Senior Master Sergeant Stevie Riley

The Mid-America Veterans Museum relies on community donations to preserve veteran stories. The Operation Insight Podcast educates on sensitive topics like suicide and addiction. Guest Senior Master Sergeant Stevie Riley shares her journey from a secretary to a medic in the Air National Guard, highlighting her experiences and career progression. Her story includes overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities, showcasing dedication to serving her country. The Mid-America Veterans Museum is a 501c3 nonprofit business. The museum would not exist without the donations of our generous community. Your donations ensure the museum continues to share and preserve the stories of our veterans. Would you like to be part of something special? To donate, visit mavm.org and click on Donate. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. The primary purpose of the Operation Insight Podcast is to educate. The views, information, or opinions expressed on the Operation Insight Podcast are solely the views of the individuals or guests involved and by no means represent absolute facts. Operation Insight does not accept responsibility for their views or comments. The Operation Insight Podcast may at times cover sensitive topics, including but not limited to, suicide, abuse, violence, severe mental illness, sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction. You are advised to refrain from watching or listening to the Operation Insight Podcast if you are likely to be offended or adversely impacted by any of these topics. Either the company, host, director, or the guest shall at any time be liable for the content covered causing offense, distress, or any other reaction. [♪ music playing ♪ Welcome to the Operation Insight Podcast from the MidAmerica Veterans Museum with your host, Jason Galvin, and co-host, Sergeant Ethan Gross. Welcome back, family. We've got a special guest in our studio tonight. We have Senior Master Sergeant Stevie Riley, who served in the Air National Guard from 1972 to 2007. Ethan, go ahead and kick us off. This is also a special guest because Stevie is a dedicated volunteer here at the museum. I always consider myself fortunate when I'm able to spend time with someone who dedicates so much of their time with the museum, a place that both Jason and I hold dear. Stevie, so I want to start with a fairly simple question, but I want to preface it by saying this. I understand that your father died when you were only 14 years old. Yes. So tell us about how you grew up and how that impacted you. Well, my father and I were very close, and it was really hard at first, but my mother had been working all the time to support us anyway. He wasn't well. He smoked too long, he drank too much, and it all finally caught up with him. He died basically from emphysema, and it was hard because I had a brother that was 20 months younger than me, and so he really needed a father figure in his life. We managed. My mother was great, and she moved us from the city out to Florissant, and I thought we were in Ladue because I'd lived in the city. We didn't ever own a car until then, and I guess we were poor, but I didn't know it, so it was just different not having your dad. Did you take on that father figure role in some ways for your brother, or was that vague? You know, I think it would be my brother probably. He explained things to me that I went, really? You know, I mean, the facts of life. I couldn't believe anybody did that, and when he told me about it, and he was, like I said, 20 months younger than me, and I would try to talk to girlfriends about it too, and nobody wanted to talk to me about it, you know? So I was always kind of naive and a little backward. I outgrew it by the time I was out of high school, but, I mean, before that, I was just kind of thinking everybody was good and holy and found out that life was different. And so it sounds like some of your formative years were spent near Lambert Field or Lambert Airport if you were in fluorescent. Would that be fair to say? Yeah. Or was that even on your radar at that point? No, actually it wasn't. It wasn't until I went to work at McDonnell Douglas. And, in fact, I never heard of the Air National Guard. These guys were talking about it, you know? And I said, well, I thought about maybe going in the military, and that's when they really started going, well, you ought to come in the Air National Guard. Several of them were in it that I worked with. And I said, you know, and that was back when I thought, well, can a woman do stuff like that? And they go, oh, yeah, we have women. Well, they didn't have very many, but they had a few. And so that's how I wound up. I didn't want to be a secretary all my life, and I thought I could get a career going if I did something like the military. Is that what you were doing at McDonnell Douglas? Yeah. Office-type work? Yes, I was secretary. The Stenopool, you know? And I worked in Department 500, and that's what I did, you know? So it was a good-paying job. Sure. That goes for the time. Absolutely. How old were you at that point? Well, let's see. I was about 21, 22. I guess I was 22 when I was talking to them about that. The first job I had was working at a beneficial finance company. And that's something that came in later in life as a positive, if I understand correctly, having that financial knowledge. Yes, it did. We can talk about that later. Okay, yes. So tell us about entering the Air National Guard, that process. Well, when I went to the Air and decided to enter the Air National Guard, you have to take a fiscal. And I had to take a flight fiscal because I wanted to be an air traffic controller. And the gentleman in the hospital unit that was doing some of the tests, you know, said, you have poor eyesight. And I go, well, it's 20-20 corrected. I wear contact lenses. And he said, yeah, but we have to get a waiver. And he said, that's not a problem. We can get a waiver, you know. And I said, well, what about later on down the road, could they ever pull the waiver? He goes, yeah, they could do that. And I said, well, then I don't want to do that. You know, he goes, well, I'll tell you what. He goes, we have an opening here in the medical unit as an aerospace medicine technician. You could do that. So I said, okay. And you don't need a waiver for it. I said, all right, I'll do that. So that's how I wound up becoming a medic for the next five years, as a traditional guardsman or weekend warrior, as a lot of people would call it. Sure. Was there any testing involved in the different job MOSs? Yes, yes. You had to have a high enough. Was it NASVAB back then? