Oral History Interview with Rae Anne Ho Fung

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00:00:00ROWELL: Today is March 21st, 2023. This is an interview with Rae Anne Ho Fung, who served in the Army National Guard from 2001 to 2010. This interview is being conducted by Kate Rowell in New Berlin, Wisconsin, for the I Am Not Invisible Project and Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. So, Rae Anne, let's begin with where you grew up.

00:00:20HO FUNG: Okay. Cadott, Wisconsin.

00:00:22ROWELL: Okay. What was that like for you?

00:00:25HO FUNG: There were trials and tribulations and of course good things about growing up in a small town. I think some of the good things were learning, like, the values of hard work. Having like partly -- I spent part of my time on like my grandmother's farm in Thorp, Wisconsin. And so, learning what it takes to run a farm. My dad was a laborer, and so learning what it takes to be able to reconstruct houses and just different things. I was out in the woods with my dad, cutting trees and just all the things that it takes to maintain a home in the country. Those were some of the good things about living in a small town. Some of the challenges were like the lack of representation. It's very homogeneous, and so I didn't get a chance to learn about other types of people until I actually joined the Army.

00:01:22ROWELL: And did you grow up with siblings?

00:01:24HO FUNG: Yeah, I have kind of a scattered family tree. My dad was married, I think, like, five times, so I have siblings from each of his relationships. In my household though, I grew up with one sister. So, I have two -- my oldest sister and brother from one relationship and another sister and brother from the next. Then came me from my mom and then my little sister from the fourth and then the fifth wife he never had children with, but I had a step sibling. So.

00:02:04ROWELL: And what did your folks do?

00:02:07HO FUNG: My dad was a welder and just laborer in general, so part of my, like adolescent years were spent with him buying, like, bankrupt houses and remodeling those. And my mother, she died when I was five. So, I don't actually know what work, if any, she did. I know that she was trying to get a degree. She had dropped out of school when she was in eighth grade. And I do recall her trying to get a degree from CVTC [Chippewa Valley Technical College], the technical college, before she died. But I don't remember any work that she did, actually. Yeah.

00:02:46ROWELL: Thanks for sharing that.

00:02:46HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:02:48ROWELL: And were there any veterans in your family?

00:02:50HO FUNG: No.

00:02:51ROWELL: Okay. Can you talk a bit about your early experiences with education?

00:02:56HO FUNG: In terms of my own education, like as a child?

00:03:03ROWELL: Yeah, yeah. And just how that was. Where you kind of -- where you went to school? What it was like for you? That kind of thing.

00:03:07HO FUNG: Okay. Yeah. So, I again bounced around. I started school. I lived in Thorp, Wisconsin when I was really little. We lived in a trailer park. And I went to the local elementary school there and kind of went back and forth between my dad and my grandmother. This was after my mom had already died. And so, it was a public school there. And then when I was in third grade, we moved to Cadott, Wisconsin and went to the public elementary school there. There was a period of time when I was a fifth grader when things were pretty bad in my house, and I went to live with my grandma, well, my uncle. My grandma and uncle lived on the same property for a year. And I went to a Christian school in Owen, Wisconsin for that year and then returned back to live with my dad and stepmom. And finished middle school and high school at Cadott. I would say teachers saved my life. And so, education was really important to me as a child. I can look back at every grade and find -- think of an impactful moment that I had with a teacher, and I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood. They're pretty blurry, but the teachers really stand out in my life, which is probably why my first career was in education.

00:04:27ROWELL: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And can you talk a bit about how military service arose as an option for you in high school?

00:04:34HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, it's all connected to education. So, my history again was pretty traumatic. I had, you know, the death of my mom, she also used substances, and just a very kind of abusive relationship with my stepmom. And there was a lot of things that happened as a child and so, like I mentioned, school was my safe haven. And we were also -- my dad was a laborer. I think at one point he was putting. $11 away a month for an education for me, which ended up being maybe around $2,000 by the time I was set to graduate high school. I had also always been like a high achiever. I found I-I got support from my teachers because I was good in school. And so that contributed my achievement in school contributed to, like, my safety. And so, I knew I wanted to go to college. And actually, to my dad's credit, he knew he wanted me to go to college, too. He knew that there needed to be a different way, a different life for me. He always said I would go to Marquette or Madison, like ever since I was five. I remember him saying that. And we couldn't afford it, right? And then also when I was 15, I was working at the local truck stop as a cashier and some girl who was 17 mentioned joining the army. And I got it in my mind at that time, and I'm somebody when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And so, when I was 15, I decided that was the path I was going to take. And I remember a boy in my class like saying that I couldn't do it because I was too girly. So, a lot of motivation to prove a lot of people wrong. And so, it just like kind of coalesced. There with like the need for a way out, a need for a way to pay for this education that I knew was the way out. And then just like this -- this desire to prove people wrong. And so that's how I found my way to basic training when I was 17.

00:06:38ROWELL: Yeah. Did you have any interactions with recruiters at that time?

00:06:42HO FUNG: Yeah, I was a pretty easy sell. I knew what I wanted. The bigger thing was convincing my dad that to sign the paperwork. Because when you're 17, your parent needs to sign off on you signing your life away to the government. And so, we walked into the recruiter's station and like he was -- he was ready by that point. I was ready. And so, we were just kind of like, what-what do we need to do next? I was very naive I didn't really know what I was signing up for, like what the jobs were that were available. You have to kind of make that decision when you sign your initial contract, and so we picked I just picked a job that was like at a unit close to my house. And while I was in basic training, the unit changed, and I came back, and I was assigned to be a truck driver.

00:07:33ROWELL: So, what was that initial MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] that you signed on for?

00:07:36HO FUNG: It was a 92A, which was some kind of administration role from what I recall.

00:07:42ROWELL: Okay.

00:07:43HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:07:44HO FUNG: And what was the MOS you ended up with?

00:07:48HO FUNG: 88M. Truck driver -- truck driver. Yeah. Yep.

00:07:53ROWELL: And can you, if you want to -- what would you like to say -- talk about what those conversations with your dad looked like when you were trying to explain to him why you felt this was the right path for you at the time?

00:08:05HO FUNG: Yeah, I just -- I remember him being fearful, you know, for my life. Was -- that was the biggest hinderance for him, of course -- probably any parent. And I just remember trying to convince him to trust me and that like -- and this was what I wanted. And I don't remember much more beyond that, but it didn't take a lot of convincing for him to sign, even though he was scared.

00:08:32ROWELL: And this was-was this 2000 or 2001?

00:08:36HO FUNG: Would have been, gosh -- 2001 is when I went to basic training in the summer. So, it would have been right after I turned 17 in -- around March. Yep, it would have been -- March 30th is my birthday. So, it would have been right around then that we signed the paperwork because I went up to MEPS [Military Entrance Processing Stations] in Minnesota in April.

00:08:59ROWELL: Okay.

00:09:00HO FUNG: So, I remember going up to MEPS to take my ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] and do all of the tests. The fitness for duty tests, and all my friends were studying for the ACT. And that part -- like joining the Army, was so much more stressful that like, I wasn't even stressed about taking the ACT as like my friends were, you know. So that was -- it's just like an interesting juxtaposition as a 17-year-old doing something like that while your friends are dealing with the stress of like, normal high school life.

00:09:29ROWELL: Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to say a little bit about what was especially stressful for you at that time in the prep?

00:09:36HO FUNG: I just, like -- I've always had this core fear of not being good enough. And so just like I wasn't going to make it, like I wasn't going to be good enough for them to -- I remember like them doing the physical fitness -- and looking back, I mean, I was 17. I was a three-sport athlete. I was like a straight-A student. But in my mind, I might not be good enough. And so, I remember the physical exams and like keeping my posture, like, completely straight and rigid, and making sure, like, they didn't see any deficiencies in my spine or the way I walked or just it was like, very stressful. And like taking the ASVAB and worried about failing it. It turns out I got a very high score. I could have gotten any job or most of the jobs that I would have wanted, right? But like, I didn't have that insight into where I was compared to other people. And so that was really hard.

00:10:30ROWELL: It was different from academic settings, purely academics settings in that way?

00:10:33HO FUNG: Right. Right. Because you didn't know -- like in an academic setting, you know exactly what the objectives are and like how to get the A. There was so much unknown, right? It's like there wasn't a rubric.

00:10:45ROWELL: Right.

00:10:46HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:10:47ROWELL: And so, can you tell me a bit about why you chose the National Guard specifically?

00:10:52HO FUNG: Yeah. Really cause I didn't know better. I mean that probably the answer. As a 17-year-old, I didn't. I mean, that-that gal at that truck stop, that was what she was doing. And so that was the option that seemed most appealing to me. As I started learning more about it after talking to the recruiter. I didn't want to go active duty because I wanted to make sure I went to college. That was a path that was kind of set for me and that I agreed with. And in terms of National Guard, this was pre 9/11. And so, really, I had done some research. I did a research paper in my history class on like the militiamen like the original National Guard and everything that I understood about it was like you would help with the stateside kind of crises. And maybe, you know, within Wisconsin, of course, because you -- your beholdment's Title 32 so you're -- you're beholden to the state government and then in rare occasions you'd be activated to Title 10 orders, federal government orders, and maybe help with like national disasters or natural disasters within the nation. That was my understanding of what I was signing up for, which quickly changed, you know, while I was in basic training.

00:12:03ROWELL: Yeah, you get a pretty thorough understanding of the circumstances at that time.

00:12:05HO FUNG: Right, the context, yeah. And so, to me that made more sense than Army Reserve, which was Title 10. I mean, that's a -- that's a federal government Reserve Component. I-I did understand at that time that you were trained in the same way so that you could be activated for federal government purposes. It's just that we weren't at war yet, or at least not visible war yet. And so, I hadn't even thought of that really as a possibility when I first signed up.

00:12:33ROWELL: And then could you tell me what you remember about the day of your induction?

00:12:40HO FUNG: Gosh. I don't remember a lot, honestly. As you ask the question, I'm having a flash of like being in a room with other young people my age, like standing in two rows. And like, signing, you know, like taking that oath very seriously. It felt like probably the most serious commitment, and it was, of my life at that time. It just felt like there was such gravity to it and pride.

00:13:10ROWELL: Absolutely.

00:13:11HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:13:12ROWELL: And so, what was your full name at the time that you enlisted?

00:13:15HO FUNG: Rae Ann Marie Buss. B-U-S-S.

00:13:18ROWELL: And so, you went to basic training in the summer following your junior year of high school, right?

00:13:23HO FUNG: Correct.

00:13:24ROWELL: Yep. Okay. And so, where did you go for basic training?

00:13:27HO FUNG: Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Relaxin' Jackson people used to tease.

00:13:32ROWELL: And what did you-you personally do to kind of prep for that?

00:13:37HO FUNG: I was again really nervous about physical fitness, but I was, like I said, a three-sport athlete. So, I was in cross-country, track, and basketball. So, I was a year-round fit. But I do remember doing pushups practicing in that way, but I had no idea what the mental toll would be like, so I didn't prep in any way for that. I did a lot of saying goodbye to friends. And just kind of sharing addresses and asking people to write me. Making sure I had phone numbers I didn't even -- I didn't have a cell phone yet. So, my friends had cell phones but mostly it was just like home phones. So just making sure I had everybody's number and which at that time everything was memorized. And yeah, that was it.

00:14:26ROWELL: Alright--And so, what do you remember about the first day that you arrived at Fort Jackson?

00:14:31HO FUNG: I -- yeah, I'm just thinking about first the airport. Like I remember being on the plane, and I had flown before, but like I just had this different perspective. I remember looking out the window, and the sky was so blue and there were like these big white fluffy clouds. And I just remember having, like, this really existential moment, like feeling like this different kind of connection with, like, the universe in that moment. I think it was like looking back, it was probably like this passage between, like, being a kid and becoming an adult. So, it just felt, it was very independent, right? I was leaving home for a very long period of time doing things that, like, grown-ups do. And so, it was just very -- that part was really existential. And then we got there. I remember being really, always being really worried. I was a high performer and so I was always, I was very worried about, like, making somebody mad from the very beginning. And so, you know, getting off at the airport and there were clusters of people coming in. And there were vans of people to pick us up and driving us to the reception area. And you're still in civilian clothes and with your duffle or whatever. And we -- I remember being at the reception area. We didn't get there till really late. It was like midnight or something. And I just remember being really tired and it was kind of my first questioning of like, why is this this way, like this? I want to sleep, like, this is insane, right? And so it was bad. And then we were at the reception area. I think I was there for a week before my basic training cycle started.

00:16:09ROWELL: Okay. So, what was that first week like before the cycle started?

00:16:14HO FUNG: Just, you know, a lot of conversations with people, learning some of the military culture, like getting into the routines of, like, a wake-up time. And we -- I remember us doing, like, pushups in the barracks that we were at. And getting used to, like, the chow and, like, worried about -- some people were there as, like, holdovers, so maybe they had an illness or an injury. And they were there for -- I was very worried that if I don't get into the cycle, I'm not going to get back to high school in time. So, of course, like thinking about these really big things, like, that probably weren't my worries to have, like, somebody else was attending to, like, these split-op high school students. But very worried about those things. And then, of course, getting all of our gear, going through line after line after line with, like, big duffel bags and getting just things, throwing in and trying on uniforms and getting our name tape sewn onto our uniforms. And just, like, I just remember that whole hurry up and wait really sunk in at that point. And then we had to get vaccines, right? And so, I remember really distinctly being in, like, a big room, and they had, like, taped pathways, and, like, at every, like, corner, there was, like, somebody else that was, like, giving you a shot. And then you turn, and you go, and, like, the last one ended up where you had to stand against a wall and, like, pull down your pants and get a shot in the butt. And I remember feeling really sick after all of the vaccines, really nauseous, like I couldn't -- I wanted to throw up and didn’t feel hungry. And I was so scared of, like, being a holdover that I didn’t tell anyone that I was feeling ill. And it passed, luckily. And I made it to that cycle of basic training. But yeah, stressful time.

00:18:02ROWELL: Yeah. You mentioned not wanting to be a holdover. Can you say a little bit about that?

00:18:06HO FUNG: Yeah. The holdovers were just people that didn't make it in on that cycle, for whatever reason. Like, they weren't deemed, like, ready to start or, I don't know, something went wrong in the process, and they couldn't get going. And so then, I think the cyc-- it was like either -- maybe two-week cycles, so you'd have to then wait another two weeks to start your cycle. And prep and make sure, you know, and if things weren't ready, then it would be, like, another couple of weeks. And so, we saw people who either didn't make it through basic training and were recycled, meaning they would have to start all over, and then they were holdovers. So, they would have to wait for a couple of weeks until the new cycle started. Or just people who had been there for a while waiting to get started. I did not want to be one of those people.

00:18:55ROWELL: Understandable.

00:18:56HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:18:57ROWELL: So, can you talk about that kind of transition into the military environment and anything that might have been especially kind of challenging maybe? Or something that felt like a big shock?

00:19:09HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, day one, when we were finally assigned our basic training unit, getting off the bus, and just, I just knew there would be, like, yelling, right? 'Cause you see in movies where there's yelling. But like some of the foolishness with the things they did, now I understand, was to mentally stress you out, to test like fortitude. But at the moment, we were just like, this is so stupid. Like, we had to, you know, hold your bag -- huge duffel bags over your head, stand in formation for all this time, and then they had us go into our barracks. And they give you a way to set up your uniforms and your wall locker. So, everything is dress right, dress. Everything is the same across the entire barracks. And I remember these stupid mind games where they told us they wanted our socks to be rolled together as pairs, and then all of a sudden, it would be like, "Wait, wait, wait. Never mind, we want them rolled as single." And so, they did a lot of that, where in my head, it was like, why don’t they get their crap together? Like, who are these people running this show? Don’t they know this? They do this for their job. But in reflection, that they were doing that intentionally. But it was just a lot of that, like, as a 17-year-old thinking I knew better and could not understand the why behind a lot of those things. So that was the biggest shock for me. I think the other shock was how it wasn’t as physically grueling as I had anticipated. And in fact, I gained 25 pounds at basic training and slowed. I was running two miles, I had just broken 13 minutes before I went to basic training, and when I left, I was running like a 14:30. So I slowed down considerably. So, you know, all my worries about not being fit enough. They chunked me up, and, like, I think I got stronger, right? 'Cause we carried so much weight all the time. But, like, I certainly got slower. Like when I went back to my cross-country team that following year, I used to be the first runner on our team to finish. I was, like, out near the middle or back. It was really -- it was a really hard transition in that way.

