Silke Hagee helps families cope with deployments

[thedrifter]

By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Stripes Accent, Tuesday, March 4, 2003


ARLINGTON, Va.— For Silke Hagee, it’s bravery she sees each time she looks at a tearful young wife whose Marine husband deploys.

She’s proud, yet her heart breaks.

She has consoled that anguished 19-year-old woman married a mere three weeks, all the while marveling at the young wife’s fortitude, Hagee recounted during a recent interview.

And she remembers.

Each time, Silke Hagee, wife of new commandant Gen. Michael Hagee, catches a glimpse of herself in the tears of that frightened newlywed.

The couple has endured at least two long-term separations in their 33-year marriage — and both because of war.

She coped the one way she knew how.

“I just cried,” she said. “I tried very hard on the way to the airport to still be composed, but basically I just cried.”

The hard years

It was a bit of a fairy-tale first encounter between Silke (pronounced Silk-ah) Boie and Michael Hagee.

The two met at an embassy ball on a March evening in 1968.

Her father, German Air Force Brig. Gen. Werner Boie, was the defense attaché at the German embassy in Washington. Her future husband was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy who had a keen interest in Germany.

The two went on a few dates. Then he graduated and moved to California; but visited that Labor Day weekend. Her father’s tour ended, the family then moved to Germany. Mike Hagee made a visit there for two weeks that December.

“And that’s about it,” she mused. “This is 1968. I could not move to California and not be married to him. That would have been absolutely impossible for my parents, for me, to do that. So, it was either be separated or be married — so we got married. If you put all the dates together just in a row, we probably knew each other probably three to four weeks.”

Then her husband of nine months shipped off to Vietnam.

No e-mails back then. No way to phone an “I miss you.”

To occupy her time, she went back to college to get a degree in education, but didn’t enter the workforce until her youngest child was 5 years old.

At the time, she still was not a naturalized U.S. citizen and the public school system would not hire her.

“So I was pants inspector number, oh, I can’t remember the number. But you know, the one who inspected the seams and put the little number in there. It was a tough job,” she laughed.

And she’s held odd jobs along the way.

“You name it, I’ve done it. I’ve worked in insurance, I’ve worked in a pension plan consulting company, and my last job was actually with a Germany machine tool company and I worked for the subsidiary [in the States]. I did different jobs. I was spare parts manager for a while and then I became executive assistant.

“And … I’ve been a housewife. I have worked in between, but my major mission in my life was always to support my husband. Today a lot more wives work and have careers and have to juggle all that. But I think that is where our support systems come in and can help out a lot.”

Home improvements

Hagee, 54, said she’s humbled by the “awesome” responsibility of being first lady of the Marine Corps. She has yet to detail the goals that will define her tenure, but plans to promote volunteer programs and tackle quality-of-life issues.

One includes the Corps’ push of a program called Public Private Venture, a partnership between the military and a private company that will build, revitalize, repair and own housing units on land owned by the military.

“When we first arrived at Camp Pendleton … we had a tour of the housing and we saw some of the really old stuff and, I mean, it hurts you. It really hurts you. And these houses still exist today and still are being inhabited. Windows you could not see through, there was condensation between the windows and you can’t see out. And the floors, 10 different kinds of linoleum.

“I personally have a feeling, and there is no proof in this, I even feel spousal abuse could go down. If the spouse is in an environment during the day where she feels comfortable then she can cope with whatever is going on during the day and she won’t overload him when he gets home.

“When he gets home, he’s had a tough day at work and he comes home to a crummy house and his wife is depressed because Johnny has been eating the linoleum which is coming loose and maybe yells at him ‘What are you doing in the Marine Corps?’ and he yells at her back, and this is how it starts.”

There’s no proof, she reiterates. But she has a feeling.

And she plans to fret over the ones who aren’t Marines at all.

“Another area I’d like to concentrate on, I mean all the little programs will get attention, but education for the military child is very dear to me. … There are still a lot of problems out there, like the military child transferring from one state to another, graduation requirements are different, the course offerings are different, varsity sports is a problem. A quarterback from somewhere goes as a senior somewhere else and they aren’t on the varsity team and his is in no man’s land.”

It’s a bit personal for her. The Hagees’ two children, now grown, experienced the woes that accompany the military lifestyle.