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you had to have a – I don't remember the scores, but mine were high enough to do that. So that med field was within your scope? Yes. Okay. Yes. So tell people a little bit about being a weekend warrior. You know, we've had a few other folks on here who were National Guard, Reserves, whatnot. But tell us from your experience what that was like, being in the National Guard. Well, it was a lot of fun, I thought. You know, well, for one thing, there weren't very many women, so all the young women in the units were real popular. I bet, yeah. And I did drink at the time, and I learned to drink a lot. But it was fun. You know, the guys were always pretty good guys, and we just, you know, we had a good time. It was a good experience for me. You know, but then in the meantime, I got married and had a child, and then, you know, I was a stay-at-home mom. And when we decided to split up when my son was two years old, I had to get a job. And so the Guard is really a good place, different people's units. If your unit doesn't have any duty days for you, you can go somewhere else. And make cash that way. Right. And it works out really nice. You get to know a lot more people on the base. You get kind of a rounded experience. And they find out you're a good worker, people will come to your boss and say, hey, when you run out of days for Stevie, we'll take her, you know. I would imagine it also gives you some opportunities that others might not be privy to. Oh, sure. Yes. And so that's what I did initially when we decided to get divorced, was work some, you know, extra days with the hospital unit. And then a colonel from personnel came down and said, we're having trouble filling a job in military pay. He said, do you have any finance experience? I said, yeah, I worked for a beneficial finance company for about a year. And he goes, you have a job if you want it. Just offering up jobs like candy. Yeah. And he says it pays $4.12 an hour. And that's more money than I ever made. Wow. It was $2.50 an hour at McDonnell Douglas, so this was a bonus. Nice. That's awesome. This is what, $0.74? This would be, at this point it was like $0.77, I would say. $0.77. Can you imagine that? Wow. $4.17, is that what you said? $0.12. $0.12. That's a pretty good living back then. Yeah, yeah. How often did you get to do that job full time? Yes, I did that full time and then helped people make sure they got paid, you know. And back then it was pretty manual process, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Did people line up to get paid back then or how did it work? No, we got checks. Okay. You didn't get a direct deposit yet. Yeah. Everybody got a check and you had it mailed to your home. Like if you worked out there, you could have it directly sent to the base. Gotcha. And that was, I got a story on that when I get into the fighter squadron. Sure. So now at this point, are you in the AGR phase? No, no. Not yet. No, I'm a civil servant GS-5. Gotcha. GS-5. Okay. Okay. So five years as a medic, you get this opportunity to work in the pay department. What's the next step in your career after that? Well, I was drinking a beer up at the NCO club with a couple of the guys down in ops that worked in a job called life support. And they said, hey, we're getting that force and we're going to get another position. You want to try for it? And I said, well, do you think a woman could do it? And they go, yeah. Well, they work Tuesday through Saturday. I work Monday through Friday. So on Saturday, I went in, just went in in a war uniform, but I didn't get paid. I just went in and watched what they did and kind of learned what they did. Sure. Get familiar with it. Yeah, get familiar with it. And I decided to go ahead and get my notice at my job and put in for the school. So I put in for the school, and then I left military pay and I went to the school. It was at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. Got up there and started the training, and we had to give briefings. And this is the story I think you want to hear. Yeah, please. You're going to love this, Jason. Anyway, the instructor goes through this whole dissertation about how when you're giving a briefing to air crew, you have to get their attention. Well, there was this young man in the class. His name was Glenn Campbell, and that was a singer back then. Did he sing? Well, what he did, he came out when he gave his briefing. He came out and he threw like a, it wasn't a firecracker, but it was something that when you threw it down, it made a loud sound. And then he went, ah, I'm Glenn Campbell. And it was hysterical. Everybody loved it. So when it came to be my turn to do it. You wanted to one-up him in some way, I'm guessing. Well, I just kind of had this whole idea in my mind what I was going to do, and I told the teacher, I said, I have props, but I have to leave the room for a few minutes. And he said, okay. So I went to the bathroom. I put on a bikini top. I put on this survival vest, which is something they would wear if they're in a war. Sure. They would wear. And it's got all these pockets. I think we have one over there somewhere. Okay. It's got all these pockets in it with different items. So then I zipped it up and I put my fatigue shirt on over it. Okay. And I came back in the class. So then the teacher said, okay, you can begin your briefing, you know. So I have my back to the class and I'm swinging my hips back and forth singing, let me entertain you. And then I turned around and unbuttoned my shirt, and then I carefully unzipped just a little bit just for a peek and showed him that in this pocket is, say, a compass. As if they're paying attention to the compass. Right. And this other pocket is a survival mirror. And, you know, I went through all the pockets telling them what they were. But I just briefly would show the bikini top, you know. Sure, sure. And then when I finished, I got 110%. I'm sure you did. And they wanted a briefing every day. Good story. I love it. Did you have other moments in your career like that where you sort of had fun with the fact that you were one of the few females in the room? I don't know. I always felt after a while kind of like you were one of the guys. I mean, there were a few, you know, it wasn't all wonderful. I mean, there was always a knucklehead there once in a while. I did have some, I guess you'd call sexual harassment by a guy one time. And I just told him, you know, you do that again, you know, I'm going to kill you. And then I told my guys that I worked with, and they went and talked to him too. Good. You know, so. They had your back. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did. So I never really had any problems after that. And then one time the guy got pulled over by the cops and, you know, mouthed off to him, and they clubbed him a couple times with their stick. He sounds like he had a problem. I didn't feel too sorry for him. Sure. God rest his soul, he's gone now, but. Do you feel that you entered the Air National Guard with the personality and kind of the persona necessary to combat those types of incidents, or did you grow into it? Yeah, maybe grew into it because I didn't think about it too much. I've never felt, I've always had really good, the guys, you know, I took a lot of teasing. Sure. But working with the air crew, they were great. And, you know, they would kid me, they'd find out a word I didn't like and they would say it, not say the whole word, they would just start with it, you know. And one time I had this, we had a life support officer who came in and was just giving me the business. I don't even remember what it was about, and I finally said, F you, George, except I said the word, which I never said. And he said, You can't say that. I go, Oh, don't tell me I can't say that. I'm a woman. I have to listen to this from you guys all day long. You're all college graduates. Can't you talk any better, you know. So the funny part was after that, I was upstairs in the bar one day, and one of the other women that worked there in ops, she's up in the bar, and one of the guys from the parachute shop is giving her a hard time, just kidding with her, you know, but just not letting up. And this gentleman's name that I had gotten into it was George White. I said, Give him a George White. Thinking she would say, Go George White yourself, you know, because that's what we started saying instead of the cuss word. Sure. And she come out with it, too, and this guy just fell off of his chair, you know. She did the hard ask. She said the bad word, too, and she never said anything. She was very shy and quiet. It was uncommon back then, right, for women to talk like that? Oh, yeah, yeah. And I wish it was uncommon today, but it's not. It's getting more and more common, unfortunately. This is going to sound like an odd question, but I promise it's going to lead somewhere. What's your maiden name, Stevie? Liquier. So tell me about Mother Liquier's House of Wayward Fighter Pilots. I need to make sure I got the pronunciation correct before I ask you a question. Yes, that's it. Well, since I was the only woman in ops at the time, full time, I was always getting on the guys with their language or, you know, something. And so Bob Leaker, he started calling me Mother Liquier, and then they all started calling me Mom. And, I mean, even most of them were older than me, but I was still Mom, and it was just they called it Mother Liquier's House of Ill Repute for Wayward Fighter Pilots or something like that, you know, and it was just like, oh, good. You just never knew, you know. As a Catholic, did you kind of appreciate that? Yeah, I guess so, somewhat, you know, but they were all pretty good guys. I enjoyed working with all of them, and even once I left the fighter squadron for a different job that I wound up working for 20 years, you know, I still was glad to see them whenever I could. It sounds like, to me, Stevie, that you sort of garnered this respect almost immediately. Yeah. And so you had sort of, you had people protecting you in some cases or backing you up when you needed it. Yes. I want to get back to the F-4 because I want to make a distinction that I think is interesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but your job, it wasn't as like a mechanic. It was as basically the medical personnel. Not medical. Gotcha. Tell me more about it. Oh, life support sounds like medical, but they take care of all the air crew equipment, their helmets, oxygen masks, G-suits. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have said that because a lot of people think that life support is. It used to be called personal equipment, and then they switched it to life support. You can't live without breathing. Yeah. On the F-4, we climbed up in it. We did a 14-day inspection on the parachute, and then we packed the survival kits. You know, we took them out every 120 days, totally checked everything out, blew up the life raft, you know, deflated it, packed it all back up, put them all back in there. They were counting on you to make sure you knew what you were doing and doing it right so they could survive if something went wrong. Right, right. What did you enjoy about that job? I loved it. I liked the fact that occasionally if, for some reason, a backseater didn't come and they didn't have time to train somebody else to give them a ride, I got to go in the F-4. Oh, fun. Yeah, and we got to fly. One time I flew with General Lehman, and he said, Hey, you want to fly the plane? I go, No, no, I'm fine back here. I'll just sit here. I'm going along for the ride, you know. He goes, Oh, put your hand on the stick. So I got my hand on the stick, and he says, You just have to think left. So I'm thinking left, but I'm not moving that stick. So he goes, Think a little harder left. So I did, and we did an aileron roll. Oh, boy. I about had a heart attack. You have to explain. What is that? Aileron roll. The whole airplane turned around and came back up. And, of course, I let go of the stick. I said, I'm not flying the airplane anymore. And he's up there laughing because