of my duties was drafting letters to Gold Star
Mothers, I thought that was not the way that I wanted to spend either the Iraq, Afghanistan,
war. So I enlisted in the military. I was selected for OCS and flight school, but was derailed a
little bit because of my previous civilian experience. So I actually spent the bulk of my
active duty time not just flying Apache helicopters, but actually as a legislative liaison officer
back at the Pentagon, helping teach Congress what the military needs to do the mission that
they've asked us to do. So through that, I got to travel quite a bit domestically. I was stationed
at a number of different places throughout the US, but I am most proud of the wings that I earned,
and I know you know that feeling. Getting those Army Aviator wings. I am most proud of that.
And of the work that the team did to get supplemental appropriations to up armor Humvees,
to make sure that more men and women actually came back from theater.
All right, we're going to go into more detail on some of these things in a little bit. So
last but not least, of course, is, oh, I got to get my paper out here. So we have Lydia Pinkham,
who's our Coast Guardi, Coastie, and Lydia was in the Coast Guard from 2011 to 2017. She was an
E5 Machinery Technician Second Class. So, Lydia, tell me, how did you get involved in joining the
Coast Guard? Initially, I met a recruiter who said, have you, I was a swimmer at the time,
and he said, have you ever thought about joining the Coast Guard to be a swimmer? And I said,
what's the Coast Guard? And learned all about it over the course of about a year. I told him to
call me a year later, and he called me to the day a year later. And I signed, signed papers to leave
about six months later, but they were trying to get me to leave the following Tuesday because
they desperately needed women. And from there, I, I spent time in Seattle, Alaska, Virginia, and Florida.
The ship in the Pacific Ocean went up to the Bering Sea all the way down to
coasts of Panama and Columbia, everything from drug interdiction to fisheries enforcement.
And then I spent the last, the last four years doing a combination of search and rescue and
tactical response for the port of Tampa in Florida near McDill Air Force Base.
Okay. Well, see, we have a very, very talented board here at Veterans Radio. And,
okay, so let's, let's talk about some of the experiences that you had while you were in,
while you were in the military. So, Christine, you, you said that for 30 years you were in
and out, but you also deployed to Kuwait, right? I did. So, basically, as I said, I was in the
National Guard and then as a Lieutenant Colonel, that was 2004. After 9-11 happened, it was one
of those things where it wasn't a matter of if we were going to deploy, we knew that it was a
matter of when. So, for me, it was, I got my call up in the end of 2003. And I went forward in 2004.
While I personally was stationed in Kuwait, I was a battalion commander and my 250-some soldiers
were all over the place. So, I ended up in Talil, I ended up in Qatar because I had a group of people
who were there and then sprinkled all over Kuwait where my soldiers were at. So, that was 2004 into
2005. And what was your, again, the mission of your group while you were there? So, I was a
personnel services battalion commander. So, what we were really doing mostly was reception, staging,
and onward movement and integration, plus bringing people back out. So, we were in charge of making
sure that everybody who came into country, and that included not just Iraq, but also Afghanistan,
we had to make sure that all their records were right and that they were prepared to go forward.
And then we also were the group of people who would be the last people to hand them off before
they got back on the plane to go back home again. Okay. So, basically everybody came into where you
were and then they deployed either to Iraq or Afghanistan. Okay, I didn't know that. See,
folks, you learn new things. Sort of like the 90th replacement company for those of you from that
era. Pretty much. Yeah. We reached out and touched about a third of a million soldiers
that during our time there. Wow. So, I know that you, I should point this out. I guess I can come
back to, I'll talk about it now. You also wrote a book about your experiences there.
Two, actually, but one that I published personally and one that was published through
the Strategic Studies Institute, which is outside of Carlisle here. So, the first one was called
Living on Tatooine, aka Kuwait. And it was basically, I had gotten into country, I had a five-year-old
and a nine-year-old back home. My husband was having a conception. And so, in order to kind of calm
them and my Girl Scout troop and my church and all of those, you know, everybody else, I wrote home
an email every week that was mostly funny, you know, trying to say, well, I'm going to laugh
at this in 10 years. So, I may as well laugh at it now. And it was also mostly to say, hey,
I'm still alive. Don't worry about me. I'm okay, right? So, when I came back, because of the fact
that I had had to kind of, you know, dress up things to not give away state secrets and stuff
like that, I was able to go back and say, well, this was actually what was happening. Or this,
this kind of explained some of the stuff that I was not able to say when I was in country. And
so, I did that, dressed it up a little bit, had some pictures added and then, and then published it.