A lack of educational opportunities for their daughter, Stephanie, kept Hagee in Annapolis in 1991, while her husband trekked across the country to assume leadership of the Corps’ 1th Marine Expeditionary Unit — the second long-term separation.

“He was gone a total of 13 months, and nine out of those months, we were in the middle of a war, so he was deployed.”

Time alone

Today, while the general is not deployed, he might as well be, she joked.

The demands on her husband mean the two share little alone time.

In the two weeks following the Jan. 13 change of command ceremony, the two dined alone maybe four times, she said.

And those times were because they’re new to the Washington circles, she joked.

“We’re not quite that known yet. We’re not on people’s lists yet.”

Following an evening of hobnobbing, the two arrived home after 11 p.m.

“He jumped right on the computer, said ‘I’ve got to check in.’ I just went to bed,” she said, smiling and casually tossing her hands in the air.

When she recently left the families of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Pendleton, Calif., for her new life in Washington, she did so with a message characteristic of her warm and inviting personality.

“When I left the MEF, I told my wives, and they were my wives, my families, I told them ‘yes, I’ll be living in a different house, a bigger house, but that just means I’ll have more space for you.’”

She’s always preached an open-door policy with Marine families, and being the commandant’s wife won’t change that, she promised.

Family ties

Silke grew up poor in postwar Germany, but her close family ties made her “very lucky,” she said.

“We didn’t own anything, material things. This is right after the war. I had one dress for Sundays,” she laughed.

She was born in Munich and lived there for 10 years before moving to the Cologne area.

For a few years during her childhood, she gave up playing the piano because her parents wanted her to focus on studies. “When I was 13, I was doing well enough in school that they said, ‘OK, if you want to do piano again, that’s fine.’”

Her music teacher had a different instrument in mind.

“She said ‘Oh, we have a school cello. Why don’t you try that?’ It was a, literally, plywood cello.”

Her now brother-in-law played for her a cello concerto by renowned French cellist Pierre Fournier.

“I still remember it, on a record … and I said ‘Wow, that’s beautiful.’ Then of course, I grabbed the school cello and it didn’t sound quite like that.”

She embraced the idea of playing with others in orchestras and chamber groups.

“And so I sort of dropped the piano because this way, I could be with other people, and it’s been fantastic during Mike’s career to have that cello part because it keeps me in touch with the civilian world. I’ve always tried to be in some kind of group, whether it was an orchestra or chamber group, or something. I’ve always tried to do something. And I’m an amateur, but I love it!”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...&article=13395


Sempers,

Roger

[ladileathrnek]

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Women inch closer to the front lines
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Combat ban faces test if war erupts

By Laurie Goering
Tribune foreign correspondent

March 2, 2003

NEAR THE IRAQ BORDER, Kuwait -- Bored with college because "there wasn't enough action for me," Lance Cpl. Blanca Hernandez joined the Marines. Now, two months out of boot camp, she has pitched her tent right behind the fighters of the Marine 5th Regimental Combat Team, which will help lead the way into Iraq if war is declared.

As the tanks and troops push north across the desert, her supply team will follow close behind, ferrying ammunition, spare parts, food and other supplies to the battle lines.

"Everybody said, `You're female. You won't be at the front.' But here we are," said the Los Angeles native, gazing across the windswept desert at the lines of tanks and troop carriers parked nearby. "I never thought we would be so close."

While women are allowed to pilot helicopters and fighter jets in wartime, as well as collect intelligence and hold command positions, they are barred from ground combat.

Under 1994 Defense Department rules, women cannot serve in ground combat units that directly engage the enemy, and Congress must be formally notified if the prohibition changes.

That ban will be tested, however, if the U.S. goes to war with Iraq. While they are not included in tank battalions, artillery units, the infantry or the Special Forces, women by the dozens fill key support jobs near the front lines.

"Where we are needed we are going to be included, whether there is fire or not," said Hernandez, whose unit includes six women among its 40 truck drivers.

`We're out here'

Congress and military officials "say they don't want us to do certain things, but we're out here," Hernandez said. "Their speeches are for the people back home."

Hernandez's combat service support unit, part of the 5th Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton in California, is commanded by a woman--Capt. Susan Thompson--and includes a dozen other women who work as mechanics, truck drivers and supply clerks. About 200,000 women serve in U.S. active-duty forces, about 14 percent of total personnel.

