00:00:00HALASKA: Today is January 23rd, 2020. This is an interview with Constance A. Walker, who served with the United States Navy from 1981 to 2005. This interview is being conducted at the veterans home in Madison, Wisconsin. The interviewer is Rachelle Halaska, and this interview is been recorded for the Wisconsin Veteran Museum Oral History Program and the I Am Not Invisible Project. No one else is present, besides Sam. Well, thank you for meeting with me today, Connie.
00:00:32WALKER: It's a pleasure.
00:00:34HALASKA: So let's just start off with, tell me where and when you were born.
00:00:40WALKER: I was born in a very rural village in upstate New York in 1954. Born and raised there. I think I moved once in all that time to a town that was ten miles away. No military history in my family background other than a distant second generation relative who was in the Navy for a little while during World War II, long enough to serve there. Mom and dad owned a tavern and my sister and I and the family lived in an apartment over it and I pretty much decided at that juncture that education was going to be my ticket out and things kind of happened after that.
00:01:25HALASKA: Okay. And where did you go to school?
00:01:31WALKER: The town is called Norwich, New York, and it's in what's called the southern tier in New York. A lot of people think that when you say you're from New York you always mean the city, and that's not what it always means. In fact, it's not usually what it means. So yeah, not unlike Wisconsin in many ways. Where I went to college was on the same parallel, I've learned, as Iola, Wisconsin, which is where I have my other home in the state, up in Waupaca County. So, I saw my share of northern lights in upstate New York and froze and often wondered why I didn't choose to go to Florida for college, but.
00:02:10HALASKA: [Laughs] Where did you go to college?
00:02:12WALKER: Potsdam State, which is about fifty miles from Montreal, just below the New York border to Canada.
00:02:20HALASKA: Okay. And what did you study?
00:02:21WALKER: Psychology. So, I had a bachelor's in psychology with a double in English and graduated in '76. And quickly learned that a bachelor's in psychology is not going to get you very far in terms of employment until you have your master's and hopefully your PhD. But I had to learn that lesson.
00:02:46HALASKA: What did you do after you graduated?
00:02:50WALKER: Well, at that time there were a lot of family issues that required someone's attention that wasn't afflicted by them. So, my sister became very ill with a ruptured aneurysm, as did my mother in the not too far-- after she fell sick with one. So, I wound up taking care of my sister's younger family and helping out with my mom as best I could for almost two years before I joined the Navy.
00:03:21HALASKA: Wow. That sounds like a lot.
00:03:24WALKER: Yeah, the Navy felt kind of like a break to me by the time I went. [Laughs]
00:03:30HALASKA: What made you kind of start thinking about the Navy?
00:03:34WALKER: Well, again, it was a question of employability. I had scholarships that paid for a lot of my education, but not all. And I did have college loans. They were come and do. And it's interesting because I spent quite a few years in recruiting or recruiting support in the Navy. And I remember strategy conferences then that covered the same point I'll make now: when most people join the Navy, depending on what period of time we're talking about in our history, they're not joining because out of some 'gotta serve my country' feeling, they're joining because there's a goal they have in mind, whether it's help with college education for enlisted folks or a desire to get away from a restrictive environment where there's not a lot going on. There are a lot of reasons why people join the military and mine was because I had college loans coming due and I figured this was a probably the most lucrative way for me to begin paying those back and keep some for myself.
00:04:38HALASKA: Um, did you consider any of the other branches?
00:04:41WALKER: All of them.
00:04:42HALASKA: Okay.
00:04:44WALKER: I went to the Air Force and although I liked what they had to say, I remember distinctly the recruiter had a spaghetti sauce stain on his shirt and I thought, well, I can certainly do better than this. And I went to the Marine Corps and quickly decided I just couldn't pass their PT test and would probably hurt myself but I have the highest respect for them. We've done, in my tours of duty, I've worked with a number of them and if I could have been a Marine, that would have been alright with me. I just didn't think I could do everything they'd ask me to do. And you know, also a great deal of respect for the Army, but I really did prefer the Navy after I looked at everything.
00:05:26HALASKA: Tell me about your experience going to see the recruiters and figuring out what it was that you wanted to do in the Navy.
00:05:35WALKER: It was always interesting because the very first time I went to see a Navy recruiter, it was in the town where I went college and the first words out of his mouth were, "are you a nurse?" And I'm not, And I said no and he said, "well, then we're not interested." [Laughs] So, I took that and left, which was his goal, and waited a couple years and it was during that time that I helped my family when they needed it, as it turned out that would have been a premature time for me to go anyway because my dad wasn't up to handling the things that were going on without some help. So, when I went back, I went back to Syracuse, New York, which is in the middle of New York State. And those officer recruiters were extremely interested in me, so I didn't have to be a nurse. And then we had a deal.
00:06:24HALASKA: Okay. Do you know what they were interested in? Like, why there was that difference?
00:06:35WALKER: I'm sure at that time there was a growing emphasis, nothing like we have seen over the last ten years, certainly, on getting women into the military. So, there was, I'm certain, some level of higher emphasis on that at that time. The fact that I already had my college degree and therefore there would be no commitment on the Navy's part to pay for that, I am sure appealed to them. So, I was anxious to go when I could and didn't want to wait a year and have all kinds of obligations to have to finish up before I left. So I think those three things lined up to make me a good candidate for them.
00:07:17HALASKA: And how old were you at the time?
00:07:20WALKER: Oh, higher math. [Laughs] I think twenty-three.
00:07:27HALASKA: Okay. Um, and then, so, you said you didn't have to wait that long to go into the Navy. When-- what was the the space between, I guess, signing the contract and heading out?
00:07:40WALKER: I think about three months, and it lined up with my going to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island with that graduation happening in January. So, I learned that in leaving upstate New York in Potsdam in winter, I wasn't really leaving it at all.
00:08:02HALASKA: Just going back for a second, was there anything eventful about your-- that you remember about going to MEPS or in processing or anything like that?
00:08:17WALKER: You know, not in my experience, but certainly later on in my career as a MEPS commander. [Halaska laughs] Many memories from that experience.
00:08:25HALASKA: Alright, we'll get there. [Laughs]
00:08:27WALKER: [Laughs] Right from the silly to the sublime, but yeah.
00:08:31HALASKA: [Laughs] Okay, and you said you went to Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island? Okay. Was that-- I'm a little bit unfamiliar with officer-- is that like your basic training?
00:08:44WALKER: It is.
00:08:45HALASKA: Okay.
00:08:46WALKER: It is. It was a four-month course at the time that I went through it, and ours was the last company that was strictly segregated from the male companies. I was not a military person in my thinking before I joined the military. I was pretty free-spirit. And in college, I was that same way. So, to this day, I've run into folks who knew me way back then and said, "I can't believe you joined the military and stayed in for as long as you did." I said, "neither can I." [Laughs] But, I don't know. I digressed. Did that answer your question at all?
00:09:32HALASKA: I think so. So, you said it was four months. What did you-- tell me about arriving at there-- What do you remember about your first few days?
00:09:46WALKER: Even at officer candidate school, and I get that there are folks who will laugh at this very notion, especially if they've gone to the Naval Academy, or Fort Benning, or SEAL training, or you name it. But I found the level of discipline that it required a brand new experience for me. So, I remember I was a pretty good swimmer going in, but couldn't pass their third clas. PT test, or swimming test, at Newport. So, I was cast into the group of folks that go every morning, rain or shine, before the day begins to remedial swimming. And at the very end, when it came time to pass the swim test again for good, I was standing at the top of a thirty foot tower just absolutely terrified of heights and I knew that to finish I had to jump off and do this. And there was a chief petty officer standing at the bottom and he was yelling at me and I said, you know, I think I'm more intimidated by him than I am by this jump, and so I jumped. [Both laugh] So, that sticks out in my mind a bit. [Halaska laughs] Didn't like being yelled at. Never have. [Laughs]
00:11:00HALASKA: So, you said there was the chief petty officer. What were your other drill instructors like?
00:11:09WALKER: They ran the range from what I would call benign disinterest to very invested in what they did. I distinctly remember taking a navigation class with a quartermaster chief petty officer and he shared a sea story with us from his experience and that was really the first lesson that I took from the Navy that I carried with me for years and it never served me poorly, which is he was underway with his ship, and he had the watch for navigation, and the ship was getting too close to port. It was on the west coast, and they were losing depth to navigate in. And he warned the officer of the deck about that a couple of times, and logged the warning. And the ship ran aground. And he said, you know, the only thing that saved me was the fact that I logged what I said and there was proof that this warning had been given. And that's the lesson I took from that, and that's never failed me in terms of what I've worked on, either in the Navy or beyond it. Funny that you would pick up something that young because I consider that, I was very young, but it's really stuck with me and he was one of those ones that was very invested in us. At that time that there were Iranian students in the class and it was-- It was a tough time because at that time in our history, we welcomed them there as students, but their culture, being so different from ours, put them in a position to seek advancement through bribes if they needed to. And a bribe was extended to this particular chief that I was just telling you about, and of course he took it immediately to up the chain of command, and they were expelled and sent back to their country, but that was another lesson in how things ought to work that I took to heart. So.
00:13:19HALASKA: Interesting. Um, you said you learned you were taking a navigation class. What other kind of classes did you take and what did you learn?
00:13:31WALKER: For navigation, there was celestial and land navigation, and oddly that was the best grades I got were in those classes, so to this day I can get lost in a car. [Laughs] Very basic nuclear engineering so that you understood how a nuclear reactor worked and what happened when it went wrong. Nothing in depth, but enough to at least give you a basic understanding of it. A lot of administrative stuff, some basic seamanship, several trips out on a yard patrol boat to practice navigation skills and having the comm and giving the orders. So, boy, we were going back in time, so yeah. But in a nutshell, that's what I remember the most from it.
00:14:17HALASKA: Did you-- did you make any friends while you were--?
00:14:22WALKER: A couple. [Laughs] My ex-husband was very interested in having a dating relationship there and I absolutely refused because along with not enjoying being yelled at, I don't like goldfish bowls and that's what officer candidate school would be.
00:14:40HALASKA: What do you mean a goldfish bowl?
00:14:42WALKER: Oh, there's very little privacy.
00:14:45HALASKA: Oh, okay.
00:14:46WALKER: Yeah. Close quarters, everybody knows what everybody else is doing and then that's not how I prefer to operate. So, he was a friend. But we didn't really pursue any of that courtship stuff till after we had our commissions and were stationed in our separate locations. as far as female friends, and this was something that I carried with me for quite a while, it was extremely competitive, even in officer candidate school. And I remember thinking at that time and thinking again years later, this is not the same 'hail fellow well met' environment that guys have. And, you know, as I said, I saw over the years in my career in the Navy that that level of competitiveness, frequently the absence of a mentor, made a big difference, I think, for women in the military at that time who, you know, didn't have the same professional development relationships that were easy to turn to and learn from as I think men in the profession did at that time, and I'm sure still do, I hope. So, do I have friends that I'm still in touch with from there? No.
00:16:14HALASKA: Do you remember like, when you realized how competitive it was?
00:16:19WALKER: Pretty quickly. Yeah, I would say I was-- once I was over my culture shock, it was probably halfway into my time at OCS, so two months in, I recognized that this was-- it's not a good place to show weakness, that's for sure.
00:16:38HALASKA: Um, were there any particular fun experiences or anything else like that that you remember about that time?
00:16:50WALKER: Well, like any other discipline class, it takes a while before they give you any freedom. And so when they gave us our first weekend of freedom and I went to Boston, I'd never been to a big city, certainly had never been in a Bonwit and Teller [Bonwit Teller], which at that time was an amazing department store for me. It would have ranked right up there in my thinking with, oh, what's that awful expensive one? Neiman Marcus. [Laughs] So I went into Bonwit and Teller and I paid eighty dollars for a dress, which I had never done. And I had the money to do it and not be afraid for the future. And I thought, well, I can do this. This is great. So that was a positive realization. So, eighty dollars. [Both laugh]
00:17:38HALASKA: All right, and then where after both basic training then you had, or OCS, you had graduation then, correct? Was that a memorable experience for you?
00:17:52WALKER: It was because it was not something that any family could make it to, which wasn't unusual for my family. We're not awfully close, and everybody who's in the family but me passed away some time ago. But I remember thinking as other families came in for that, this is kind of a big deal, making this commitment and taking this step. And however I felt personally about kind of being there by myself, the presence of all those families really brought that point home to me.
00:18:33HALASKA: And I don't think we touched on this before. How did your family feel about you joining the Navy at the time?
00:18:42WALKER: Well, going to college was not something they encouraged. I was the first generation kid to ever do that. So, that was unknown to them. I think they looked at it at that time as just, oh, she's going to do something weird again. [Both laugh] So, they were ambivalent, I think. Mildly amused, perhaps. [Laughs]
00:19:09HALASKA: Okay. Um, where'd you go next?
00:19:13WALKER: Lakehurst, New Jersey, which I always thought, well, they're sending me to where the Hindenburg crashed, which means they must have checked somewhere about my record. [Halaska laughs] But it was a really interesting place, out in the middle of the Pine Barrens. And the first time I had the officer of the watch for a weekend period. And of course, you're trained for that, and you carry a side arm. And the base is big and dark and not well populated, and it can be a little intimidating at midnight. And I went into hangar one, which is the hangar that housed the Hindenburg, and heard off on the other end, because those hangars are big enough to have their own atmosphere. They can rain in there by themselves and snow, and yeah, they're huge. And I heard screaming from the other end, and I thought, oh god, this is my first time, too. And I thought okay. So I carefully went to where I heard that, and it was a female lieutenant who was practicing her jiu-jitsu and her yells that go with it. And you know, I stopped and chatted with her and made sure she knew I was there so she wouldn't be afraid either, you know. But it was well past midnight, and I thought, well, this was interesting. My boss at that time, the first O6 I ever met, that was in a permanent capacity as a commanding officer, was an aviator. Fred Rogers, I'll never forget his name. And he said, "well, I don't like women in my Navy, but since you're here." And that kind of set the tone in the interview. [Laughs] So, you know, and I don't think he was unusual at all. I wouldn't take him aside and say, "well, you're awful." [Laughs] I think that was how it was, and maybe still how it is among some. I was the personnel officer and ultimately became the legal officer. It sticks out in my mind most that that was very much a cutting your teeth initial tour without being in a position to do too much damage while you did your learning.
00:21:30HALASKA: Tell me more about that.
00:21:36WALKER: The thing that they were doing at Lakehurst at that time, and I believe they still are, was some aircraft and surface and rescue training support missions. They're aligned now with Naval Air Systems Command for a lot of RD, research development, testing, evaluation stuff. So, that alignment has grown and continued over the years. But the folks who were there, a lot of them were engineers. I mean, we're not talking a lot of junior sailors who need to cut their teeth and learn what they can get away with and what they absolutely can't get away. There weren't a lot those. And so that was a pretty benign environment to, you know, I think, have as your first tour as a legal officer or a personnel officer.
00:22:24HALASKA: Okay, and what were your duties as a personnel officer and a legal officer?
00:22:29WALKER: Well, be there when the commanding officer decided it was time to do non-judicial punishment or was there a case to be had here for something stronger than that? I can't remember the skipper doing one of those in the time that I was there, so as I said, it wasn't a troublesome group. Personnel officer is basically a human resources officer from soup to nuts. Pay and disbursement, making sure stuff stays on track that way, travel, evaluations, awards, just making sure all that stuff that goes behind that tooth all forms the tail. That's what the personnel officer is about.
00:23:16HALASKA: What were some important things that you learned during your time there?
00:23:23WALKER: Boy, you know, I've learned so much in every assignment I had. I think there, with very few exceptions, the skipper being one, I learned the importance of not being afraid to ask questions. And I think that's pretty important as an ensign. [Laughs]
00:23:46HALASKA: I'm sorry, what?
00:23:47WALKER: As an ensign. That's the very first rank in the--
00:23:50HALASKA: Oh, okay.
00:23:51WALKER: In the steps up the ladder, so that would be like a second lieutenant. And ensigns who are afraid to ask questions get in trouble, I think, for obvious reasons. And I think it also damages their credibility with enlisted folks who are more senior, who have a clue about what's going on. And now they see an ensign that isn't willing to listen or isn't ready to ask. And that's a-- I learned that lesson there, and it was a good one. So, and I'm not saying I learned it from painful experience. I think it was just something that, if you were insightful about what was going on, it's something that you figured out quickly, so.
00:24:40HALASKA: And you said that there were-- you went into hangar one and it was gigantic. How many hangars were there and--?
00:24:49WALKER: I'm going on memory, but I think I remember that there were four dirigible hangars.
00:24:57HALASKA: Sorry if you already said this, but what-- What were the hangars?
00:25:02WALKER: Oh, well, way back in the day, of course, the Hindenburg was in Hangar 1, and so that's what gave it its reputation of being haunted, which kind of fed that whole experience with hearing, screaming, and checking them out. So, after the dirigibles were no longer an active factor, then they became training areas for mock aircraft carrier decks and other platforms. So, they served, and to the best of my knowledge, still serve a good training function with their size.
00:25:42HALASKA: Um, what were living conditions like there?
00:25:45WALKER: Well, I stayed in the-- lived in the BOQ [bachelor officer's quarters], and made friends with other junior officers there, and that was-- didn't work where I worked, but you kind of all find each other. It was in the middle of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, and if you've ever been a Sopranos fan and you happen to see that one episode where they're lost in the Pine Barrens [laughs], it was an accurate depiction. And if you took the right turn by chance and with the right way, you would run into Russian Orthodox churches, gold spires in the woods, and a friendly bunch, and I did run into some and shared borscht with them, and it was not too far from New York City and Toms River, so there was that opportunity to go there and do things I'd never done before. So, it was a good place to be.