I know it's over there. I'm pointing toward my bookcase. It's back there. Actually, if you want
to find out more about Christine's book, you can listen, go back into the archives of Veterans
Radio, just type in her name, Christine Cook, and the program that she was on should come up.
We talked with her about her book, and we also talked with her and her husband about the deployment
and the fun that he had while he was at the scene. So, we want you to do that. I felt so bad for Ken.
The other book was about post-reintegration, you know, post-deployment integration,
reintegration, because even if you don't have PTSD, sometimes you have like,
what was this all for kind of moments and trying to get myself back into the family and,
you know, part of the family again. So, I wrote a book that was the same basic way,
where I did a year, a week, a year for the second year when I was back home, trying to
figure out how to navigate the United States again. And that one's available. You can Google it.
So, all right. So, Linnea, you mentioned that you were all over the place, it sounds like.
Tell me a little bit about your experiences in the Coast Guard. How much, you know, what did you
find to be the most valuable lesson that you took away from that? I don't think that I could really
narrow it down to one most valuable lesson. The locations-wise, I started right after boot camp
on a big ship that was based out of Seattle, but would spend half the year up circling in the Bering
Sea. And up there, we were doing search and rescue and fisheries enforcement in partnership with NOAA.
So, quite literally measuring fish with tape measures to make sure that nobody was catching
anything illegal. And then the rest of the year, we were down in the winter months. We
snowboard boat went down to Columbia and Panama, Central America areas. And that was
following intel for drug interdiction, trying to catch the little boats full of drugs.
And then, so we would circle around the Bering, stop in port for repairs, go down south, and then
come back to report for pairs. And it was that cycle for a couple years. And then from there,
I went to a machinery and engineering school in Virginia and then got orders down to, they call
it station vacation in Florida. It was basically a beachside search station. It was pretty wonderful.
And when I was at that station, they were in desperate need of female law enforcement officers.
So, I kind of got pushed into the law enforcement world, which wasn't exactly what I wanted, but
I could shoot. And it was a fun adrenaline rush. So, I ended up doing a lot of law enforcement and
tactical response in Tampa Bay for my last couple of years. But lessons wise, I think
a lot of my life since then has been a lot of logistics and organization. And I'm in the
geoscience world now, but managing, coordinating research projects, helping to manage people and
seeing all of the moving parts of a problem at once instead of just a tiny little detail.
I think that the logistics and organization part of my brain that learned a lot of that in the
military is probably the best lesson, the best thing that I've taken away from that because
it helps me so much in my job today. Okay. So, Dale, I know you are doing this interview,
but you can't let Lydia off your program without saying a couple of things because clearly
humility is something else that she learned in the Coast Guard because you are actually talking to
the enlisted person of the year. Oh my. Lydia Pinkham. And you're also talking to somebody who had to
do PT tests in the icy waters of the Bering Sea and you should definitely ask her about that.
PT tests in the Bering Sea, that sounds like just wonderful.
It sounds really cold and I know my parents are listening right now, so I will apologize publicly
for not telling them about the time that I got hypothermia. They found out a few months later
and I took a verbal beating for that. No, we had to test all of our dry suits in the water and
we had to know what it felt like if we were going to fall overboard. Those are the adrenaline rushes
that I miss sometimes, but it was, yeah, the Bering Sea was a, it's kind of a power you don't
really understand until you're there. It's really glassy, calm and gray and then all of a sudden you
have wicked high seas and winds and your boat is taking a 35 degree lean and machinery is falling
all over the place and it's, it's an adventure. So thank you, Kate, for putting me on the spot.