Most of them joined the Marines for the same reasons as the men working alongside them--a desire to build a career, see the world, raise money for college, follow in their fathers' footsteps or gain independence and self-confidence.

Cpl. Jaclyn Woertz, 23, who wears her dark blond hair in an only slightly longer version of the time-honored military buzz cut, joined the Marines three years ago after studying the careers of eminent politicians from her home state of California.

What they all had in common, she found, was military service. So before heading to law school, she is putting in her time with the Marines, working as an electrician and generator mechanic and building a service record she hopes will one day help take her to the U.S. House of Representatives.

"This is a big stepping stone in my career," she said, tearing open a military ration bag, her M-16 rifle propped nearby. "I see so much of my future set up."

For her, like most of the women, the prospect of going to the front is sobering but also thrilling.

"This is everything I was afraid of and the experience I was looking for," Woertz said. "If we fire our weapons at enemies, I'm going to have a lot of stories to take home.

"If I can say I was part of a first for women, that's awesome. I just don't want it to be my last."

American women have served--and fallen--in combat in nearly every conflict since the Revolutionary War. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, 40,000 U.S. military women served in the region and 13 died; some were killed in crashes, others by mines and missile attacks.

Arguments against women in combat range from fears their deaths would be politically unpalatable to charges that they are not strong enough to carry their weight alongside male troops.

Women, however, already hold top jobs in units near the front. Thompson, the 26-year-old commander of Combat Service Support Company 115, has a 9 mm pistol strapped to the chest of her flak jacket and has about 20 tons of food, water and other supplies to move daily to more than 6,000 Marines spread over 15 square miles of desert.

Long workday

"The grunts just want to know, `Where's my chow?'" she said, rushing out of her tent to help unload a delayed food shipment. Often she works past midnight; her bosses remind her and the other unit commanders to try to get four to six hours of sleep a night.

If war comes, "we'll follow orders," Thompson promises. But keeping women back while pushing supplies to the front, she says, won't be easy.

The female Marines in the Kuwaiti desert, like the men, have no phones, no e-mail, no television and usually no showers. Their evenings are spent listening to music, writing letters home, talking about sweethearts at home and reading racy tales from magazines.

Cpl. Jessica Byers, 21, left a 3-month-old baby at home with her husband, also a Marine. Byers, a driver, says she is ready to see battle.

"Congress has passed laws against women in combat, but there are too many women in positions too high," she said.

"I want to go into combat. I didn't join just to stay behind."

Worldwide, women have moved steadily into combat roles over the last several decades. Canada, France, Germany and a dozen other nations now train women for ground combat; several more allow women to fly planes or serve on ships.

U.S. servicewomen in Kuwait say they believe the best way to lift the U.S. restrictions on women in combat is simply to let conflicts take their course. With women stationed so close to the front, they say, at least some inevitably will fight and prove their mettle.


Copyright (c) 2003, Chicago Tribune

[thedrifter]

Retired Marine finds place in Corps' Women's history
Submitted by: MCAS Miramar
Story Identification Number: 20033617507
Story by Cpl. Krystal N. Leach



Marine Corps Air Station Miramar(March 7, 2003) -- Having only became a permanent facet of the military in 1948, women have rapidly leaped forward in matching the accomplishments of their male counterparts.

Originally, only occupying clerical billets, women slowly began to expand their horizons to more operational positions like parachute riggers, mechanics, radio operators, motor transport supporters and welders.

As women forayed their way through obstacles to reach the top of the ranks, they still faced some blatant forms of discrimination.

For one newly-trained female Marine lieutenant it was surprising to find out that different a training regimen existed for women.

"I was flabbergasted to learn that women going through boot camp (in the 80's) were not allowed to fire the M-16 A2 service rifle," explained retired Lt. Col. Betsy Judge.

In 2002, Judge was one of 54 women to hold the grade of lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. This is a very small number compared to the 1,715 males who held the same position during that time period.

Judging by the drastic difference in numbers, such an accomplishment should be considered a landmark in one's career.

However, the hard-charging retiree remains humble about her career achievements in the Corps. Perhaps this attitude is a result of always reaching out to grasp a touch of the next plateau.

At the age of 23, the Louisiana State University graduate, with the helpful guidance of a retired Marine, decided to take the chance and join one of the Armed Services elite branches.

Judge recalled, "I went to the local recruiting station. Already having a degree, I knew that I could become an officer."