00:26:45HALASKA: Excellent. Is there anything else? And how long were you there?
00:26:52WALKER: Just under two years. It was a little interesting because the Navy refused to station my husband and I together. You know, I get it. We're not there to make sure they cater to us necessarily. But when the opportunity came up to have an impact on that, the Navy was hard-nosed about it. And by that time I was carrying my first son. And so I thought, well, I do have this option. And I used it, and I actually got out for a year or two.
00:27:22HALASKA: Okay.
00:27:22WALKER: So, I could join my husband which stayed in the reserves, did the drilling thing with them. I went to Guam.
00:27:29HALASKA: Oh! We can back up. When-- so, you met your husband in training and then you were stationed at separate places. When did you get married?
00:27:48WALKER: [Both laugh] We blacked some things out. Oh, god. Oh, forty years ago? [Laughs]
00:27:55HALASKA: Okay, [laughs] sometime in that two year window.
00:27:58WALKER: Yeah, exactly. So.
00:28:00HALASKA: Excellent. And how far away was he stationed-- Were you stationed from each other?
00:28:05WALKER: I was in, of course, New Jersey. He was in Athens, Georgia, going to Supply Corps Officer School. He was getting ready for duty on board a submarine tender. And that would have then home ported him in Guam. So, I made the decision to use that option so that we could try to make this marriage go. I think we put it under a lot of stress to have a child so quickly.
00:28:39HALASKA: And then you were serving in the Reserves.
00:28:42WALKER: It always amaze me because at the time I was in Guam and Rich was the supply officer on board the USS Hunley and I got a call from his commanding officer congratulating me on my promotion to lieutenant junior grade. And I thought, well, what? [Laughs] How did that work? I wasn't on active duty. I think I had drilled once, and that's when I learned that at least at those junior grades, at that point in time, unless you really committed mayhem, you could probably progress to a certain point in the reserves as well. So, I gratefully accepted his congratulations. And then in another year or so, I actively asked to be recalled to active duty.
00:29:34HALASKA: What was Guam like? Tell me about getting stationed there and what that was like?
00:29:41WALKER: That was really interesting. And my youngest son was born on Guam, so they're about thirteen months apart. Extremely isolated. And what I learned there is-- for certain types of duty or duty locations, if you don't have a strong marriage going in, it's not a good thing, because those situations will put so much pressure on a marriage. And if the bond isn't strong enough to withstand it to begin with, it's another stressor. Not just on the marriage, but everybody in the unit, the family unit, I mean. That was a lesson. If you wanted to get off the island, if something was so intolerable that it was time to get of Guam, you had a thirty-day cooling off period before they'd transport you off the island. So, if anybody's still mad after thirty days, good on them. [Laughs] I had a chance though to travel to South Korea at one point, which was very interesting. I spent some time in Seoul and met quite a few Japanese folks who at that time came to Guam as a tourist destination for Japan. I was a wife, Navy wife, so made friends with other Navy wives and when typhoons came through, the tender would go out to sea and we'd all, what's it called, a typhoon party. We would have a typhon party. [Laughs] So, I am glad I was able to be there and I was glad when I left.
00:31:29HALASKA: Any particular memorable typhoon parties or anything like that?
00:31:36WALKER: Not so much the party, but the-- I think it was Typhoon Rita. All of these things are matters of record somewhere, and I always thought, you know, you ought to be taking some notes, but I didn't. But I went out and took some pictures before that one really hit. Force of nature. Who knew what a typhoon was? I mean, I know it's like a hurricane only by a different name, but I had never had the opportunity to be in a place that was surrounded by water and see how that really works. I don't know. I can't think of much else that really stands out except for feeling very isolated there at certain points in time.
00:32:21HALASKA: Do you know if, um-- did the other Navy wives feel the same way?
00:32:26WALKER: I think so, you know. I think some folks were better maybe at keeping a stiff upper lip than I was all the time. So, I guess that happens when you've been a Navy wife for long enough. [Both laugh]
00:32:40HALASKA: Were there any support services for the wives or anything like that or for families in general?
00:32:47WALKER: Nothing like what there is now, so. I remember, to augment our income because Rich was an ensign. I taught through a contract. I would teach mostly Navy-- well, all Navy enlisted guys that either wanted to improve their writing skills or their reading skills or even work on a GED. I would teach folks that signed up for my classes in English and reading. That was a warm thing for me, I always enjoyed that. And I think-- I hope they did too, I think they learned and we had fun at the same time. But as far as support for families, I actually tried to access what support I knew I needed at one point, and the only source was through a Catholic chaplain. And that religion looks at certain things certain ways, and I didn't find that support helpful. But again, that was the 80s.
00:33:57HALASKA: Um, and how long-- how long were you on Guam?
00:34:02WALKER: Just under two years.
00:34:04HALASKA: Under two years? Okay. That's a long time to be on an island. Um, and where-- so then you rejoined.
00:34:15WALKER: I went with my husband back into where the tender went next, which was Charleston, South Carolina. And it was while I was there that I put in my request to be recalled to active duty. At night I went to The Citadel to work on my graduate degree in abnormal psychology. The Navy said no the first time, I mean, all I did was send a package and all the information you would need to send. So, they rejected my first application and I said, well, okay. Um-- We got through that assignment in Charleston and he got orders to Norfolk. So, we made that move and then I put my second request in and I got dressed in my service dress blues and I went up to make the case in person to DC and that's when they said yes. So, they just want to know you're serious. [Laughs] But I do not think that if that circumstance presented itself again today, I don't believe I would have been recalled.
00:35:23HALASKA: Okay, and where was it that you went to serve and what was your position going back in?
00:35:29WALKER: I went back on active duty to-- and my reserve duty before that time, before I was recalled, was with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I was their administrative officer. But when I was recalled, I was sent back to Naval Base Norfolk to serve at the Naval Safety Center for a tour of duty as the assistant safety officer for that command. And it was mostly a training billet in terms of all aspects of Navy operations, submarine, surface, aviation, putting together training aids to help enlisted folks working in their designators in that population. Some of what I-- my boss was a F-4 pilot commander, and a lot of what I made was made in a soundproof booth with slide decks and music and pictures, and I just loved that job. So, very creative, and he was a good teacher, and it was fun, and I had some very good bosses. I remember a one-star admiral, Commodore Jerry Breast, and his concern for the troops was always apparent, but it really struck me when I was having trouble with my ex over some legal issues. He made it a point to not just ask if I was okay, but to say, here's how I'd like to help, are you okay with that? Because there were things that were happening that legally shouldn't have happened that way. And he was ready to help fix it. So, that type of leadership really resonates. So, I consider that. I continue to have some very good teachers as far as what it meant to be an officer.
00:37:30HALASKA: What were-- so you said it was mostly training and you were making-- you got to make training aids. What were some of the-- what were some the things that you guys wanted to teach the troops? What were the most important things to get across?
00:37:47WALKER: One of the TADs [temporary additional duty] they sent me on in that capacity was to Hawaii and it was after the crash of an F-14 and the pilots ejected but were in the water for four days almost before they were found. And so, the training piece that went along with that that I was sent out to put together involved interviewing them, making sure their observations from that experience in terms of survival were captured. And documented in a video that the Navy could use at other locations and that was-- that sticks out in my mind as one of the important things that the safety center did, one of the many important things it did was to leverage that situation because those situations will happen and take the best lessons you could from it to help others. So, that would be an example.
00:38:43HALASKA: Okay.
00:38:47WALKER: Similar stories like that, but that's the one that leaps to mind.
00:38:51HALASKA: Were there any other stories that you wanted to share that you--?
00:38:57WALKER: The whole issue, and this is very specific, of liquid oxygen on board vessels and submarines and installations where it gets used and how utterly destructive it is and people don't know it. So, there were some very visual, very scary lessons associated with that, to get that message out to others in the Navy. So, and these were, you know, a variety of media that folks-- that were made available to folks on a checkout basis or a-- you know, you can order these en masse type thing. So, at that time, I think-- I have no idea what they do with it now, but particularly with media in the way that it is now. But at that time, it was a pretty-- It was a pretty well utilized resource. So, I remember being in the office one day with Commander Bill Pettit when word came in that the Air Force Thunderbirds had all followed each other into the ground. They were, of course, practicing for an air show, and you watch wing to wing, you don't necessarily orient to the ground and if the guy up front has it wrong, you all have it wrong. And that was a sobering day for the entire safety center, considering the work that we did with the Blue Angels. So, it was moments of doing good things and feeling pretty happy and not overly stressed and other moments when the lessons were dire and you had to make sure that they were adequately sent out.
00:40:43HALASKA: How did you and other people in the office kind of deal with having to-- with all of these incidents and accidents?
00:40:54WALKER: It could be very stressful. I remember one incident where-- of course, all the photography from the accidents came into the safety center as part of the case file and you know, alpha mishap investigations and so forth. The only comparison I would make would be, if you see enough of that, in my mind, it would have to be like being a medic. So, that was somebody's son or daughter, and you'd never want to see that. So, those moments were tough, and I think the safety center did as good a job as it could in taking the pulse of the folks who had to work with that and immerse in that as part of the investigations. Certainly they had a couple of psychologists on staff and folks that made themselves available, so I think that they managed that pretty well.
00:41:50HALASKA: Oh, excellent. It sounds like you worked with a lot of really great people there too, as well. Is there anyone else that you worked with that you wanted to mention?
00:42:03WALKER: That's where I grew my appreciation for Navy SEALs. [Both laugh] They had a unit attached to the submarine directorate that could be on call quickly when they needed to be. And passing PRT [physical readiness test] tests was always a challenge for me because I'm not by nature somebody who goes out and has a lot of fun running every day. So, I would always pass the test, but it always involves some work ahead of time. And they took us under their wings, those of us that weren't as fit as them. [Laughs] Get us in enough shape to pass it, and we're just-- I always appreciate folks who are in lockstep, you know. And I remember one PRT test when the guy who owned the van set up the music to play Magic Bus. And at this time, you could do this. There were wine coolers waiting at the end. And you just got to love people like that. You really do. And the command didn't have a cow about it. And it was not a bad thing. Nobody misbehaved. It turned the PT test into something that was fun.
00:43:15HALASKA: Excellent. And how long were you at the Navy Safety Center?
00:43:20WALKER: About-- Almost three years.
00:43:26HALASKA: Okay. And what was your rank?
00:43:29WALKER: When I left there, I was a lieutenant commander. The next set of orders was to Washington D.C. to work with the Defense Intelligence Agency. I had considered, and was considering at that time, changing my designator to intel. I was happy when they offered me the orders to work in something at that time called the National Photographic Interpretation Center, and I was a satellite imagery reader, which I know, that was really fascinating, except for when you had to monitor the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitations Talks] treaty. [Laughs] And then they would send you canisters of the film. It wasn't KH-11, it was a different type of film that went on rollers, and it's just frame after frame of snow, [laughs] and you're like, oh dear. [Laughs] I thought this was not going to be this. On the other hand, there was an opportunity, and again, very educational. I mean, they all were and I appreciated what I learned from it. They were very focused on photo intel and I was fortunate enough to make some friends down the hall where CIA had an office and they also used signals intelligence and human intelligence. And so, at one point, put together, with their assistance, an all-source intel cable about something that was happening in Vietnam. Well, that caught the attention of the director of the agency because the prediction was spot-on and he said, "well we need a Navy EA [engineering aide] up here," because he had one for every service and he said, "would you like to be mine?" [Laughs] I'm like, "Well, yes!" So, he was a three-star Army general and that increased my access to intelligence exponentially. And that's what gave me such a strong appreciation of sources and methods. And I remember at that time, John Walker was under investigation for espionage. And I was in my new office in the director's office and I called on the green phone secure line down for an update on some submarine locations. And they had not met me yet. I hadn't been down to meet them in person. And they're like, "well, we don't talk to anybody named Walker." [Laughs] That's so-- "Oh yeah, I'll come down and say hello so you know me." So.
00:45:54HALASKA: That sounds fascinating.
00:45:55WALKER: Oh, I couldn't have asked for better.
00:45:58HALASKA: Um, what-- can you tell me more information about the one case that you were getting intel on, that kind of bumped you up to that position?
00:46:09WALKER: I don't think there would be any problem now, I'd be guessing. But it was the Soviets were getting ready to do their thing once Vietnam was turned into an open field. And they were preparing to move some equipment into Vietnam that had never been there before. And so, all that that projection did was say-- you can tell by these changes and this activity and this signal intelligence that this move is imminent. And that turned out to be correct. So, it was fascinating.
00:46:48HALASKA: Cool. Well, great. Tell me-- keep telling me more about this job that you had.
00:46:58WALKER: Well, by that time I was a single parent, and I had a nanny live with me to give the kids a stable home environment as I could. So, I would be at the Pentagon at five in the morning and sometimes not be home until seven at night. I think I lost thirty pounds there just from walking around. [Laughs] So, I know that sounds silly. You needed surgery on both feet when you were done. That's no lie. I remember very well a lot of the people I met who were names at that time, and for many still are, for example, like Chesty Puller's son, General Chesty Puller of the Marine Corps. He had been egregiously injured and was in Vietnam and was wheelchair bound. I met him and that meeting stuck in my mind and it was probably a year after I met him that he committed suicide. So, that type of thing. You really get steeped in what it is to be in the military and make a commitment to it in that environment. Colin Powell was the military assistant at that time to Caspar Weinberger, so of course all that intelligence was coming in from the Iran-Contra stuff, so that was pretty thrilling to shake his hand. And I still remember the-- I think it was the fifteen points that Weinberger came up [Weinberger Doctrine] with for when and when not to get involved in warfare. And you know, you just wonder what the heck happened. You didn't need any more than that and someone forgot them. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened when I was in the director's office.
00:48:54HALASKA: Tell me about that.
00:48:55WALKER: So, those satellite photo images were coming in in real time as that all developed. Of course, the cloak around that that the Soviets set on it was amazing when you have photo imagery from not just us, but allied sources that give the lie. It was just a very busy time in that regard, when that happened, particularly making sure that everybody in the National Command Authority had a very clear understanding of what was really happening, because what was coming out in terms of being released from the Soviet Union bore no resemblance to the danger this presented.
00:49:43HALASKA: Can you tell me when-- as you were getting the information, when you realized kind of what was happening and then what you were hearing?
00:49:55WALKER: Boy, it was almost immediate, the disparity, because the photos did come in two and three times a day. And, you know, after a while, of course, the satellite taskings are even higher. It was-- I think probably the making sure to keep-- not just my job, I just had to follow the rules, but making sure to keep what can be released separate from what cannot. I wound up in that job never talking about my work because it was just easier not to. Otherwise, you know, gee, I think that was okay, but what if it wasn't? It was at that time, too, that we-- around that time that we did the-- I think I mentioned El Dorado Canyon very briefly at one point. That was our bombing mission on the northern coast of Libya, but then the USS America participated in that, among other units. That was also very sobering because it was a real-time operational bombing mission otherwise, at that time, it was a pretty quiet world.
00:51:17HALASKA: And when was that?
00:51:19WALKER: 80-- '87, I think. Around there. It seems like there was-- oh, Soviet military power. Do you remember ever hearing about that? Every year, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] would publish this very slick, very glossy Soviet military-power publication. Invariably, there'd be a picture of the May Day Parade on the front, and then all the weapons systems and what they were capable of doing--. In its sixth or seventh year of publication, and this happened when I was working for the director of DIA, he was a three-star Army guy. It finally came out from multiple sources that the Soviet Union was broke. Going broke. And so the military threat that they ostensibly presented to us was perhaps overstated. [Laughs] So, Soviet military power kind of fell out of favor and it created, you know, some interesting moments for the director in terms of okay, how did it get to this point? Because the Soviet Union is broken we're just now figuring it out what's that say about our intelligence? So, that was another interesting circle of events
00:52:46HALASKA: So, you said it a little bit. What exactly was your job and title at this time, and what kind of were your daily tasks or main things that you were in charge of?
00:53:01WALKER: The director of DIA at that time had an executive assistant from every branch of the military. DIA is a joint command, and so having that joint presence in the front office was important to him, to make sure that every service was represented. So I was the junior EA, but I was his Navy EA. Among my responsibilities was screening the traffic before he came in. That's why I was there at 5AM, to do a walk through the Intelligence Command Center in the basement of the Pentagon and get a verbal brief before he got his. And in theory at least, and I think I usually did a good job or he probably would've let me go, figure out what it is he'd want more info on before he showed up and asked for more info on these various things. I would be reading the intelligence traffic throughout the day to pull out the stuff that was either happening now or looking like it was shaping up to be something. There were compartments within DIA that worked in collaboration with CIA and other intelligence agencies that had their own special name to them, and so I'd be periodically briefed on that stuff, and give him the highlights of it. More than a few errands, which is how I got to meet Colin Powell and the Secretary of Defense. So, let me see. El Salvador and Central America were hot spots as well at that time. So, the Central America Joint Intelligence Team was the name of the joint unit that took care of intelligence coming from that sector, so I spent a lot of time in the cages being trained on what was happening there so I could help represent some of the stuff and they didn't always have to send up a briefer. I don't know, it sounds like-- that's the reason I don't talk much. It sounds like not much when I put air to it. [Laughs] But it was, you know, and then they asked me at the end of it, it was a great tour. Once again, I thought Lieutenant General Williams was a phenomenal leader. And in spite of everything that I knew was on his plate, I'd get through with what it is I had to go over with him in the mornings, and he'd say, well, how are Mike and Nick? You know, how are the Panthers doing? That was their tee ball team. [Laughs] So, you just kind of have to appreciate the leadership dynamic that goes into that level of-- I don't know. I'm using the wrong word, and it will come to me at midnight, but personable. You can be a leader and still be approachable and be personable, and those are the things that I think I learned for good or for bad, particularly in those first ten years or so. If I were that first O6 I ever met, never in my life would I say, well, I don't like women in my Navy, but since you're here. [Laughs] Just that's a bad idea. A bad idea.