I have to let our audience know that Kate and Lydia have known each other a little while
and I think they know I should just sit back and let them talk. But so and Lydia can probably
fill me in on some stuff. Kate's not going to volunteer either. So you, Kate, you, we had
had Kate Meltzer on a program. Again, if you wanted to listen to her interview, you can go to
our archivesveteranradio.org and type in her name, Kate Meltzer, M-E-L-C-H-E-R. And she'll talk about
her training to become an Army pilot, which was a lot more complicated than mine was, that was
for sure. So just as a review, you know, everything, I can't remember the new name of Fort Rucker.
No, the cell. There we go. So tell me just briefly for our audience, if you could talk about
how you got into flight school, why you got into flight school, and then
just a little bit about your training, how the length of it and what you learned to do.
Sure. I chose aviation because it was the closest thing to combat that women were allowed to do at
the time. I was in the training pipeline, you know, when the prohibition against women in combat
still existed. Women were not allowed in combat arms, MOSs. But interestingly enough, attack
aviation in the Army is not combat arms. It's actually combat support. So women were allowed to do that.
After having the experience of seeing all of these letters to Gold Star mothers going out from
from the Senate office, I just, I wanted to be in a position to effect greater change. I wanted to
be in a position to maybe make so that so many letters didn't have to be sent. And I knew that
as a lieutenant in the Army or in the Marine Corps, where you have leadership opportunities
immediately upon commissioning, that was an opportunity for me to do that. And I also knew
that in a two theater war, the chances of me deploying overseas were really high. And if I
was going to deploy overseas, I wanted guns and lots of them because people were going to be shooting
at us and I wanted to be able to return the favor. So close air support was that mission. That's,
that is what I wanted. So I did well enough in OCS and found a unit that took me seriously when I
said I wanted to fly and, and they sponsored my packet to actually go to flight school. And I just
remained laser focused on not only meeting but exceeding the standard, because I wanted my
choice of aircraft, I wanted my choice of mission. There's so much that you're not in control of in
the Army, but your merit and your performance does get a vote. So I went through primary school,
which everybody goes through. It's, it's where you learn to fly a helicopter and everybody kind
of feels like they're wrestling a squirrel for about a week. And then all of a sudden you find
your hover button and you just know how to hover. And you can't explain how that happened. It's just
magically it just happened and, and you can hold a low hover. But they, they basically, you know,
you learn all of the ways you can die and then you spend flight school figuring out all the ways
to not do that. So you go through primary, you go through some basic warfighter skills, and then
the selection process happens and I ended up in the 64 course for Apaches.
Okay, lots of guns, lots of bullets. Yes, lots of noise. And lots of fun.
I know we can't really say how much a fighter was to do that kind of stuff. At least while I
wasn't in the Bering Sea, so I can't talk about that. I did have a friend that was stationed
up in Alaska. He said it wasn't fun. I can kind of relate to that, that whole thing.
You mentioned earlier on, and I thought this was kind of an interesting question. Before we went
on the air, she said to ask about uniforms. And from the standpoint of male and female uniforms,
I had always assumed that they were different and evidently they weren't.
So I will say this. As a female in a very technical field,
the mission and your proficiency in the aircraft was the most important thing.
Your gender barely mattered at all because the idea was show up, can you do the job or not.
But because there's sort of inequality in the genders in a technical field like aviation,
some of the small things I think kind of go unnoticed. Like physically, I'm a taller woman,
but I have slight shoulders and I have fuller hips and rear end. And when I went to get a
pickle suit, which is the green flight suit, you guys all saw them in Top Gun, those kinds of things,
those are all cut for men. And if I was going to get a flight suit that could
comfortably support my lower assets, usually was way too big on the top half of my body.
And this is not vanity. This is not fashion. When you have all of that excess material,
it can get caught on things. When you're climbing up on top and you're doing pre-flight
on a helicopter, it can get caught. It didn't change a whole lot when we went to two-piece
flight suits. It was the same kind of issue. And we sort of overcame, you get things altered.
There's other less savory topics like women use the restroom differently than men do,
and that's also a challenge with uniforms. So while there were different uniforms for
your dress uniforms, your class A's, your blues, all that, your field kit was a one-size-fits-all
issue. One-size-fits-all and unisex and what they really meant was it was male work with it.