00:21:30ROWELL: Yeah. What do you attribute that change in your body to other than maybe it was muscle mass gain?

00:21:38HO FUNG: Yeah. I think, you know, I think because I was an athlete in school, my menstrual cycle started late, like I was probably around 16, 15 or 16 when I finally -- and so I think my body had time to catch up from a puberty perspective at basic training because, like, I wasn't running like 15, 20 miles a week anymore. Right? We only ran like two and a half miles every other day. It was kind of pathetic for me by my standards. And so, I think hormonally my body caught up. Like, I came back. I left like this twiggy stick figure, almost on, like, the too light end, and I was like 120 pounds or something. Coming back to, like, a curvier, more of a woman version of myself. So, I think that was part of it. Eating too. Like, I never had to, like, watch what I ate, and I think that is when my emotional eating habits really set in. Like, my coping was, like, we -- you had such a short time to eat, but I would just, like, anything delicious that I could get my hands on, like, I'd eat muffins and, like, sweetened oatmeal and, like, you know, and, like, now I know you need to balance it out, but I think that was part of it too. They feed you to bulk you up, and I certainly didn't know enough to, like, balance eating. So that was part of it. And of course, like, the muscular strength piece of it too.

00:23:11ROWELL: And so, you felt you were coping with the stresses of basic training through seeking those foods for yourself?

00:23:17HO FUNG: Absolutely. Yeah.

00:23:18ROWELL: Okay, interesting, yeah. You-you mentioned there were others in your platoon who also were high school students.

00:23:24HO FUNG: Yes.

00:23:25ROWELL: Okay.

00:23:26HO FUNG: There were quite a few actually, in that -- I learned that that's not uncommon for the summer cycles. They try to schedule all of the split option people during the summer training time so that they can get in between school. So, there were very few people that were beyond. I wouldn't say very few, I would say there would be an even mix of high school split ops and then people who, most people, were around 18, 19, 20. And then we had a few people who were -- felt old, but probably like late 20s, early 30s.

00:23:57ROWELL: And so, you mentioned that you grew up in a fairly homogenous community.

00:24:01HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:24:01ROWELL: And that the army was the catalyst for that change around you.

00:24:06HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:24:07ROWELL: Want to talk about that?

00:24:08HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah. In basic -- for basic training for -- somehow by the time I went through, they had started going to, like, a room model for the barracks. So, I think at one point there used to be just, like, open bays, but they had rooms, and somehow there were, like, eight-people rooms. For some reason, I ended up in a three-person room. Like, it was literally, you were in line, and they were just like, you guys -- you in this room, you in this room. And I just happened to be in the part of the line where we ended up in a three-person room. And I was -- I roomed with a woman who was African American and a woman who was Navajo. And it was such a beautiful summer of, like, learning about their traditions and their culture and being there to support each other. And I think I naturally gravitated towards groups that were, like, non-white and just learning more about cultures. I remember someone sharing privately with me. She would talk to me about her boyfriend all the time, and I just asked questions and wanted to support her. And she was a Black woman as well. And I remember her sharing privately with me that she was gay and that it was actually a woman who she was in a relationship with. And just, there was still "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," right? And so that took a big leap of trust. And I just, I don't know, I just remember thinking that it was so foolish that she couldn't love who she wanted to love safely and freely. And that she had to, like, make up stories, right, about -- and just be so careful with her words and, like, pretending that she was dating a man to be able to, like, talk about her life at home. So, yeah, it was just fun and, like, not only racial and sexual orientation diversity, but just people from all different regions, right? Like, I got exposed to all these fun accents from across the country, and I got made fun of the most for my Wisconsin Yooper accent. So, people would frequently ask me to say phrases that they thought were hilarious because of my accent, even though I thought everybody else's accents were much more extreme.

00:26:14ROWELL: Do you want to tell me if you remember any of those phrases?

00:26:18HO FUNG: They would have me say like, “Hey dere, don't you know?" Or like "Don't--," you know, stuff like that. It was -- what were some of the others? Mostly, like, don't you know, it was probably the big one that. They had me repeat. I can't remember others specifically.

00:26:35ROWELL: Did you have a nickname in basic at all?

00:26:38HO FUNG: No, they just called me Buss. I flew enough under the radar where like some people got their nicknames for like silly character traits or whatever. So, I was good at being -- I think later on in my career, people would call me like Smiley. I was good at like playing, like -- and we can talk more about that probably as we talk about the career, but like figuring out how to be an asset but not stand out too much. Right? So, I did that starting in basic training. Like I was the guidon bearer. Like I carried the flag for our platoon all the way through graduation. So, in that way got an honored position, but also just kind of like laid low.

00:27:26ROWELL: Was that your approach from the beginning or is that something you learned?

00:27:31HO FUNG: I mean, it was my approach from the beginning of basic training. It's definitely something that I learned with growing up in like a traumatic household, right? You just you lay low, you pop up when you have an accomplishment or something that you know will be received okay. Right? And then everything else is you just don't stir the pot or cause trouble. And so that was my approach there. That worked well in that environment.

00:27:55ROWELL: Yeah. And you mentioned that-that doing well and achieving and -- was very important to you being received well, important to you. How did you deal with the kind of abrasive and know yelling elements for the from the drill sergeants? How did you do that?--

00:28:10HO FUNG: For the most part, I was received well. So, I remember one time being yelled at individually by the drill sergeant. It was because in the chow hall I accidentally walked too close to her, and she yelled at me for being like in her zone. But she they somehow knew I was like the student council president in high school. And that had come up at one point. And so, they selected me to be the -- I don't know what it was called, like, the representative of the platoon for like an end of cycle competition where we had to memorize answers to questions or whatever. So, I ended up getting meritoriously promoted in basic training for like those achievements. So, I -- it was still the same, right? It was just a different environment. But like, how do I make my drill sergeant look good by doing performing well in this way? And it worked for me. Only getting yelled at one time specifically. I mean, we got yelled at a lot as a group and, I don't know, I could tolerate -- I-I got yelled at a lot in my home, so, like, I think I could tolerate it when it wasn't directed at me okay.

00:29:22ROWELL: Yeah. Do you recall the names of some of those people that you bonded, especially with during Basic?

00:29:30HO FUNG: Yeah. Anderson and Bellone were the two women in my room. And then Summer was another one of the friends that I met there. So those are probably Antoninus. I remember him. I remember him because he was like -- he maxed out on the ASVAB. He was like a super genius. And like a really good athlete and had like a really hot girlfriend and like. We were all like, "Why the hell did you join the Army?" Like he had everything going for him, like a very privileged upbringing, a wealthy family. So, he stands out. I wouldn't say he was necessarily a friend, but, like, you know, when you talk about like, diversity, that was also like something that I hadn't seen before. You know, somebody with like, all of that privilege and like, I admired him because he was doing something that he didn't have to do. Right? Because he had everything given to him. So, yeah, those-those are the folks that stand out to me. And Drill Sergeant Parker. Was the one that yelled at me. But like, also I really respected her. Yeah.

00:30:38ROWELL: Tell me a bit about your perception of all those -- all the drill sergeants.

00:30:42HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, Drill Sergeant Parker, she was an amazingly strong woman. She was somebody who was, like, really powerful, really smart. Like, knew her stuff. Like, I looked at her as highly competent and like that she ruled the roost kind of. And then there were two of her drill sergeants, Daniels and some other one. Can not re -- I can see his face. He always would make us say, like "Tracking like a VCR, drill sergeant." I cannot remember his name, but they seem to be like more -- they would defer to her, right? And they would sometimes, like Daniels would let us -- they always played. It was like the bad, nice cop, bad cop. Daniels would let us, like, get away with stuff. He'd be goofy, like he was supposed to take us into this big shed that had, like all of these rubber tire chips, and we were supposed to be smoked for something. And like, there was this much space, like the wall between the wall and the ground. And I remember him like acting like he was going to yell at us. And brought us in there. And then he just like had us sitting down and he would just, like, goofily look under to make sure nobody could see that we weren't like getting smoked. Or whatever. But like, I think -- thinking about what I know about psychology and just the structure of the. Military, that was probably all premeditated. I don't think he was like sneaking around, like not doing what he was supposed to do, you know, the good cop, bad cop, and then, like, the person who ruled the roost.

00:32:09ROWELL: Yeah. Did it feel important to you that you had a female sergeant?

00:32:14HO FUNG: Absolutely. Yeah. Women mentors have done something that I've always gravitated toward. I have not -- men have hurt me a lot. Women, too, but men. And finding like this power in women has been something that has been really impactful in my life. And so, I think, when I think back across like the early teachers or just like people that stand out in my life, it's always been like these badass women that have found their way into power, like despite everything they've been up against. And so, she was certainly one of them.

00:32:47ROWELL: All right. You mentioned some male and female, you know, other recruits that you recall, did you train in a mixed gender group?

00:32:59HO FUNG: Yes. Yup. Yup. Mixed gender. The -- we were separated -- sleeping quarters were separated, but it was mixed gender.

00:33:06ROWELL: And what were those interactions like?

00:33:10HO FUNG: I, of course, like, as you -- as you might be able to tell so far, like, I never wanted to get in trouble. So, I -- everything was platonic. There definitely was some, like, hooking up, hanky panky that happened. I tried to stay out of it because anybody who knew of anything happening too could be in trouble. Just like -- so some of the people did get recycled for having -- for fraternizing. And I certainly heard about -- and I don't think it happened with our drill sergeants, but drill sergeants like hooking up with recruits, too. And that being a big deal.

00:33:48ROWELL: Do you remember if people perceive that kind of as just a thing that happens or if there was a level of disapproval other than the formal kind of repercussion?

00:33:56HO FUNG: I think for some people it was perceived as a thing that just happens. Yeah. I don't remember there being like much disapproval of more gossip and like this is just kind of how it is.

00:34:13ROWELL: Mm-hmm. Okay? People kind of took it in stride.

00:34:16HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:34:17ROWELL: Yeah. Are there any other specific memories you'd like to share from your time in Basic?

00:34:26HO FUNG: Yeah, I think the other pieces that stand out to me are just like the limited amount of contact that we have with family. And so, I think I recall getting three phone calls the entire time that I was there, and they were like five minutes. And I had a boyfriend when I had left. And so, I remember splitting the two and a half minutes between the boyfriend and family. I also remember like, we are really restricted in, you know what -- we couldn't drink soda or have candy and stuff. And so, when I graduated, I had asked my dad to bring like root beer, dill pickle chips, chocolate, right. And so, like these treats that I had been craving. And then also I remember it just being like a really emotional walking out onto the field as the guidon bearer for our graduation ceremony and passing by my dad and not being able to stop, you know, having to maintain your military bearing and just really wanting to like, I just was so emotional about it all. And so that was those are the things that stand out.

00:35:31ROWELL: Did that come from a sense of pride in yourself, what you had achieved in graduating from Basic? Or where was that emotion coming from for you?

00:35:39HO FUNG: I think it was probably pride, the transformation. And just like that was a long time to be away from home. There was like a lot of sacrifice and missing of people. I mean, it was ten weeks away. That was a lot. That was the most at that age for probably most kids at that age. Yeah. And then he and my stepmom had driven there, but I wanted to fly back, or they had scheduled the flight back or whatever for me. I didn't want to be in the car and the flights were delayed and I was supposed to fly into Eau Claire. And because of the delay, like that's just a little hopper flight coming back in, I -- there was no connecting flight to Eau Claire. So, I ended up in the Twin Cities and I had a few numbers memorized and the only adult I could get a hold of was my ex-boyfriend's mom, who ended up driving all the way to the cities to pick me up because my parents were driving across the country, so they weren't available to come get me. So that was, I guess, some problem solving on my part at such a young age.

00:36:46ROWELL: Definitely. Got stranded.

00:36:49HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah.

00:36:51ROWELL: So, let's talk a bit about what it was like for you returning to high school after going through Basic.

00:36:56HO FUNG: It was a little hellish. I wasn't loving my body. So, a lot of the boys commented on the change in my size, and so I was feeling really self-conscious about that. I actually started like throwing up my food for a short time. And I could not understand anymore all of the piddly-stupid shit that the high school kids would be upset about. It just felt like there was a lot of to do about nothing and there were like these bigger issues. I remember actually, before leaving Basic, our drill sergeant say like, "You kids think you signed up for the college money, but there's a war coming. You just wait." And really, I got back from basic training on September 7th. And so also. Right. The Trade Towers were hit a few days after my return. And every -- I'm scared out of my mind because now this means something different for me. And I have friends that are starting to deploy, people that I know -- that I've met. I mean, not right then, but like, within the year. And people are just -- just, I don't know it -- all the high school drama just. I couldn't tolerate it anymore. I also -- I started, like, drinking. I just told my dad, like, if I'm old enough to join the military and sign my life away, I'm old enough to make this choice. And he didn't disagree. He just wanted me to be safe. I quit basketball because the coach, like he was so concerned about breeding -- like growing the next group of players that he just -- like one game. He just didn't play his seniors. And I was just like, I can't. I'm not dealing like life is too short and like, there's too many other things. And I just like walked off. I didn't, which was not me again, because I was like the people pleaser. So, it was a big change for me. I started dating somebody who had dropped out of high school and smoked a lot of weed and drank a lot. I didn't smoke weed at that point because like, you know, we had drug tests and stuff in the military, but like I had a lot of angst. It was a very hard year.

00:39:26ROWELL: Yeah, were there any avenues of support that you kind of sought out other than some of those new behaviors?

00:39:32HO FUNG: Yeah, I mean, I had some close friends still. My friend Shawn comes to mind. A couple of close girlfriends that I still felt connected to. Teachers, of course, like Mrs. Harding was like one who was always there for me and was helping me believe that I could get into UW Madison. And so, I-I think the application process must have started soon after I got back from basic training. Yeah, it would have started that fall. So, like, yeah, there were still people and, and my grandmother, I would drive and see her every week in Thorp, so yeah, I'm trying to think of anyone else that like stands out at that time. But.

00:40:19ROWELL: Yeah, it was a big transitional period for you.

00:40:23HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:40:23ROWELL: Yeah. And so, despite your -- some of your changes in attitude, pursuing, schooling at UW in Madison was still a prime goal for you?

00:40:35HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:37ROWELL: So, were you drilling also at that point?

00:40:41HO FUNG: I was, yep. So, I was -- well in high school, one weekend a month drills and then preparing for AIT the following summer. I also was applying to college. I applied to one college, Madison. Although I told my dad that I was applying to others, and I would go visit them and just party with all of the people that I knew there who had graduated before me. Gosh, it's really hard to think about having kids that will be teenagers soon. Yeah. So drilling, just getting prepped for Madison. I got accepted on the like early acceptance. I was one of the first waves that got accepted, so that was nice. Like, I didn't have to apply to any, like, back up colleges or anything like that. And yeah.

00:41:31ROWELL: And how did the how did the assistance from the military, the monetary assistance work for you?

00:41:38HO FUNG: So, I received as part of my contract tuition reimbursement and a monthly stipend of like $250 or something. So that helped, you know, as long as you were getting Cs and above which I had no problem with in college, you'd get that stipend. And as long as you're -- and plus I got drill money every month too which was maybe that was the 200 something. Either way, that helped a lot. And then I still had to take out loans for-for housing and other like miscellaneous stuff. But I also worked besides going to drill while I was in college, Now I'm talking about I worked in high school as well, but in college I also worked a couple of different jobs too to make ends meet.

00:42:27ROWELL: What were those jobs?

00:42:28HO FUNG: I worked for like a assisted living facility for a little bit. It was like in-home care for four women with disabilities. And so, it was kind of nice because I would have some shifts during like the evening, but then I could they needed somebody to sleep there. And so, you'd get like very minimum wage, like $5 an hour during sleep time. But it was some money, and I could sleep. And then when they were awake, you'd get like the full pay, which was like $10 an hour or something. So that was one of the jobs. And then the other job was working at Capitol Brewery. I was a beer tender, so I gave like beer tours and got to sling beers, you know, on the weekends.

00:43:08ROWELL: That was when you were 21 or?

00:43:12HO FUNG: Gosh, I don't remember. I must have had to have been.

00:43:16ROWELL: I don't know. Maybe the rules have changed. Not sure.

00:43:21HO FUNG: Maybe. Maybe it was 21.

00:43:23ROWELL: But you worked there for a while?

00:43:24HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:43:26ROWELL: How was balancing all of that for you?