00:56:20HALASKA: Is there-- are there any other stories from that that time period that are kind of coming to mind right now that--?
00:56:33WALKER: You know, I think the scary, exciting stories are the ones I've already gone over. Oh, well. There, of course, would be a lot of high-level visitors from other countries coming in to to meet with the joint chiefs of staff and the J1, who was the intel officer, who was my boss, and after Lieutenant General Williams retired. And that would be the same job that Mike Flynn had and was fired from of recent history. General Williams was relieved by an Air Force three-star, and I'll never forget how protocol would go in with him in advance of these foreign dignitary meetings and do their absolute best to teach him what he needed to know about this particular country and the culture and the name of the guy. Well, President Mubarak came in one day, and the Air Force Three-Star called him Your Highness [laughs], and we just kind of fell under the table, and it was Your Highness for the rest of the visit. [Halaska laughs] So, those were the humorous moments of it.
00:57:42HALASKA: You got any more humor as well? This sounds great. [Laughs]
00:57:46WALKER: No, that one sticks out of my mind.
00:57:53HALASKA: [Laughs] Well, holding a position like that, it's really interesting because you hear about people who hold these positions and kind of, you know, the Pentagon, these secure places, but I feel like you-- its like you know them as people. Yeah, and that place. Is there anything else about working in the Pentagon or working in security like that that you'd like the listeners to know?
00:58:22WALKER: Well, I was invited to change my designator to intel after that tour and I declined-- respectfully declined that invitation because I thought I will never be in a position to have the view that I've had for the last two years and that's what's made it so good. So, it's sort of like, leave on a high note for this designator because it will never be this good again unless somehow you come back and take the senior EA job [laughs], which I didn't think would happen. As far as the people at the Pentagon, and I met some really, really fine ones of all branches of service. But I think what I learned from that tour and what I think is borne out from by what I learned since and also what we see today is that the whole thing can become a self-licking ice cream cone without any encouragement. And now instead of doing what makes sense to do for the larger mission and the strategy now becomes things that are being done for reasons that range from, 'this is the way it's always been' to 'this is my job, this is not my job.' And so since these jobs don't connect and don't communicate and don't interact, I'm not gonna talk to you about this stuff. This is how much I'll do, which is dysfunctional. So, very siloed, at least at that time. Even with the press to become more joint in our focus in terms of so much service [inaudible]. That was a tough cultural thing to get through. I think we see, in terms of base naming today, with Joint Force McCord and Joint Base Norfolk and these other things that now have joint in their name. That was a long time getting from that place in the Pentagon way back then to this place. And I can't speak with authenticity about how that culture really works now. I've been out for too long. But you know, like everything else, like enculturating women in a meaningful and equitable way has been a long process and I'm sure really being joint is equally long. Does that answer the question at all?
01:01:00HALASKA: Is there anything else that you want to say about that assignment before we--? Or that period of your life before we move on?
01:01:10WALKER: You know, I would say that's one of the best assignments I ever had, but typically I wind up feeling that way about all of them [laughs], just so I won't say it. But it was a great assignment. The hardest part of it, I'm sure, was with my kids, in terms of being a single parent. So, doing the very best you could in terms of having a nanny instead of having to cart them around. And she lived with us, so she became a part of the family.
01:01:35HALASKA: Okay, where-- where'd you go next?
01:01:41WALKER: Time for my cheat sheet. Because I had still the credentials, after that assignment, I went to Fort Meade, Maryland in a support role for the National Security Agency. So, it just made doing the personnel work that I went back to doing only in an officer-in-charge basis instead of just a department head status. It just made working with folks with those levels of clearances so much easier than I had the clearance as well. So, it wasn't a problem supporting them with all the weird places they had to go and making sure their orders were right and so forth and so on.
01:02:24HALASKA: Where were you working again?
01:02:25WALKER: Fort Meade.
01:02:26HALASKA: Fort Meade? Okay, and for the National Security Agency? Okay. And what is that organization, and what do they do?
01:02:36WALKER: NSA is the premier signals intelligence organization for the U.S.. It too is considered a joint agency. The group I was subordinated to is an NSGA, Naval Support Group Activity. And I was the officer in charge of a large personnel deport detachment there. So, think Edward Snowden and think NSA. That's who that organization is.
01:03:15HALASKA: And tell me-- tell me about moving there and what the base was like and everything.
01:03:20WALKER: It's a huge base, very secure. I did not move. I stayed in Washington where we were so the kids could stay in school. And now, in addition to having the nanny and long hours, it was a two hour commute to get back and forth on the Beltline. [Laughs] So, even so, I think it wasn't the same type of thing as with DIA because it felt very operational in that environment. The National Security Agency environment that I worked in was more bureaucratic, more administrative, which is not to say it was worse for that reason. It was just different in its climate, and in my mind, not as exciting. Which doesn't mean there weren't things to be learned, because there always are. I remember I had an enlisted guy working for me who was an E-6 and had positive on a drug test for cocaine. This is before the Navy really had a zero tolerance policy, but they were pretty strict. He was going to Captain's Mast with the senior officer with the NSGA, who was his captain, and as this enlisted guy's reporting senior, I went to the captain and said, "he's really good. I know he's sorry. I know he won't do this again!" I put all my creds on standing up for that guy. And I remember this captain looking at me saying, "you know, I hear you, and this is going to be a tough lesson for you." [Laughs] But he did what I asked him to do, which was suspend the punishment to be vacated later if the guy screwed up again. Vacating, meaning if he screwed up again, he'd be separated from the Navy. Well, of course he screwed it again. So, yeah, that was another lesson at the hands of a crusty and smart O-6 who tried to tell me. I remember his deputy, though, who was a commander. His favorite line in my memory of working with troops to try and get something done was 'make it happen.' I will go to my grave not liking that line because people misinterpret that. And I saw it happen. I saw people interpret that line, too. No matter what it takes, make it happen. And that's when you start crossing lines that you shouldn't cross. And so, in that tour, that phrase became anathema to me, so I never use it.
01:06:19HALASKA: Do you have a specific example of a time when--?
01:06:22WALKER: When that happened? Nothing that resulted in discipline. An episode that resulted in shortcuts being taken that shouldn't have been taken. That could have had an effect on health and safety. That's a general example, but yeah. That was probably the most-- I'm using the wrong word, but benign tour I had in the Navy. [Laughs] I don't know, the biggest-- the impression I had leaving that assignment was because there's also satellite dishes and domes and everything. I mean, it's the whole place is bristling with signals intelligent gear. And then as part of that tour, I made it out to a place in Morenton [Warrenton??], Virginia affiliated with that mission. Again, it's an education in U.S. military capability and incapability sometimes.
01:07:39HALASKA: Would you have any, I guess, examples of either one of those? So, a time when you realized, 'wow, this is what we're capable of' or 'this is a blind spot' that you'd be able to share?
01:07:54WALKER: I think, in terms of what we're capable of, not understanding until that assignment how well we could listen into conversations worldwide. Did not know that. And from a more negative point of view, although I guess you could consider that one negative, [laughs] how easily it would be to trash human rights. Trash privacy rights. I never had an understanding of how easily that could be done until that tour.
01:08:35HALASKA: Okay, so it was something that you were thinking about as-- okay. Did that cause, I guess, any kind of conflict did you feel in yourself about the mission or your service?
01:08:49WALKER: Yes. It did. I remember thinking at one time that the U.S. was making a commitment of forces in an area based on tailored intelligence instead of true intelligence. Half a story as often. It's certainly much worse than the whole story. I don't know, I don' t mean to be mincing words, it was just kind of an education in terms of how. Which is another reason I'm always amazed that I stayed in for as long as I did, because it did present a dilemma for me. To have that awareness and then continue to launch ahead with whatever it was I was doing as if I didn't know. [Laughs]
01:09:44HALASKA: Was it something that you and the other officers or anything like that talked about ever, or--?
01:09:53WALKER: I never did. Now, whether bonafide intel officers or having those conversations, I can't say. I had access to those circles just because I still had those very high clearances, but I didn't necessarily engage in mission discussions with them. I just kind of knew what was going on.
01:10:16HALASKA: I know you said that you were still living in Washington at the time, you had a two hour commute, you're a single parent. Did you make any friends, or did you feel like you're part of community there at all?
01:10:29WALKER: In terms of off-duty or--?
01:10:31HALASKA: Yeah.
01:10:34WALKER: I stayed as active with my sons' lives as I could, which of course meant being a team mom for tea ball, which is how the general got to be able to understand and ask me how the Panthers were doing. So, yeah. I stayed pretty engaged and made some good friends in that community. One of them to this day, unless he's retired recently, and I just don't know it, was a reporter for the Armed Forces Network. He thought the sun rose and set on Donald Rumsfeld, and I thought Rumsfeld was evil. [Laughs] So, we would have those conversations. So, it was-- yeah, if I had a choice to live on base or off base in these assignments, after that first assignment, I always lived off base because I'd much rather be in that community. Which is not to say I didn't like the community I was in, but I think you need to keep your eyes open to all the stuff that's going on. Otherwise, you get awfully myopic in the military, I think.
01:11:43HALASKA: Where-- where'd you go next?
01:11:48WALKER: Let me see. God, this is-- let me cheat here.
01:11:51HALASKA: Oh, please, yes.
01:12:03WALKER: After the that assignment, I went to-- Back to the-- My first experience I think with recruiting and that was in the form of being a commanding officer of a large MEPS in San Antonio, Texas. So. That MEPCOM [Military Entrance Processing Command] at that time was headquartered in Chicago, and the flag and general officer level commander was a two-star Marine Corps general. So, divided into regions, my particular boss for the region I was in was located in the Presidio, and he was a Marine Corps O-6, so. We opened up a new MEPS in San Antonio while I was there, so that involved a lot of planning and moving and interaction with the city and architects and so forth, which was something I'd never done before, so new experience.
01:13:09HALASKA: And what year was this? Just to--
01:13:17WALKER: I think '88 or '89. Maybe '90. Let me look at something. I can be more accurate. My mom passed away while I was in that assignment. '91.
01:13:35HALASKA: '91? Okay.
01:13:43WALKER: One story that has stayed with me from that assignment, of course, as part of physical testing for induction, we would screen for HIV, and when an applicant came back with a positive result for that test, it was the obligation of the MEPS commander to meet with that person, sit them down, and at least try to help them get pointed in the right direction for next steps. I had taken care of that responsibility and the individual I was talking with would not hear it and then said, "I know your test is wrong because I've donated to the Red Cross and they've said nothing about it." And this was-- this was in that time of period in this country where they weren't routinely testing the Red Cross yet for HIV. If you've ever seen the movie "And The Band Played On," there's a pretty good portion of that movie that discusses just that period of time. And when he told me that, we finished what we were doing, I encouraged him to take the steps that I was outlining with him and left him with a fact sheet and information and places to call and go. And he left and I called up the public health officer for the state of Texas and I said, you know, "here's what we have." And he says, "well, I'm glad you let me know and let me take care of this," in terms of at least looking for this particular blood. Somehow, from Texas to Chicago, which is where MEPCOM headquarters is, they got the word that this communication had happened. And that communication wasn't exactly within the boundaries of my authority as a commanding officer. And the two-star's deputy called me up and said, "Some asshole's telling the public health system down there that they've got a pint of tainted HIV blood on the shelf." And I said, "Well, you know, I would be your asshole. Are you suggesting that I have this knowledge and do nothing with it? Because I can't do that." So, for all the posturing and threatening that some of that action involved, there was never any big thing bad that came to me of it. And I think the lesson from there is the system has to be pushed to just accept at face value what it is that you've been told you can or can't do. There are times when moral and ethical decisions have to be made and that may not be in your job description on a sunny day, but it's in your job description. [Laughs] So that was my lesson from that assignment, I think.
01:16:37HALASKA: Um, and that was during, um-- 1991, 1990 area. That was during the Gulf War, that was really starting to kick up. Can you tell me about serving during that time period?
01:16:49WALKER: I was-- this is one of those times where, in addition to all those reasons for joining the military that I mentioned that, you know, don't sound so laudatory, with something like, 'yeah, I needed the money,' this was one of the times when folks were lining up to join because they thought it was the right thing to do, and they were motivated by patriotism to go, and that was in abundance and insight during that tour in Texas. Texas is a very patriotic state to begin with, and so they were all over doing their part when this started. The MEPS ran very smoothly and all the branches were represented there with their screening teams. We would run from four in the morning till eight or nine at night in terms of that mission, you know, physical, mental health. All that screening stuff that has to be done. So it was a very busy time and I think I had some great troops that worked there with me in that time. One of them, as I was getting ready to leave, and I wish he would have told me before, had been one of the fifty-two hostages that were held in Tehran for 444 days. And I'm pretty sure he didn't tell me till I was almost ready to leave, because he knows I would have made him sit down and just talk to me for hours. [Laughs] So yeah, he probably kept the story a little shorter by waiting to tell me, but I was so glad that he shared that with me. And he did have really interesting things that he let me know about, the-- I'm trying to think of what else would happen with MEPS. I think probably the biggest thing was the flux that was happening at that time, when it came to things like public health and the whole Sturm and Drang that was accompanying HIV and what was going on at that at that that time. We would get our share of foreign dignitaries and the Minister of Defense for Kazakhstan came in and of course totally speaking through an interpreter. I ran the enlistment ceremony that day for a full room of folks who were going into the delayed entry program. And it was-- Those rooms in the MEPs are very well-appointed, they're very ceremonial and reflect the gravity of the commitment that we're asking of folks. And so the MOD, the Ministry of Defense, watched all this and the translator explained from State what was going on and we got all through and the kids started to leave, you know, because it is the [dep??]. The poor minister of defense, he got so upset, and he says, "You're letting them leave? Where are they going?" [Laughs] He's like, "what do you mean?" And so we had this conversation where I said, "Well, in this country, many times, folks just don't go into service automatically. They wait. And we continue to work with them in the delayed entry program. Then they eventually ship." [Halaska laughs] He says, "They'd never come back!" [Both laugh] Oh, that was a pretty enjoyable exchange, because by the end of it he was laughing and so was I, but he just couldn't believe his eyes that we would allow them to go.
01:20:17HALASKA: That's an interesting difference. Great story. And what was your opinion of San Antonio? What was it like living down there?
01:20:30WALKER: You know, I loved it. I think-- thought and think it's a great city. It can be a bit Wild West. I was picking up my chief petty officer. She was the head nurse for the facility. We were going to the Navy ball together. So, I'm in my mess dress, and so is she. I haven't quite picked her up yet, and she lives in a nice neighborhood. And I'm rounding the corner in my car, and there's around the corner on the opposite side comes a car full of young men with a shotgun stuck out the window pointed at me. Which had never, of course, happened to me before, and you just don't even react. You just look and can't believe what you're seeing. Well, that whole thing upset me so much, and this is-- This is the story that goes with that. I wrote in it because gangs were such a terrible problem there at that time. I wrote an open letter to the mayor of San Antonio because people were dying. And signed it C.A. Walker, Lieutenant Commander, USN. They published it word for word in the San Antonio paper and the response to it ranged from 'boy, has that officer got this right' till 'that guy must never have had any children,' because of course you wouldn't know I was a female writing with the initials and everything. And I don't know how they found me but I would get phone calls and voicemail messages that said, "you need to show some more understanding. You don't understand how hard it is to be a parent." That was interesting. San Antonio was engaged, either fully to the right or fully to the left. [Laughs] There wasn't much of a middle ground there. We used to do a lot of enlistment testing on the border in Laredo and El Paso. And so, I would go to those locations every so often and cross the border there just as, you know, once you're through with the day, you know, let's actually go have a margarita in Mexico. I wouldn't advise these days to cross that border in either one of those places. Laredo was, at that time, a great place to cross. And in El Paso, it just always felt dangerous to me, even then.
01:22:59HALASKA: Is Juarez on the other side of El Paso? So you've been to Juarez? It was safer at that time? [Laughs]
01:23:07WALKER: No.
01:23:07HALASKA: No?!
01:23:08WALKER: Laredo was okay. Yeah. It wasn't safer. But I did bring back a chess set. [Laughs] So, yeah.
01:23:18HALASKA: Would you go down with, like, a group of other officers that you were working with?
01:23:25WALKER: In those situations, I'd be with our testing officer or her representative, so it was always as a pair, but not with a group.
01:23:34HALASKA: What kind of testing were you doing?
01:23:35WALKER: ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] test.
01:23:36HALASKA: ASVAB, okay. And I guess, were you like, looking-- retargeting specific areas like that were strategic or was it kind of the run-of-the-mill?
01:23:53WALKER: Actually, all of Texas was strategic. The economy was, at least in that area of the country, was-- aside from the fact that folks were motivated by the Persian Gulf War, there were a lot of folks who needed that start to whatever they were going to do in life. So, it was a very receptive audience for the whole process.
01:24:21HALASKA: Were there any, I guess, significant changes that you saw to the MEPS in processing during that time period?