Correct. Correct. I mentioned that some of that is sort of a safety issue. The larger safety issue
actually came with my I-Heads helmet. So for those of you that are not familiar with the Apache,
we actually wear a helmet and there's a system called I-Heads, which is a teeny tiny little
TV screen that shows up in front of your right eye. And your flight symbology and mission
essential information comes through that little TV screen. Well, the way your helmet fits dictates
how that screen lands in front of your eye. And it's very important for it to be in the same
spot every time. Things look differently from different vantage points, and a few millimeters
can make a difference. So as a female with a smaller head and smaller features, finding a helmet
that fit me appropriately so that that I-Heads assembly didn't slide down my cheek and end
up under my nose in flight, that was really important too. So I visited the Yalsey shop a lot
to try and make it work. And I ended up with a little sack of lead ball bearings on the back
of my helmet and all kinds of crazy sort of gerry-rigged solutions. But these are the kinds
of things that because there was such equity and equality between men and women in the mission
of aviation, those little things like, oh, she is different. Her body is smaller. Her body is
shaped differently, and it's going to make a difference for her uniform and her equipment.
We all figured it out, but definitely not something that folks thought about when I
showed up in the unit for the first time. The other thing that was fun was the Kevlar vest.
Oh, yes. When it has all of the Kevlar plates in it, it weighs 80 pounds. It weighs 40 pounds
without the plates, but it's 80 pounds with the plates, which when you're in combat,
that could be more than half of your weight that you're trying to figure out how to get on. And I
actually got to the point where I would do this fancy little whoop like this, where I would circle
it around me to set it up onto my shoulders, and then I would be able to get it on from there.
But it was tough to get in and out of. I actually got to reap the benefits of a unit starting to
integrate women into a crew. My Kevlar was custom fit so that I could swim in it during surface
swimming operations. Well, what did you swim with Kevlar? That was the first time that I ever had
something that was custom fit or very intentional for a woman on a crew, and I had to be able to
swim with a full gun belt and signal vest everything with the bulletproof vest on underneath it. I had
to have full range of motion to be able to swim. And when I got to my unit, the guys weren't too
happy that I got custom fit for a brand new Kevlar, and they were using hand-me-downs, but
that was pretty nice. But up in the Bering Sea, we had the wetsuits that would keep us,
they were dry, basically a wetsuit with gaskets around all of the holes that would keep us perfectly
dry in the water. And for sake of bathroom purposes, they had finally purchased women's suits that,
instead of unzipping in the front for men, they had a half zipper in the back for women. And the
unit invested in the women's cut suits. However, the thermal bunny suits that we had to wear
underneath them were unisex. And even if you were able to unzip the whole dry suit, you still had
to just take it off anyways to use the thermal suit underneath it. So while I perfectly understand
that budgets are a thing and that units have to order what they can get their hands on,
just a perfect example of how the gear does not always fit the mission for everybody. It was
frustrating, but we made it work because you always make it work.
So. And going back to that Kevlar vest, as you can tell, I really loved it. The other thing is if
you happen to have a full bust, it's basically a binding mechanism. So it would smush down
all of your chest in order to fit under these steel plates. Very comfortable.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh at this at all. I wish that we were on on television right now.
You could see the reaction of all our guests as they're talking about this equipment that
has to be adapted to. I was thinking of, obviously, as the guy in the room, our helmets,
flight helmets were much simpler. They were small, medium, large. That was it. My head is fairly
big and even a large sometime would cut off the circulation in my head. And it didn't have any extra
any weights there. The chicken plate or the armor plate, I guess, pre Kevlar,
we would only wear the front part of it because theoretically the backs of the seats were
armor plated and the seat itself was armor plated. They wanted us to wear Kevlar leg guards,
sort of like a robot. And it was going to cover the legs. Because that's where many,
many pilots, when they got shot, they got shot in the legs. And you couldn't move your legs.
It was like you had forest gump leg braces on. And so they, I'm guessing that they did away with
those. I'm assuming that they did. We are going to take a real quick break here for our Medal of
Honor segment. When we come back with our guests are Christine Cook, Kate Meltzer, and Lydia Pinkham,
and they are board members for Veterans Radio America and Veterans, as you can see, everything on
Veterans Radio America is veteran oriented and run by veterans. And so we're asking for your support.