he knew that was going to happen. I didn't know it was going to happen. He was playing tricks on you. Yes. Yes, he was. So how many flights? Do you recall how many flights you actually took? It probably flew in the F-4, and it might have been an F-100 that I did the aileron roll in, come to think about it, because we had that before we had the F-4. I flew from Las Vegas, Nellis Air Force Base, home one time. We did a low level over the tops of trees and stuff. It was really cool. I got to do that. And I flew with the ops officer, Jack Wilson, and that was a lot of fun. It was just we did a bombing mission, and it terrified me because I thought as we started going down to the ground, I hadn't been in life support that long, but I thought he's got target fixation. He's going to kill us. That's what I thought. I didn't say it out loud. I was thinking in my mind, saying a prayer, you know, I'm going to die. So when he pulled up, after he dropped the bombs, he pulls up, and you start pulling the Gs. I was never so happy to feel Gs holding you back in the seat because I thought, holy cow, now I'm not dying. What an experience, though, you know. It was. It was neat. And it was neat, too, because most women initially handle Gs better than men do. I don't know if it's the center of gravity or what, but a lot of times back seaters will get sick, and they have to fly long enough to get through it, and then they don't get sick anymore. But I never felt sick. I just felt terrified. So tell me a little bit about what's going on in your personal life at this point in time in your career. Well, I've figured out I had a drinking problem, and I thought I've got to quit drinking because I had an 11-year-old son by this point. And he'd say, when are you coming home, Mom? I said, I'll be home in a half hour, 45 minutes. And then I'd call him back, and he'd say, when are you coming home? I'd go, a half hour, 45 minutes. And he'd say, Mom, you said that two hours ago. So then he goes, and Grandma's called, and she wants you to come get her from Uncle Mark's house and bring her home. And I'm thinking, why does my mother need a ride home from my brother? Why can't he bring her home? But I said, okay, I'm coming home. So I came home, put on a pot of coffee. I found out later that just makes you wide awake drunk. But I thought, now I'm home. I have to be the responsible mother and take my child. I have to go with me. And I was terrified to drive with him in the car. In the meantime, when I got home, he said, Grandma's called, and she is home, so you don't have to take her home. So I turned the coffee pot off, and I started drinking again. Then when I went to bed that night, I thought, I'm going to die if I don't quit drinking. And the next day was the base Christmas party. What a day to start being sober. Yeah. And so I told one of the guys that worked for me in life support, I said, hey, I can't drink anymore. But I said, I don't want to tell the boss yet, because he had been sober for six years, and I didn't want to listen to his, we had what we called temperance lectures from him all the time, and I didn't want to have that. So I told him, I said, just fix me drinks that look like, you know, a Bloody Mary. Sure. And stick some celery or something in them, you know. Sure, give the appearance that I'm drinking with everybody. And so, of course, then everybody goes, what are you drinking? I go, Bloody Mary. And they go, you're a beer drinker. I go, well, I'm trying to be refined. That's what I told them. You know, I grew up around the military myself, and, you know, as a young person, I could tell there's just a culture of drinking in general with the military. And I've even seen in my own family where there was a thought behind there of you had to be drinking, be at the O Club, be at the NCO Club, to be able to be part of the crew or to get special treatment or the treatment that you thought you were going to get, kind of like moving on up through drinking. So was there any of that that you felt, or was it mainly just getting into it and it just got a hold of you? Yeah, I just think it was, you know, you're drinking with the guys, and you just started doing it, and I don't know. I always felt like I could hold my own, you know, for the most part. And I didn't think too much about it until I just thought I can't do this to my child anymore, you know. Did you quit cold turkey? Yeah. Okay, that's awesome. Congratulations. Good job. 38 years. You mentioned, this is a fun little story. I hope you'll tell us here, Stevie. You mentioned your son. Your son was born on the 4th of July. Yes. Tell us about the special event that occurred on his birthday that he thought was just for him. Oh, he was born in 1975. So in 1976, when we had the bicentennial, we went down to the riverfront where all the 800,000 people were, and he thought this whole thing was for his birthday. That's right. And he got to ride on a float of people born on the 4th of July, and I made him a little Uncle Sam outfit, you know. And he just thought it was really, really cool. That's awesome. And now they would also do flyovers in subsequent years. Isn't that right? Because they knew you and knew where you lived. Oh, yeah. And they would, on his birthday, I don't know if he remembers. The VP Fair or something? Yeah. They would do that, and then they'd fly over. I think they flew over St. Charles or something, so it went right over Bridgeton. Yeah. And they would dip the wings, you know, as they went over the apartment complex. That's cool. That was cool. That is cool. You also mentioned you said an Uncle Mark. That's your brother Mark. That's the one who's 20 months younger? Yes. He served as well, but for a short amount of time. Yeah, he was in Vietnam for 24 months. He extended. So he joined even younger than when you joined. Oh, yeah. He was 17 when he joined. Tell us about Mark. Mark was a great kid, but he was a little bit, he got in trouble a lot with the law. And he went in, he signed up to go in the military. My mom had to sign for him to go. He went in on the, I think they called it the buddy program. Another friend of his went with him. And then, of course, they wound up going to Vietnam. And then he extended over there where he got into drugs, you