01:24:36WALKER: Yes. Ones that really surprised me. I mean, we went from no tattoos to some tattoos to your applicant cannot have a forked tongue. [Laughs] And I remember seeing that guidance come out and I thought, 'wow, how far we've come.' [Laughs] So, yeah. Well, you sure do change to accommodate what's happening in the culture, I guess.
01:25:14HALASKA: And just remind me one more time, what was your position there again?
01:25:18WALKER: I was the commander.
01:25:19HALASKA: Commander? Okay. And then what was the organizational structure like? Like, who did you have working for you?
01:25:27WALKER: There were five officers assigned, with me included, and then a range of senior enlisted officers from various specialties assigned. So-- and then the junior enlisted folks and civilian personnel who would staff those essentially departments that did those various missions. I don't know how to be more specific.
01:25:53HALASKA: Oh, that's very specific. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else about your time at MEPS or in San Antonio that you want to talk about? And you said you started there in 1991, when--
01:26:09WALKER: Around there.
01:26:10HALASKA: Okay, around there. And then--
01:26:11WALKER: So, I think it was in '94 or '93 that after that assignment I went to graduate school. I screened for graduate school as an O-5 and went to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. I got my master's degree in adult education.
01:26:42HALASKA: How did you settle on adult education?
01:26:45WALKER: It's kind of a-- if I would have done then what I maybe should have done, I would have probably become an educator. I certainly enjoy that type of work. I've done it since retirement with various populations. I just think it's a worthwhile thing to do. Adult education struck me because, particularly in the military, you're always working towards that end, whether it's for something as lockstep as a weapon system to getting folks with employee assistance programs to understand that there are ways to deal with anger that don't necessarily involve hitting. And that degree actually served me in good stead with subsequent assignments. It was the first time I ever really got to be a full-time mom, in my opinion, so I didn't put on a uniform except for a personnel inspection once a year for about a year and a half. We lived in a four-story condo on the Chesapeake Bay and the kids really seemed to enjoy that.
01:27:59HALASKA: How old were your kids at the time?
01:28:01WALKER: They were in 9th and 10th grade.
01:28:07HALASKA: Growing right up.
01:28:08WALKER: Mm-hm. Wow.
01:28:11HALASKA: How did the kids enjoy Texas?
01:28:14WALKER: They loved it. I think it was traumatic for them to leave it. They were both very successful in what they were doing academically and athletically. And when it came time to take orders and have to go, it was a bitter pill for them. So, I never really recognized-- and this isn't-- well, this is part of the story, I guess, but when I work in communities now to do the things I do that involve some level, some degree of education, military culture, explaining it and getting folks to have a better understanding, I never either stopped to think about or really knew how much that lifestyle affected my kids until much later. When my youngest, Nick, who's a policeman at Memphis now, turned eighteen, he said, "I will never put my family through what you put us through," in terms of moves and resettling and new schools and all that. And, you know, I'm horrified because this is what fed and housed and clothed them for years. But in hindsight, as I considered what he said more, I could see how, you know, you can use that line that says, "military kids are so much more well-adapted." And I'm sure up to a point that's true, but I doubt it's fun for any of them. So, anyway.
01:29:38HALASKA: So, you went to graduate school, Old Dominion. Okay, and then what was your next assignment?
01:29:47WALKER: The next assignment would have been still in Norfolk as the commanding officer of the Navy's Fleet and Family Services Center for the region, and as the Navy's geographically largest fleet-intensive area, that involved five installations, so my reporting senior was the admiral at Naval Base Norfolk. So. Had a lot of social workers working with me. So, you haven't lived until you've herded social workers in one direction. [Laughs] It can be really hard to do.
01:30:29HALASKA: Tell me-- tell me about that job. Tell me what you did, what you do there, and what the mission was.
01:30:38WALKER: The easier mission, I think, was the Employee Assistance Program stuff that we did. Those programs fell under the auspices of what's known as PERS-6, which was the Fleet and Family Readiness Directorate under the Chief Naval Personnel [CNP]. I worked pretty closely with Admiral Marsh, who was the CNP's admiral in charge of all of PERS-6, to develop family advocacy programs and other programs that would-- spouse employment, transition assistance, redeployment, when families reunite after long times away from each other, you know, deployments. So, I found that work extremely rewarding personally, because I probably am a social worker at heart, too. An example, although it didn't happen in my tenure there, of how engaged they become would be when the USS Iowa had the mishap it had with using its big guns and they exploded in the guns, the ammunition. Casualties from that and responding to the blowback from that accident and its impact on families. That's where Fleet and Family Services became very involved with Casualty Assistance Officers in working with survivors and families. Um. I think a story from that time would be a couple. From working with family advocacy and families who have domestic violence going on, you get an appreciation for how that can present itself in a number of ways, to include child sexual abuse. There was a case on board Naval Base Norfolk when I was in that billet that the child died in the care of an unlicensed child care provider on the base. The base Navy has all these wickets you have to go through to provide child care on the base. She was not authorized and it was her story and it was believed was that this infant's older brother had hit him with a plastic toy and it resulted in injuries that were fatal. There was a junior lieutenant at that time on the base who, like me, didn't think the Navy did a very thorough job of looking into that. The outcome of that for the caregiver herself was a slap on the wrist and, you know, don't do that again. You're not authorized to do that. Do not do this on the base, et cetera, and that's like nothing. Meanwhile, the family was-- the sailor and his family were left to negotiate this charge. For the rest of their lives, that one child fatally injured another. Well, this caregiver, within six months, came forth with another child in her care, a youngster with a broken femur, and her story at that time was slipped and fell or something. So, when that came through, the young lawyer and I got back together and I said, you know, there was no desire on the part of senior leadership to include the judge advocate or the commander of the naval base to pursue this any further other than, how do you slap a wrist harder for doing what you were told not to do? We made a case to the senior attorney, this young lawyer and I, and basically our bottom line was, how many more times is this going to happen before somebody takes a look, you know? There was a pediatric-- a forensic pediatric guy. We advocated for exhuming the body of that first victim. And his conclusion was that the baby died of shaken baby syndrome. The break in the femur for the second child was such that it was a stick break. And ultimately, it took time for these wheels to roll clearly. I was in Navy recruiting commanding officer school when I got the word that she had been convicted and would be in jail for 20 years. So, that's probably one of the most-- as tragic as it was, one of most rewarding moments I had in the Navy was to press for that.
01:35:37HALASKA: Thank you for sharing.
01:35:43WALKER: But what's so weird, when I became the commanding officer of NRD [Navy Recruiting District] Pittsburgh, a sailor checked in to go to the recruiting station we had in Erie. And he said, "you're Commander Walker?" And I said, "yes." I said, "have we met?" And he says, "I'm the dad of that little one who doesn't have to go through his life thinking that he killed his brother." You know, I never met him, he never met me. He just knew that we had been fighting for this. So, isn't that weird?
01:36:20HALASKA: [Inaudible] Okay. What were some of the-- some changes that you saw happen while you were there?
01:36:40WALKER: In Fleet and Family Services? My impression, until I became a captain and became much more involved in the resourcing programmatic end of things, was that the value of these programs was desperately unappreciated. This may not be a fair statement to make, but when the tooth of the spear is unremittingly one way in terms of its thinking and conducting business, that doesn't leave a lot of room for the stuff that makes it work behind the scenes. This would probably be, and I ran into this when we were doing our I Am Not Invisible photo shoot and I was waiting my turn with a group of women, and we were talking about what we had done in the Navy, and I hadn't said anything. And two of them said, "well, I was just admin," and they pooh-poohed it. And I said, "I can't listen to that. So let me tell you what I think about tooth to tail, and how dull that tooth would be if it weren't for tail." [Laughs] So everything that we have done, regardless of gender, but certainly more often as women, in making sure these systems are in place, and they work, and they're consistent. And enabling folks who fight the wars to go and not worry about their families and make sure they're getting paid and addressing the needs when there's casualty assistance needs. I mean, you could go through a laundry list of fifty things that depend on what folks in that logistic tail of support provide so that folks who are at the pointy end of the spear can do their job. And those folks didn't think that way. They said to me, by the time I was done proselytizing, because I'm afraid that's really what it was, that I had given them a different appreciation for it. And I hope that's true. But I think way too many people, and my son is a good example, and I won't spend too much time of this, but his whole deal is, 'well, I wasn't in Fallujah.' So? [Laughs] You were there. You were in that combat theater. You dealt with different stuff. And I think it's a shame when folks minimalize their contributions, or what the effect of those contributions might have been on them. Because they think it is all about the guy wearing all the war fighting gear. And those are the ones who we're talking about when we talk about service in the military, and they're not the only ones by a long shot. There. Thanks for letting me say that. [Laughs] The-- I don't know, the leadership lessons certainly kept cropping up. As a department head now, I would go to the meetings with the two-star in charge of the base and wait an hour for him to come, and I found that to be the most disrespectful example of leadership I ever saw, and it could be understandable if there was an emergency going on, but this was the way he operated and it was a power play. You learn how not to be as much as you learn how to be. I think.
01:40:18HALASKA: Was he like that with everyone? Okay.
01:40:21WALKER: Just not a good thing.
01:40:24HALASKA: What were some programs that you saw either really develop or take off during your time there?
01:40:31WALKER: Probably the sexual assault victim intervention program. That developed while I was there and as it worked out because I was in that billet, I became the savvy officer for the base. The tragic part of that was-- is that at that time, and I think it's changed slowly, sometimes not at all, that if someone reported a sexual assault, they were as likely to be put in front of the skipper for administrative punishment as anyone else, for allowing themselves to get in that position. Shouldn't have been drinking, shouldn't been doing whatever. So, this was-- And I'm guilty of that. When I became the skipper of Navy Recruiting District Pittsburgh, we would do an awful lot of work with the area high schools who were very supportive. We weren't in an area where, like, so many other parts of the country, military recruiters are not welcome, or were not welcome. We were welcome where we were. And junior ROTC units in particular, I would go talk to them. There's a young woman in that program who joined the Navy and stayed in touch with me. I think I failed her. And I'll be darned if I know what the answer is. She had gotten orders to the amphibious base in Little Creek, Virginia, and called me one day in tears to say that an O-4 had sexually assaulted her. And in getting the story from her, she was living in the barracks and in a room in the barracks, so it's not like open barracks. And this O-4 offered to help her carry her laundry up to her room. Things went from there and I said, "when did this happen?" And it was over a year ago and I felt like I failed her because all I could do was in my opinion say the obvious: all you can do from this is learn. There's nothing you can't do right now. If you would have said something when it happened, that would make a difference but to do this a year later is going to become very, very difficult on you. And you've been through a lot already with it. And that's why I feel like I failed her, because she-- I'm sure she looked up to me as a mentor, and I'm sure she didn't like that answer at all. In her shoes, I wouldn't have either. It's almost like being a parent, you know, when you say we just don't live in that kind of a world. So, now you know that male lieutenant commanders are not on Earth to help a petty officer bring her laundry up from the basement. So, I just didn't know how to deal with that, and obviously it still bothers me, I still think about it. And I felt like I failed her miserably. But particularly in that day and age, and given the length of time from the incident, look how long it took her to even mention it. It would not have ended well for her, I'm absolutely sure of it.
01:44:14HALASKA: For the sexual assault reporting program that you put together, what was-- I guess, what made it different from what was already in place and how was it kind of put together to help people report?
01:44:30WALKER: It was different in that it was at least codified. Regulations and, you know, thou shalt's and checklists and so forth. So, if you needed a road map, it provided one. If you bothered to follow it. And that's where I found the dichotomy of them. You know, a lot of folks weren't prepared to follow it. The example I'll use is General Dunbar with the National Guard. [Laughs] He had all the checklists, he had all of the rules, he had all regulations, and it's 2020, and look where we are. So, this notion that commanding officers are the be-all end-all in terms of their authority when it comes to non-judicial punishment is a big deal, regardless of branch of service. And you can do a lot of stuff or choose not to do a lot of stuff in that position and that would, you know, as the first sexual assault victim intervention officer for the naval base in Norfolk, because it was a brand new set of rules, what I found is that folks were by no means ready to follow them, so-- and that was born out by years of observation, not just this is how that first year went. Does that answer that question?
01:45:58HALASKA: If you don't mind me asking how-- you said that there was years of observation. What were you able to put, I guess, pressure on anyone to have, or make adjustments to try to have them actually follow these guidelines?
01:46:17WALKER: Well, I certainly tried, and a particular effort with folks who are victims of sexual assault, you know, because for them to even say something in that environment, in a military environment, is a big, big step. Particularly, even more so for men. Imagine in a male-dominated culture, levying that charge. I'd like to think I was successful with at least a few of them in terms of helping them see their way forward to actually speaking up. I don't know if I can claim that credit. From the bureaucratic organization side, I don't think I was able to move their thinking an inch. Not with that mindset.
01:47:18HALASKA: What other-- what other programs were you running or did you put in place while you were there?
01:47:25WALKER: Spouse employment was a big deal for obvious reasons, you know, when you're yanking the kids around and they're sucking up how much they hate it until they're eighteen and they tell you. Spouses who try to have a career and want to do that in terms of their life weren't getting the support they needed in terms of opening doors for them to at least help when you have to follow a spouse around who's on active duty. So, those types of programs and their growth were a big deal, and I think we achieved some. I think that was in its early days, though, when PERS-6 was not well resourced and these missions were looked at as soft. I don't think they are. I remember being invited to the table and eventually I became the deputy PERS-6 as a captain and I remember my boss couldn't make this meeting. She was an admiral and so the mission fell to me to put together our resource justifications for these various programs and I did. I worked with it a team, we had solid justifications, we had research, you name it. And went into that budget meeting and sat there and came to be my turn and I started and he's a commentator now on CNN. John Kirby is his name. He said, "thank you very much. We've heard enough." And I'm like-- And that's how those programs were dealt with. So, he said something like, "well, you were ready to go to war here for these things." And I said, "well, yeah. And there was a lot of work put into this." So, you know, at least let me leave you the book so you can see what it is you're not going to be getting if these aren't funded.
01:49:14HALASKA: [Laughs] Do you think he read the book?
01:49:15WALKER: I think he might have looked at it.
01:49:22HALASKA: [Laughs] And then how long were you the director for Navy Fleet and Family Services?
01:49:30WALKER: Two and a half or three years.
01:49:31HALASKA: Three years. Okay. Is there anything else about your time there or the work that you did or anything like that that you wanted to discuss?
01:49:47WALKER: I probably worked more with civilians there than I worked with civilians at any other point in my career. You know, I tease and make a joke about hurting cats, you know, with social workers who have-- they're in my heart because I think deep down, I'm one too. But I think what that tour left me with, because of that amount of interplay and interaction with the civilian workforce, was how committed most of them were. A lot of them don't make a lot of money, so I guess it's enough to pay the essentials. But in no way did the income that they brought in reflect the level of commitment they brought to the work. There was no comparison. And we would get into debates about the way things should be done. And I remember a group of our social workers had put together a program for teenagers intended to help with sexual decisions and the way forward and you know, all that stuff, and it was a good program. They went through everything with me and I saw the objectives it was good it was based in you know other proven approaches and everything I said, "Well, next we'll take this to the naval base and we'll run it by legal." And they're like, "Well, you can't do that! What do you think is going to happen?" [Laughs] "Well, kids won't come if, you know, if we have to tell their parents." And I said, "well." And see, that was the dichotomy between the way they thought something should be and the way reality is, and it was always interesting that we would run into those moments because they're so well-intended. You know? I guess the other group that I just always thought a lot of was the family advocacy folks who were dealing with the child sexual predators and the egregious domestic violence cases. They really worked hard at what they did, and I think that they sustained a good friend of mine who's now passed away, ran the Family Advocacy Program as a commander at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth. I know that she and her team went out of their way to make sure that these folks were debriefed and taken care of psychologically and, you know, it still took a terrible toll on them, you know. It's a mission that had to be done and addressed with those cases resolved. Victim witness programs in full effect. So, I think those folks worked extremely hard, sometimes in a very unfriendly environment. When senior officers like the job somebody's doing for them, they don't like it when that guy's in trouble. So yeah, it really can be a very problematic environment sometimes.
01:53:18HALASKA: Did you see any-- So, with domestic abuse, did you see any major changes with that while you were there, like any changes to policy or any things coming to light or being addressed?
01:53:36WALKER: Nothing that I would call significant. I think the thing that raised the biggest hue and cry was the notion at that time that a sailor, soldier, airman, a Marine who was in trouble for domestic abuse would no longer be allowed to carry a sidearm on the base or have it in the home. Of course, everybody's got to have a weapon. So, there was not a resolution of that angst-filled discussion when I was in that position.
01:54:17HALASKA: I'm gonna pause. [Break in recording] All right, this is file two of the interview with Connie Walker. And we're just picking right back up into Navy Fleet and Family Services.
01:54:33WALKER: There was one thing I forgot to mention which would be relevant in terms of change going on at that time and there was a-- rather than every installation fight these battles, if you will, to keep these programs going, the chief of naval personnel made the decision that to regionalize these programs, to pull in assets, which would then allow you to cut some assets [laughs] and cut some personnel resources and so forth, would be the way to go with these programs in the future. So, what that meant in Hampton Roads was that the naval base itself, the amphibious base in Little Creek, the base in Dam Neck down on the other side of Virginia Beach, all those things were consolidated into one approach and one office. And there were economies that fell to big Navy in that move. So, that caused a fair amount of-- It didn't stop anything. It caused some real consternation at that time because it was clear it was more of a resource grab than anything else. But you can certainly, and I helped do it, I helped make-- Sell the case that regionalizing would standardize things and make the services that we could offer more accountable. So, that's the other side of that coin, but yeah, that was a big resource thing.