If you'd like to hear the stories like we're talking about today, or any of the other ones that
we've covered over the last 20 years, please just go to our website, click on that donate button.
It's really helpful. We have a lot of plans of things that we want to do in the future to expand
not only our listening audience, but to expand the mission that we are on to help other veterans.
So you're listening to Veterans Radio. We'll be back in about two minutes.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat given a member of the Armed Forces of
the United States. There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award. This is one of them.
Navy Captain James Stockdale inflicted a near fatal wound to himself to show his willingness to die
rather than divulge information. Details after this. If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of
Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for Veterans at 1-800-693-4800. They're experts in handling cases
before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
Stockdale was recognized by the North Vietnamese as the leader in the prisoners of war resistance
to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation. Sensing the start of
another purge and aware that his earlier efforts itself disfiguration to dissuade his captors
from exploiting him for propaganda purposes had resulted in cruel and agonizing punishment,
Stockdale resolved to make himself a symbol of resistance regardless of personal sacrifice.
He deliberately inflicted a near mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of
his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and
revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment
of excessive harassment and torture toward all of the prisoners of war. Upon release from the
captivity, he was promoted to rear admiral. The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans
Radio. You know you don't have to wear your PT gear anymore, right? It's comfortable. It's a
nocivilian life treating you. It's fine. When I got out, I didn't want to admit that there was
anything wrong because I felt like a failure. And then I realized like there's nothing to be ashamed
of. So I started talking to someone. Maybe you are fine. But if you're not, it's okay. Thank you.
If you or a veteran you know needs support, don't wait. Reach out. Find resources at va.gov.search.
We're back here on Veterans Radio and we are talking with the board members of Veterans Radio
and Veterans Radio America. We've got Christine Cook, Kate Meltzer, and Lydia Pinkham. So we've
got two Army and a Coast Guard. What I'd like to go into now is a little bit about your transitioning
from the military back into some semblance of civilian life. You know once you retire,
let's put it that way. And so Lydia, I'm going to start with you. What did you do when you got
out or did you have a plan already in place? I definitely had a plan because that's my personality.
I started school about three weeks after my last day of active duty. So I jumped right into it and
I used my GI bill for a bachelor's in geology and then went on to graduate school in geochemistry.
And now I'm advising PhD students in an aerospace engineering department. So it's a lot of the
coordination and personnel management that I was talking about earlier, just helping to solve problems
and helping them see the big picture. So I went from being on a boat every day, standing on the bow,
doing a hands-on job with direct rewards every day to sitting in a lecture hall full of
a couple hundred people taking classes at U of M. And I think the hardest part about those first
couple months was the feeling that I wasn't doing anything directly contributing to society every day,
not seeing that direct reward of feeling really useful and I kind of hated doing homework,
so it didn't help. But I think that was the hardest part for me. I also, when I went to the VA to sign
up for health care benefits, the person at the desk wasn't aware that the Coast Guard was eligible
for the same benefits as the other branches. So that was my first hurdle straight out of out the
gate. But since then, I had wonderful access to the Ann Arbor health care system that honestly
made most of the transition out easy. Having just, I mean, the Ann Arbor system right there is pretty
great. And I've kind of filled in the military helping people gap by getting involved with
Veterans Radio here and also getting involved at Fisher House with Kate. And it's, I think that's
been the easiest way for me to keep that helping people aspect, but also moving forward in a
different path. But since then, it's been pretty good. I think the communities of student Veterans
and the vets out here, the friends that we have out here, I live in Colorado now, we left that
out at the beginning. The communities are really what's helped with the transition out of military
life. I think if I didn't have the student veteran population and some of the friends that I've made
since getting out, it would have been a lot harder. I know you were active in a University of Michigan
Student Veterans Association. Did you start that or was it already there when you got there?