00:43:30HO FUNG: I think I always just had this mentality to just do it, like I had to. And I think keeping busy was always my coping too, right? If you can't slow down, you can't really think about everything that's wrong. And so, the hardest part for me was having to go away for drill weekends. And my friends -- I made some really, really good friends in college. And having to be away from them on the weekends was hard. But other than that, like, I just did it. Like I just did it. And I realize we didn't even talk about AIT yet. I jumped right into college.

00:44:13ROWELL: Not yet. I was going to go back to that do worry--

00:44:14HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:44:15ROWELL: Before we do, actually, do you want to talk a little bit about drilling and what that was -- what that consisted of for you at that time?

00:44:20HO FUNG: Yeah, that was also weird because I was a 17-year-old when I started in a unit with adults, and that will show up later in my story to what it's like being a young woman with men who have rank on their chest and assumed power. So that was a very interesting thing to navigate. It was like my -- Yeah. Learning how to be a woman in a sea of men that think they have power and do to some degree was probably the thing that stands out most, to me. But then it was also like cool stuff, like getting to learn about the military equipment and getting to go up to Fort McCoy and practicing these things and just, you know, practice shooting. But there was a lot of wasted time, too. It felt like in a lot of ways, my outside life was more demanding than anything in the military except for deployment.

00:45:18ROWELL: That was during the college years, right?

00:45:19HO FUNG: Well, that was during high school that I'm talking about, just starting. Right? Because I -- yeah. And then into college, too.

00:45:25ROWELL: Yeah--after AIT was different. Yeah. If you feel comfortable, would you like to speak a bit about that experience and learning curve for you? Navigating a very heavily male adult environment as a young -- as a teenager and woman?

00:45:44HO FUNG: Yeah. I think -- so I-I shared with you before that my dissertation is also kind of in this area, so some of what I share is kind of a collection of voices of women. So, I just want to honor that piece of it. But, you know, reflecting back, you quickly learned that there's like no right way to be as a woman in the military. So, the rules that are defined for you early on are you're a bitch, you're a slut, or you're a dyke. And I did not want to be any of those things. And so, for me, it was like this subtle, maybe flirtation to give a little bit of what they wanted, but learning how to set boundaries and escape situations really readily so that it didn't go further. And be happily doing things that were asked of me without a lot of fight and pushback. It was just -- it was a lot like being a child in a traumatic situation. Like you become a chameleon and learn how to adjust and adapt to the personalities of the people around you. And in the military, it was a lot of men wielding power. Right? And so, I had some bad learning experiences along the way. And it was a very delicate dance.

00:47:15ROWELL: Yeah.

00:47:16HO FUNG: It was -- it was -- I also want to say that in some ways I learned how my femininity or womanness could be powerful. Because there was so much play, I think in the way -- and when I say play, I don't mean playfulness. I mean like adjusting myself to meet what they wanted of me in a way that they didn't even really know, right? And so, it was like, there's power in that, too. So, it's just it's really weird to reflect on it all, I guess.

00:47:55ROWELL: Yeah. What were you what was your perception of some of these unspoken, I guess, wants--

00:48:03HO FUNG: Yeah I mean--

00:48:04ROWELL: --that people were seeking from you?

00:48:06HO FUNG: Sex. They wanted control. I mean, there was a person who was much older than me who had rank and position over me who would make sure that I was assigned to his truck. He would change plans when we were out at Fort McCoy. Like doing the -- I want to say camping is to mind, just field tasks or whatever. Yeah, right. So, you could set up for days at a time and he would have us tear down the night before we had to actually move so that we had to sleep in our trucks. He would get really angry if I was out of his sight, so those types of things would happen. He at one point said that he was going to leave his family and come to Madison and wanted to buy a house, and all I had to do was come home to him every night. Like, I ended up leaving that unit to escape him because I had given too much of myself in that way. Not realizing what I was doing until it was too late. But I was a young, young and he was in his late 30s and had a lot of rank.

00:49:25ROWELL: Yeah. Did you feel safe discussing that dynamic and your discomfort and those issues with anyone, either in the Guard or outside the Guard?

00:49:42HO FUNG: Definitely not within. There was -- we had a captain who had some sense that something was going on and had tried to get information from me, and I denied everything because I was so scared about getting in trouble because that's the way it always is, right? Like fraternization, your -- it didn't matter that I was so many ranks below and so much younger like it was -- I was so worried that I would lose rank or something. I'd get an Article 15 for my interactions with him. So, I did not -- I denied did I didn't tell anybody. I would be information I remember. And he would like look me up and down like in front of everybody. It was so embarrassing and belittling and just like such a power play. But so no, I could not tell anybody in the Guard I did have my college friends knew what was happening. At first it was like exciting. Like this older man with all this rank had, like, an eye on me. It felt like powerful and good, and it quickly turned to not good. And so, they-they were just like, what am I trying to say? Like, lament with me. That's not the word I'm looking for. But we would share in how grody it was. And they saw it before I did. I was like, very naive.

00:51:04ROWELL: I can see how it would be hard to go be away from them and go into that environment.

00:51:09HO FUNG: Yeah, yeah.

00:51:10ROWELL: Yeah. And do you feel that you are very cognizant that that monetary support for your education was tied up in your performance in the Guard and keeping your position stable?

00:51:26HO FUNG: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It was all like if-if something went wrong, it all fell apart, right? Like no more college, no more support. I mean, shame. Right? It just -- it's like it was very imperative that, like, I just pretended like nothing was wrong. And you just keep soldiering on, and you keep doing all the things. And like I said, I just, like, found my way out by transferring to a different unit and me and then tried to, like, start fresh with. But, I mean, there's one everywhere. There's one everywhere. I had a similar situation in the new unit, but I knew better that time. Offers to give me back rubs and like just even higher ranking than the last person. It was just -- it's insane. It's insane.

00:52:16ROWELL: Yeah.

00:52:18HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:52:19ROWELL: Yeah, also upsetting that balance you're carefully trying to create socially. About your reputation. Do you want to talk a bit about how you were able to initiate that transition to a different unit? And would you mind stating that first unit that you were with?

00:52:41HO FUNG: The first unit was Alpha Company 132. It was a support unit in Eau Claire. And then I transitioned to HHC, so headquarters of the same -- of 132nd in Portage. And it was just like positions became available, promotion opportunities became available. So, there would be like a pull list of like the promotion opportunities available, and I had to reclassify into a new MOS to be to qualify for that position. And so, I did. I went to new training in Georgia to learn the communic -- it was 25C, I think, or Quebec, or one of the two. I did a couple different transitions, but to be able to qualify for that position.

00:53:26ROWELL: Okay. Do you recall like the descriptive name of that new MOS that you had?

00:53:31HO FUNG: One was single channel -- single channel signal operator and the other was multichannel transmission operator.

00:53:42ROWELL: Yeah, and those were -- some of those were listed as later, like 2007, 2008. Is an accurate? So, we'll come back to that but first. So, all of all this -- all this that you were dealing with in your first unit, was that after AIT or was that kind of both?

00:54:00HO FUNG: It started in high school like, you know, but it didn't get bad until after AIT.

00:54:09ROWELL: Did you feel that leadership or any of the, you know, commanders were cognizant of this dynamic -- this power dynamic that existed for the younger members of the unit or any of the women in the unit?

00:54:22HO FUNG: I think the one commander was and looking back, I think she was really trying to help. But I-I don't think most were. I mean, a lot of them were like blue collar workers, right? Like, probably not with the educational backgrounds where they would ever have to take a look at like power dynamics in that kind of way. And so even if they were employing it, I don't think they were, like consciously aware.

00:54:51HO FUNG: Maybe?

00:54:52ROWELL: And never had to experience it on the other hand.

00:54:54HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:56ROWELL: So that -- and so the commander that tried to talk to you and questioned you about what they felt was happening was that that female commander?

00:55:05HO FUNG: Yeah.

00:55:06ROWELL: Okay. All right. So, before we move to AIT, is there anything else you want to talk about from that period of time in which you were about 17?

00:55:15HO FUNG: Yeah, there were two guys who had been in forever, but we're still specialists that became kind of my buddies. And they -- I remember them teaching me like how to sneak away from work. And so that's pretty funny. We would go up in the rafters of like the shop and play euchre. And so, they always needed like a fourth. And so, they always like pulled me into that. So that was one of the good things about me like being interpersonally pleasant with everybody. Like I got along with everybody. I treated everybody with kindness and like just was like kind of easygoing. And so, I got some of the benefits, too. Like sneaking up in the rafters and playing cards. And I still am in touch with those two on Facebook.

00:56:01ROWELL: Oh, okay. Yeah. So, moving into AIT, advanced individual training, where did you go for AIT?

00:56:10HO FUNG: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

00:56:11ROWELL: Alright. Now that was after you graduated from high school? So, can you talk a bit about what your motor transport training was like there?

00:56:19HO FUNG: Yeah. I think the first part is that it. Was a change in position, right, because it was supposed to be 92 Alpha. And then when they had me pick from the jobs available in that unit, I just went with something that had the shortest AIT so that I could go to college on time. And so, you know, six-week AIT, I can handle that. Have some fun with my friends in the summer and still get to college on time. And so that piece was there. It was really cool, actually, because there were three other women that I met right up out the gate that were from the same area in Wisconsin as me. Two of them were college students at UW Stout. One of them was my same age, so I hadn't started college yet, but lived right out in Spring Green right outside of Madison. We're still friends to this day. I just saw her not too long ago. And so that was pretty cool. And we-we again, the line thing, we met kind of at the orientation stage, learned of each other. And then we're in the line for room assignment and we-we stuck together. Right. So that -- because we know from Basic, and they all ended up in the room and the line -- it was cut right. So, we didn't -- we didn't know how many in each room. And so, I ended up in a room with eight people. There were four of us in the front and four in the back. And the four of us in the front all had Ann in our names, which was very coincidental. So, I didn't get to room with my friends. But yeah, it was really fun. We -- Kristen, who was my battle that I just talked about, she and I would -- every time they had a gut truck in AIT -- so, in-in like a sweets truck that would come around when you're like, out of the motor pool. Like its hot sun driving we would always split like a diet Mountain Dew and a candy bar. So that was our thing. And yeah, we just, you know, we performed. We did well. She ended up being a high performer and she sang the national anthem at our graduation. But we had some of the fraternization happen. And so, in the back side of my room, it was like there were eight people, there were four bunks wall-wall lockers right here, and then four bunks in the back. One of the gals in the back was letting a guy sneak into her window. And so, all of us got in trouble, even though we didn't -- those of us in the front didn't know anything about what was happening, honestly. But we still all got in trouble. So, like at the end, we didn't get to go to like on our final pass. Like everybody got to go out for a weekend before, you know, at the end and we didn't get to participate in that. And so that was a bummer. But yeah, overall -- Kristen and I were driving together in a 5-ton when we were practicing, and she ran over a turtle by accident. And we heard it crunch, and it was really sad. So that's a memory. And I just remember those hills at Fort Leonard Wood and gosh yeah, those trails, and it's like you're just on top of the world and you look down. And you see all of these trees, and it was just like, really beautiful. So, I mean, nothing really too impactful -- yeah, we were -- they were threatening us to, like, hold us over because of that fraternization. And one of my roommates, she had red hair. I think she was, can't remember which -- Ann she was -- but she -- her dad worked in the government in her state, and he just got involved in like everything kind of went away. So, and I don't know if the threats are credible or not or if they were just trying to get information out of us. But it felt credible. It felt like we were going to have to stay or whatever.

01:00:11ROWELL: I don't know. You can let me know if this is drawing too much of a parallel, you know, too much of a connection. But did any of that kind of have -- inform your expectations for what might happen had you been -- had you been able to disclose what it was?

01:00:25HO FUNG: Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. It was like, this is a complete -- any fraternization is a complete nonstarter. Like every party involved will be punished no matter who's at fault.

01:00:38ROWELL: Okay so, moving on from the AIT now, talking more about your time at UW Madison. What was it kind of like being-being a soldier while you were a student? Did anybody -- do people know widely, that you were in the Guard? What was that--?

01:00:57HO FUNG: Yeah, I was in a very liberal town. I did not know until I knew that people associate people in the military with, like, a very conservative party. So that's interesting. I would change out of uniform before getting back on campus. Or if I had to stop anywhere along the way, like to get gas or anything. When I got into town, I would make sure that I like took my uniform off in my car because I became very aware of that. And then of course, there was like a lot of protesting of the war because that was -- I started at Madison in 2002. So that was like the very early days. So that was a really weird time because also I was forming my social opinions, which tend to lean more liberal and I just felt like this, like pull between two worlds, like pride in what I was doing and knowing I was doing it for the right reasons, but also like. Confusion, I guess, around the reasons. I don't know. It was, it was a very, like confusing time, but people were generally supportive because right at that time it was kind of like. Terrorists raid. And these are people we -- the hero stuff started around that time too so. In -- was it 2005? When Hurricane Katrina hit?

01:02:29ROWELL: Yeah.

01:02:31HO FUNG: We got activated to go down and support Hurricane Katrina relief. And it was right before or maybe I had already started classes and my professors all just excused the entire month of work. They were just like, "Yeah go" -- you know, "Go do it. Let us know when you're back. We'll make adjustments from there." And when I came back, they're like, "You don't have to make up anything you missed." So, there was, like, that kind of support, which was nice.

01:02:58ROWELL: Yeah. Did you have to inform your professors or maybe your advisor that you were in the Guard when you entered new courses?

01:03:07HO FUNG: I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think so. I think it only came up when -- because there's laws protecting students and workers. I think it only came up once I was activated that I had to submit paperwork proving that.

01:03:22ROWELL: And this kind of, like, internal external dissonance that you experiencing, did that -- was that kind of the same throughout all those four years that you were a student? Did that change?

01:03:34HO FUNG: I would say it got better with Hurricane Katrina relief because it felt like this is what we're supposed to be doing, right? We're helping people. So that felt okay. Yeah, I definitely have had an ever-changing relationship with the military and my service. And so, there are times that I remember getting really pissed that people, like, didn't stay quiet during the national anthem. Right. But then there have been times in my life that I wish I had the courage to kneel during the national anthem. Right. And so, I think same thing happened while I was a student at Madison and like, also learned more about my political identity. So, it -- but I think in general, I always took a certain sense of pride. And also, I like to be that person that's a little bit incongruent. So, it's always fun for me when people hear that I was in the military, but they know like I'm like so social justice minded. Like, they're like, that doesn't fit together. And I'm like, yeah. And people were complex.

01:04:36ROWELL: Right, absolutely and was there any -- were there any resources available specifically for soldiers or veterans who were students at that time?

01:04:49HO FUNG: Maybe I just had such a rich like social community that I don't think I relied on any formal supports at the university. Of course, there was like the office that always helped with like the payment stuff, right? Making sure, like, all my tuition payments were lined up. But other than that, I didn't do anything military veteran related at the university.

01:05:13ROWELL: Okay. Were there other student soldiers that you knew of?

01:05:17HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:05:17ROWELL: Did you interact with them at all?

01:05:18HO FUNG: There were some ROTC people that I interacted with. I remember they would wear their uniforms to class, and I had already gone through basic training and advanced training by this point. So, like, I had a lot -- I knew about like wearing appearance of the uniform and like they would just be, like, all jacked up. And I just remember this one girl, Stephanie. It was before you could wear your hair in like a ponytail or jewelry. And she had, like, all these earrings on and, like, her hair was all a mess in uniform. And I just, like, was so mad. I used to -- yes, I have high expectations of myself, and I used to project those on to other people. I've learned that that doesn't get me anywhere since, but I would get really mad.

01:06:00ROWELL: But you were also very young at that time too.

01:06:02HO FUNG: And there was another guy who was in. ROTC. And he-he was a bouncer at one of the bars and was dating a friend. Not a friend, but like a friend of a friend. So, I knew of him. And we were at Fort McCoy one weekend. And we were driving trucks, and we were like supporting like the infantry. And there I see him, like, walk -- lost in the woods and come to find -- I pulled over. I'm like, "Gerrard, what's going on?" He's like, "I'm lost. I have like five minutes to make it back for land nav or I fail." And I gave him a ride back, like almost to the point and, like, dropped him off. So.

01:06:35ROWELL: Yeah. Yeah. It must have been weird. Those worlds colliding a little.

01:06:40HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:06:41ROWELL: Yeah, yeah. And so, did you spend one particular summer at Fort McCoy, or was it intermittent?

01:06:53HO FUNG: Every-every summer we would go there for our annual training. Some -- we went to California one year. The National Training Center, as like, more and more units were being deployed to Iraq. They would send people out there because there's desert. We did one -- we went to Florida. Camp Blanding? What is -- I don't know. Something in Florida at one point too.