know. That was kind of a sad thing. And he even sent a box of stuff home that said coffee creamer. And I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking, why would he send coffee creamer home? So I showed it to a police officer friend of ours, and he had it checked out. And it was not coffee creamer. And so, of course, he was madder than hell at me when he got home because it was gone. Yeah, but he had a tough time with drugs. And he finally, and alcohol, seems to run in our family. And he finally got off the drugs. But he just never was quite the same after Vietnam. He sat in the dark a lot. He just had a hard time with everything. He lived to be 58 years old, and he has a son that turned out real well. And, in fact, my husband and I get to be grandparents to his children since my brother's gone. That's fantastic. That's great. Yeah. If I remember correctly, it was about 15 years or so ago that he died in a car accident. Is that right? Yes. They think he probably had some kind of medical issue because he never, he got in enough trouble with the police. So he was always after me when he was driving down the street, don't go over 25 miles an hour. So I know he wasn't safe. He was a safe driver. Yeah, and he, a bystander saw him slump over the wheel. And then he hit the curb on the right side and went and bounced him across, and he took out the corners of two houses. Wow. So, but then when they took him, you know, my nephew called me on my brother's phone. And I said, it's about time you called your sister back because he had called me. I had called him three days before. And he said, Aunt Steve, it's Dad. I don't think he's going to make it. They're taking him to DePaul. What a phone call. Yeah. I said, do you want me to come get him? He goes, no, I'll get a ride. And I went to there. I was working then. I was already retired from the military, and I was working at a nursing home. And it was right there at DePaul in Bridgeton. So I just went over and pumped on him for 45 minutes. He was still dead. Now he just looked nine months pregnant instead. Yeah. So, yeah, he was 58 years old. I bring that up, and I truly appreciate you being so vulnerable with that story, Stevie. Absolutely. I bring it up because he called you a lifer. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. So throughout your career, I know we're kind of going all over the place here, and that's my fault. But throughout your career, what do you think your motivation was to stay in for so long, 35 years of service? What kept you going? I liked it. I thought it was important work. And then with all the stuff going on in the world, like we had Desert Shield, Desert Storm in the 90s, and I thought, you know, we're going to get activated sooner or later. And so that's when I put in for the Guard Bureau sent down a job. By this time, I'm in another career field for going to Aviano, Italy. So I thought, well, I could do that. I wanted to make sure that I knew how to run a Guard unit. I wanted to make sure we'd fit in with the Air Force. So I went home, asked my husband, could I go. I went to my boss, Colonel Boatwright, and I said, hey, I would like to take this trip. And he goes, you can go. So I come back, I call the Guard Bureau, and they go, that was snapped up in five minutes. Oh, okay. So then the next one come down, they're going to send me to Hungary for four months. So I went and asked my husband again, went up to my boss, came back the next day. They said, it's gone. So they said, Stevie, if you want to go on one of these trips, we'll send you that you can go on the next one that comes down the pike. I go, okay. Cut out the asking husband part. Don't ask anybody, just do it. No, what they said is, get your permission now. Yeah, there you go. So that's what I did. I asked my husband, I asked my boss, the next trip, they go, yeah. So it was a surprise where you were going to go then. Saudi damn Arabia. So that's where I got to go. So I went there for four months. A place that is famously not so tolerant of women. Oh, it doesn't like me, no. You could have been on the canals of Venice instead of down in Saudi Arabia. That was an experience because by this time I'm in a career field called services, and we take care of feeding people, lodging them, fitness and rec, and they even do public affairs now. They didn't when I was in, but they do it now. So it's like every little unit that the Air Force doesn't quite know what to do with, they throw in services. Sure, catch all. We're kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. Oh, and mortuary affairs is another one we do too. Really? Oh, yeah. All right. You weren't kidding. They packed everything in there. Packed everything in there. So I have to go into town. I'm going to try and look at buying some fitness equipment. I have to put on a black abaya, wrap my hair all up in a black scarf, sit in the back seat of the car. Can't ride in the front seat. You've got to sit in the back seat and walk behind the men. So then I get into this place, and I'm not looking at their eyes. I can't look at a man's eyes. I'm talking to this man about buying this equipment. And after 15 minutes of this, I finally said, Sir, is there any possible way I could look you in the eyes? I said, This is very awkward for an American woman not being able to do that. And he said, Oh, I'm not even a Muslim. I'm Syrian and I'm Catholic. And I couldn't care less if you look at me. You're probably wondering why you weren't looking him in the eye. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, thank you. And so, you know, it was just strange. I mean, like I went in one time with a translator who was with me and another man, and we just went in to like a grocery store type place, and I was looking for exotic coffees because they were going to have like a little coffee house thing. Sure. And before we left, we all got a soda, paid for that, and walking out. I go to open my soda and the men go, Oh, you can't drink that walking down the street. I go, What? They could, but I couldn't. I said, This is the most backward country I've ever been in. And so there I had to get in the back seat again. And once we were in the car, I could drink my soda. I want to remind people, what rank were you at this point in time? I was a Master Sergeant. Okay. So you have some rank on you. Yeah. And I've heard some stories where you even had to follow, I think it was a private, maybe not quite a private, but essentially follow a private, showing this subservience in a way for the outside culture. Did you have situations like that as well? Yes. We had a little skirmish there called Desert Fox, and it only lasted about 48 hours. That was a bombing of Iraq. Is that right? No. It was actually, I don't know. I thought it was there in Saudi Arabia. It just didn't affect my base. But I may be wrong. Some sort of military skirmish. Right. Okay. And when the alarm went off at 1 o'clock in the morning, I thought we had exercises all the time at all different times of day. I jumped out of bed, and I was waiting for them to go exercise, exercise, exercise, and they didn't. Sure. It's for real. It's a real thing. Yeah. So I go over to the orderly room and meet the commander, and he says, okay, go put your uniform on, bring your chem gear with you. You're going to be in the survival recovery center for the night, and I'll relieve you at 8 o'clock in the morning. I said, okay. So that's where we went, and I hauled all this stuff over there. And when I got there, I just had a couple of girlfriends that sent holy candles with me. And I got a holy candle out, put that up there. I got my rosary, put that up there. And I got the holy water, and I set that up there. I go, okay, we're covered, and everybody in the room goes, oh, this is great. Clever with her. Uh-huh, yeah, for sure. What's the radius? So then we leave the next morning. I get off, and the captain comes and relieves me, and I'm getting ready to go back to my room to go to bed. And this young man comes up to me, and he goes, oh, I was also the first sergeant there. He goes, first sergeant, you're going to go into Riyadh with me today to the hospital, right, for my test? And I said, oh, do you want me to go? He goes, yes, ma'am. I go, okay. So I go back home, put the black abaya on again, and walk behind. I don't have to walk behind him on the base, but then he gets to sit in the front seat, I sit in the back seat, and I'm walking behind him until we get him in the hospital and everything, and I just sit there while he's having his test run. So I thought, oh. That's got to be such a, like you said, backward. It's got to be such a backward feeling. You have fairly high rank, and you're having to show this, like, subservience. And, you know, they're still your airmen, they're still your personnel, but that's got to feel so strange. It does feel strange, and then not being able to look people in the eyes. That's the interesting one to me. I mean, as a male, but, you know, I don't have very much to say about it because, you know, I've never experienced that, but just not being able to look someone in the eyes. It's something you take for granted, I think, in our culture. I think true respect is looking someone in the eyes. Right. I mean, sometimes a really shy person has a hard time doing that, but they'll look up once in a while, you know. Yeah. Did you have to tell yourself something as you were essentially looking down at the ground when you would have conversations with those outside the base? Did you have to have something to prepare you for that? I don't know. You have all these, you know, you get instructions all the time on exactly what to do and what not to do, so you're kind of familiar with all that. And I just, you know, I guess I got used to it. You know, I was afraid to look at them in the eye unless, like, that gentleman that turned out not to be a Muslim gave me permission. Now, we did have occasionally some guys would come on the base that were Muslim, and they were fun guys. They would kind of do a little entertainment thing. They would say they were kings, you know, and then they'd have, but they make the best tea I've ever had. It has different mint and different herbs in it. It's just delicious, you know. And we got to have that with them, and we could look at them. Because they're on your base. That's American property, essentially, American territory. Yeah, maybe so. That would be my guess. That wasn't interesting, you know, but that was, and they were fun. But, you know, I'm just not sure. I wouldn't want to live there all the time. No, I can't imagine. No. So besides Saudi Arabia, I know there's Qatar. Was there another country that you deployed to as well? Kuwait. Kuwait, okay. When 9-11 happened, we were activated by President Bush and sent to Kuwait. And there I got to stay in a tent for four months. Now that sounds really horrible, but it was air-conditioned, and we had beds we slept on. The only problem was there was no bathroom, so you had to walk about a block to go to the bathroom, take a shower and stuff. Wow. Yeah, other than that, you know, it was pretty good. Except for rats. There may not have been too many rats. I think there were. They have giant rats in Saudi Arabia. And I know that we went there prior to 2001. We went there for a two-week deployment. Okay. And that's before they had a building for the dining hall. So my cooks are cooking in a tent. Open air, basically. Yeah. Okay. And I went to check one night to see how they were doing because they fixed midnight chow too. And they had pistols and they were shooting rats. Are you kidding me? Wow. I go, what are you doing? They go, we're shooting the rats. And I saw a rat jump up on the table. I mean, it looked like it was a foot long. It may not have been, but that's how big it looked to me. And grab a donut, jump back off the table, and go. I never seen anything like it. And they had killed about five of them. Wow. That's incredible. I didn't even know the rats were in there. Me neither. Me neither. That's incredible. There were scorpions. Oh, I believe that. And I just didn't run into any of those. But they were in some of the tents. They get in and they. Was it a tent city or was it just a tent like a. There were also like mobile home kind of things too. Almost conics like. And I could have stayed in one of those, but I wanted to stay with my girls. I got you. And, you know, the next time when I went to Qatar, I stayed in one of those. So tell us about. We've had a few guests