The student veteran group, the SVA, that was formed, I believe in 2008. So it's, it's been around for
a while, but it's, it's a mixture of professional development and social and supporting each other
through classes. So I also, there's a, an office at the University of Michigan dedicated to student
veteran affairs. And there's a peer advising position that I worked in for a couple of years,
serving as an advisor for incoming veteran or military affiliated students. And that was
that feeling of giving back to students that had been in the same position that I was was
pretty fulfilling. But that helped me get in touch with a lot of other vets on campus
to relate to and commiserate. No, I think that's, that's terrific. I mean, the idea of being able to,
of, you know, the educational institution that you went to, when I got out and was transferring
into U of M, first of all, they wanted to charge me out of state tuition, because I was in Alabama,
they thought. And I said, no, I'm here permanently. And it took me a while. I finally was a congressman
that, that, that return, I got a Huey call, but evidently they did give me the in-state
tuition, which was very helpful, because my GI bill was, I think, 400 a month at the time,
but it covered it all, which is saying something in relationship to today. But I do like the idea of
all these, all the colleges, at least I know in this local area that have these veteran transition
departments, offices, they kind of, you know, they're all reaching out to help their veteran
community and help that transition back. So, Kate, when you transitioned out, how long were you in
the service? Totally. Total amount of time. I enlisted in 2005, and I was done with my reserve
component obligation in 2020. How long were you on active duty? Eight years. Okay. All right. So,
in that regard, I, the sort of slow motion nature of my transition was helpful in a lot of ways,
and not in others. So, I really am of two minds about this question. First of all, when I came off
active duty and started working in a guard unit, I went to work for L3, which was an aerospace
company, and I got to be a part of building aircraft that were going to the military, commercial as well.
But I was surrounded by a bunch of really talented, technically proficient people. So, that was a
really pretty smooth transition, not just because some of the guys that worked there were veterans,
but as a whole, I went from a technically proficient, really competent unit to a similar thing on the
civilian side at L3. So, I made friends and learned a lot from the people there, and so that part of
the transition was easy. The part that wasn't was, while I was working there and still serving in
the guard at the time, the unit that I transferred out of was sourced and they deployed to Afghanistan.
And two of the guys in that unit, their aircraft never returned to base. So, while I was sitting
at a cushy little civilian job at a desk in Cresview, Florida, you know, there were two families
that were grieving CW3 Matt Ruffner and CW2 Jared Yoder. And the survivor guilt that came with that
incident sticks with me today. I left L3 and ended up coming back to Michigan and working for Fisher
House. And when people ask me why I work for Fisher House and why I do what I do, it is 100%
to earn the right to still be here, because I should have been on that deployment and wasn't.
So, I continued to serve my military brothers and sisters and their family members and their
caregivers and the greater community outside of just the veteran space, because Matt and Jared can't be.
And so, right now, what is your role with Fisher House? I know our audience refresh them.
We all know what it is, but just kind of refresh their memories. Sure. The easiest thing, and I
love when people use the analogy that a Fisher House is kind of like a Ronald McDonald House.
Fisher Houses are comfort homes built near military and VA hospitals, so that when a service
member or veteran is hospitalized, we get to take care of their families. They come and stay at
Fisher House so long as it's medically necessary for their loved one. And so, currently, I'm the
executive director of Fisher House here in Michigan. We have an active Fisher House in Ann Arbor,
and the Detroit Fisher House is currently under construction.
Very cool. I know you've been very busy, and this is how I met Kate, was through the Fisher House
connection, and that you are working on another one up north, right? Well, Fisher House, Michigan,
we've decided that we will support any Fisher House that the VA says that we need. And there are five
VA medical centers, hospital centers here in Michigan. One is up an Iron Mountain in the
UP on the Wisconsin border, and they are anxious to apply for a Fisher House. Even when they apply
and the VA secretary approves their application, we will also support their effort to build up there
and to support the veteran families that need to be there for their loved ones.
I heard a rumor about expansion of the Ann Arbor House.