01:56:04HALASKA: Okay. Are there any other stories or details about your time there that you want to talk about before we move on to your next duty station?
01:56:19WALKER: No, I think we're good.
01:56:21HALASKA: Well, I have actually, just kind of going back, I have one question that kind of popped up in my mind. Um, working-- so you were working basically at the Pentagon during Cold War years. And maybe had your eye or ear on a lot of intelligence kind of going forward. What was-- when the Gulf War broke out, what was I guess your reaction to it or like, did you kind of see it coming? Or--
01:56:55WALKER: You know, my reaction when the Persian Gulf War broke out was that it was justified by the invasion into Kuwait. So, I felt pretty good about the mission that we had in contrast to some experiences after that. In my last tour, and I know I'm jumping around and we won't spend much time there, but in my last tours as an Inspector General for Naval Assistance Command, one of the two-star flag officers, after a meeting, asked me in his office, and it was just the two of us, what I thought of our second effort. It hadn't been too long before that that the mission accomplished picture came out. And I said, I think it's a horrible mistake. Well, I thought he had asked me. I thought this was a private conversation. What I didn't get then in his view is this, as long as I'm wearing the uniform, I better say the right thing, even if it's private conversation. So, I was instructed that this was an important move for the U.S. to make and I needed to get on board. [Both laugh] Okay. We'll take that for what it's worth
01:58:25HALASKA: Thank you. So, okay, going back to kind of our linear kind of chugging through this, what was your next duty station?
01:58:38WALKER: After that, and somewhere in here, and I can't tell you where, falls a brief stint at teaching at the Armed Forces Staff College as a faculty member. And the reason that was curtailed is because I made captain. And that's when they moved me to become the Deputy PERS-6 that you heard me refer to earlier. But I think the very next tour was as the commanding officer of NRD Pittsburgh.
01:59:05HALASKA: And what was NRD again?
01:59:07WALKER: Navy recruiting district.
01:59:10HALASKA: In the last-- one of the last conversations that we had about a year ago, you mentioned that anyone who talks about recruiting as if it's shore duty has never done recruiting. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
01:59:26WALKER: I think that-- well, it's not a think, it is a know. Pressure on recruiters is enormous. However you feel about the draft or an all-volunteer force, the fact is without a draft, the pressure to bring qualified and eligible people in, in an all-volunteer force, is enormous, particularly when you consider-- let's just take an example, the level of obesity in this country and the fact that young people have to lose weight to even be considered if they want to join the military. So, a lot of folks work on that end in the depth before they actually ship. Another example would be, in terms of the level of stress it places on not just the personnel who do this but on the families, would be the amount of time that it requires to be on the road and be out showing the flag. Recruiters are expected to be poster child images of what it means to be a male or female sailor, soldier, airman, or marine. I just think in saying that, and I remember saying it a year ago and I remember when I went through recruiting school, your evaluation as the commanding officer of the district is based on how well your district does to support Navy mission in terms of manpower accession and recruitment. You could be, what did I say, a Chesty Puller? And if you can't motivate recruiters to do their job in a ethical and legal way because some succumb to the pressure to get the job done at any cost, make it happen. And those are the ones that get us-- get in trouble. And recruiters have committed suicide on active duty in that mission because the pressure is so high. So, it's a-- in that assignment itself, coming into that district, it was at the bottom of the nation in terms of thirty-three districts nationwide in terms of recruiting performance. When I left that assignment, we were third in the nation for recruiting overall, but first in the nation for nuclear officer and nuclear enlisted recruiting, which are critical elements for the Navy. And that was-- I was very proud of that with my troops. That was important and that level of progress was significant. But the pressure was enormous.
02:02:22HALASKA: You mentioned those really amazing changes that were made during your time there. How did you guys make that happen?
02:02:33WALKER: Well, I could probably legitimately be accused of being a softy. [Laughs] The thing I think turned it around, and they had sent a [mess chief??], petty officer chief recruiter to me that had a bad reputation from other districts as being kind of a rogue kind of guy. Didn't mean he did stuff that was illegal, but he had his opinion about how things should work, as we all do. Well, we'd been struggling as a district for the first six months I was there and not making the progress I thought that we surely could, given the environment we were in with Carnegie Mellon and medical recruiting and [pit??] and nuclear recruiting, enlisteded an officer, all of those designators. I went into him to say, you know, our zone in the eastern part of Pennsylvania is consistently underperforming and that brings down the rest of the district. So, we've watched and we've tried to work with that zone supervisor long enough and it's time to find him another place. I didn't say fire him, I said find him a place where his talents will fit what we need and get somebody in there that can get that mission done. And the chief recruiter's response to me was, "well, he's the godfather to my child." [Laughs] I found out later that the legend goes that my head turned around on my neck. [Laughs] I don't care if he's Jesus himself! [Halaska laughs] So, we relieved that zone [inaudible] and found him an area that he could excel at that helped our district in terms of strategy and marketing. And that district performed and that's what got us turned around. But I found out later that my chief recruiter's nickname for me was Sybil. [Laughs] So, I used to give my recruiters a day off for their birthday, and also, they'd get a long weekend or something. And I had written a birthday card to him for that, and I signed it Sybil. He looked at me and he said, "you know?" [Laughs] So, yeah, I think that's when I cut my teeth on 'don't screw with me, leadership.' And no matter what, he was a softy, too. We had to do some traveling together. And we would take turns. He was a country western music guy, and I was Led Zeppelin. So, we would takes turns. And so, on one of our trips on comes this song, Butterfly Kisses. And he's got tears coming down his face. And I'm like, oh, my. [Laughs] So yeah, even then, it was serious business. But we had a good time. And I think that fell onto the recruiters, and so that perked them up.
02:05:23HALASKA: Yeah, how did you motivate the recruiters?
02:05:27WALKER: I think by showing up when they did. For one thing, they work some hellacious hours in terms of not just going out doing what they have to do with schools and individuals and so forth, but there's a lot of paperwork that goes along with it. So, you know, if you don't want to do that when you're bone tired at the end of the day you do it at the very beginning and you start early. And when I would do my recruiting station visits they would be there and I would come in at five in the morning and, you know, be with them. Along with I think developing an understanding of what they were doing with the books so it would be very difficult to BS me. [Laughs] So, show me this and this and they would do that and you know, my chief recruiter was very good at training me what to look for and what the flags were that you didn't want to see.
02:06:26HALASKA: What were the flags?
02:06:27WALKER: Oh, repeat visitors that would be essentially a waste of time unless something had significantly changed for them but they would be written down to give credit as a contact, which is not a effective contact, but it made the books look good. Meanwhile the mission is not being done, that kind of sort of example. As tragic as that story was, and it would never have occurred to me I'd ever meet the father who came into the district and said 'you don't know me but--' and then he went to the station in Erie. I know without being told he went to that station and told the ten recruiters who worked there this story and they decided they would work their butts off. So. I think I was on the road three weeks out of the month. By that time, the kids were doing their own thing. So, that was achievable. And what I learned from my perspective is I can be pretty introverted. And you can't be an introvert on that duty. You have to be on. And so, for that last week when I was there at the district, when we're finally pushing for permission to get it done, I would collapse for two or three days after that. I'd go to work, but I wasn't ready to talk. I was just tired. [Laughs] So, I know that that's what they went through too. I think the other piece of this that helped would be to-- I mean, I worked on developing some relationship with them in terms of their families. 'Cause families get very disappointed in this-- They're the ones who are led to believe this is shore duty. So I'm gonna see more of this individual. They need to see that you're there, and you're not just taking their home life away from them and have no respect for the fact that that's happened. Does that make sense?
02:08:35HALASKA: Yeah, yeah. Are there any interesting stories that you have about--?
02:08:44WALKER: Oh, a few. Yeah, there was a-- A man who had fought in World War II and frankly was on his deathbed in a local hospital, and was finally going to get the air medal that he was entitled to after years of his family working on this. So, the chief of Navy recruiting, who was a two-star female admiral at the time, came. And she and I got along good, you know. If my mission, if my district was doing good, she was very happy with me.[Laughs] So, she came down and we made a ceremony out of it, pinning this air medal on him and having his family present. And that was quite moving. But when we were done, I, as graciously as I could, I extricated myself from that. And the reason I was having such a hard time is I spent an awful lot of time before I ever joined the Navy in intensive care units and with my sister and my mom. And just the smell was very difficult for me to be in a hospital. To this day, it still is. And the Admiral McGann came out and said, "you know, you should have stayed in there longer." And I tried to explain to her, you know, why that was so terribly uncomfortable for me and she said, "it doesn't matter what's uncomfortable for you." So, okay! [Laughs] But yeah. So I guess in that mission-- well, I don't guess, I know-- you're not just visible to your recruiters, you're visible in the community, you know? So, and we were. We were visible with the Steelers and and the various universities and their higher degree programs and everything. So, on the other hand, I had an XO there who, bless his heart, had a certain way of doing things, and I had a bunch of junior officer recruiters who were smart and accomplished and good at their jobs, but were also a bit like little rogues. [Laughs] They all went out one night dressed in their whites, their tropical whites, and they all had on Roger's name tag, so if they got in trouble, no matter who got in trouble, it would be Roger. [Laughs] Oh, and when I found out about it, I actually saw them in their name tags, I said, "what have you done?" [Both laugh] I know. You just have to love people like that. [Both laugh] But they were very dedicated as well. I've watched from afar, I haven't stayed in touch with them, and they're all doing very well. If not in the Navy, then in the business sector.
02:11:35HALASKA: And how long were you in charge of this regional program?
02:11:39WALKER: Those-- that command bill, it was two years in length.
02:11:50HALASKA: Sounds like a long but rewarding two years.
02:11:53WALKER: Very, but that was where I had my empty nest moment, because I had screened for O5 command and I had turned it down twice, so that I could keep my kids in one place for high school, which I think is very important by that time. They called me up with these orders to Pittsburgh, and I knew nothing about Pittsburgh other than it was a steel town that had a terrible reputation and might be terribly polluted. [Laughs] And they said, "if you don't take these orders, we're taking you off the command list, and then you won't ever make captain. We can promise you that." Because, you know, that goes to a certain breed of cat. And after I asked him, you, know, "who did I tick off to get Pittsburgh?" As I sat there and realized that what that would mean is for my younger son's last six months of high school, and I'm not the first one to do this, certainly would never be the last, but to help him graduate with the kids he grew up with in that high school, I made an arrangement with a family that we were close to to have him stay with them for that six months. And in that moment, I distinctly remember this. There was nobody around but me, and I was on the bottom floor of our condo on the Chesapeake Bay before I took those orders, just crying, because I wasn't ready to let go of my son. You know, by any means, ever really. And yet, it seemed to me like there were-- There was no question that I was going to decline command. There's no question that that would happen. [Laughs] So, Sean O'Keefe came to the change of command ceremony. He was the administrator for NASA at the time, and I had met him first during that tour of duty in the Pentagon because he was engaged in business there. I was so surprised when he agreed to come and be my keynote speaker but it was such an honor to have him there. The other stuff about recruiting, you know, I mentioned the story about the young lady that looked at me as a mentor and who I disappointed so badly. I don't know, I think our training conferences were important points in time because they were opportunities to communicate two ways and it wasn't just transmit. So, I think that that helped.
02:14:24HALASKA: What were the training conferences?
02:14:26WALKER: Just we would have those twice a year for the district. And that district covered most of the state of Pennsylvania, a little part of Western New York, a good share of Maryland, and some of West Virginia. So, we'd hold conferences twice a year, one on one side of the state and one on the other. And they were to make sure that everybody was up on whatever new rules were coming up with, say, the forked tongue. [Laughs] Or accession goals that were changing. Nuclear recruiting didn't change much because the numbers, they were always very high, and the need for them was always very high. But there were certain other specialties that would have some ebb and flow in the need. So, you always had to make sure that folks were aware of that so you didn't go in one day and think you had it wired, and in fact you were concentrating in the wrong place. So ,yeah. And family members would come to that. We would have a social event at night, and I know it was good to include them.
02:15:40HALASKA: Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about with recruiting?
02:15:50WALKER: No, just that Pittsburgh was a great city. I was totally disabused when I went there. I thought it was beautiful. I lived across the street in what was the train station for the Pennsylvania Railroad long before, that was converted into apartments. And it was called the Pennsylvanian. And the federal building was right across the street from it, so I would walk to work when I wasn't on the road. And the security guard there always brought me tomatoes and cucumbers whenever and they were like, bags of these, "you need these, lieutenant." [Laughs] It was a good tour, yeah.
02:16:27HALASKA: Wonderful. All right, so what was your next assignment?
02:16:36WALKER: I think that was-- I made captain. Had that brief stint at the staff college as a faculty member, and then went to PERS-6 as a deputy commander underneath a one-star female admiral. I found that challenging because although the decision was made at CMP [continuous monitoring program] to bring me into that billet, all the department heads were full captains and I was a commander, I was on the list, but it was going to be a little while before I could put on that rank. There is an exception that's made that will put you in that rank without the pay so that you can work as an effective equal among folks in that situation, and the decision was made not to do that, which is sort of like knee-capping you when you go in. So, the first, I would say, six months of that assignment was challenging for that reason. And frankly I found it difficult to work with my boss. Never had a female--
02:17:49HALASKA: The one-star?
02:17:50WALKER: Yeah, yeah. That was my first experience with a female reporting senior. And I'm not laying at the feet of being female, but we looked at things in different ways. It was-- I remember when the USS Cole was hit, and that was on my birthday in 2001. The day after that, she excused herself from that operation in terms of our mission as casualty assistance. PERS-6 ran the casualty assistance program for the Navy and those soft programs you heard me refer to earlier. So all of that policy development, all the programming associated with that and casualty assistance, fell under her auspices as the deputy chief of naval personnel. The day after that happened, she decided to go into the hospital for elective surgery on both feet and it toppled her and she was out of the action with me as a commander in an O-6 billet trying to make this system work for well over a month. And you do what you have to do, and it certainly got done. But what I remember from that period of time, because it was twenty-four-hour operations for a while, for over a week initially, it started to get quiet after Clinton went to the ceremony in Norfolk to be with the families, but I think I'd been up for three days doing this stuff and we were watching the news updates on it and I excused myself to go to a private room and the pastor who ran chaplain programs for the Navy, because he fell in that directory, followed me in and I was crying and he said, "Well, I know this is awful. Are you okay?" And I said-- some of those casualties were from Pennsylvania, and I put them in the Navy, you know? I know I did. [Getting emotional] That was hard. [Pause] He said, "you know, skipper, you're not the bad guy. Those are the bad guys." But I've never really had to attach what I did for a living to that before. So, I guess, I don't know, I guess I kind of lost my-- can you be naive and be a captain? [Laughs] But I guess I was, sort of. I remember in Officer Candidate School, the first time I had to shoot a .45 at a target. I'm like, 'I'm not doing this!' That's what makes it so weird that I was in for as long as I was. This is the person that my friends all say to me, 'I can't believe you did that.' That was hard. He took me out, he had to [inaudible] out the convertible, he says, "we need to get you out of here." He took me out in that convertible and it was a decent day. Just drove fast with the top down for a while, and then I went back to work.
02:21:20HALASKA: Sounds like a good chaplain.
02:21:21WALKER: Mm-hm.
02:21:23HALASKA: If you don't mind talking about it a little bit more, what were some of the really important services that you are providing during that time for the USS Cole and their family and the survivors?
02:21:43WALKER: Coordinating the primary and next-of-kin notifications. We didn't necessarily do that directly by assigning officers, but we certainly worked with the command to make sure that that mission was taken care of from soup to nuts for casualty assistance. That was probably the hardest thing because some of the injuries from that were egregious as well, which is its own set of things you need to know to get things set up right for the possible eventuality of death or permanent disability. Working with the families at that point is so important. If you're not credible and know what you're doing from the minute you begin to work on it, it's a very bad thing, which is sort of, you know, I was very lucky because the casualty assistance O-6 that ran that department was a submariner and extremely thorough and knew what he was doing, and he made what would have been my deficiencies as someone new coming into PERS-6, who's not even in the appropriate rank structure yet, he made my life a hell of a lot easier because he was good and wasn't in the game to make himself look good. He was in it to do the job right.
02:23:07HALASKA: Do you remember his name?
02:23:09WALKER: I will at midnight.
02:23:11HALASKA: Okay, you can call me and give it to me later, it's fine. Were there any other, I guess, standout people in your staff during that time?
02:23:26WALKER: I think the chaplain was one. He spent a lot of time with folks who were in the same mode as I was. But they felt like they could maybe have a cry moment together, and I didn't want anyone to see that. I know he reached out very proactively and often to folks on the East Coast in terms of chaplaincy involvement there because that was his program. I remember giving a briefing to the chief of naval personnel, and that's always a three-star. There had been so many three-stars in and out. It wasn't just CMP coming into this environment for briefings. It was a range of them because this was an act of war and they all wanted to be seen as responding aggressively and coming into PERS-6 and Casualty Assistance was all part of it. Well, I got-- I got so wrapped around by whichever three-star was coming in next that I actually introduced one by another name. [Laughs] You know, to his credit, he never said a word to me, he just scowled at me, [laughs] and it was after he left that I knew I had done that. So, there was a lot of visibility attached to that tour at that point in time. The other stuff was, as I mentioned earlier, the resourcing piece to make sure that those programs, all of them, those soft programs, were as resourced as you could fight for them to be. I was always troubled, I think, by the relationship or lack of one that I had with the only female boss I ever had in the Navy. I don't know. I ultimately asked to be moved to a different position working as the Chief of Staff for the Navy Recruiting Command and was supported in that request and I worked for a two-star submarine admiral to finish up that time in Millington. That's where all this happened, in Tennessee. Which, you know, my recruiting background served me very well and he was a brilliant man so I just try to keep up and he too had a leadership style that I admired.