01:07:22ROWELL: Does anything in your memory stick out to you from that-that training in California?

01:07:29HO FUNG: Not really.

01:07:32ROWELL: Were you concerned during this whole period that you might be deployed?

01:07:39HO FUNG: Oh yeah.

01:07:40ROWELL: How did you deal with that?

01:07:41HO FUNG: It was stressful. I mean, so this was the time that there-there was somebody that I met AIT, Mark, who ended up -- he was Active Duty Army. He was a refueler but then went through our AIT as like a supplementary training to learn how to drive the vehicles. He was on one of like the front end of like, you know, the Marine Corps went in first and some of the special forces. But he was not far behind. He was with the 101st. And I just -- there was lots of nervousness. And then Wisconsin units started deploying, and people -- they took a lot of men. At first it was a lot of the infantry units. And so, I felt a little protected in that at first. But like, you know, more and more people were. So, yeah, I mean, it was always and there were like scares, right, where we'd get calls like preparation for MOB orders and then they would only need so many people or just these people with the MOS or whatever, you know. So definitely I -- how I dealt with it? I don't know, like talked about it with my friends and like tried to just continue focusing on my college goals.

01:08:59ROWELL: Yeah. So, you were taking courses in education at that time, right?

01:09:05HO FUNG: Yeah. So, I originally started I was going to go into corporate law. Its what my dad thought I should do because you can make a lot of money. You know, he was a laborer again and like, that seemed like a job that would be good for me. I hated the only course I ever got a B in in college was my business, like intro to business course. I'm not an entrepreneur. I did not -- we had to do, like, a business plan. I-I don't know. I think I created a jelly donut shop or something, and it was so stupid. Like I-I am not minded -- like that, business minded. And so, when I started to really think about, like, what do I want to do with my life, I wanted to become a teacher, to give back what was given to me, to be able to help support people in the way that teachers had been so instrumental in my life. And so, I shifted course. That kind of delayed me a little bit. And so, I applied for the School of Education, and they will start people like spring-- fall semester or spring semester. And because I was a little bit behind, because I had taken some of those business courses, I ended up having to start in the spring semester. So, I ended up doing five years of undergrad because of that, because it was five semesters after getting into the School of Education. And I didn't start until my junior year, second semester, my junior year does that--? Yeah.

01:10:26ROWELL: Okay, yeah. And you mentioned that your -- you had developed a specific relationship with-with alcohol and also with, you know, that just kind of the active partying when you were young, right? After when you got back from Basic, did that follow you into your college years?

01:10:44HO FUNG: Oh yeah. I laughed because I don't-I don't think it ever -- Yes problematic probably compared to other states. I don't -- it never interfered with work or school like I was -- we would hunker down you know like my friends we-we worked hard, partied hard kind of thing. And so, we would hunker down when it came like midterm time or writing paper time and just like really focused. And we supported each other in that way. Like library dates or like making our apartment, you know, just like a quiet space. And then we just, like partied hard, like every weekend, every chance we got. We had lots of keg parties at our house. We went to keg parties, other places like. But in some ways, I took pride in that, like being able to like, live up to the Madison standard of partying, but also, like keep my head on straight. Looking back now, there's a lot of binge drinking, right? And I never developed a problematic, like, dependent relationship on any substance, which I was fearful of because that's how my mom died.

01:11:53ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. So, talking about Katrina again. So, we mentioned this, that you were activated to assist when Hurricane Katrina came through in 2005.

01:12:08HO FUNG: Yep.

01:12:09ROWELL: When did you learn that you were going down to Louisiana?

01:12:14HO FUNG: Days after. I don't know. Do you have the exact date when hurricane-

01:12:19ROWELL: I don't.

01:12:20ROWELL: Okay, we-- there was a lot of media attention to the lack of responsiveness, like the government couldn't get it together in terms of like what support to send down there. And people were really hurting. You know for it -- they needed help. And so, I think I want to say it was like 4 or 5 days, maybe a week after that we got activated. And then I think we had like 24 hours to report or something like that. And then we drove 80 vehicles down there in a convoy. It was ridiculous. And there are all these laws about. I think it took us three days to get down there because you have to, like rest every whatever, a couple of hours, actually. Like I have pretty, like, some significant back problems right now. And I -- when I reflect back on that time, like riding in those five tons all the way down there, like that's when I remember having to take like ibuprofen to like, get through the pain of just like be -- and you have to wear helmets, like in those vehicles. It's so ridiculous. So, you have this like helmet bouncing on you and like you're just -- so we got down there and then it was like everyone in the country sent people all at once, right? There was no response. And then there's like too much. And so, we got down there, and they didn't know what to do with us. And so, we were on, there was like a minor league baseball stadium and then all of the field around it. We just like set up tents on that field and we sat and waited for something to do. I saw my buddy Shawn there he was in the 82nd at that time. And they were down there and we -- I had a cell phone by then. And I remember standing on top of the five-ton trying to get in touch with him to get reception because like everything was shot. And we got coordinated and his unit had come over to that stadium. 'Cause that's where they were feeding people out of. And so, he came over and we got to see each other during that time, but we ended up doing like some search and rescue. I remember being with like Michigan, was a border control people?

01:14:32ROWELL: Like Canadian Border Patrol.

01:14:33HO FUNG: Yeah, I think it might have been like Michigan people. Anyway, we the water was so high. Like the thing that stands out to me is like the chain link fences, you know, they're silver like there you could see where the water line was, and it was just like black and corroded because there was so much pollution in the water. It was disgusting. And we got stuck at one point and like, you had to like de-con when you get back, like if you get any of the mud or anything on you because it was so polluted, we there were the houses were still underwater, like people were using boats. And I remember us coming up to a house and there was a person inside who brought a weapon out and like basically threatened to shoot us if we tried to take him. Because by that point, so much has happened in the stadium. They had people were in the stadium, but there were like rapes happening and just things happening, like the people who knew about it -- that didn't trust and didn't want to go anywhere else. Right. And so that was hard to see. I remember when we pulled in to the town where we ended up staying us -- like a poster -- somebody had written on cardboard like their daughter's name. Like, call your call daddy with the phone number. So, there was that. We had people who had seen like dead bodies on overpasses, like as they were moving. And so there it was really sad. We ended up also helping FEMA. We'd just load trunks of the people who had cars would come every day and we'd load up them up with MREs and water jugs. And so just like we'd just be on rotating shifts to just load, load that, load thousands of people. Until -- I can't remember if those a time or if you ran out for the day or whatever. So those are the things we helped with. It was also where I learned about like PR because we were there -- we had a lot of downtime too, because like there were so many people. And it wasn't well organized. And I think some of the people were throwing a football around and that got caught on the media and it was not a good look. Right. And so, it's just like also like things taken out of context can go very badly. Our general, the Wisconsin general, came down and we got to go up in the Blackhawk and see everything from above. And it was you could smell death even up in the air. It was really sad. That was probably one of the hardest times of my military career in terms of like the emotional impact, devastating. And then learning later just about the disparities and how that all happened. And like the history of like discrimination in that city that led to some communities being more vulnerable to being destroyed during that is just like really challenging and how some people had the resources to get out and people some people had trust in the government to believe them when they said get out. Right. And like other people didn't have resources or there was like this history of mistrust. And so, they didn't believe that they knew they thought they were being tricked into leaving for other reasons. And so, it's just yeah, that part is hard too.

01:18:05ROWELL: Did you have any sense of that at the time? Was that more processing it and learning after the fact?

01:18:11HO FUNG: I think I had a sense of it by then. I had been a student at Madison for a couple years by that point. And my education program was very multiculturally focused. And so, we started learning about like social injustice at that point. And so, I had an idea coming in and learned more and more after.

01:18:33ROWELL: Before we move on, is there -- are there other things that stick out to you when you recall those memories that you want to cover?

01:18:42HO FUNG: I don't know why this just jumped to my head because this has nothing to do with that deployment. But I remember really at this all these existential things for me, trying to reconcile religion and science. And I was reading a book, and I cannot remember the name of it, but like I just recall like being in my cot, like during downtime and trying to figure out how like the seven-day creation story maps on to like--

01:19:19ROWELL: Geologic time scale?

01:19:21HO FUNG: Yeah. Like thinking about the Bible as an analogy and really because I wanted to be, I think also I saw people in my life who are Christian and religious. And like I felt like that was the way to the path to peace. And so, trying to figure that out at that time was interesting. And I think, yeah, so.

01:19:45ROWELL: That was, that was you were in your cot. So, was that while you were like at Fort McCoy?

01:19:51HO FUNG: No that was during Katrina, yeah.

01:19:53ROWELL: Oh, during Katrina.

01:19:54ROWELL: Yeah, yeah. So, we have the tents set up and like because there was, there were too many people down there. We didn't all have gainful work to do all the time. And so, there was a lot of downtime and so reading book and its like--

01:20:06ROWELL: Having these--

01:20:07HO FUNG: --Existential debates in my mind.

01:20:09ROWELL: Yeah, definitely.

01:20:10HO FUNG: So that stands out from that time.

01:20:12ROWELL: Yeah, for sure. And then -- so how long were you in Louisiana for?

01:20:20HO FUNG: I think it was 3 to 4 weeks. Not long. Long enough to miss the whole first month of the semester.

01:20:27ROWELL: Yeah. Which your teachers were pretty understanding about?

01:20:31HO FUNG: Yep.

01:20:34ROWELL: And then you mentioned that there were a lot of perceptions of the military and Army in general among the student body. Did that -- do you feel like Katrina and some of the coverage of that and your deployment to that has any impact among your peers, do you think?

01:20:53HO FUNG: I don't. I don't know.

01:20:54ROWELL: Not really?

01:20:55HO FUNG: No.

01:20:56ROWELL: That's fine. That's kind of a long shot, you know. But yeah. All right. So, what year did you complete your bachelor's degree?

01:21:04HO FUNG: 2007.

01:21:06ROWELL: And was that at UW Madison?

01:21:07HO FUNG: Yes. And I-I was -- I got two degrees, one in education and one in psychology.

01:21:13ROWELL: Okay. And so, you were -- had you moved to any other new units by that point? Or were you at that second unit?

01:21:21HO FUNG: I was still at that second unit in Portage.

01:21:23ROWELL: Okay. All right. And so following-following your bachelors, what did you -- what kind of civilian jobs did you take?

01:21:32HO FUNG: I went straight into teaching. I became a fourth-grade teacher at the Milwaukee. Academy of Science in Milwaukee and moved in with my boyfriend, who then became my husband, who then became my ex-husband. But yeah, so I moved. He -- I met him in the military, and he had a daughter in Milwaukee. And so just it made sense to be there so he could be with her and support her. And so looked for jobs in the market area and got that one. That was a charter school, so not funded by MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools]. It is now, but it wasn't at the time.

01:22:13ROWELL: And then was he also in the Guard?

01:22:16HO FUNG: At that time? Yeah. He had started active duty, but then had transitioned to the Guard. So, he was a medic and I met him. We had to do like combat lifesaver stuff. Like as the war started, they wanted everybody trained as a combat lifesaver. And so, he was the medic that was helping train us, and I had to give him an IV to pass the course. And it was love as soon as I made him bleed, cause I sucked at giving IVs. Yeah. And we -- he actually got deployed. He was pre-deployment training when we went down for Hurricane Katrina because they were in Missouri and they got hit, too. And Mississippi, not Missouri. They were in Mississippi, and they got hit and he deployed. And so, we just -- it -- we weren't dating yet, but the first year of us getting to know each other, he was deployed. So, it was a lot. It was like video chat and, you know, message just emails back and forth and things like that. When he was gone and he came back, was my fifth year of college. Yeah. He would come back for that last year. And so, our relationship grew from there. And then we moved in with him after. Yeah.

01:23:30ROWELL: Okay. And so, he was deployed to-to Iraq or--?

01:23:35HO FUNG: He was in Kuwait. Yep

01:23:37ROWELL: Kuwait. Gotcha. Do you remember where, by any chance? That was a while ago.

01:23:43HO FUNG: It was a while ago.

01:23:44ROWELL: So-so you weren't necessarily, like, drilling together or anything like that?

01:23:50HO FUNG: No, not. We ended up deploying together, but we did not. Yes, we are not drilling together.

01:23:56ROWELL: Definitely. And then when did you get married?

01:24:01HO FUNG: 2008.

01:24:02ROWELL: Okay. And then did your legal name change as a result of that? As a result of that marriage?

01:24:09HO FUNG: It did, but not -- I didn't change my name until we got back from. Iraq in 2010. I was a holdout.

01:24:17ROWELL: Oh, okay.

01:24:18ROWELL: But yes, it. Changed to [XXXXXX].

01:24:20ROWELL: Okay. How do you spell that?

01:24:22HO FUNG: [XXXXXX].

01:24:23ROWELL: Okay. Gotcha. And then before we start talking about your deployment, is there anything else from this kind of period of time that you want to discuss?

01:24:33HO FUNG: I mean, I just think that period of time as a teacher is really formative for me because it was hard. I mean, I taught in the inner city of Milwaukee. Most of our kids, if not all, were qualified for free and reduced lunch. So that gives you an indication of like the poverty. And most of my students were black. They lived in communities where there was a lot of violence and just like historical disparities. And so, I poured a lot of myself into the school. It was not uncommon for me to spend 60, 70 hours a week at school prepping for school every single Sunday. I went in because we didn't have prep time, like as a charter school, we didn't have some of the luxuries. I don't want to say that because public school teachers have it rough too. But like we didn't have we had to be with our kids for specials, for lunch. We didn't have prep time. So, I would come every Sunday and do all that work. I bought all of my kids' school supplies every year because I couldn't expect them to come with all the things that they needed. And like for -- we know, like for kids, especially kids with like trauma brains, it's structure and organization is good. And so, I would make sure everything was set up, you know, for them to make sure, you know, they had their red reading folder with their red reading notebook, and they had the right supplies that they would need to do our lessons. And so, it was -- yeah, I mean, that's part of what like opened my world to like what trauma means for people. And so, it was a very formative experience. Yeah.

01:26:10ROWELL: Yeah. Were you having reflections about your own experiences at that time as a child as well?

01:26:16HO FUNG: Yeah. I think for me, that's where I started to learn what white privilege really is because like, I knew that I had it bad and it was never that bad. Like, I had social capital in my community because of a white community, right? I had people -- it wasn't everybody around me wasn't in the same situation. I was rare and I had neighbors and friends and people who like could go to for a warm meal or just like safety or, you know. And I recognized like a lot of my kids couldn't -- and their families couldn't even turn to like each other for more because nobody had enough. Right. And so, yeah, it made me reflect on those in a different kind of way. Yeah.

01:26:58ROWELL: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing.

01:27:01HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:27:02ROWELL: So just for a time, let's pause for a moment.

01:27:03HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:27:04ROWELL: So, this ends segment one of the interview with Rae Anne Ho Fung on March 21st, 2023. [Break in interview.]

01:27:13ROWELL: All right. So, this begins segment two of the interview with Rae Anne Ho Fung on March 21st, 2023. So, moving on to discuss your deployment.

01:27:24HO FUNG: Mm-hmm.

01:27:25HO FUNG: So, when did you find out that you were going to be deployed to Iraq?

01:27:29HO FUNG: I think the end of 2008.

01:27:34ROWELL: And how did you feel about that when you found out?

01:27:38HO FUNG: I knew it was coming. Part of me was relieved that I made it through college and had a job that I could return to. And then the other part of me was scared. Really, really scared. I had known -- at that point a lot of truck drivers ended up going over and dying. I was a truck driver, right? And at that point it was a 25C or Q, I can't remember which of those came first. But still had that 88M obviously in my background. And that, you know, a lot of people were having to be gunners and all this stuff. And like I was really worried about charging the .50 cal. And so, I remember going to the gym a lot and doing a lot of rowing to get ready for that because I was just really sure that with the National Guard, it's like we were like putty, like Silly Putty or Play-Doh, right? It wasn't -- it wasn't. what does your unit do and how can we, like, integrate you over there? It was like you are changing everything about your unit to fit what we need. And so, I was very certain we were going to be a transportation unit. And then, yeah, so I remember just experiencing a lot of anxiety leading up to that.

01:28:52ROWELL: And so, you're married at this point. How did your husband kind of take that news and did you know you would be deployed together?