I wouldn't be at all surprised. You know, that house opened during the pandemic in June of 2020,
and even though it had limited capacity during the pandemic, that house has still served about
9,000 individuals, making it one of the busier Fisher Houses in the entire network of 96 houses
worldwide. So if that Ann Arbor House has to run at 90% capacity for more than a year,
they can apply for a second Fisher House, and we will happily raise funds and awareness to make
sure that that happens. Cool. Stick around, listen to veteran radio, see what goes on with Fisher
House. Ann Arbor is putting additions on every single building, I think, around the whole area, so
you never know what will happen. Thanks. So Christine is our colonel slash doctor slash professor,
and right now she's sitting in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the Army War College. So tell me
about how did you end up there? Well, as I kind of intimated with the second book that I wrote
about reintegration, my reintegration was kind of tough. And part of that was, I think, because of the
part time, you know, I had been full time for a year and a half, and then suddenly had to come back
and trying to figure out how to rebuild a trust issue that was significant with my guard unit at
that point. And I was at 22 years, I was ready to hang up my spurs, but at that moment, I happened
to be taking the US Army War College distance version myself. And so I met a couple of people
who found out that I was a writer, and they were basically, we've got a position for you here if
you are ever interested, but it's not a National Guard position, it's a reserve position. So I
figured, well, it's either retirement or let's try this for a bit, and found a vein of gold that I
absolutely adored. And I ended up becoming what was a professor, but a practitioner professor
in the distance version of the War College, where I was teaching the operational and strategic
aspects of being a military person. So I did that for the balance of my last eight years. And
basically when I did retire, I retired kicking and screaming, because I really didn't want to
leave at that point, which was a big turnaround from my 22 year point. But two years before that,
I realized, gee, I would really like to be able to continue to teach if I could. And so I knew if I
wanted to do that, and not be a practitioner, a colonel at the War College, I would have to get a
PhD. So I was getting a master's degree at Eastern Michigan in gender and gender and women studies.
And I wrote a historiography on women in the military thinking, okay, this will be easy. I can,
this is something I know, and found out that there is virtually nothing written on the history of
women in the military. And what they do have is basically World War II. That's pretty much it,
right? So I was talking to somebody there, and they said, well, you know, you have a gap
that you can fill, because you have some experiential knowledge here. So Wayne State had a PhD program
that they can kind of call a boutique program in that you can kind of write your own adventure.
So I went in there basically saying I want to do the Women's Army Corps, even though they don't
really have a military history department there. They welcomed me in, and I was able to finish
a PhD in history with a focus on my dissertation being on the history of the Cold War Women's
Army Corps from 1948 to 1978. So I am now a subject matter expert in that particular field of history.
And a month after I got my sheepskin, the position that I am now in opened up. It is a DA civilian
Title X position, which is basically professorial for a variety of their colleges. And I am able
to do it teleworking, which is one of the reasons why I spend most of my time in Ann Arbor, but
I have to do this little foray to Carlisle on a monthly basis.
Okay. So my question is we are coming up about 10, 12 minutes to go. What would you say to women
today that are thinking about joining the military? Anybody want to jump in on that?
I am kind of curious about that.
I will say, first of all, Dale, up to this point, I really appreciate you asking us specific and
individual questions, because often as a female who served in uniform, I get the, what's it like
to be a woman in uniform? And my experience was so unique that I don't like talking in a way that
is representative of all women in uniform. So I would say to any young girls that are interested
in serving that no two experiences are alike, that it can be one of the most difficult jobs
in the world that is incredibly rewarding, that the technical fields are a wonderful place where
it doesn't matter if you're a woman or not. You actually just get to show up and show your medal.
You can either do the job or you can't. I think the military in many ways is better at that
than the civilian world. So I, you know, I sort of joke that I'm a Nike feminist,
that we no longer have any laws that prohibit us from doing anything. So just do it. Either you
have the aptitude for it or you don't. But just do it. There are no laws tying your hands to any
job in the military at this point, any job anywhere, frankly. So I would absolutely encourage
young women if they want a job that is competitive and interesting and purposeful.
But, you know, ultimately it's not about being a girl. It's about executing the mission.
I agree with Kate wholeheartedly that the opportunities are there and if you want them,
you have to go for them. Nobody's going to just wait for something to fall in your lap. You have
to shoot for it. And whenever people ask about my experience, I know that I had,
just like Kate, I had a unique experience. I got along with most everybody that I was stationed with.