02:26:13HALASKA: I'm going to pause. Short. [Break in recording] All right, today is January 30th, 2020, and this is the third file in the interview with Constance A. Walker. So, last time we left off, you were just leaving PERS-6, and there were a few things that you wanted to add.
02:26:39WALKER: Welcome back, Rachelle. It's good to see you.
02:26:41HALASKA: Thank you. It is good to you as well.
02:26:42WALKER: And I can't believe we're in our third file. I mean, wow. [Both laugh] I wanted to cover because I sort of forgot. I mentioned that I only had one boss in the Navy that was a female. I actually had two. Admiral McGann was my reporting senior when I was the commanding officer of Navy Recruiting District Pittsburgh. I really liked her because if things were going well in the district, and they mostly did, she left me alone. So I never thought of her as someone that I had to figure out how to do more for. She seemed very happy with the district's performance. And the only point of departure we ever had was when I was in with her helping pin on an air medal, and I think I covered that story.
02:27:36HALASKA: Yes.
02:27:37WALKER: And that was when she said, you know, you need to suck this up and not let your bothering past life with hospitals bother you right now. And I understood her perspective on that entirely.
02:27:52HALASKA: Excellent. And where did you go after PERS-6?
02:27:59WALKER: After PERS-6, I became the Chief of Staff for Navy Recruiting Command, also headquartered in Millington. My boss there was a two-star submarine admiral.
02:28:09HALASKA: Okay. And what was your-- what was the mission of your unit and what were your duties there?
02:28:19WALKER: Recruiting command headquarters really oversees all the districts in the nation. At that time, as I recall, there were thirty-three of them. There were five recruiting regions, so each recruiting region had a certain number of districts that reported to it. So, that was the level of echelons of that particular command. And the commanding officer of Navy Recruitting Command is a two-star flag officer, reported directly to CNP, Chief of Naval Personnel, with a dotted reporting line to the Chief of Naval Operations. So because of the importance of that accession and recruiting accession and retention mission in the depth, that was the reason for that high-focused chain of command. The job of the chief of staff is pretty much like any chief of staff job: keep things running as smoothly as possible, ensure communications are what they should be between department heads and the regional commanding officers and word getting out to the districts in the way that the admiral would want. Listening in on a lot of phone calls with CMP or CNO just to take notes and make sure the adminal didn't miss anything. So, I don't know, there was always a lot of interaction, which was fine. Some writing. The admiral had a full staff, so we had a flag writer and a couple of other minions, so it wasn't just me. The deputy commander of Navy Recruiting Command was a senior executive service civilian, who I had known in my life as a skipper of a recruiting district, so that working dynamic was pretty cordial, and it worked really well.
02:30:04HALASKA: Excellent.
02:30:06WALKER: It was in that time that 9/11 happened, and I remember as things unfolded with the Twin Towers, the admiral was in New York at that time, actually on the western side of the state, near Buffalo and Erie. I remember the front office staff, like everyone else, could not quit looking. It was unfolding on the television, you know, between New York and the Pentagon. I remember watching the whole evolution with them twice and then going back to my office and speaking with the admiral on the phone because aircraft have, as you recall, completely shut down for three days, if I remember right. He desperately wanted to get back to Millington. So, that was his drive in a car to begin. And I remember after having watched that twice and going back in my office thinking, the next thing to do is to get in touch with the regional commanders in the district so they know what to do or what not to do next. When people talked about continuity of operations plans back then, strictly, at least in echelon commands that were not inside the beltway in Washington, our thought in that regard was generally limited to acts of God, like hurricanes and floods and earthquakes. So, the continuity of operations for a terrorist incident was new in everybody's vocabulary in terms of on our soil. So, getting in touch with the regional commanders, and as needed the district commanders was important, having some guidance come down from CNRC that says 'we're all shut down for three days, wait till you hear from us before you decide what to do next.' That became-- that level of communication and hearing back from them became really important. So, it was just a-- As for everyone, a time that fluctuated between disbelief and infinite sadness that this would happen on our soil. So, again, when things quieted down, focusing on a continuity of operations plan now that included this possibility became a real focus of an additional duty for the chair that I had to make sure there was something that the region and the districts and headquarters could all mutually live with. For that tour of duty, that's probably the thing that stands out most in my mind, is that incident, just as it would with anyone else. Other than to say, I thought recruiting command headquarters were some of the finest people I had worked with in recruiting. I know I'm prejudiced about almost every assignment I've had, saying it's that way, but these were from the military officer recruiting end of it to the specialized designator enlisted MOS recruitings, those folks were true professionals and knew what they were doing and understood the importance of not just accession, but delayed entry program management and what it really meant to make that worthwhile. So, it was good to work with folks like that. It made it so much easier.
02:33:55HALASKA: Okay, excellent. Is there anyone in particular that you wanted to talk about during your time there who really stood out?
02:34:15WALKER: Two of them, and they were both of my bosses. George Voelker was the flag officer in charge and a brilliant man. My first couple months there, I thought, I will never fit in here. I can't keep up with him. [Laughs] So, a lot of math involved in recruiting. A lot of calculations. I won't say algorithms, even though they're in there. I know that. That was just way beyond my capacity to start to put together, but his grasp of what was required to make the accession mission and the communications that were required with CMP and CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] when there were things to consider in recruiting land across the nation that they didn't necessarily think about, he stood fast against, and I respected him very much for it. This idea that the Navy needed a NASCAR and we needed to be out in NASCAR land every time there was a race. The Air Force had one, the Marine Corps had one, the Army had one and the CNO and he just went head to head about it. He says, "if you fund me for a NASCAR, I'll be glad to have it and be excited to push it, but if you want me to pull it out of my own operational budget, I will not do it." And you have to respect that. And that's a two-star telling the chief of naval operations no, and you have to respect that. And the operating funds were never increased to do that. Ultimately, the Navy did have a car, but it wasn't under his watch.
02:35:58HALASKA: Okay. Someone else caved.
02:36:01WALKER: Exactly, good word. The other guy I respected so much was the senior executive service. Last I knew he was the president or CEO of the Navy Federal Credit Union, but his name is Scott Slocum, and he retired as a Navy captain. Recruiting can get awfully intense at every level. I mentioned this before. It's not like it's shore duty. And it got just as intense at the headquarters level sometimes as it did in the field. His demeanor was perfect, I mean, in terms of keeping everybody focused in the same direction, but not letting it become dysfunctional, because with that much pressure and tension in that particular type of environment, it becomes easy to, I think, start to sag a little bit under it, and tempers can get a little short, and maybe people get a little myopic and he just never let that happen. That's what I mean when I say he made my job much easier. So, those two folks stick out in my mind.
02:37:14HALASKA: How did you see-- I mean, at the headquarters level and otherwise, how did you see recruiting change after 9/11?
02:37:30WALKER: This would be after-- changes took time. They were not revolutionary. They were evolutionary. But what I noticed following that tour, when I would check back in on Navy recruiting, not on any particular person, just wondering what the new motto was, at the time I was in recruiting command, 'Army of One' was the Army's motto. And I just thought, what is that? Army of One is in one of my slideshows, and there's a-- that I do as a community presentation, just as an aside. It's a picture of a young veteran who's homeless, sleeping on the street, and he's wearing a sweatshirt, and on the back of it, it says 'Army of One.' So, I'm not sure where that whole notion gets anyone, but-- so anyway, in terms of how recruiting changed after that, I think-- I think, not that you could prove it by me, that how each service dealt with its delayed entry program became more stringent. The Marine Corps has always been famous for having a tight delayed entry program. They work very closely with their Deppers [people in delayed entry program] so that they don't lose them in between the time they're sworn in, and at MEPS, and the time that they actually ship out to boot camp. The other services weren't that tight with them, and so some attrition would happen. I think the other part of the change was that before 9/11, the only service that counted attrition against the recruiting mission was the Marine Corps. So, if you lost someone who had been in the delayed entry program, that was a number that was added to your recruiting mission again, so you had to-- You had to pick up another number. They took it very seriously for that reason. And I think, I'm not swearing on a Bible, but I think that after 9/11, recruiting evolved to the point where an understanding of that type of operation became more apparent in terms of how the other services conducted business. Because it was a more stringent and very important to keep boots on the ground, especially in this all-volunteer force.
02:39:57HALASKA: And how long were you in that chief of staff position?
02:40:01WALKER: Just under two years.
02:40:02HALASKA: Two years. Okay.
02:40:05WALKER: And I think the role of the National Garden Reserve became paramount after that, of course. Because they were the ones that were being mobilized very quickly. Because to recruit an all-volunteer force from A to Z takes time. And so you needed a force that could be mobilized fast, and that was the [inaudible] reserve.
02:40:28HALASKA: Um, did you see-- I mean, it wasn't directly after 9/11 that we necessarily mobilized everyone. There was a bit of a gap, but did you see that there was just a push for more numbers?
02:40:43WALKER: Mm-hm. Definitely.
02:40:44HALASKA: Um, and-- Okay.
02:40:45WALKER: Yup. Push for more numbers, a lot more incentivization to join. Retention bonuses. And then as the war dragged on, of course, this would all have happened after I retired. I retired in 2005. It was right around that time, if not a little bit later, that all of a sudden programs like stop loss began to take over, which were, even if your enlistment period was up and you wanted to leave, you were in a stop-loss mode and couldn't leave until later. So, there were all kinds of manpower and accession changes because of what happened.
02:41:34HALASKA: Are there any other stories or anything else about that time in your life? So, around 2000, 2001, and during your time in that position that you wanted to discuss?
02:41:53WALKER: No, I think what tempered that the most was 9/11 and how sobering everything became after that. So, it was a different--
02:42:04HALASKA: Can you tell me about that sobering experience?
02:42:06WALKER: It changed the climate, just like it changed the climate of the entire country. Recruiting has always been very serious business, that's why it's not considered shore duty as such. But if you can be even more so, it was more so.
02:42:32HALASKA: Did you see, as you said, there was just this difference in climate, but how did it affect officers and people who have been through mostly peacetime in their careers, but now are kind of thrown into this time of war?
02:42:52WALKER: Well, it's tough to see from that environment, because you're sitting in Millington, Tennessee, in the middle of the country. My impression at that time is that everyone stepped up fully, and then some. But I also think that without the benefit of hindsight that we now have, there was an impression that this was not going to be a long thing or a big deal. You know, get in there, get it done, and get out. Along the lines of mission accomplished on the carrier deck. So, I think there was, if naivete is the right word, certainly a lack of understanding of what this really would entail.
02:43:41HALASKA: Where-- where did you go after that position?
02:43:46WALKER: After that I became, and this was after a conversation with a three-star admiral whom I also respect very much, Pat Tracey. By taking myself out of the career line that I had been in for some time and had done well in, I was taking myself out of of a flag officer contention, if that was ever in my brain to want to try for that, which it really wasn't.
02:44:15HALASKA: What's flag officer?
02:44:17WALKER: Admiral. So, I had made captain and the others had told me this was good and I was on a solid track and I needed to live with my husband. I had remarried and we hadn't had a chance to live together yet and I got a call from a friend of mine who said, "you know, the inspector general position at Naval Air Systems Command," which is where my husband worked, "is open. Would you be interested?" I called up Admiral Tracey and said, "this is pretty important to me. The Navy's going to end. With luck, my husband's the rest of my life." She said, "you do what you're thinking about doing, I know what you are thinking about doing." It's an interesting thing about her. To the best of my knowledge, never married, the Navy was her life. So, for folks who don't necessarily want that, and I loved the Navy, it was very good to me for a long time, but I wanted more too. So I took those orders to become the Inspector General at Naval Air Systems Command and live with my husband, which was great. I actually dug some roots in Leonardtown, Maryland, which I'd never had roots before. We stayed there for quite a while after I retired in 2005. But I've said to others, and I don't mind saying it here, what I saw as an IG, if I had seen these types of things earlier in my career in the Navy, I probably would not have stayed in as long as I did. It was eye-opening in terms of what I would call a level of corruption, frankly. Inspectors general don't do criminal investigations, we do administrative investigations and quality assurance evaluations and internal controls and audits and stuff with DOD audit command and others. And if anything pops up that looks like it's crossed that line between administrative and NCIS or FBI, then we make sure to turn over everything we have to the appropriate agency and then we're done with it. The interesting thing about the Navy's idea of-- and this is something I learned within the first three or four months and I'll go to my grave believing it. In the Army, the inspector general chain of command is a designator of itself. You don't work for the commanding officer of the installation where you're stationed. You work for the Army IG. That's substantially different. The Army IGs either got your back or doesn't. And if you're doing your job, hopefully he or she does. But they're the ones who write your fitness report, not the CO of the installation or the systems command, as I was in, that you're reporting on or investigating. So, this was one-- I brought this point up to the Navy IG in Washington at one point, and I said," you know, in my view, it would be a good idea to consider looking at changing how Navy does business," because when you're reporting on operations at Naval Air Systems Command and your boss is the three-star who runs the Naval Air Systems Command, that's what I would call a conflict of interest. [Laughs] So this line is engraved in my brain: "Well, you've given me a lot to think about." I mean, that--[Both laugh] Yeah, you've given me a lot to think about. That's right up there with 'you go, girl.' You know, just irritates the heck out of me. Just like, what is it? 'It is what it is.' It's like, there's nothing you can do. That's three of my awful buzz phrases right there. So anyway, that was enlightening. I remember distinctly it was a program, the presidential helicopter program, and there was a captain in the program that referred to 93 million dollars as chump change in a meeting and I just came out of my chair and said, "This is why we have the issues we do and why defense budgets are so out of sight." Accountability means-- I was livid, you know? 93 million dollars. What could be done with that? So much. And another captain, a fellow captain, thought it was chump change, and it didn't raise the heckles on anybody's neck but mine. So, interesting tour.
02:49:14HALASKA: Why do you think that is?
02:49:16WALKER: I think the money is so big when you start talking DOD. I think it's just so big that it feels like Monopoly money to them. And coming from a background of fighting for basically employee assistance programs which were being cut as irrelevant, that made it even worse for me. So, I don't know, that was pretty much how I viewed that job. When you're an IG, and I'm a fairly-- as much as I can be an introvert, I really don't want people to actively dislike me or avoid me. And when you're an IG, you don't have many friends, which is fine, but my hope was always that as an IG, I was looked at as much as a white hat as a black one. There to help, not just to figure out who's doing wrong and instill some accountability. But I don't know. It was a-- And yet saying this about my tour, and I'm sure it sounds like I didn't like this assignment as much as I cared for many others that I had. It is probably the assignment that stood me in the best stead when I retired, because it taught me where to look for things, especially in big systems. For example, the VA [Veterans Affairs] would be a huge system. Department of Health and Human Services or Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration. These are very big, robust systems. And being an IG taught me where to lift the lid to say and direct attention to places that otherwise you wouldn't have known to ask about. You get a real understanding after, you know, essentially growing up in the Navy of the value of the chain of command. The IG tour was really the finesse piece of that, which is you can move pretty quickly through a chain of command once you figure out that you don't have to give them forever to do the right thing. You then do the next thing, because they've had enough time. So that was a really good tour, and I would never have understood it at the time, but when my son came back from Iraq, it quickly became apparent to me that I had picked up skills that I would not have otherwise had, that I needed in order to be his advocate and as it turned out an advocate for others.
02:52:22HALASKA: Excellent. And I want to get to that point in a minute after your retirement and everything. I did want to ask a little bit more about your inspector general tour. Just kind of a little bit more general. Did you get any special training as to what that position was? And can you tell me a little bit about that?
02:52:48WALKER: Not unlike recruiting. You know, there's a recruiting commanding officer school in Pensacola, Florida. Yes, there is an IG school in Washington, D.C., which is where the Navy IG is located in the Navy Yard.
02:53:01HALASKA: Was it only Navy or was it joint?
02:53:03WALKER: It was only Navy. So, certainly yes, there was education and training that went along with it, along with periodic get all the IGs together from throughout the Navy for some degree of lessons learned.
02:53:21HALASKA: What were some valuable lessons that were learned at those when people kind of came together? [Phone rings] Do you want me to pause?
02:53:30WALKER: Would you mind? [Recording stops]
02:53:35HALASKA: Okay, the question that I just asked was during your-- when all the IGs got together and what were some of the lessons that were learned? What were some important things that you learned when you were together?
02:53:51WALKER: I think one of the important ones I learned, and I hope I helped convey this lesson too, we did a lot in partnership with the Navy Audit Service and occasionally the DOD IG. I always thought, and will always believe, that a solid line of communications with the agencies with the same mission, even though we may be focusing on different aspects of the investigative mission, for example. That cooperation and information exchange is really important to the larger picture, the comprehensive picture. And I think a danger that happened, that I saw happen with other IGs, I think, was that they looked at what they were doing as very siloed. In fact, there were more resources to draw on to better inform conclusions than what they would necessarily bring into their consideration.
02:54:58HALASKA: What kinds?