01:29:00HO FUNG: He was he was activated at the same time. So, we knew that we were not together at that point. We were in different units. He was in Charlie Med 132nd and I was in -- in HHC. And then there was a law that had been passed, I think August of that year about married couples deploying together and trying to keep them together if it made sense. And so, when the state was like organizing the deployment, they had put us together in an infantry unit is why I was really worried about being a truck driver, because if you're an infantry support person in an infantry unit and you're not a man infantry, you do other things like drive vehicles for them. And-and so we had gone up, gosh, why am I thinking it was Saint Cloud, Minnesota? That doesn't even make sense. Was it La Crosse? We went up for one drill. It was a Christmas party drill with that unit. I remember I was so sick. I was throwing up. So, I would do that a lot when I was younger, like I had ulcers when I was in high school. And then, like, if I got really nervous, I would throw up a lot. So, I was really sick, and I remember not wanting to have an alcoholic drink at the party because I was so sick, and I remember being hit on in the line because it was like all men. And I was like one of six women. And [XXXXXX] was there laughing like -- it was -- because they didn't know we were married. I had kept my name. This was part of it. I kept my maiden name so that nobody would know except for the commander knew, you know, that they were receiving a married couple. But we did not want the rest of the people to know. And so, these guys are, like, hitting on me. And [XXXXXX], like, right there. And it was it was funny and just like, eye opening for him, too. We ended up only doing one drill because they did another reshuffling and we ended up in Baraboo. So, at Delta Company 132. And that's where we ended up deploying. That's how we ended up deploying with.

01:31:02ROWELL: What kind of unit was that.

01:31:04HO FUNG: It was a support unit. A whole mishmash of lots of things. But we ended up training to do like MP stuff, like security stuff. And there were two other married couples or three other married couples in our unit. So that commander was like really good at like making sure the married couple stay together and we're supported.

01:31:30ROWELL: Yeah. So, was that uncommon to have that many?

01:31:33HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, because we were among the first wave where it was even a thing that married couples could deploy together.

01:31:40ROWELL: Right, yeah. Because women in in combat areas.

01:31:43HO FUNG: Well, it wasn't -- it wasn't that necessarily. I just think it was faux pas because like the-the idea is like, you have to focus on the mission and not on -- like if-if push comes to shove, do you support the mission or support or save your spouse? Right? And so--

01:32:00ROWELL: Yeah, never mind that people went to lengths to see each other if they were apart.

01:32:04HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:32:05ROWELL: Even, you know, in-country, right?

01:32:06HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah. And that was -- yeah. So, we got -- that was a hard time because that's when we went to Florida in January for training. And we went there hoping it was going to be warm and it was freezing. Like our water buffalo -- we were in northern Florida. Our water buffaloes were like frozen every morning. So that was quite a shock. So, we did some little pre-mob, like smaller trainings before maybe March of that year or February. We went to Texas for like our official pre-mob training. And while we were in Texas, [XXXXXX] got offered to go on like a special assignment where he would be like a combat -- he would be a combat medic for like plain clothed people who are going and be up in Baghdad. And, we had a lot of hard conversations about, you know, if you do that, we will not -- how do we ever talk this whole year, right? Because like, how -- you can't get a hold of each other. And he ended up staying. He talked to his dad and his dad was like, how does this help your family? And he ended up staying with me and we deployed together. But he attributes that to one of the reasons why he cheated on me later, because I didn't support him in doing something that would have been good for his career.

01:33:24ROWELL: Because that's the most important to him, clearly.

01:33:27HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:33:28ROWELL: Wow. Okay.

01:33:29HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah. So, we ended up going to -- you know, we flew into Kuwait like everybody does, and then we ended up going into Camp Bucca. That's where we were deployed to.

01:33:42ROWELL: So, rewinding -- rewinding just a little bit. Do you mind if we dig into your considerations when you're deciding whether or not to change your name initially and also why you did not want others in your unit to necessarily know you're married?

01:33:56HO FUNG: Yeah. Well, I mean, some of it was just a budding feminist in me. I was like, "You didn't make me like, why? Why would I ever change my name to yours?" It just didn't make a lot of sense. And so, I had planned to keep my last name. And then it worked out as we were we got married in July and got activated that December, I think, is what the timeline would have been. And so, it made sense. But -- we didn't want people -- we didn't want it to be perceived that there was favoritism because he was higher ranking than me. I was -- I think I was an E-5 and he was an E-6. We just didn't want -- we didn't want us -- there to be any indication that we were going to be a problem so that we would have to get separated. And so, I mean, I even stood out like parade rest talking to him in front of people in that infantry unit. It got -- we relaxed a lot more when we transferred to the other unit, but we just didn't know. We didn't know the culture of that unit. We didn't know the command. We didn't know, you know, how they would perceive us. And so, we just wanted to lay low and make as few waves as possible. Kind of my MO, I think it was probably my idea. Yeah.

01:35:15ROWELL: Well, yeah, because people treated you differently based on their perception of who you were associated with -- with the men you were associated with in your life.

01:35:25HO FUNG: Exactly. Yup.

01:35:26ROWELL: So that makes sense. What was that like, balancing that dynamic with your own, you know, regular married life, having to change and code switch on that? Yeah.

01:35:39HO FUNG: It was challenging, especially because we had different perceptions of some of the decisions of like the commander and stuff. And so, it would get really hard when I felt wanting to support like, decisions that the commander made and like he felt opposed to some of the things. And so that got stressful. I mean it was -- there were -- there was lots of comfort involved and like having your person there, right? And like at the end of a 12-hour shift, like knowing that you'd see somebody who you could just like be yourself with and relax around a little bit. So, I don't -- I don't.

01:36:24ROWELL: Mixed bag?

01:36:25HO FUNG: It was easier than had we been separated in Iraq. Yeah.

01:36:29ROWELL: Yeah. And you can decide whether you want to mention this and talk about this or not. But were you able to share with him some of the adverse experiences you encountered earlier in your career in the Guard?

01:36:45HO FUNG: I eventually did. I don't recall if I had at that point yet.

01:36:51ROWELL: Okay. So, moving into that preparatory period before mobilization. So, what was -- what did that training look like in Texas, and where did you go specifically in Texas for that?

01:37:05HO FUNG: We were at Fort Bliss. Yeah, okay.

01:37:09ROWELL: I just interviewed someone who was just at Fort Bliss, so.

01:37:10HO FUNG: Like, so many things. Yeah. Yeah. And we were prepping, like I said, to be like, security guards. So, we had to do a lot of, like, MP type training, military police training. And so, we got experience with a lot of, like, non-lethal weapons, things that were being used in detention centers. We had to be like pepper sprayed and go through that. Some people chose to get tasered. I didn't not. It was a big thing for the married couples to get tasered together. I was like, we're-we're opting out of that. [XXXXXX] did do it. I was like, I'm not going to opt in for pain, this is already painful enough. He was a medic -- you know, always. So, like, his position was pretty secured and protected. When we were doing it -- was it a week or two weeks or something? We went to Fort McGregor, which is like a smaller training center within Fort Bliss. That's where it was like set up. Like they have like role players that come in and behave like detainees and they just stay there and live there, whatever. We -- at that point I was training to be like intel. So like S-2, instead of like a guard. Some -- I-I somehow was like picked to be in like operations and work, like, closely with the commander and first sergeant for a lot of things. I think probably -- I mean, I had a education, you know college degree at that point which was rare for like enlisted people. And so, I think they saw like the versatility and like what I was able to do. So, I trained to be intelligence and like it was kind of fun because like at -- when we were training, we -- me and the one other guy who were training for those positions had to figure out who was like the leader in this detention facility just based on like watching like communication patterns and things like that. So that was fun. So yeah, we were there for like three months. It was hot. I don't, I mean, I don't remember a lot more about it. It just it's all like a blur. Yeah.

01:39:22ROWELL: Yeah. Did you have any feelings about the MP positions or, you know, that you were -- the whole idea of interacting with people who were interned? Or anything like that?

01:39:34HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, by that point, I knew that a lot of people were captive, because they had done really small things, that it was kind of like their-their life or their family's life or do this thing. And so, it felt a little difficult. I knew that, you know, we had to call them detainees. It was very clear that we could not call them prisoners because they had not stood trial yet. And so, I knew by that point that there were people being held there for years that hadn't been given a trial. And I knew that people were really mad. Right? And so that was a challenging situation to be going into.

01:40:18ROWELL: Yeah. Did you know you're going to Camp Bucca in particular?

01:40:23HO FUNG: I don't know when we found out.

01:40:25ROWELL: When you did find out, did you kinda do any research? Did you--?

01:40:31HO FUNG: No. And we didn't -- all the stuff about Camp Bucca didn't come out until after.

01:40:35ROWELL: Yeah.

01:40:36HO FUNG: So, we were there -- when we showed up. There were 17,000 detainees still. And we closed Camp Bucca like the TIF [Theater Internment Facility] before by the time we left.

01:40:45ROWELL: Yeah., we'll definitely get into that.

01:40:46HO FUNG: Yeah. Okay.

01:40:47ROWELL: As we move through. Thanks for mentioning it.

01:40:49HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:40:50ROWELL: So, in terms of your, like, household, what did you do to prepare for both of you being gone for, you know, a number of months at the time?

01:41:00HO FUNG: Yeah. We -- there were soldiers, one soldier in particular in [XXXXXX]'s unit who wasn't deploying. I can't remember why. And was a --she was a college student or something, but we invited her to stay in our house while we were gone because we had a -- we owned a house together. And just asked her to pay utilities and just like keep an eye on things. So, we did that. We moved like my car to my aunt's house, to be in the shed and, you know, so they could drive it every now and then. [XXXXXX] had two kids at that point, and he made like these bears that had like recordings on the inside. They gave them like the family readiness groups would give those out. And he read some stories or said something for his children. We did a lot of visiting family. We spent some time at the Kalahari. I don't know if that was like -- that might have been like a pre-mob, like, family thing that the mil-- like the Army National Guard put on. I can't remember. I think all the families were there. That might have been like right before we left.

01:42:03ROWELL: Okay. Where was that?

01:42:05HO FUNG: At the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells.

01:42:07ROWELL: Oh, okay.

01:42:08HO FUNG: I don't know if that was just like a my family thing or like that was like everybody thing. I can't remember. But just so like a lot of, you know, visiting and saying goodbyes.

01:42:18ROWELL: What was your mood kind of as the date that you're going to deploy approached?

01:42:24HO FUNG: Just really nervous. I would say -- like there is a bit of excitement and like feeling like finally because like, you know, when you're in uniform at that time, if you hadn't deployed yet, that felt shameful. And so, I wanted to be able to wear that patch on my shoulder and do my time like everybody else had. And I was really worried I was going to die. Like, my mom had died at age 26. And so, I just had this idea that like around that age, like mid-20s, I was going to die. And so, I was scared. Yeah.

01:43:01ROWELL: Yeah. How old were you at that time?

01:43:05HO FUNG: I think I was 25 when we deployed? So, it was around -- yeah.

01:43:10ROWELL: So right -- right in that period?

01:43:11HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:43:12ROWELL: Wow yeah. So, a lot of pressure from a lot of

01:43:13HO FUNG: Mm-hmm.

01:43:14ROWELL: -- from many different sides.

01:43:15HO FUNG: Mm-hmm.

01:43:18ROWELL: So, do you remember the date that you left?

01:43:21HO FUNG: No.

01:43:22ROWELL: That's okay. But it was in 2009?

01:43:24HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:43:25ROWELL: Yeah. And then what do you remember about traveling to Kuwait?

01:43:32HO FUNG: The flights there were nice. I remember we stopped, it -- was at Bangor, Maine? I think that's where everybody stops. And like, there were all these people with signs -- people who didn't know us, but people who welcomed, like, troops who were coming in or out. So, people with signs and candies and things like that. So that was really nice. And then we got to Kuwait, and I remember it being so frickin' hot, like I was so thirsty. And it was nighttime and there were all these pallets of water, like just sitting out and like, it was hot, too, you know? And it was like, this is what you're drinking 'cause you're just -- so that is like my first like, that was like a little bit of a rough adjustment. But like, I don't know, there's something -- there's like a sense of nostalgia, like being on those bases, like how they set up like, little communities in the middle of nowhere, right? There's like, in Kuwait, is it Arifjan where everybody flies in and out of?

01:44:38ROWELL: I'm not sure.

01:44:41HO FUNG: Oh, God. I meant to look at a map before I came so that I could remember the names of all these places. But whatever the main hub is for flying in and out of Kuwait, they have like a little coffee shop and like, little, you know, like a Burger King and things like that, right? To make it feel -- I think there was like a little nail place to get your feet done or whatever to make it feel like home. And so that was really kind of neat. And then you just -- we just waited around. I-I can't remember how many days until we got a flight into -- on a Huey helicopter into Iraq.

01:45:17ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. So, from there you went to Camp Bucca.

01:45:21HO FUNG: Mm-hmm.

01:45:22ROWELL: Can you describe for me the purpose of the camp?

01:45:26HO FUNG: I mean, it was the largest detention facility in Iraq. It's where they held many, many people who were involved in insurgency. And like I said, we had 17,000 detainees when we got there. I learn now that we had a lot of key players. I think we kind of had some sense of that at the time, but nobody -- you know, they would not tell us the names of any of the higher-ranking people.

01:45:55ROWELL: Yeah, no specifics. Yeah. And the theater internment facility, is that the term for it TIF ?

01:46:01HO FUNG: Yep. Yep.

01:46:02ROWELL: Okay. And so, what was your rank at this point?

01:46:05HO FUNG: I was a E-5, sergeant.

01:46:07ROWELL: Okay. And then -- so, can you tell me a bit about your duties at the camp when you arrived?

01:46:12HO FUNG: Mm-hmm. That -- again shuffling, shuffling. I feel like it was shuffling even until like we were there. And I ended up being an S-6, which is like operations. I-I worked in like a little trailer most--, and I was there night shift. What I did was -- I did a lot of things. So, my primary responsibility was tracking the movements of all of the detainees and our soldiers. So, with that, every morning there was like a pollist that came through. We had, you know, thousands of detainees -- probably about a thousand movements a day throughout the internment facility. And so, I needed to make sure that the detainees were where we said they were going to be and got, you know, to the different -- whether it was like religious class or brick making or whatever. Right? Visitation. To these things. And our -- my soldiers, not mine, but our soldiers in our unit were the ones transporting them. So, we -- they never ended up really being any kind of security guards. They were transport on the TIF itself. And so, they drove the little busses and they had to, like, handcuff the detainees and get them on the transport and get them to where they needed to be. And I was in charge of like the logistics of making sure that everybody was getting to where they needed to be. And then when we had people traveling throughout the country or traveling home for leave, like our people, I had just had to like track them and make sure like they were getting where they needed to be. So that was, like, the job. But I did a lot of other little things. Like I helped put together the yearbook or I did, like, urine collection for, like, the drug screenings to make sure people were staying, like, fit for duty. I helped -- I had, really, I had the highest first -- second highest fitness test in the unit. And so, my commander put me in charge of like remedial physical training for people who weren't passing PT tests. So, I had like 17, 19 soldiers? I think all 16 like passed by the end. And so, I tried to make it fun. Like they called me -- they always called me Miss Buss, like my teacher name instead of sergeant. And so, there was just like a lot of things like that. I also, because of I, you know, I-I didn't know it at the time. I was born to be a psychologist. I took people under my wings that were struggling. And so, we had two people that had some emerging mental health stuff that happened while we were there, and I ended up escorting them up through Iraq and then into Germany to get mental health treatment. And they ended up going back to the states. But like I was their chaperon essentially. And then toward the end of my time the last month, I was on like a special detail in Kuwait helping escort people out of the country. So as that 32nd Brigade pulled out of Iraq, you know, people would cross the border and then we would have to get them to -- it must have been Arifjan -- wherever they needed to be safely and like get ready for flights out of the country.

01:49:19ROWELL: Can you clarify who those individuals were that you were -- you were helping move them out?

01:49:27HO FUNG: The U.S. soldiers, Army National Guard. It was Army National Guard, 32nd Brigade from Wisconsin. We were -- we are just part of the assigned detail to get like, I don't know, we have like 3000 troops from Wisconsin there. And so, the-the deployments were staggered, right? And so, the withdrawal was staggered, too. So, we kind of pulled people out or they came out and we escorted them and got them to where they needed to be.

01:49:52ROWELL: Mm-hmm. Okay, makes sense.

01:49:53HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:49:54ROWELL: So, focusing in here on your duties, can you describe how that tracking worked in -- on the TIF? Like how that kind of goes?