Things were a bit lonely when I was the only girl on the crew, but
I eventually met some of the spouses and girlfriends that became really good friends.
And I had this like massive group of brothers that were very protective and I loved it. I loved
hanging out with the guys. And so I had a very unique experience, but one of my closest mentors,
another pilot, Kate, her best advice to me when I got to my first unit was don't be lazy.
Don't ask people to do things for you. You can carry that five-gallon bucket of oil by yourself.
And if you're smart, hang on to that and use it. And don't try to get out of things. Do your job.
Do it well and people will recognize you for the job that you're doing. And we used to give that
advice for all of the girls that came to the unit and it's advice that really works for everybody.
The men should do that too. But it was to this day was the best decision I've made,
second to getting out was a really good decision for me. But yeah, my advice is just like Kate's,
it would be to do it and have the confidence to go after what you want to do if there's a particular
job you want, if there's a qualification that you want. There's nothing that says you can't do it
if you're qualified and if you meet the requirements. So don't hold back. But it's
a fun experience and it personally helped with my probably discipline and confidence and public
speaking and all of those kind of secondary qualities that you bring out of the military.
It helped me with all of those things. It was a great decision.
Christine, you came right out of, Christine went to school in New Jersey at one of the
better known schools there. But I won't mention its name. I was a mercenary soldier. I joined the
military because I couldn't afford my other school otherwise. However, I agree with what Lydia and
Kate said, but I will sound atone of a little bit more of a negative portion of that. And perhaps
it's because I was the one who spent the longest period of time, 30 years. And by the time I hit
Lieutenant Colonel, I started finding out that there were pieces of glass ceiling all around me
that I kept hitting pretty hard on a couple of occasions. It is a boys club. There is no doubt
about that. And to back up what Lydia said, you will succeed really, really well if you act like
one of the guys. So this is a period where a place where you can really succeed really, really well.
But you have to be willing to take some of the sacrifices that go with that by acting like a
guy, by not taking any kind of, you know, what from anybody, and by picking up that five gallon
slop jar yourself and not expecting anybody else to take it. And, you know, you have to have a very
thick skin to be able to handle some of the things that basically should have been me to movement.
But because of the fact that we wanted to remain in the military, we just pretended it didn't just
happen. So that, but would I suggest it to somebody? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I think I, you know,
the thing about being in the military is the whole adventure of the whole thing. And, you know, for
whether you're a man or a woman, the whole idea of having this adventure in your life, I think is
important. And we talked about this briefly a couple of weeks ago about mandatory service. And we
just thought that, you know, if everybody not necessarily had to be in the military, but was
active in doing something to, you know, to support the country and to support our ideals and so
forth, that it would be to their benefit. And, you know, if you're in the military, when you get
out, you got all these benefits that come back to you. You know, you've got college, you've got
housing loans, you've got medical care, second to none, based on a lot of statistics out there.
So we've got about two minutes to go. So I'm going to ask you, that's all we've got. So each one
of you, if you have something that you would like to add to the conversation, please do so.
Please do so. No, no, perfect. All right.
Dead air.
Dead air. Derek, edit that out. All right. So we've been talking today about women in the
military. We've been talking with the board members of Veterans Radio America. And I just
wanted to let you find out, you know, who is supporting this project and this mission. And
we had Kate Melcher, who is, you know, the State State's Army, Dr. Christine Cook, retired Colonel
in the Army, 30 years, and Lydia Pinkham, the United States Coast Guard, E-5 machinery technician,
second class. I've got to talk with Leah off the air to find out what the heck my father's rank was,
because he was in the Coast Guard. I've never quite figured it out. It was E-7 something.
And so anyway, thank you, ladies, for being on the program. And it's such a pleasure to have you
on our board. And it's such a, really my pleasure to know you in actuality, because I get to find
out all kinds of different perspectives about what's going on out there in the world. So thank you
very much. Thank you, Dale. Thanks, Dale. Thank you for the opportunity. All right. We only need
to continue this. We got 10 seconds. We got to go. So this is Dale Thromberry for all of us here
at Veterans Radio, saying we'll be back next week. And until then, you are dismissed.
Thank you.