02:55:00WALKER: Well, Navy Audit Service, I think, is the example I use as a joint strike fighter. This was not a new program, but certainly not as old as it is now, when I was an IG. And I was surprised to learn that at that time, it did not have its own internal control program. And I know that just the phrase makes people's eyes roll into the back of their head, internal controls, oh my lord. Just let me take my nap now. But in fact it's a part of checks and balances and how you make sure that multi-billion dollar programs don't become more expensive than they have to be. That was, in my mind, a very good example of taking an IG look at a program and saying, you don't even have the basics here for an IG to take a look at when we start talking about internal reviews, much less Navy audit service and other partners in that discipline. So, that was one example. It's probably the best one I can think of. But probably another example would be that one I used about the presidential [helo??] program where the guy referred to 93 million dollars as chump change. It's just a careless attitude, and that's probably not the right word. It's an unappreciative attitude, certainly. And I think that when voices unite in that regard, like maybe audit service and IG, and on the criminal side of the house, NCIS and others, when that voice is united, you may have a chance of getting someone's attention that's in a position to say we expect more in terms of our management of our acquisition programs. I don't see DOD's budget being cut. I see it being expanded a lot. I also see money being allocated for that mission that's drawn out with no authority and put into another mission. So, rather than have it become a slush fund, this type of mission, the IG mission, the Navy audit mission, and having them be taken seriously is critically important.
02:57:43HALASKA: And what do you-- and I apologize if you already kind of answered this just now, what would be, I guess, the most important things for the IG and the Navy audit service to be taking seriously?
02:58:03WALKER: In this day and age right now, one of the things that I think would be most important would be to protect appropriated funds. They were appropriated and allocated the way they were for a reason and approved by Congress. Actions to move what are really fenced funds without congressional oversight and approval are simply wrong. That's what I mean when I say the audit service or the Navy IG or any oversight agency. This all goes to the checks and balances issue, I think. But they have to be defended vigorously by the folks who are in those roles and taken seriously by folks who oversee them.
02:59:13HALASKA: You mentioned during your time as IG you've learned where to look for things in these bigger organizations. Can you give me an example of a place that you learned to look and kind of how you got there?
02:59:30WALKER: I think a specific example from my time as an IG would be the fast track and grooming of an individual in the IT arm of the organization to become a senior executive service when there were a couple of indicators outside of professional hours, but that were brought to the attention that involved civil law enforcement authorities and so forth. Once you're privy to that type of information, at least during my time as the IG with the team that I had, which I thought was excellent, then it was a question of saying, I want you to match up some travel expenses to dates and places and times, and meetings attended and so forth. And that's the lid that you're lifting, and those things didn't line up. So, that was one of those times when from the administrative side of the house, someone who'd been on a very fast track and was a golden-haired child of the three-star that ran the place, didn't make it to the party. [Laughs] But I guess that's what I mean by knowing where to lift the lid.
03:01:07HALASKA: Okay, and with that, so you mentioned a lot that you were looking at basically large amounts of money as an IG, but also it sounds like that almost had a more like a fraud kind of issue, right? So, fraudulent kind of paperwork and those kind of things. What were the-- you said there's issues with civil law enforcement? What was--?
03:01:31WALKER: Well, once, of course, there's always a police blotter, and that's part of what you look at every day. [Laughs] So, yeah, when you see a name on the police blotter a couple of times that has pretty high visibility in the command that you're working in, that's when you start to pull on some threads and see if there's more to this.
03:01:50HALASKA: Oh, okay. So if basically you're breaking a law over here, you're probably breaking it over here too.
03:01:56WALKER: Maybe.
03:01:57HALASKA: Okay, so. Alright.
03:02:01WALKER: It was an interesting tour for a lot of reasons. There was a small business administration focused case, minority owner that ultimately was transferred to the FBI. And fraud was the driver. It was beyond our scope to do anything more than what we did, which was just to find out that this was happening and contracts were being steered. But once that's known, that's beyond our purview. So, yeah, interesting tour.
03:02:38HALASKA: Do you have any-- so, I know you said you're kind of viewed as a black hat by the people that you are overseeing in a lot of ways. Were there, I guess, ways that people either avoided you or tried to, I guess, hide information in certain ways that kind of, like, 'don't do that, I know you're going to do that' or something like that?
03:03:10WALKER: Well, I think some of the two things I just cited had that involved in it. You always have to know the right question to ask, because if you ask it, they'll probably answer it truthfully, but if you don't think to ask it, then they don't have to answer. And that was a fine point that I learned over time. Nobody's going to volunteer anything. I'm trying to think of an example where somebody was happy to see to see the IG come in, you know? And I think when that happened, those were usually human resource type cases where someone felt that the system had neglected them in some way or overtly abused them in some way, and when the IG would step into those cases, if those could be verified and a fix could be made, then the IG is the white hat, at least for some.
03:04:12HALASKA: Do you have an example of that that you can give me?
03:04:18WALKER: Not a specific one, other than to say that of the two or three that come to mind, they were all over human resource issues, EEO [equal employment opportunity] stuff.
03:04:31HALASKA: And you said you were working with a team. Tell me a little bit about your team.
03:04:36WALKER: Well, talk about an interesting group. The investigators were-- one of them had been an investigator for a very long time and would come to our staff meetings with earphones on his head, dark glasses on, and his arms folded. [Laughs] And I took him aside and said, "don't need to come into these meetings. I'm not going to catch you up, and I'm not going to let anybody else catch you up. You're going to miss some stuff, but if you come in with headphones on and dark glasses and your arms folded, you're telling me something." [Laughs]
03:05:14HALASKA: Was he Navy or--?
03:05:17WALKER: Civilian.
03:05:18HALASKA: Okay. [Laughs]
03:05:19WALKER: Yeah. I think he'd probably just been around too long, but that doesn't mean he was bad at his job. He was just like this, you know. And he came in appropriately the next time we met. So, then there was another one there who I'm still in touch with to this day. An he's an excellent interrogator. I'm probably using the wrong word, but before you know it, people were telling him what he was asking for, and he was very good at it. But he was so intense. I mean, you just had to realize that was part of his nature, too.
03:05:59HALASKA: Did you notice, did he have, um-- did you ever get to like, watch him interrogate?
03:06:03WALKER: Once. And he did a great job. He wasn't intimidating. He brought people out of themselves and then he started to connect some dots that you would have to see that could be connected to get a different answer or another answer, a little bit more of a nuance. He was very good at it. I worked an awful lot in that assignment with the Navy Reserve folks because we would do inspections of various commands that are under NAVAIR's [Naval Air System Command] purview. So, that would involve a TAD [temporary additional duty] to Japan or to NAVAIR's site at China Lake, which is on the west coast. We took a team of reservists out to Atsugi, Japan, and had done the inspection. They did a wonderful job, brought me the report for my last review of it, and it was ready to go. All I had to do was say yes. And at the bottom of every page where it says official use only, they had left the I, a second I out of official, so it said "offical." [Laughs] "I'm sorry, you have to redo this whole thing," and they're like, "oh, Captain, no, yeah, we're not turning this in." [Laughs] Yeah, that was pretty funny.
03:07:22HALASKA: What was Japan like? What was your time there?
03:07:26WALKER: Really interesting. I think the unit had a great time there. The function of NAVAIR that we were inspecting was very professional and hospitable, so brought some things back from there that my grandchildren still have. It was a good visit. The visit to NAWCWD, Naval Air Weapons Division in China Lake, involved an opportunity for a horseback ride and a hike into the canyons that are covered with petroglyphs. Along with all the stuff we did with work, there was always cool stuff to do. So, yeah.
03:08:15HALASKA: Is there any other kind of incidents or anything going on with IG at this time that you wanted to talk about?
03:08:32WALKER: I was hardened when the intelligence IG did what he did in taking the whistleblower's concern and doing his level of investigation and saying there's merit here. And I think that the language that that brought forth and the fact that it was the Inspector General gives credence to the importance of the inspector general role, so at least it did in my mind.
03:09:03HALASKA: Can you tell me a little bit more about this incident? Like what--
03:09:08WALKER: Oh, now I'm talking current time, current day, yeah. This is when the whistleblower turned in the phone call concern. So, yeah. And the intelligence IG is the one that took it, did his investigation and said-- and brought it forward and said there's merit to this. Made me proud to be a former IG.
03:09:40HALASKA: Okay, so during-- let's talk about during that time period, from 2000, and when did you start this again? It was between 2005 and--?
03:09:53WALKER: I retired in 2005. So it would have been 2002.
03:09:58HALASKA: 2002 to 2005? Okay. Is there anything else that was kind of going on in your life between those two times that you want to discuss besides the job?
03:10:10WALKER: I was still on active duty when Mike came back from-- He went over when we staged in Kuwait to do the invasion of Baghdad. So, I was still on active duty when he came back. He was medically retired in 2004. And I didn't leave the Navy and retire from it until February of 2005. So, there was that going on with my trying to understand what I was dealing with in terms of what he came back with, so.
03:10:49HALASKA: What was it like as a member of military forces, but also as a mother to-- when did Michael join?
03:11:01WALKER: 2000, so before 9/11. Well before it. So, I don't know. It's a-- When he came back and I learned what was involved in physical evaluation boards and decision rendering from those agencies and how that worked. I was astonished at how challenging I found it as a captain in the Navy with all the experience I'd had in making the systems work. They don't necessarily all talk to each other. The connectivity between civilian, military, and VA [Veterans Affairs] systems just isn't there. So, on active duty, it probably didn't hurt at that time in terms of how Michael's case was handled that I was on active duty as an IG, so I'm sure it didn't hurt.
03:12:33HALASKA: So, with-- you said with how decisions were made and things like that, what were some examples of that, I guess, that you found problematic?
03:12:47WALKER: There was-- And this is not unusual, Yale University has done a pretty big study on this, this whole notion that for a very long time, for expediency's sake, the military was taking folks who had come back from Afghanistan or Iraq with issues and administratively separating them without physical health evaluations, without mental health evaluations. And for folks who didn't understand how the system should work, that left, I would say, hundreds of thousands of young men and women in a very bad spot in terms of being able to access the help they need after military service There was an effort made to do that with my son. His unit was at Fort Story with the Headquarters unit at, um-- oh gosh, I'll think of it in a minute. I won't bore you with it. Anyway, I remember getting a phone call from my executive assistant as the IG. I was out on TAD and she said, "we're hearing from a phone call that was made, and they left a message for you, that they're getting ready to discharge your son right now from the Army." And I called up the brigade command level, not the battalion or anything lower, and I said, "you know, this is what I do for a living and I know how things are supposed to work. So, you can continue on this track and there will be a Navy IG to Army IG question waiting for you and the answer is expected starting tomorrow. Or you can stop this action right now and do what needs to be done with a physical health exam and a mental health exam. Just do it the right way." And they did it the right way. They stopped and did it the right way. How many parents could have done that? So, I support people. So, is that a good example? I think it is.
03:15:00HALASKA: Yeah. I guess we'll just go right into your retirement and what you've-- What was going on directly after your retirement.
03:15:19WALKER: Well, Mike was very sick at that time, doing much better now. Rural southern Maryland is where Naval Air Systems Command is. If you're not an engineer or in the military there, you're kind of on the economy. Lots of Amish folks and Mennonites. So, this notion that you're sixty miles away from Washington, well, that's two and a half hours when you get behind a horse and buggy. [Laughs] So I found, and carried that mantra for a long time, that in rural and highly rural areas, and that's what southern Maryland was, this is the focus. That was not even getting lost, it hadn't even been recognized yet, for men and women coming back from military duty, combat duty. From recruiting days, when you consider at least at that time that nearly fifty percent of the folks that we recruited, if not a little more, come from rural and highly rural areas, and when they leave, they're not going to New York City, they are going back to where they came from. And if the resources aren't there, or the partnerships, community partnerships, in place to at least broaden access to resources that are there, the ones who are losing are men and women coming back from these conflicts. So, I don't mean to ramble, and I feel like maybe I am on that question, but um-- That was something I saw very quickly. Mike needed appropriate mental health resources. And they were not available in southern Maryland. So, we went through the evolution as much as we could with having a move to a place where they would be more available, up in Frederick, Maryland. There isn't, what I would call at that time, and I can't say how much there is now, I know what I think, this whole notion of cultural competency. If you served in the military and come back with any one of a number of things going on, military sexual trauma for example, or traumatic brain injury, or as a combat amputee, and what that entails. Say what you will, but I think that without a baseline of cultural competency for what it means to be in the military, folks who are not in the VA system of care in terms of being providers and so forth, don't know what questions to ask, don't know what dynamics they're going to encounter in working with this population, which has been steeped all its life in 'I don't need help, I'm fine.] It's all about the unit, it's not about me, you know. And that's a big wall to get through when you start trying to work with folks who need help. So, that's what really got me started on this thing of advocacy and outreach for veterans and families, writ large, not just in my own family.
03:19:09HALASKA: When did you make kind of the, I guess, transition from being a sole advocate for Michael and kind of expanding to more general advocacy?
03:19:22WALKER: It didn't take very long at all. I sort of cut my teeth on how badly things worked when I was still on active duty. So, it's not like I still needed time to learn [laughs] once I retired. And I remember to this day giving a community awareness presentation about the rural piece of all this to county commissioners in Charles or St. Mary's County where Leonardtown, Maryland is. My warning to them was that in rural areas like ours, as these young men and women come home, you can expect-- I predict that these things will happen. And it was a range of things: suicide increasing, presenting with PTSD in the community and not knowing how to deal with it, more need for crisis intervention. Crisis intervention training at that time was not happening in St. Mary's County. That was still a fairly new word across the country back then. Well, it wasn't two weeks after that, and this story is in [sleet??] Magazine still, an Iraq War National Guard veteran named Jamie Dean, who thought that his time in Iraq was over with the end of his deployment, was recalled to active duty. I think that happened the day before Christmas. He went in a spiral. He had already been diagnosed with PTSD, locked himself in his parents' home. Mom thought she was doing the right thing the next day to get a health and welfare check. The sheriff of St. Mary's County, who is still a good friend, went to try and talk with him and help him out, and he just wasn't coming. And after eighteen hours of, you know, no progress, the state police were brought in. And within twenty-four hours, they had shot holes in the house with tear-gun canisters, and Jamie Dean was shot to death by the state police. My whole thing with that episode was given the amount of time it took to unfold, and this is-- he came out on the porch with a weapon carrying it like this, not pointed. He said, "I'm not going back to Iraq." He was just shot to death. So, my thought with all of that was that there was more than enough time, given Washington DC's proximity, to get somebody down there from Washington DC who knew what they were doing when it come to PTSD and counseling and services, and here's what we can do. You would hope. That call was never made. That pretty much is what got me going in a much larger way with this advocacy, was that episode with Jamie Dean. 'Cause that was just the-- I guess that was the canary in the mine. You know, the one that tells you, listen, I'm telling you something and look, you have a dead canary there now.
03:22:47HALASKA: With that terrible incident, it was the complete disconnect between what was happening in the rural areas and places where there were services and lots of people who knew how to deal with it, basically, that was part of the big problem, correct?
03:23:05WALKER: It wasn't long after that, I don't think, that I was asked to testify to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on this whole issue of access and availability for veterans in rural areas. And that was when they were-- that was their first budget push for more mental health services. I think it was 110 million way back when that they were going to put into that. So, that was the first federal testimony that I gave on the whole rural access thing.
03:23:36HALASKA: And when was that?
03:23:38WALKER: 2007, I think.
03:23:42HALASKA: And did that get approved? Excellent.
03:23:47WALKER: Even Maryland did their thing. As urban as you picture Maryland maybe in your head, between southern Maryland, the eastern shore, and western Maryland, those are highly rural areas, all of them. So, they had their own issues in this regard. There was a move by southern Maryland, which is three counties: St. Mary's, Calvert, and Charles, to regionalize a board to begin to look at veterans' issues and see what more communities could do in partnership with state VA and state agencies and federal VA. Well, after that, regional board was set up for southern Maryland, there was great interest in doing the same thing for the western shore and western Maryland, I mean, the mountains that way, the eastern shore. So, and those things were good, I think. I mean, I know that in southern Maryland we got a vet center in for the first time, at least on a mobile basis, had never had it. We got a vet center counselor in because we could provide him with an office to come to. Even if we couldn't have a stand-up vet center all our own, we certainly had the community-based outpatient clinic was plussed up with resources and programs and manning. So, I like to think that those voices together affected positive change.
03:25:19HALASKA: With those services developing, did you see better care for Michael kind of developing in that area or--?
03:25:29WALKER: No, which is why I'm here. [Laughs] Well, I'll use DVR [Department of Vocational Rehabilitation] as my example on the east coast. Michael had improved to the point where going back to work was the next step. And we worked faithfully with DVR towards that end. And when he went back to work, and oddly enough, I was at a CIT [crisis intervention team] conference in Memphis when this happened, he went to work, and not in the store that we had been told he would go into, which was very low stress, slow pace for business. It was in a new flagship grocery store for this chain that was in southern Maryland, and he was put on a cash register. None of that's good for someone with stress issues. He did not last in that job, relapsed, blamed his medications for his inability to respond to that whole environment as quickly and as wonderfully as management wanted him to, and he relapsed. After enough of that, I'd gotten in touch with, because my husband's from Wisconsin, and certainly we've both been here enough on family visits and so forth. I just kind of gave up on Maryland and Mike and I moved out here and ultimately he wound up in Madison which is the best place he's been for resources and that's how we came to be here.
03:27:04HALASKA: And what kind of-- moving from Maryland to Wisconsin, how did the work that you were doing change?
03:27:14WALKER: Well, in one respect. I walked away from some things where I had established a reputation of doing some good work in this regard. It's like, you know, every time you move, you have to start over again. So, that's pretty much what moving to Maryland-- or Wisconsin, did for me. And that's okay. But I don't know. It wasn't long before I'm-- I was asked if I'd be interested in joining the steering committee to set up the Veterans Treatment Court in Green Bay, and I said yes. So, that's the start of getting your street creds back.