01:50:07HO FUNG: It was a lot of just like computer work, honestly. I mean, if you think about it like an Excel spreadsheet and just like numbers. Like each detainee had a number and like as they got from one place to another and we got notification that they were there, we moved them and-and made sure that they eventually ended back in their assigned like TIF area. So that's what it was. I mean, it was really quite simple. I wasn't doing any physical tracking. Like I didn't have to go beyond the TIF to do it. It was all like operational stuff in the background.

01:50:40ROWELL: Okay. And so how did you receive those notifications?

01:50:46HO FUNG: We had, like, secret clearance phones and computer systems, so that was the way.

01:50:53ROWELL: So, it was like, check in every time?

01:50:54HO FUNG: Mm-Hmm.

01:50:55ROWELL: Yeah. How did they handle large groups?

01:50:58HO FUNG: The busses? I mean, there were small groups of people at a time. So, the busses, if you think it's not like a school bus, it's more like a van size. So gosh, I can't remember maybe 8 to 12 people at a time. So, it was never like enormous groups where you couldn't keep track of them easily.

01:51:14ROWELL: Mm-hmm. And did you have any sort of supervisory role within your unit? Or not so much?

01:51:23HO FUNG: Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. Like as we were prepping for deployment, I did. I had like a squad. So, I think I had like four people reporting to me. But as we like shifted the structure because I was in OPS, I think I had one person like a lower ranking than me. Everybody else was like, you know, the commander, the first sergeant, the supply sergeant, the -- you know, like they were all like higher ranking. So, we just kind of all worked together as a group. Yeah, but one person I think reported to me.

01:51:56ROWELL: Mm-hmmm. Okay.

01:51:57HO FUNG: I think it was for practice. I think they just had him assigned to me for practice.

01:52:01ROWELL: Okay. And how did you -- how did you kind of adjust to that night shift? Did that -- was that on all the time or was it like two weeks on, two weeks off?

01:52:11HO FUNG: It was on all the time. I don't know if it was -- I mean, there were lights. I mean, it was bright at night because you had lights all over the -- all over Camp Bucca. And I just built -- I mean, really, it's just like building structure. So, I would go to work. I would go sleep. I would put on either Zoolander or Enchanted, fall asleep, get up, go workout, or eat. I would eat first, whatever food-food went in there, go workout, shower, go to work. Like it was just the same thing. I think we would have maybe one day off a week or something or maybe less. I don't know.

01:52:55ROWELL: Mm-hmm. Were you on the same -- were you and your spouse on the same schedule?

01:52:58HO FUNG: Opposite schedules.

01:52:59ROWELL: Oh, okay.

01:53:00HO FUNG: So, we would see each other in the transition times. It wasn't -- there was some overlap in how like he was working with Iraqi correctional medical officers. So, he was kind of in a different part, like training them how to do like the medical stuff. And so, his shifts were a little different than mine. I think they were on like eight-hour shifts or something.

01:53:18ROWELL: Okay. And what did you -- kind of -- how did you handle that? How did that go for you in that period of time?

01:53:29HO FUNG: I think things got a little weird. We-we did okay. But like, that's where a lot of, like, stuff started, rumors started getting back to me about him, like spending too much time with another female who happened to be, like, my best friend while we were there. But they worked the same shift and like, I just kept the saying like, "No way." Like, "She would never do that to me. He's just hanging out with her because she and I are friends." And yeah, so that kind of stuff was happening. We would -- I mean, we had good times too. We would play cards, you know, together, watch movies together at times, go for runs together and things like that, too.

01:54:09ROWELL: Yeah. And you were living in a couple's housing, right?

01:54:12HO FUNG: Yeah, it was a CHU, containerized housing unit. So, if you think of like a Conex box or like, you know, those boxes that they'll drop in your driveway to load up if you're moving. It was like that. And so, yeah, we were in there together.

01:54:26ROWELL: Okay. And were there a lot of other couples on -- like, at Camp Bucca?

01:54:31HO FUNG: There were some. I think most of them were the ones from our unit. But there were a couple others from other units. Yeah.

01:54:38ROWELL: Okay. Yeah, and did you -- did you have any interactions, in -- within your duties at all with detainees? Did you have any contact at all--

01:54:52HO FUNG: No--

01:54:53ROWELL: --or not so much?

01:54:54HO FUNG: mhmm.

01:54:55ROWELL: Won't -- wouldn't think so, but no. So, in 2008, it's, you know, there were some military personnel that were charged with mistreatment of some of the detainees at Camp Bucca. Did you hear anything about that kind of thing while you were there?

01:55:14HO FUNG: No.

01:55:15ROWELL: Did that come out at all?

01:55:16HO FUNG: No. I mean, we, there were rumors of -- when we were training, like people would say people would have sex with detainees through the fence or like just these really bizarre stories. But I didn't learn about all of the mistreatment, honestly, until I was a PhD student. And I started looking at like the ethics code around psychology and the use of psychology in interrogations.

01:55:43ROWELL: Hmmm.

01:55:44HO FUNG: So.

01:55:45ROWELL: Yeah. We'll definitely touch on that as we get there.

01:55:46HO FUNG: Yeah.

01:55:49ROWELL: So, and then this just based on some research, it seems like there was considerable division between Shia and Sunni detainees. Is that something that you were aware of or saw?

01:56:00HO FUNG: Yeah, we definitely had a lot of education about that. Like in now, like so many of the details escape me. But that was certainly like a part of our training and education and some of the things that I was trained to look for when I was doing that, like S-2 position were all the differences and the kind of I don't want to say infighting but fighting between.

01:56:25ROWELL: Yeah. Did you ever encounter a position -- a circumstance in which detainees were not where they were supposed to be?

01:56:34HO FUNG: No.

01:56:35ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. Pretty smooth.

01:56:36HO FUNG: Yeah. And if-if there was something like that, it probably -- I didn't know of it. Like maybe it was above my pay grade even. I don't know.

01:56:46ROWELL: Yeah. And then another kind of big picture question, but -- so you referenced earlier that there was some -- that there were people who were, detainees at Camp Bucca who were involved in insurgency, some of them, and some, as we might say, big names who were later involved, you know, with--

01:57:07HO FUNG: ISIS.

01:57:08ROWELL: There is a lot of names for it. ISIS, ISIL.

01:57:10HO FUNG: Yeah, yeah.

01:57:11ROWELL: Yeah, that group. Right? Did you at the time have any kind of sense for that, that were there rumors going around about that?

01:57:21HO FUNG: No. I think we got the sense that people were upset. But I think that the way the rhetoric was kind of sold to us as like we were doing good by breaking down the camp, kind of releasing people back to their families, turning people over to the Iraqi government, that it was like a good thing that we were doing, right. So, we didn't hear rumblings. I think we were pretty protected from that, while we were there.

01:57:50ROWELL: Okay, yeah. And then so talking about security a little bit, can you describe, just like the physical security measures, you know, around Camp Bucca that you saw every day?

01:58:06HO FUNG: Yeah, I mean, they had of course, there are they Haskell [HESCO] barriers? Whatever the really tall ones filled with sand are around the perimeter. And then we had guard towers, you know, around the perimeter. There were Ugandan soldiers that were in most of those. So, I made a couple of Ugandan friends that we -- I stay in contact with. And then, of course, there were people who would like patrolled the outside, you know, in Humvees, just making sure that everything was secure. And then, you know, just like any other base, like security measures coming in where there is like serpentining and like guard stations blocking and like a big, huge area where there was vetting before there was another like station. So, like lots of barriers and stops before coming in.

01:59:00ROWELL: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one last kind of big picture question. So even this is -- seemed much more common in the earlier days of Camp Bucca, but it seems like there was some unrest. Some people might call them riots, but they were, you know, among prisoners just kind of on a on a daily, weekly basis sometimes. Did you hear anything about that?

01:59:23HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, there would be definitely like uprisings, like where people would get feces thrown at them or like food thrown at them, or there would be like kind of like coordinated rebellions in some way within. But it never got like out of control where any -- where anybody had to use like non-lethal weapons or anything while we were there.

01:59:48ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. So, it felt kind of unremarkable.

01:59:51HO FUNG: It felt really unremarkable, honestly, even like we never got bombed while we were there. So Camp Bucca's really small and it would be relatively easy, right, to-to hit any of our housing if you just shot a mortar from out -- right outside the base. But like we didn't have any of that happened while we were there. Some people said we were protected because we had so many detainees that they, you know, that maybe people didn't want to mortar us because they didn't want to hit the detainees and kill them. I don't know if that was true or not, but it was really unremarkable.

02:00:27ROWELL: And becomes routine, too. Strange things can become routine sometimes. Or not so strange. But -- so, one last question about your duties. What-what kind of activities or what sort of places on the base were most common for detainees to cycle through during the day?

02:00:48HO FUNG: I mean, they were always on the TIF, but a lot of people would go to like religion to learn more about the Quran. They would go to brick making classes, I think, were there English? I don't want to put that in the record because I can't remember. Those are the ones that stand out--and visitation. Those are the things that stand out to me.

02:01:08ROWELL: Yeah. So, we talked about housing here. What else did you end up doing for recreation while you were there? You mentioned a couple of things. Anything else?

02:01:20HO FUNG: Oh, yeah. I was the scorekeeper for baseball. Some baseball leagues that were going on. I played volleyball. And then I worked out a lot. Just always running and working out.

02:01:33ROWELL: Yeah.

02:01:35HO FUNG: My friend and I would -- we got, like, little rubber made tubs, and we did our-our -- painted our toenails, too. Every -- probably every couple of months or so.

02:01:46ROWELL: Yeah. Did you feel like you have access to some elements of, like, comfort items and things like that?

02:01:53HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, I crocheted a lot while I was there. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, it was very simple life.

02:02:02ROWELL: Yeah. Did you have a lot of contact with friends or family at home?

02:02:06HO FUNG: Mm-mmm. Yeah. I called regularly. Called, email. What was the big video chat then?

02:02:16ROWELL: Skype?

02:02:17HO FUNG: Skype. We Skyped. Yeah.

02:02:20ROWELL: How times have changed. Yeah. Yeah. But so, Skype was a primary thing for you?

02:02:24HO FUNG: Skype, phone calls, emails. Yeah.

02:02:27ROWELL: Did you have your own devices that you used?

02:02:29HO FUNG: Mhmm--I just had my cell phone for the phone number storage.

02:02:33ROWELL: Gotcha. Yeah. And so, was there like, a center that you'd go to?

02:02:37HO FUNG: Yep. Calling centers and you bought a certain number -- you could buy minutes, then call from there.

02:02:42ROWELL: Was it still AT&T or?

02:02:44HO FUNG: I don't remember.

02:02:45ROWELL: Okay. All right.

02:02:46HO FUNG: Maybe.

02:02:47ROWELL: Yeah. Perhaps. Who knows? So, let's see. So earlier you referenced that mission where you were selected to escort those two service members from Iraq to Germany. Can you tell me you kind of starting at the beginning how that developed and what that was like?

02:03:06HO FUNG: Yeah, I don't want to reveal too much of their mental situation, but it was just, you know, over time, the stress of being there and the lack of mental health support created a situation where they couldn't maintain their well-being. And so, they needed to get up to Germany. And-and I guess it goes that they need an escort. When you're in that kind of situation. And so, we went up to Basra, right north of us. We convoyed up to Basra there. It was a little scary because the week before we were staying in like transitional tents or whatever the week before had been -- they had been bombed and like somebody died while they were out smoking a cigarette like not too far from where we were. And so that was definitely a hotter spot for mortar attacks. And so, it was just more nerve wracking. And I just again, another existential thing and another like career driving factors like we are putting our physical lives in jeopardy to get these folks mental health treatment like this is bizarre. Why don't we have this available? Like, why aren't there behavioral health techs or psychologists on this base? Why do we have to go so far to get them help? And maybe we did that -- did we do that twice? Did they see? I cannot remember, honestly, but somehow, we ended up flying into Germany and being in the hospital there. While I was in Germany, I got to -- waiting -- I got to go tour, so I got to go see Heidelberg Castle like. So that was kind of nice. And that was where I said, I want to. I want to work here someday. I want to become a military psychologist and work here someday. And so, we ended up getting back -- getting back is weird. Like the military coordinates all of this travel for you when you're going someplace, when you're coming back, it's like you have to figure it out on your own. So, you just go to like these little, like, stations, like on the bases and just be like, okay, is there any flights going to basically you go to Kuwait and then convoy back up. And so, you just do that until you get a flight, get to Kuwait, and then hop on a convoy that goes past. It's very weird. But I guess that experience when I was 17, coming back from basic training prepared me for that. I had to figure it out. Yeah. So that -- that's kind of how that worked. It was a very brief period of time, but very impactful.

02:05:49ROWELL: Yeah. Those-those little like check in areas where you were checking in and things like that, was that how you received information about other service members who were traveling, you know, in Iraq or anything else?

02:06:02HO FUNG: No.

02:06:03ROWELL: How did you how did you track those--movement?

02:06:04HO FUNG: That's a really good question. Most of our people did not travel through Iraq. Most of it was when they were going home on leave. And they would just reach out to us and let us know when they got somewhere safely and when they were preparing to come back. Like, of course, we had their travel information because somebody in our shop coordinated the travel for them and then we would just like touch base with them when they -- and if they had the same situation where they would, how do we know when they were like leaving? They must have been calling us. That must have been how it worked. I cannot remember.

02:06:39ROWELL: Did you call anybody?

02:06:40HO FUNG: I never -- when I was traveling? How did I get in touch with people I don't even -- I don't remember. I don't remember.

02:06:51ROWELL: Some details escape sometimes.

02:06:52HO FUNG: Yeah. It's such a blur.

02:06:55ROWELL: That's okay.

02:06:58HO FUNG: How did they know? Did they call for me or send an email? I don't know. Or was I just like, they just expected me to arrive at some point? I don't know. I don't. I don't remember.

02:07:10ROWELL: What was your -- what was your spouse's reaction when he knew that you would be traveling and going on this definitely more vulnerable mission?

02:07:21HO FUNG: I think he thought it was cool.

02:07:23ROWELL: Mm-Hmm. And did you keep in contact with him while you were gone?

02:07:28HO FUNG: I don't -- no. I don't -- because there wasn't a way to.

02:07:30ROWELL: Right. Yeah.

02:07:32HO FUNG: So, no, it was just kind of like you peaced out for a bit, and then maybe you make it back, maybe you don't.

02:07:36ROWELL: Crossed your fingers?--yeah. And how long were you in Germany for?

02:07:42HO FUNG: Not long. Gosh, I think the whole trip lasted maybe a week. You know, between traveling up through Iraq, getting to Germany a couple of days there and back. Maybe two weeks total, I was gone. It was not long.

02:07:55ROWELL: Yeah. And you were selected because of your personal closeness with these persons?

02:07:58HO FUNG: Yeah, 'cause of the way I had been supporting them leading up to that point.

02:08:02ROWELL: Okay. Did you feel -- so you established that there wasn't really mental health care available on base -- on the, you know, post, but were -- was leadership aware of the developing situation that led up to this period?

02:08:18HO FUNG: Yeah.

02:08:19ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. And how was that received?

02:08:22HO FUNG: My commander, Captain Janssen, now Major Janssen, he was really supportive. I mean, he was a social worker. He had he had his master's degree I think in social work. And so, he got it. I mean, he's-he's somebody who walks that world between, like, traditional masculinity and like, also getting kind of the soft sciences. So even though he would never be one to admit like he was feeling a certain way or having mental health challenges, he was supportive of other people in those situations.

02:09:00ROWELL: And how-how are you kind of doing while you were there? So obviously you maintained a bit of anxiety about your safety. Did that subside over time?

02:09:10HO FUNG: Yeah, I think I settled in. I mean, the only time I can remember spikes in that is like having to travel, right? Because there's just uncertainty. But we settled in. I mean, I didn't feel, even though, you know, we were in this combat context, like, I didn't feel like a constant threat to life when we were on Camp Bucca.

02:09:32ROWELL: And so, do you want to go into it more detail about that next -- that other assignment that you had bringing people?

02:09:40HO FUNG: I can share briefly. I mean, it wasn't -- cool part about it was we got to use, like, SUVs. And [XXXXXX], my husband, was actually in charge of that mission. And so, he had -- he was pretty a fun leader in that way. Like, he had us do all of these scavenger hunts around Kuwait. Like, we had to go to different bases and like -- how did we prove? Did we have photos? Anyway, we had to go to different bases to like, get certain points or artifacts or something to prove. And that was how we trained for like getting around the country. And then we just -- it was like eight of us or something. And then just in pairs or maybe 12 took turns, like as these people were coming in, and you drive up with two SUVs. We were -- we always had to have our like tops off. But we had our weapons with us. We had weapons that we gave to a couple of people on the busses because by that time when you leave country, you leave your weapons, too. So, they're coming across the border pretty vulnerable. And so, we gave them some weapons. And then you just like one SUV in front, one in the back of the bus and then drive them to wherever they need to go in the country. So that was -- that was it. It was fun. It was something different. It passed the time for the last month. We were there and then we were gone.