She mentioned having shopped around at other branches before making a final decision.

"The only service with a recruiter there was the Navy. They didn't have any openings for officers, so I began the process of enlisting," she said.

Immediately reporting the news to her boss at the restaurant where she worked as a nightshift waitress, her decision underwent a drastic change.

"My boss at the restaurant was a retired Marine major. When I told him that I was going to enlist in the Navy, he told me I was going to be an officer of Marines," she said. "The next thing I know, I'm at (Officer Candidate School)."

From there on, history was in the making for Judge's military career. Judge, whose humility remains steadfast, said that she earned her strength in the male-dominated organization through an inherited family mindset.

"My parents instilled in me a real sense of work ethic," she confessed. "My mother always said that if a job is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well."

So with that message permanently engraved in her mind, Judge continued to maintain her mother's motto while serving in the Corps.

"There were many times, particularly early in my career, where I questioned whether I could handle a certain job that I had been given. I just jumped in and gave it my all."

With that attitude she propelled her way to the top, even while facing minor obstacles, which perhaps many women in the military encounter.

"I met one officer in the course of a 21 year career who, I could tell, didn't think I was up for being a Marine simply because I was a women," she confessed. "I didn't do anything special to change his mind. I just did my job, was professional --- I was a Marine, and he (eventually) came to see me as that."

Judge let little get in her way of succeeding. During the course of her career, she served as a Public Affairs Officer. Her first duty station was at the Consolidated Public Affairs Office, Okinawa, Japan.

While there, she participated in various exercises, which placed her, along with few other females, in a combat training environment.

"I don't think that the gender of an individual serving their country is significant. I think the fact that someone serving is significant," she explained. "I believe that we all have the opportunity to share in the freedoms that this great country has to offer, and likewise, we should share in protecting those freedoms."

After a yearlong tour, getting her boots wet on deployments from Okinawa, Judge reported to the 1st Marine Corps District, Garden City, N.Y. There she served as the Recruitment Advertising Officer for the Northeastern United States.

Three years later, she transferred to Headquarters Marine Corps, Washington, and served as the Media Officer in the Marketing Branch. While there, she oversaw all national-level paid recruitment advertising and direct mail programs.

Judge transferred to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, after attending and graduating the Amphibious Warfare School in 1990. Initially she served as the deputy and later as director of the Joint Public Affairs Office. While holding these billets, Judge deployed to Somalia in support of Operation Restore Hope in December 1992.

Judge then transferred, shortly thereafter to Marine Forces Reserve, New Orleans, La., where she served again as a director.

According to Sgt. A.C. Strong, press chief, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, it is sometimes difficult to find female role models in the Corps. However, Judge made an impression on the enlisted Marine when Strong was briefly assigned to HQMC PAO prior to formal training in what was to become her job field.

"I first met Lt. Col. Judge when I was a Pfc. and advice that she gave me at the time has proven to be invaluable," Strong recalled. "She has been and continues to be one of the Marines whom I strive to emulate. The success she achieved in the Corps and the officer-side of my own MOS makes her a great example for not just females, but all Marines making their way through the ranks."

Judge's strength in character, shear professionalism and ability to get the job done are only a few of the reasons she has propelled to the top of her field in the Marine Corps.

Her lists of accomplishments extend to later becoming the public affairs officer for General Charles C. Krulak, 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps. She also served as the Director of Training for Pubic Affairs and Journalism at the Defense Information School, Fort Meade, Md.

After helping mold servicemembers into journalists, photographers, videographers, and television broadcasters, Judge returned to Headquarters Marine Corps in 2000. While there she served as the Deputy Director of the Marine Corps Public Affairs.

Judge explained that, while there, she oversaw all public affairs activities associated with the V-22 and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Retiring from Marine Corps in August 2002, she now holds the position as the U.S. Naval Institute's public relations manager in Annapolis, Md.

"I am extremely proud of having being a Marine --- that, in itself, is a wonderful accomplishment. I was very fortunate to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel and to have been offered great billets including leading Marines," Judge said while reflected back. "I will always treasure my time as a Marine."



Retired Lt. Col. Betsy Judge shakes hands with Brig. Gen. Andrew B. Davis during her retirement ceremony Aug. 2002.
Photo by: Courtesy of retired Lt. Col. Betsy Judge


Sempers,

Roger