here that have very interesting experiences related to 9-11 and the attacks on the World Trade Center and other locations. Tell us a little bit about the activation to Kuwait after 9-11. Well, when 9-11 happened, I was on the base at the time. And, in fact, I was up in military pay checking on something. And they had a TV that was on. And somebody said, a plane has just hit the World Trade Center. And we all went, oh, my God, what a terrible accident. And then just a few minutes later, the second plane hit. And we went, oh, this is not. I mean, everybody shuts down, locks up everything. You can't get in anywhere without showing an ID card who you are, even if we know you. That's almost immediate. Yes. Oh, it happened immediately. Everybody knew what to do. Because we're thinking we're on an airport. We didn't know if this was a local thing. Isolated. Yeah. So that was kind of a shock for all of us. I bet. And that's a day. There's different, like, I'm older than you guys. So I remember when President Kennedy died. That was really tough. I was in eighth grade. My class, I was in a Catholic school. And my class was in trouble. We had acted up or did something. And we were sitting in the music room in the dark. It was a rainy, stormy-looking day, you know. And they announced over the loudspeakers that the president had been shot. And then a little while later, they announced that he was dead. And we were all sitting there crying, you know. First Catholic president. Yeah. And it was like, holy cow. And that's how 9-11 was to me, too. It was like that's something you're always going to remember, you know. Seared into your memory. Yep, I remember exactly where I was. I'm glad you mentioned that about JFK, Stevie. You know, most people know the very famous quote by JFK, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Is that something that stuck with you, words like that, inspiration like that, something that stuck with you in your service? Sure, sure. We're always supposed to be service before self, you know. It's kind of like a motto of the Air Force. And so you're there to help other people. And so with that, you explained the services a little bit. It's kind of a mishmash. Tell us what a day in services would look like for you while you were on those deployments. Well, I'll tell you, when we went to Qatar, that's where all the people come in that have died. They come through Qatar, they go through the mortuary there. My guys had to ice them down, you know, get them all prepared to be shipped back to Dover. And I don't know how they did it. I'd go check on them, see if they were doing okay. And, yeah, we're okay. You know, we're holding up all right. And I go, okay, well, let me know. You know, and they just did it as part of the job, and then we would stand and, you know, salute as they put the casket on the plane. Yes. What year was that, or what time period was that? That was in 2000, 2006. So a lot of fighting and a lot of death happening at that point. Yeah, I was about to say. That's like the five, six, and seven were pretty high. Yeah. And that was the last deployment I went on, you know. So then, of course, the next year, at the end of the year, I retired. Was it that last deployment that you had just bought a house here in St. Louis and then had to leave, or was that a different? That was after 9-11. Okay. I just moved in. We moved in October the 1st, and then I got activated, like, in November. Yeah, buy a new house. Yeah. I had to leave my new house. My birthday happened then, my wedding anniversary, all of that while I was gone. Talk about bad timing. Yeah. Tell us about your retirement and what you remember about that ceremony. We have a photo here of you at your enlistment. Tell us the connection between that and your retirement. Well, when I decided to retire, they did a little flyer for me with the same two men that I'm in this picture with. This is Chief Master Sergeant Harold Spiegel and Colonel John Hardy. I had worked with John at McDonnell Douglas, and, of course, Harold was my boss when I was a medic. And the guy who had suggested the medical corps. Yeah, suggested I come in the medical corps, yes. So it was really nice for me to have them both in the picture. And, unfortunately, they're both gone today, but I always think highly of both of these men. What sort of emotions can you recall from the day of your retirement? I was just happy. Thirty-five years is a long time. And it was my mother and my brother were there at my retirement, and I'm trying to think if my children were there. I guess they were. And I know my brother probably had a few drinks before he got there, and every time they would say something about me, he'd cheer real loud. And my mom, she would do the same thing, only when we were waiting, we were waiting for everybody to come in, they were waiting for General Brandt to come in. He was in civilian clothes. I think he might have been retired by this point. But he and his wife were coming in, and actually they were in, and they were sitting down. Well, they wanted him to walk in with everybody else. So my mom just doesn't know what's going on. She just yells, what's the holdup, real loud. And it's like, oh, no. Secondhand embarrassment. That's right. And so General Brandt gets up, and he goes, I think I am. So he goes back to the back, and he walks in with the rest of the higher-ups. And then all through the ceremony, if they'd say something, some nice accolade about me, my brother would cheer. So after that, a couple of the guys from pay said, hey, can we have your mom and brother come to our retirement? Nice. They all have the hooping and hollering too. The cheer section. One thing that we've always asked, not always, but one thing we've asked quite often on this podcast is, you know, the day after is the last day that you wore the uniform. What did that feel like? And I think that might be what Ethan was alluding to is it's not really, so to speak, you're not wearing a uniform. It's you're stepping into a different realm, a different world of civilian life. Was there any specific thing you can remember about just the day after that felt different, other than the joy that you mentioned earlier of being done with it? But, you know, there's the camaraderie