02:11:07ROWELL: Yeah. How long were you there?

02:11:09HO FUNG: I think boots on ground nine months with adding on the time for pre-mob, it was a 12-month total deployment.

02:11:18ROWELL: And -- kind of circling back around just to that detail you mentioned about the Ugandan service members. Do you know what that -- why they were specifically in a lot of those positions?

02:11:31HO FUNG: No, I don't know. I mean, they're part of -- must have been part of like United Nations or something. And so, they were there. They also were the ones who checked our weapons in when we went to the gym.

02:11:45ROWELL: Oh, okay. A lot of security related things. Yeah.

02:11:49HO FUNG: Yeah.

02:11:50ROWELL: Huh--and were they like in their uniforms?

02:11:53HO FUNG: They were, yeah. It was like a tan uniform.

02:11:56ROWELL: Yeah, and no, like, light blue UN stuff anywhere that you can remember, okay right so like [full??]?

02:12:02HO FUNG: It was just like a tan, yeah.

02:12:05ROWELL: And you guys got to socialize a little bit?

02:12:07HO FUNG: Yeah. So, there are two -- two of the guys that worked -- checked our weapons in at the gym, I saw them every day. So, we're also Facebook friends. Valentine and Samuel. Yeah.

02:12:17ROWELL: Is there anybody else that you got close with that you want to talk about from your time at Bucca?

02:12:24HO FUNG: Yeah. Cheryl. Cheryl Shefchik was -- she knew [XXXXX]. She was a lieutenant in the medic unit before this deployment, and she was there. And so, she was a platoon leader while we were there. And we -- I ended up being promoted to E-6 while I was in Iraq. And we were -- so we were the two highest ranking females. There was kind of like this divide, like one you're E-6 or an officer, there was like a different -- we -- our housing units were in a different part of the base. And so even like [XXXXXX] and I had -- were together in a married unit, but we weren't in the married unit like couples' area of the base because we were in the higher rank and part. So, there was like this division. And so, there was like, I don't know, Cheryl and I kind of became close because of the nature of the positions that we had or titles, ranks. And we would run together a lot and just share stories. But she's like also now one of my best friends. So, I say, I got her in the divorce. She -- our relationship is just like built so strongly over time and she is an amazing woman. And I would be remiss without mentioning that she is the legislative liaison to the Army chief of staff. She works in the Pentagon. She's fucking amazing and she is brilliant. She just -- before she went to the Pentagon, she finished her master's in public health at Dartmouth and then got a scholarship to do this degree at Georgetown and-and is doing it. She's just amazing. So, I -- yeah. We also have babies that are the same age, so it's really cool.

02:14:10ROWELL: Yeah. Could you spell her last name for me?

02:14:12HO FUNG: S-H-E-F-C-H-I-K.

02:14:15ROWELL: Okay. Thank you. Just so there's no ambiguity about that. So, before we kind of talk about the closing of the camp, is there anything else that you want to mention from your kind of experience there or anybody you'd like to mention?

02:14:33HO FUNG: I don't think so.

02:14:36ROWELL: So, towards the end of your deployment, I'm pretty sure Camp Bucca was officially closed in September 2007. I mean, just so sorry. 2009.

02:14:45HO FUNG: Nine.

02:14:47ROWELL: Its just September 17th, 2009. Okay. I guess the official date. So, were you aware that this change was coming? How'd that work?

02:14:56HO FUNG: Yeah, I mean, I think it must have been mid-deployment that they started talking about the preparations for this. So yeah. And I mean, my -- our soldiers were involved in helping. How did we? I think they just -- I don't -- we didn't drive the bus loads of people. Other people must have done that. Like driving bus loads of people other places. Where to? I don't know. The thing that I remember most is like the physical tear down of the camp.

02:15:25ROWELL: Yeah. I was going to ask, so what did that consist of?

02:15:29HO FUNG: I mean, tearing everything down. I didn't. I again, didn't have to be involved in like the actual physical labor. It was the people who were transport before. But once the detainees were gone, that was what they had to do. Like, I mean, tearing down concertina wire or tearing down like posts, like everything you could think of the entire structure of the TIF they tore down.

02:15:50ROWELL: Okay. And then did they, like truck it out or?

02:15:54HO FUNG: Probably. I don't know where they moved it to or who moved that. I mean there were other people on the base too, so I don't know if people moved it out. I remember a big Captain Jansen drove me out there and I remember like being just rolls of concertina wire, just like, you know, sitting stacked on top of each other. But I don't know how it got -- left the base.

02:16:17ROWELL: Yeah. And did they maintain, like, the other structures? Just the ones that, you know, that were used for detainment they took down or?

02:16:25HO FUNG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't do any tear down of anything else while we were there.

02:16:30ROWELL: Mm-hmm--yeah. Were they all permanent like semi-permanent structures or was it a lot of, I don't know, kind of trailer like?

02:16:39HO FUNG: Yeah.

02:16:40ROWELL: --or container like stuff?

02:16:41HO FUNG: Yeah. Yes. Nothing was like semi-permanent, I guess if you -- it was very makeshift, like, you know, going up to Balad, that was different. Like they were like permanent. They were things that were like built in. It felt more like a city when I was there. That was not how Bucca was. It very much felt makeshift.

02:17:01ROWELL: Mmm. Okay. Yeah. Did that extend to, like, housing and facilities for soldiers?

02:17:07HO FUNG: Yeah. It was all just like the little Conex trailers.

02:17:09ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. Even though it was the largest, like, TIF in Iraq, at the time?

02:17:15HO FUNG: Yeah, it was. I mean, over half of the base was the TIF.

02:17:18ROWELL: Was closing the camp at all at a tense time because there's a lot going on and perhaps room for risk?

02:17:26HO FUNG: I don't recall it being tense. I think it was more celebratory.

02:17:34ROWELL: Can you say more about that?

02:17:36HO FUNG: It just felt -- it felt like we were doing the right thing. And it was -- we knew it was the end then, right? Like if we have no more detainees and no more TIF, like, we don't have a reason to be here anymore. So, it just very much felt like the winding down of things.

02:17:53ROWELL: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, were you -- how did your duties change once you were no longer tracking?

02:18:02HO FUNG: That's when I went to Kuwait to help with, like, escorting people out.

02:18:06ROWELL: Okay. All right. So, we'll be looking at you coming back to the States. Anything we didn't cover yet about your time in Iraq or Kuwait?

02:18:19HO FUNG: I don't think so.

02:18:20ROWELL: All right. So, do you remember when you returned to the States?

02:18:25HO FUNG: February or March of 2010.

02:18:31ROWELL: And then how soon after that did you make the decision to leave-leave the Army?

02:18:37HO FUNG: I decided to do my -- take my GRE and apply for master's programs or a master's program. And we also wanted to have children. And so, it was -- my contract was up in July of that year, and I just didn't re-sign. That's also when I changed my name when we came back 'cause I thought if we survived a war together, we can survive anything.

02:19:12ROWELL: It's an intuitive thought for that time.

02:19:13HO FUNG: It was.

02:19:16HO FUNG: It was fitting for the moment.

02:19:19ROWELL: Yeah, absolutely. So then -- so were Rae Ann [XXXXXX] at that time?

02:19:21HO FUNG: Yep. Yep.

02:19:22ROWELL: Okay. And can you -- were you talking about your then spouse's career changing at all in that -- in that cause you're staying in, right?

02:19:37HO FUNG: Yep. So, we had to reverse to it. It must have been January or February were -- when we came back because I changed my name for Valentine's Day that year. Make it even more special. He, yes, he applied for an AGR position, Active Army National Guard position as the readiness NCO for the Charlie Med. Unit.

02:20:01ROWELL: Okay. So where were you living at this time?

02:20:04HO FUNG: Still in, like, Bayview area, Milwaukee.

02:20:07ROWELL: Okay. And so, what was your rank when you separated?

02:20:11HO FUNG: E-6, staff sergeant.

02:20:13ROWELL: And so, this transition right between, you know, military and civilian life. What was that like for you at the time and your family?

02:20:28HO FUNG: It was hard. I-I think you've probably heard this example from others, but the kind of going into the grocery store and there were so many boxes of cereal, like so many choices everywhere we went. I remember, like trying to shop. I was so excited to get like civilian clothes, right? And just having to walk out of the store because it was so overwhelming. And so back to the simplicity of being on a deployment. It's weird because like, you're in a combat situation where you could die, and yet it was like the simplest my life has ever been. I just had one thing to do every day, right? And like, god, coming back was so complicated. And then I transitioned into being a student again, which walking around on a campus with a bunch of young people who -- oh gosh, that was very hard to -- who have, you know, in my mind had no idea what the world is really like. Yeah, it was very difficult.

02:21:38ROWELL: Even though you were a grad student, you were still interacting with undergrads all the time, right? And that was at UW-Milwaukee?

02:21:44HO FUNG: Mm-hmm.

02:21:45ROWELL: Okay. And so, did you utilize, like, veteran support to pay for your master's degree?

02:21:54HO FUNG: Yeah. So, I didn't -- actually, when we went through all of our demob stuff and like, they have all the stations, the education people that I talked to said I didn't have any more benefits available to me because I had used all of the National Guard benefits, and they said that I didn't qualify for anything else. So, I ended up paying for my first year of my master's program, with a loan. And then learned because I ran into somebody who was a recruiter -- who was probably my old recruiter actually, who told me like his wife was going back to school. And he told me like, no, you qualify for post-9/11 benefits and won't be as many years as if had you not used those other things. But you should at least get some time. And so, I learned that I qualified for 128 credits. That's a lot. And one year with a stipend of like $800 a month. So, it was a little frustrating that I had not been given the right information at first because like, I still have that debt. But it was such a gift to be able to have the second year paid for with that stipend. And so, I use that for my master's program with a stipend, and then my PhD program was completely paid for through those credits through the -- yeah. And that was so it was post-9/11 GI Bill that came with a stipend, the Wisconsin GI Bill. Sorry, I shouldn't click on that. The Wisconsin GI Bill is the one that was the 128 credits or whatever.

02:23:29ROWELL: You can touch the table.

02:23:29HO FUNG: Okay.

02:23:30ROWELL: No worries. And did you have a pause between your master's and a PhD, or was it just straight through?

02:23:37HO FUNG: I went straight through.

02:23:38ROWELL: Gotcha. All right. And so, you-you made the decision to pursue this master's, like, also pursuant to a career in psychology is that correct?

02:23:47HO FUNG: Mm-hmm. Yep. So, my goal with, like, all the trauma I saw in my students and in the trauma and mental health concerns in the military was to go back to school and then commission as some kind of mental health specialist in the military. You could not be any kind of like therapist in the military without a PhD. So, I just decided, okay, I need to become a psychologist to be able to do this. And so that was the original plan. And so, master's degree first and then you know applied to the PhD program while I was still in the master's program so that I could just continue on.

02:24:29ROWELL: Yeah. What was it like for you? Excuse me. What was it like for you being received as a young female veteran at that time and as a student? What was that dynamic like?

02:24:41HO FUNG: I felt very supported. And I think that's when I started to, I don't know, like people wanted to know my story. And so, I think that's when I really started feeling like there was a space to share, like the voice of women veterans and our experience. And so, I just -- it was good. And then they started they developed the Military and Veterans Resource Center [MAVRC] at UWM around that time. Mike worked really hard to get that up and running and I was a Tillman Scholar that helped too. So, they knew of me because I had gotten the scholarship and they wanted, I don't know, they put my poster up or something. And, and that's how I started getting connected with MAVRC, was they wanted me to come talk to other people who could apply and just things like that. So, I never -- I don't think I utilized the resource center in the way that some students did, but I was certainly more connected at that point because of like that visibility around the scholarship and things like that.

02:25:54ROWELL: Yeah. Shifting just for a moment, you mentioned that you were part of an FRG, family readiness group, while your husband -- your ex-husband, was in service. Can you tell me a bit about firstly, what FRGs--

02:26:09HO FUNG: Yeah--

02:26:10ROWELL: --are about and then your involvement?

02:26:11HO FUNG: Yeah. So, family readiness groups are there to really support the family as they support their service member. And my involvement was really just like doing some fun activities for the families. And we did like pancake breakfast to raise money and then we put on like summer picnics. So, it was me and one other spouse that worked together to do that. That was pretty much it. I mean, the family readiness groups also did a lot of like the support for like pre-deployment. They're the ones who would get like the teddy bears where you could record the voices and like get Christmas gifts for kids and you put on anything, you know, to just keep the families connected with the service member and support the families through the transition. So, I did that for a short time. A couple of years maybe.

02:27:04ROWELL: Yeah. And so, were you -- were you -- were there a lot of other female vets who were involved with that or like with like dual military couples or?

02:27:17HO FUNG: I think I was only dual military. So, my friend Cheryl that I told you about her husband would help as part of it. And then the other, Kate, it was her husband, was in the military. So, she had no prior service experience. I think I was the only one that walked, like in both worlds.

02:27:33ROWELL: Mm-hmm. What was that like for you?

02:27:35HO FUNG: I will always say it's 100% harder to be the family member. My time as a service member in Iraq, even though my life could have been at risk, was so simple. Everything was determined for me. I just had to show up and do my job. Spouses have so much more to deal with. They have the burden of everything else. Like everything that their partner was doing is put on their backs and then they figure out how to do it. They run the house and then that partner comes back and wants some responsibility back. And it just is very hard and messy. And so that was my experience. I hated -- and for me, I also knew what men in the military were like. And so, I knew what was happening when I wasn't there anymore, right? When I wasn't part of that community. And exactly what I feared would happen happened.

02:28:28ROWELL: Okay, do you feel comfortable moving into discussion of that?

02:28:34HO FUNG: Yeah. We can talk about it a little bit. I'm not sure if I want it part of like the public record. [XXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:28:46ROWELL: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:28:49HO FUNG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] And so, yeah, I had Emma was one and Alex was two and a half. So, I had little babies and, and that's the side of it I knew. I knew when men put on the uniform and they go to their units, they live a totally different life. You know, like [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] Oh, and because I didn't support that decision, for him to go on that mission and I was in grad school. Right. So, I'm not -- I'm choosing school over -- yeah. And so, it was -- it was September -- it was my first year, actually, my doctoral program when that happened. Second, beginning of my second year. Sorry. And I just I found evidence-- I just I don't know. I lost it. I kicked him out. And then I began my journey as a single mom in a PhD program with babies.

02:32:14ROWELL: Yeah. As a veteran.

02:32:15HO FUNG: Yeah, yeah.

02:32:16ROWELL: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

02:32:17HO FUNG: Yeah--You're welcome.

02:32:19ROWELL: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:32:56HO FUNG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:33:12ROWELL: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:33:32HO FUNG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:33:34ROWELL: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:33:38HO FUNG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:36:08ROWELL: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

02:36:09HO FUNG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. --showing up as the bigger person. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just as corrupt. I don't know.

02:36:16ROWELL: Doing what you had to do in the circumstance--

02:36:18HO FUNG: --To survive.

02:36:19ROWELL: --to protect vulnerable people.

02:36:21HO FUNG: Yeah. And to really, like, we were already hurt enough where, you know, the family is forever changed because of that. We didn't need all of those other consequences, too.

02:36:30ROWELL: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that.

02:36:35HO FUNG: Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah.

02:36:38ROWELL: So, talking more about your progression in your career. So, can you tell me a bit about how your goals changed and transformed as time went on, from wanting to be a psychologist in the military to seeking other goals?

