It's been more than 40 years since my dad retired from the Navy, but it's only been in the past few years that I finally FULLY adjusted to civilian live. I believe I was born to be military . . . or as least to have married military.
My best friend during my high school years was Bonnie . . . we were thick as thieves back then . . . where you found one of us, you typically found the other! She was a Navy Brat too, so we understood each other . . . never felt like we fit in anywhere in that podunk little town of Jefferson City!
When I turned 18, we decided we'd get out . . .
. . . we were going to join the Navy!
I don't know exactly what happened . . . the full reasoning behind our not joining is really pretty irrelevant at this point . . . but we didn't join up!
Somehow Bonnie's mom found out, and she told my dad . . . Dad cornered me that summer and told me "under no circumstances was I to enlist in the Navy! Only losers joined the military!" I argued back that he'd joined . . . did he consider himself a loser? He then cleared it up for me "Women don't belong in the Navy!"
Weird . . . it was one of the FEW times I actually took my dad's advice!
A lot of men, at that time, believed the same thing: women had no place in the military. It would be just 10 years after that summer of '81 . . . September 1991 to be exact . . . that one of the worst Naval scandals occurred: Tailhook. More than 100 Navy and Marine Corps Aviation Officers sexually assaulted 80+ women in Las Vegas. Some of the men sporting t-shirts that read "WOMEN ARE PROPERTY!" Two high ranking officers' careers were ended because of the scandal.
I had wanted to be a Navy pilot . . .
. . . guess my dad had maybe foreseen something like that happening . . .
. . . I don't know!
The movie Top Gun came out a few years after I graduated and doubled my desire to become a Navy Pilot. Kelly McGillis played a character that I found fascinating . . . she was an astrophysicist and civilian aviation expert . . . a Top Gun instructor of a group of very cocky young men . . . but by 1986 I was 23 . . . had become a Travel Agent and loved my job.
We've come a long way since then!
"Move on! It's just a chapter in the past. However, don't close the book . . . just turn the page." ~ Unknown
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