that goes with it. It's the jobs that you did. It's the people you're surrounding with, the culture. Now there's a culture shift because you're not there. How did that impact you? That's what you miss. You miss, we were, the Air National Guard is a family, and you miss them. I don't miss, don't want to be back in or anything like that, but I miss all the people. So that's why I'm lucky that I have the girlfriends I have that I get to see. We go to lunch once a month, call ourselves, you know, since the military runs on acronyms, we call ourselves the Orbs, old retired broads. And with that nickname came from a secretary that used to go with us all the time. She never was in, but she was the general secretary, and she was used to dealing with acronyms. So she named us the Orbs, and it stuck. Very nice. I still am lucky I get to see, well, Colonel Bob Leaker is a good friend of mine. His wife, and I have another group of women I eat lunch with, and I call it the pilot's wives because all of them just about are married to the pilots that I worked with, and there's only three of us that were enlisted, you know, and the rest are all the wives. And that's fun too. And then we have reunions. Last year we had one of the fighter squadron, and they're going to have another one this year, but unfortunately I'm going to miss most of it because I'm going to be in Spain. Nice. Well, you know, we've covered a lot of ground tonight, and usually we like to give some space to ask a final question or say anything else you want to say. Ethan, I'll let you ask your final question, and then, Stevie, you'll have an opportunity to say whatever it is you want the audience to know, what you're feeling, and then we'll wrap up. Okay. Jason's question and your answer, Stevie, leads really nicely into what I wanted to ask as my final question. Tell us about your involvement here as a volunteer. Okay. I'm trying to think of how I got involved in here other than, oh, I guess it's because I'm on the Veterans Commission here in O'Fallon. And there was a gentleman named Ralph Borelli that was on our commission, and he went around to all the mayor's offices trying to find a place. He wanted to start this museum, thought it was important, and he was a World War II vet. And so once he got involved in it, he involved Renee Essary, who kind of was like his secretary wherever he went to. She'd write down all the notes for him. And then she got involved in it with him, and then it just kind of went from there, and we all just started one by one, all the people she knew, her and her husband, Greg. He was a chief master sergeant in the Air National Guard. He started out in the Air Force, and then he came to the Guard. He was a crew chief. And Renee served as well. Renee was in the Air Force, and then she came to the Guard. She was in ops, and then I think she was in logistics for a while too. And it just started. Lori, Dr. Stock, same thing. We all just kind of. Very Air Force heavy. Yeah. Does she go by Doc? I'm going to have to tease her. Well, yeah, she became a chiropractor when she retired. Nice. Hey, now we've got an in-house chiropractor. I could use that. He needs more than an attitude adjustment. So as a follow-up, Steve, you tell us what you enjoy about volunteering here at the Mid-America Veterans Museum. I like it especially when kids come in. They're young and they're excited about life usually, most of them, you know, and they want to see what's going on. And when you start telling them stories, they are genuinely interested. And then we do have a, I always get the word for it, scavenger hunt. Oh, sure, scavenger hunt. I can never get scavenger hunt out on the first try. Hey, it's okay. And we give them that and let them go around. Then they get to pick a little prize. It's usually like a little Army guy or American. You'd be surprised, a lot of these kids will take an American flag, and I always like to see that. Yes, for sure. And then like this, Fourth of July, you know, we all go in the parade. Sure. And Christopher, he's our 95-year-old volunteer, he'll ride in the vehicle. And, you know, some of us walk, some sit in the trailer, thank you, yeah. Float, float. Float, that's it. I can never think of that either. See, I'm not the only one that can't get words in. You're young. I know, I know. Shame on me. Hey, but I got it eventually. Yes. And that's fun because you get to give out the flags to the kids when you're walking. My husband does it with me too, so. In your opinion, Stevie, what is important about keeping a museum like this and stories of veterans alive, what is important about that? I think it helps people know that if you don't remember these things, you tend to repeat them again. You know, I don't know how we're ever going to get out of all the conflicts we're in. It's just sad that the world fights the way they do, and so much of it is over religion, the differences in religions. That's not how God wants you to be, you know, so. Religion, ethnicities, culture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I think people, they feel connected to the military if they hear a little bit more about it and see some of the heroes that are here in the museum. Thanks for sharing that, Stevie. Okay. Stevie, anything else that you want the audience to know about, anything else that you want the audience to know before we head out? No, I think I've covered about all I can think of. It was a very worthwhile career. I enjoyed it. Absolutely. It was a pleasure to have you on our show. I learned a lot today, and I think one of the cool things that I learned is that life support is not medical. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it was about life support. So, yeah, your story was great. I learned something new. I'm going to do some more research on a couple things that you taught me today, and we sincerely appreciate your service, really appreciate your volunteerism here, and thank you for being on our show. We're going to go ahead and sign off of the Operation Insight podcast from the Mid-America Veterans Museum. Operation Insight is brought to you by the Mid-America Veterans Museum. The museum is a 501c3 nonprofit business. Do you like our podcasts? 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