03:28:08HALASKA: And what did that group do? What was happening there?
03:28:12WALKER: They did not have a vet court established up in that part, in the 8th Judicial District for the state. And Circuit Court Judge Kendall Kelley was very invested in starting one up. He's a Navy JAG [judge advocate general] officer in his former life. So, there certainly were a couple of other active vet courts in the state, but further south. And being on that steering committee helped put the liaisons in place that have to happen to have a viable vet court, like with drug and alcohol experts and VA experts for case management, a trained mentor program. So by the time I moved to Madison, that was well underway, that court, I think. The last time I really checked, they had twenty-three vets in it.
03:29:04HALASKA: And what programs or organizations have you been working with in Wisconsin? Or nationally?
03:29:18WALKER: From a national perspective, I've worked with a joint council for the National Association of Social Work to help develop a curriculum base for non-VA social workers at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral level, so that there's some level of cultural competence in working with vets and families. So, where that stands right now, I couldn't tell you, because I think that that particular mission is very important, not just for social work, for doctors, for nurses. And I had pushed with folks I met here over time with UW [University of Wisconsin] School of Medicine and Public Health to work in partnership with the VA hospital here because they work so much in partnership already with residencies and intern programs and everything. But what-- in fact, that was the pushback I got the first time I brought this up. "Well, we do a lot of this stuff." Well, a limited internship or a residency program for say GI [members of armed forces] is not the same as a baseline of education and what it takes to work with veterans and families. You don't have to become an expert in MST [military sexual trauma], but you need to know it exists and how it presents. So, there was agreement. And I can't-- I was told it happened. I've never seen that it happened, so I've been told that the VA hospital came up with a curriculum that they introduced to UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and whether or not that's been adopted, I can't tell you. I've raised the question a couple times, and it's one of those things where 'why don't you swim in your own lane,' which is like the unpaid lane. [Laughs] So, but-- so, yeah, I have an ax to grind on a few things. Clearly that's obvious.
03:31:21HALASKA: [Laughs] Previously, you had mentioned, and I brought this up before, you learned kind of where to look in certain places, in certain organizations. I guess in the Wisconsin kind of system, where were some places that you poked around that you looked where things weren't working the way they should?
03:31:42WALKER: Well, systemically, I'm generally always inclined to believe that in rural areas, things are not working as well as they could. From a state VA perspective, I think that that general way of thinking was born out when I was working with the veterans home in King and saw how much time is being spent to transport geriatric, often quite ill, veterans to Madison or Milwaukee for care, rather than, say, telehealth opportunities or contractual opportunities out in town. So, that's where to look, I think. That's one place. Before I left DVA [Department of Veterans Affairs], because it was a limited term appointment. And I was asked if I would stay for another term and I didn't want to. There's no authority attached to those billets. A fair amount of responsibility. And I like working on what I want to work on unless I'm in a position of authority and that's different. So, and then I can think you can affect some positive change or at least get people going in one direction with luck. [Laughs] So, we had been working on at least tele-mental health for, say, the vets at King, and I'm not sure where that stands now. I know there was active interest by the department.
03:33:24HALASKA: Okay, and you were working for WDVA [Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs] at the time? Okay. And what was the position?
03:33:30WALKER: Well, it was a direct report to the secretary at that time, Dan Zimmerman, so working on projects that he put me on. Entrepreneurial grants and NPO [nonprofit organization] grants was another place that he-- he put into that role because I was an IG and he said, "I need you to do a review of the program and tell me where you think the strengths and weaknesses are and what we could do to make it stronger," and that was my mission for that particular project. From a-- Well, this is the problem with being sixty-five now. I can't figure out if I'm becoming curmudgeonly [laughs] or I'm just tired. But I'm sadly starting to feel like where we are with this country and what's going to happen with Iraq and Afghanistan vets is what it is. I recognize the frustration at the national level with the suicide rate for veterans and the suicide for the country as a whole. You know, as a co-chair of the board that was started up under the VA's auspices, nationally they began this thing called Community Veterans Engagement Boards under the orders of VA secretary two iterations ago. So, ours for this region is called the Veterans Community Action Network of South Central Wisconsin. I'm a co-chair for that, as is the deputy CVSO [county veterans service officer] for Dane County. Jim Quattromani is the young one that chairs it. So, that mission in terms of getting community non-VA partners to work together not just among each other but also with the VA whenever we can to better fill the gaps and services to veterans is is pretty much what those CVEBs [community veteran engagement boards] are about and the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs has just named a member to that board. So, we're very glad about that because state agencies are important and not just DVA, you know, the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is important to this effort. I'm babbling again. What else should I talk about?
03:36:09HALASKA: I guess in kind of in the same line, you were named the woman veteran of the year a few years ago as well. Tell me about what that was like to kind of get that kind of recognition? That street cred?
03:36:24WALKER: It was, it was a street cred, which is why I was okay with that, you know? I don't need the other stuff, but I need the doors that it will open. And that seemed to work. And it still works. You know, it might be a couple years old, but people are like, oh, yeah! So, so yeah. I think that helped a lot in terms of reaching out, and I'll use the example of the women veterans. Without that happening, and I appreciate my selection for that, and Dan Zimmerman's support throughout my whole year of wearing that whatever, there is no tiara. I remember I went to a women veterans retreat up in the northern part of the state and was thinking about what I would say. But as I mentioned, one of my sentences that I hate to the death is 'it is what it is' because it just shuts down positive thinking and thinking about change. I mean, sometimes it is what it is, but it shouldn't be the first thing out of your mouth. So, I very benignly ask the group of women veterans sitting there, "do any of you-- something you've heard that just is like fingernails on a blackboard for you?" And I hadn't meant to tap into a whole lot of angst. It was a-- it was a fairly benign question and I thought the answers would, you know, be like mine. It is what it is. I hate it. Well, they had a lot to say. As women veterans, they have a lot to say about 'never ask me to make a sandwich at a VFW [Veterans of Foreign Affairs] meeting,' you know? [Both laugh] You know, that's just one little example. So many examples like that, being asked in a group with other veterans, 'what did your husband do in the war?' When, you know, these are all women veterans and they're all in environments where the assumption should be made if they're there, they are veterans. So that was eye-opening for me. A lot of underground but very valid resentment about the status quo of how they're received. It certainly got me to embrace in a larger way than I had before because my experience in the Navy, with one or two exceptions, was very positive. And if I ran into somebody that was a bad actor, I had it within me to stop it. And they listened and that was it. So, I had so much more respect. More-- I shouldn't say respect, because I've always had respect for this, but a better understanding of the small ways that this type of bias works in the military, that I would have told you I didn't encounter it, and if I did, I handled it, but it's so difficult for so many. And I do think if you're enlisted, as opposed to an officer, and if you haven't been raised in a-- I mean, if I could have been made a Great Lakes Commanding Officer, this would have been one of my deals, was teaching assertiveness to women, because they don't come in with that knowledge naturally. A lot of times, from where we were recruiting, these were young men and women that were trying to get away from where they were born, and trying to better their economic circumstances. It's not like they're out there born of all this knowledge on no means no, and here's what's going to happen if you persist. [Laughs] So, yeah, that was a good conference for me. A good retreat. And those answers were all very important.
03:40:36HALASKA: So you went to that the one women's retreat. Have you been to any others?
03:40:41WALKER: For women? Women's-- no.
03:40:42HALASKA: No? Okay. Any other veterans retreats?
03:40:46WALKER: Not so much retreats, certainly enough conferences around the state, I have spoken at them, again, in that role. I'm back to more now doing what it is that I've done before, which is community education and awareness programs. I just did one for Lake Delton law enforcement a few months ago, for a CIT [crisis intervention team] program and have been asked to do another one in March around this area, so south-central Wisconsin. There's a state crisis intervention conference coming up in September that the vet [scan??] will have a part of. We've just been told that that's going to be available to us too, so that's a good thing. Now, I think if, and I emphasize this when I am with groups, that whole population that Mike would have been a member of, if no one had said 'make sure he gets the physical and mental health evaluation he deserves,' that whole population needs our attention.
03:42:03HALASKA: I was going to say, is anything currently being done that you know of for veterans who were administratively discharged at that time? Or who were? Is-- basically, is anything being done to basically go back and fix that in some way?
03:42:23WALKER: Legally, I think there are efforts at the national level [inaudible] to go back and fix that, but it's probably a lot like changing something like a burn pit registry into reality as far as VA disability benefits go. So, look at presumptive diagnoses, decisions by the VA, and the decades they take to get blessed, so that someone can get disability benefits. So, on a local level, or state level, I could use a state VA example. The Veterans Outreach and Recovery Program I know, which came into being while I was still working with DVA, does not limit itself to just working with vets who got an honorable discharge. So, that's so important. And their whole mission, I think, has been to leverage and put into place community partnerships to better serve that population. On the other hand, another thing that I think flies in the face of that would be the move to provide state WDVA grants to applicants for non-profit organization and entrepreneurship grants and limit it only to those who are serving veterans with an honorable discharge. That's-- I don't understand that. That's different. That's not something I would ever have suggested, the way that grant program be administered.
03:44:01HALASKA: Is that currently how it's being administered? Okay, so only veterans who have honorable discharges?
03:44:05WALKER: That's my understanding of it. Yeah. So, on the one hand, we've got an understanding through the VORP [veterans outreach and recovery] program, but if that's the case on the other side, that's a step back, I think. The other thing that I think happens, and I use myself as an aging caregiver in this regard. Can you stop that for a minute? [Recording stops]
03:44:36HALASKA: All right, so just this question now. So, based on what you've seen in your advocacy and outreach since your retirement, what are a couple of takeaways that you would like to share?
03:44:51WALKER: One would be an understanding that veterans are good at connecting with veterans but often not so good at connecting with folks who've never served in the military. And I think it's clear that most state and community leaders and agencies want to help veterans and families, but they often simply don't know what to do or how to do that. In my experience, many, many people think that VA hospitals provide health care to all veterans and they don't know necessarily that the majority of veterans receive medical care in our communities and that you have to be qualified and eligible with an honorable discharge to get care in the VA system of care. Along those lines, Yale University conservatively estimates that 150,000 post-9/11 vets have been administratively discharged from the armed forces with other than honorable or dishonorable discharges that come from behaviors caused by undiagnosed and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. So, without an access to care, without even a chance to be diagnosed. And then, as you've heard me talk elsewhere on this, then being summarily released administratively and into our communities, what have we done? Those discharges, those characterizations, if they're not the right kind, make access to VA healthcare extremely challenging, even with recent changes to VA health care policy. Those are limited in terms of duration. And the jury's still out on a longitudinal study to see how well they have actually worked. From another perspective, I would say that a gap exists between World War II, Korean, and Vietnam War vets and post 9/11 vets, just in terms of where they are in their lifespan. Post 9/11 vets are rightfully focused on getting an education, raising families, building a civilian career. The gap just gets wider when you recognize outdated views of the role of women in the military in particular, and I think you heard me speak to that just a few minutes ago, prevail in traditional veteran service organizations like the VFW or the American Legion. To this day, what I have encountered in my dialog with women veterans as I am in the field doing various things, is that they are still often steered toward VSO [veterans services organizations] auxiliaries rather than treated as full members. And I think it's on us as the state VA and as people who advocate for veterans of either gender to work with VSO leaders to better meet the needs of post-9/11 veterans that require more effort to communicate with because they're busy. They've got jobs, they've got families, they got kids. So, how can we strategize to meet them where they are more effectively and strategize toward truly including women in the understanding that they are full partners, they are full members, with VSOs. And it depends on the VSO's willingness to do that, their willingness to partner towards that end. So, actions speak louder than words and we certainly get a lot of words. Those would be just a couple of things that I think I've noticed.
03:48:21HALASKA: Thank you. Thank you very much for sharing that. So I will-- since your advocacy, since you've been doing this over the years, what are some improvements that you've seen? And I think you mentioned a few things that are obviously still deficits that we still need to focus on. But what are a few good programs or good things, small victories, that you've seen over the years?
03:48:51WALKER: I think from the VA level, as I've seen it be operationalized more locally, there's a larger move afoot to include communities of faith in this outreach and advocacy to vets and families as a special population writ large in current generation, I think. Formal religion and getting together on Sunday and everything for many people is less important than it used to be. On the other hand, at least the VA's National Chaplain Center has brought out in its training for clergy across the U.S. that many times, veterans and families will approach a member of the clergy before they'll approach anyone else and say, 'this is a challenge I'm having.' In responding to that, I think the VA has done a-- the National Chaplain Center has put together a good program and good sustainability for continuing education for interfaith pastors throughout the United States for doing more effective outreach to vets and families and helping them feel more included. From a personal perspective, I find-- have found caregiving to be extremely, for my son, isolating. I credit my getting out at all to the work that I do on behalf of other vets and families. If I were doing that, I'd probably be like, holed up. [Laughs] And really tired. So yeah, this isolation piece and where communities of faith can come in to help with that I think is a big deal and I think that that's been recognized, which is important, and steps have been made to make all of that better.
03:51:02HALASKA: Have you-- as a caregiver, have you found groups of other caregivers who are kind of dealing with some of the same things you are?
03:51:16WALKER: Yes and no. I've availed myself of some of the caregiver programs that the Madison VA Hospital puts together. Big VA reached out not too long ago to ask if I would like to be a member of their caregiver advisory board at the national level. I'm probably still regretting saying no. But at the time that I was asked, I felt like I didn't have the energy to give it justice. And if they were to ask me again, I'd probably reconsider that. When it comes to being a caregiver, I think a population that doesn't get the same traction are parents, like me. I mean, we're aging. I'm not saying that the focus that goes on spouses as caregivers is misplaced. It's certainly not. They're in this for the long haul. They're young families. If they have an egregiously injured spouse, there are things attached to that that I can't even begin to imagine what they're going through. The other side of that church, we have we have that side of the church, and then we have the parent side of church which is we will fail and die and if things aren't in in some order for the generation of vets that we're caring for right now this is the next little tsunami, if you will. One of the reasons I got under the previous secretary's administration, there was some vision for creating a place for post-9/11 vets who would need housing and need caregiving. So, not just geriatric vets anymore. And I thought that was visionary and accurate. I hope that that stays on everybody's mind, not just in this state, but in every state. So, I guess we're backing out of something I think isn't working very well. Then that's recognizing the need for this type of provision once parents are too old to do what they're doing anymore.
03:53:51HALASKA: Alright, is there-- I feel like we're kind of wrapping up a bit, is there anything else about your advocacy or services to veterans that you want to say or mention?
03:54:10WALKER: There always is. One of the things, I met with a friend of mine who's a big mental health advocate with the National Alliance on Mental Illness not too long ago to talk with her about burnout. Particularly for vets with traumatic brain injury, I think there's so much more that can be done in terms of cognitive remediation and rehabilitation. Cognitive enhancement therapy is something that I and others have been trying to bring to Wisconsin for some time, for example. The VA has picked up a program after learning about it, called CogSMART, I can't-- C-O-G-S-M-A-R-T [cognitive system management and rehabilitation therapy], and I can't begin to tell you what that acronym stands for, but it was developed in San Diego by the VA. And it's a cognitive remediation program that's eight weeks in length, you know. So, my son has taken it three times.
03:55:03HALASKA: What does the cognitive enhancement therapy, like what's-- what does it entail?
03:55:09WALKER: The therapy as a course, it's an evidence-based practice recognized by SAMHSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration], largely computer-based, although very social in its aspects as well. So, it's a once-a-week training environment, two and a half hours. It's definitely a program of instruction, but much socialization between the folks who are taking it. Social cues, social skills training, how to work around the the cognitive chores that you and I face every day and think nothing of but folks with traumatic brain injury have trouble navigating because you know, those particular synapses have been knocked out of place. And the science is there that says that you can-- you can figure out other ways and use associative tools if you're taught them to help you remember to do the things that you used to do. So, in a nutshell, that's what CET [cognitive enhancement therapy] is. It's in, last I knew, twenty-seven states, but not in Wisconsin yet. For final words, I would always, always advocate for more community involvement. I think education institutions in particular have a huge role to play. They are such thought leaders in the community, whether it's Edgewater or-- I'm going to screw up my names now. I've worked with UW-Whitewater, Fox Valley, Eau Claire, Madison-- am I right, Edgewater College? I'm going to screw this up. Anyway, It doesn't matter. Two or four year institution, they have a huge role to play in pushing the word out about veterans and families and the need for inclusiveness and the dynamic that goes along with working aside with these people and embracing them and helping them find what they need to find, either when it comes to skills remediation or translating military employment into civilian employment. There's a thousand points of light out there and typically none of them connect. So, a place that could help with that, I think, would be a real focus and not just job fairs where vendors set up a table and it's all very passive. I think a more strategic approach would be a training agenda that involved leadership stakeholders and veterans and families instead of folks walking around with a bag that you throw stuff in. I'm not saying that's not important but the other thing that I heard for the first time, the other day, and I'll quit with this. When you feel like there's not much more you can do, start where you are. Use what you have, do what you can. If you really think about that, that's quite profound. It really is not a recipe for doing a little. It's a recipe for remembering that if you don't operate out of the past, and if you know what it is that you have in terms of your skills and abilities and circle of influence, if you really know what you have, and then if you do what you can, you'll do more than you ever think you could. So, that's why I like that saying.
03:59:03HALASKA: Alright, well, let's end on that now. Thank you very much.
03:59:08WALKER: I think you're fabulous. Thank you so much for spending all this time with me.