02:37:00HO FUNG: Yeah. Well, once I had babies, everything changed. I just knew what it was like to grow up without a parent. And I could not imagine knowingly putting my life at risk and putting them in a situation where they would have to have that pain. And so, I -- as I became a mother and that part of my identity became an important part of my life, I just started to move farther and farther away from the idea. But then when I became a single mother, that kind of just went out the door because like, I just couldn't imagine -- I couldn't do that alone. And I couldn't -- I could, but I wouldn't want to. And I couldn't imagine moving them away from their father either. So, my number one goal became keep their dad in their life. At whatever cost. People look at us now and they think we're best friends. And I then shifted to like, VA. I was like, I can do VA. I can still help that population in a different way. And so, it wasn't too bad. Like my -- in trauma made sense, and so that's what I really focused on. Is -- I studied at -- did clinical work at Froedtert in trauma surgery, spinal cord rehab, neuro rehab. At the VA in women's health, which was a lot of military sexual trauma in the VA in neuropsychology, like partly to examine TBI related to trauma. And then at Rogers and PTSD work and then it finalized with my internship at the VA where all of these things kind of coalesced. And so, part of this though, discovery when you're going through such a grueling program, is like a lot of self-reflection and like, understanding. And I just learned my own worldview, like power dynamics, all the social stuff. And as I was finishing that year up at the VA, my final internship year, the culture is the same. And I would wear shoes that did not make noise on the days that I had to walk down the long hallway to get to the DOM [Domiciliary] because I did not want people looking at me. And I had a man every morning on the stairs that grabbed my shoulder and said, "Good morning, beautiful." I did not know who he was. I think he was a nurse on one of the floors above. And I was just like, I don't know if I can keep subjecting myself to this. And so, when my mentor from Rogers started kind of selling me on the idea of coming to Rogers to take over some of the trauma programs, it became more and more appealing to get away from that culture altogether. So that was kind of like the shifting of my career aspirations over time. The more I know about justice, power -- I can't -- the farther away I get from wanting to be in that world at all. And then my dissertation, you know, that was kind of like a nail in the coffin too when I interviewed -- was that nine? Women, people who identify as women, I should say, survivors of military sexual trauma and just across the decades all the way back, like to Vietnam era women to current generation. Same fucking story, different generation. Nothing had changed. Every -- the roles that I described you at the beginning, the way that they have to try to negotiate and navigate and spend so much energy like dancing doesn't change. And that culture carries right over to the VA.

02:41:05ROWELL: And that was not just -- and that was even for providers like yourself--

02:41:10HO FUNG: Yeah--

02:41:11ROWELL: --You were experiencing that same thing?

02:41:13HO FUNG: Mm-Hmm, yeah. It's worse when you go there as a patient.

02:41:15ROWELL: Mmmmmm. Can you say more about that?

02:41:17HO FUNG: As a provider, it's like the looks, the, you know, "Good morning, beautiful." Whatever. As a patient. I went there. I was sitting for a pharmacy waiting for meds, and there was a woman in line with her daughter, maybe three-year-old, waiting for meds. And the men were standing there talking like, I don't know if she could hear them or not, but I could. Yoga pants are God's gift to men. And just like objectifying her and talking about her as a sexual object. Right when her little daughter was there as she's standing in line trying to get her medication. So that's an example.

02:41:53ROWELL: And these were other patients or providers?

02:41:57HO FUNG: Patients. I need to be very clear that I never experienced that from the providers. I really think most all of the providers that I've ever interacted with are wonderful. And I keep going to the VA for services because of how wonderful they are. I actually have like private insurance, but my provider, when I was pregnant, we -- they did this like baby shower there for women. And she was like, are you coming back? And I'm like, no, like something's weird. Like my ex-- something about my benefits had expired or whatever. And she's like, "No way." And she got somebody on it and like, made sure that I could continue to get services there. So that was cool.

02:42:39ROWELL: Yeah, but very disparate experiences.

02:42:41HO FUNG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:42:46ROWELL: I know there's some limitations for sharing what you can share or what you would like to share. But would you -- could you talk me through your dissertation? How you -- how that formed and then what you -- what those interviews were like?

02:43:04HO FUNG: Yeah.

02:43:05ROWELL: How that shaped your perspective. Any of that--

02:43:07HO FUNG: Sure. Yeah I -- it was a qualitative study where I asked a set of questions to explore people's -- people had to opt-in -- of course, seek me out for participation because of the sensitivity, but asked questions about kind of similar to what you're asking honestly, like the timeline leading up to the military like transition into and like the sexual trauma experience, what that was like and then what was the aftermath of that experience? And what I was really trying to understand is what are like -- what are the resilience and growth factors that helped women persist despite those things happening to them. And I had interviews, really long interviews, and I had to type everything up and code everything, right? It took so long; it ended up being around like 300 pages. And some of the things that came out of that were like just the phases of like acculturation into the military. So, like the initial transition period and like the negotiation of rules, the event itself, right? And then the betrayal that follows in almost every single case. And so, you know, in the things that women did to survive, those things like advocacy for themselves and like finding meaning and purpose, connecting with other women, spirituality, all the different ways that they figure that out. But like in every stage of that, it became really clear that there were lots of like, strength-based behaviors that were helping them negotiate, like those stages of, you know, their lived experience in the military. And so, of course, there's a lot of bad that comes from it. But we know the bad, right? PTSD, depression, suicide, all that kind of stuff was definitely a part of the story. But I didn't I wanted to focus on like how strong these women were and like what was helping them persist in the face of this adversity.

02:45:30ROWELL: Thank you for explaining that.

02:45:31HO FUNG: Yeah.

02:45:32ROWELL: Yeah. In the kind of -- in the conducting your research, is there anything you want to share? Any memories or any experiences that especially stand out to you from that period when you're executing your dissertation?

02:45:51HO FUNG: Feels like a lifetime ago. Probabl-- I think just what I already shared, like how hard it was to realize that all the stories were the same across generations and decades. You -- when you're in it and you're hearing about these new programs like SARC [Sexual Assault Response Coordinator] and all the sensitivity training and you -- I wanted to believe that things were better than maybe they are now. I don't know. But it didn't feel like there was real change. It felt like a lot of, like, lip service. And that was really hard. And I think the biggest thing that sticks with me now is when friends will ask me if their daughters should join the military. And it is a very hard question to answer because I wouldn't be who I am today had I not had those experiences; I would not have the privilege of this education that is helping me find meaning and purpose in my life. And would I want my daughter subjected to that kind of treatment? I don't think so. So, it's hard? Yeah.

02:47:11ROWELL: So, when they ask you those questions, do you tell them -- what do you tell them?

02:47:19HO FUNG: What I essentially said to you. There are so many benefits, I wouldn't change it. And you have to know, like I would have wanted informed consent about the culture and also all of the health ramifications because I'm dealing with stuff on that side, too, that's making me really mad.

02:47:35ROWELL: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We'll talk about that too. Kind of in that, do you feel there are ways that women could be better -- could be -- could be better informed, or that the military could take actions to better inform women entering the military what they're signing up for?

02:47:58HO FUNG: I don't know if that's the right approach. I think the right approach is like no tolerance for the behavior. Because I don't think it would be a good military tactic to give informed consent about all these things. I mean, their tactic is -- yeah, this sounds really bad. But it's from a social justice perspective. Their tactic is the most vulnerable people are recruited, right? The people who need that, who don't have many other options and they get their officers and other people who want to do it because like they're high speed and they want to do it for God and country or whatever. But like the majority of us were just trying to find a way out you know of our life. And if you start telling them like, hey, listen, like you might have lung problems, you might die of leukemia, you might get raped, like people might think twice. Right? And so, it doesn't really benefit them to share those things. But I think, you know, again, God, this is so theoretical when you think about the no tolerance policy. Who are the type of people that the military attracts, though? Right. It's like designed for like the person -- it's a perfect fit for the hypermasculine people who also have some of these power issues. And so, I don't know. I mean, you start having a no tolerance policy. What does that do for? I don't know. I mean, I know what I would want, but like, if I'm thinking from like a systems perspective in terms of what's best for the military, it's a tough pickle to be in.

02:49:42ROWELL: Yeah, absolutely. And then better handling the care afterwards, you know, once things, once the damage is done, as well.

02:49:52HO FUNG: Yeah. I mean, certainly that part needs to be fixed. Right? There's so many incidents of perpetrators walking away with no consequences at all. Almost every single woman that I talked to, they ended up leaving the military just in the same way I left my unit. Right? And that's the case, though, everywhere for victims, it's harder always on the victim. Pressing charges is harder. Going through like the justice system is harder. It's always harder on the victim and the perpetrator -- there's such a low probability that a perpetrator will actually get punished that it's not often worth the pain of going through the process.

02:50:29ROWELL: Yeah. Do you personally -- you may-may or may not -- have any perspective on the military kind of system of-of justice versus civilian kind of experiences? And did you hear anything about that in your interviews?

02:50:43HO FUNG: I do. I can say there's been some improvement because it was historically handled by the commanders. Any discretion that was reported. And they've taken that power out of the hand of the commanders to like a more objective investigation. So, I think that helps, too. And I'm -- I think the last I heard -- and sexual assault would be tried in like civilian. I don't know if that's true or not or if it can be tried in both. There was some movement to like take it out of like military hand altogether. I mean, if you're found guilty of a crime in the military, like the punishments are pretty severe, right? You lose everything. But it's like getting to that point where like they actually see it as -- there so much blaming the victim. Right. What they were wearing, and they were drinking. They were underage. They were this, they were that, they were flirty. They were, so.

02:51:40ROWELL: So, solutions remain elusive, but definitely necessary.

02:51:47HO FUNG: Yep

02:51:48ROWELL: Yeah

02:51:49HO FUNG: That's a good summary.

02:51:50ROWELL: It's an unfortunate summary.

02:51:52ROWELL: Yeah.

02:51:54ROWELL: You also -- so you said that doing these interviews for you was kind of the nail in the coffin in terms of you personally and wanting to maintain a relationship with the military community. Was that personal or professional?

02:52:09HO FUNG: Personal. Personal. Professionally, I do. I still am an advocate. I guess the Tillman Scholar community is different, and so I maintain that relationship with them. But the Tillman Scholar community is people that are forward thinkers. Like, to get selected, you have to be like wanting to change something. And so, they don't really reinforce, just like the good old boys' club system and all that hypermasculinity. They-they support people who are creative thinkers and want to solve problems in our society. And so, it's that community is easy to stay connected with.

02:52:56ROWELL: Can you describe for me what the Tillman Scholarship is?

02:53:00HO FUNG: Yeah. So Pat Tillman was a professional football player who gave up his contract to join the Army. Him and his brother joined together, and they were -- he was killed in Afghanistan. It was found later to be blue-on-blue, so accidentally killed by his own men. Marie Tillman was his wife. And when he it was like such a remarkable story of somebody who gave up millions of dollars and like his professional football career to join the military, that it gained a lot of support and like just grief around the country. And so, people gave Marie, his wife, money. They just started sending her money and she wanted to know what to do with it, but she decided to first they started a scholarship at ASU. That's where he went to school. And then she turned it into a national scholarship. And it's the Tillman Foundation. And they give 60 scholarships a year. And they 60 new scholars per year who get scholarship then for their program. So, I got $10,000 a year for my entire PhD program, and they gave me extra money when the divorce year. For hardship stuff to help keep me going. And it's people like mayors, people who are like doctor, that these people are like Army Rangers turned doctor and people just involved in just all the coolest, like fields around the country. And I tell you what, people that get selected. So, it's really fun. And I -- so, I was selected in 2013 and I've stayed connected to the community since. They do like leadership summits. We do the big run in Arizona every summer. That is their big fundraiser. And then I've sat on like selection committees for like incoming. So, I get to read and every year they just get better and better and better and better. And I'm just like, I, I am lucky I got in when I did because but so that's what it is. It's like that community of like people who are trying to change the world to be a better place.

02:55:08ROWELL: And they're all veterans or?

02:55:10HO FUNG: Military spouses also can apply. It's majority of veterans. But there are military spouses too.

02:55:18ROWELL: Okay, and were you encouraged to apply at the time that you did, or did you find and think?

02:55:25HO FUNG: No, I just found it. I was like, holy cow, grad school is expensive. I just was like looking for -- I stumbled upon it and applied and yeah. I didn't know -- it's kind of like a lot of things in my life. I didn't know what a big deal it was until I was like inducted and I was like, "Holy crap, this is a big deal."

02:55:57ROWELL: Considering, let's see. So, can you talk a bit about your-your current therapy work and how your -- how your work evolved since you finished your dissertation and your doctorate?

02:56:19HO FUNG: So, I got hired out of my internship to work at Rogers as a supervising psychologist. So, I don't do any direct patient care. So, I supervise programs of therapists who are doing the care. When I came on board to Rogers, they asked me to develop an adolescent trauma program. And I had not done any clinical work with adolescents because I was like, that is not the right level of intervention for me. I've tried to work with all these kiddos. I can't make change. I need to work with their parents. But they're like, "You have the trauma background. You have the education background." And so, I created an adolescent trauma program that I supervised, and then I supervised two adult trauma programs. But then to round out like my FTE, I needed to pick up something else. So, for a while I was supervising a residential substance use program and then handed that off and then was supervising depression, recovery, and mental health recovery and then handed that off to take on another addiction program. So, it's always been trauma and then like something else. And so, hundreds of patients, you know, I help support the therapists in like treatment planning and figuring out what next steps are for all of the patients. And I just was promoted to clinical director, so I -- that's the new job. I'm a clinical director now of an adult and child adolescent outpatient programs. PHPIOPs [partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs], So, there's like 220 patients under that and like 60 staff. So still supervising some programs, but then also doing a lot of just like clinical quality work, driving fidelity, looking at like what programs make sense for our location based on historical need and all of that stuff.

02:58:16ROWELL: Yeah. So, considering again, kind of your veteran experience and your relationship with the veteran community. Have you engaged with any traditional veteran service organizations?

02:58:36HO FUNG: I have -- yeah. I-I was part of Team Red, White and Blue for a while. That was nice for a while. We did running. There was -- I did, like, Ragnar with them, and we did a relay where we took the flag down to Chicago, like from did we run that from Madison out here to Chicago? From here to Chicago. So, things like that. And then that didn't really stick. My husband, my current husband, Charles, is actually a member of Team Rubicon, which is like a veteran -- and he's not a veteran, but it's a veteran created organization for like, disaster relief. I have been on committees for the greater Milwaukee area, like veteran health committees. There's a veterans health coalition that was going on for a while. Where just like all the organizations across the city came together and talked about how to improve veteran care. I was for a while -- I still am a member, but like haven't been able to attend the Veterans Suicide Prevention Task Force, which is similar, you know, people from Aurora, VA, me, other organizations coming together to kind of tackle that problem. I created a veterans' ERG [Employee Resource Group] in my organization primarily to help with access to care because we don't accept TRICARE. I don't have a relationship with TRICARE right now, and so I'm trying to work on that kind of stuff. So, like, yes, like they're always there and I'm always like, have one eye towards advocacy for access to care but haven't, besides the Tillman community, haven't found like a personal place to settle in.

03:00:20ROWELL: TRICARE, is that the -- is that a common network for veterans?

03:00:24HO FUNG: Yeah, that's the insurance for active-duty military. And then people who are retired get to keep TRICARE insurance.

03:00:32ROWELL: Okay. Yeah. So, it's like an insurance network or company that has a network. Got it okay. Pausing here a moment. So, can you talk a bit about areas that you -- areas where you yourself have interacted with veteran care? You mentioned some health concerns earlier. As much as you wish to, do you want to talk about that experience for yourself?

03:01:11HO FUNG: Yeah. I started going to the VA when I got divorced because I lost health insurance and that was a good experience. Like they took very good care of me. I found a provider there that is a really -- she's military herself and like a good advocate. When I was pregnant, I got a community care referral, so they paid for me to get services, OB services through Froedtert. Really excellent. When I was pregnant, I started having breathing problems that I thought were related -- back up. When I came back from Iraq, I had allergy -- new allergies. I never had allergies before, and I attributed it to just the change in climate and like, okay, now I'm exposed to ragweed again and I like, okay, so whatever. Didn't -- before I got pregnant with Ophelia, the baby, did an allergy panel and it turns out I'm allergic to nothing. And so, I have chronic non-allergenic rhinitis, so I have allergy symptoms year-round. Have to take allergy medicine year-round because it still helps with the symptoms. The breathing problems developed while I was pregnant. And I just thought it was from baby sitting up high in my diaphragm. But they've continued since. So, like I have these moments where I can't catch a breath. Like I have to take like a couple of deep breaths like that to like, feel like I can get full. So, they've done like CT and stuff to see if there are x-ray, to see if there are any tumors. And then did pulmonary function test. And part of that is like an asthma test. And I have -- like where they try to insight -- what word am I looking for? -- an asthma attack. And I laughed and I was like, well, it's going to -- we're going to go through all five trials because I don't have asthma. I do have asthma. And so, this is all connected to like burn pit exposure stuff. So, I'm getting a little mad about that. And especially because, like I just coincidentally, I was up in Minnesota and family -- extended family was talking about their experience in veterans, in their community, and they're like, "Yeah, thus really nice guy died from leukemia, from burn pit exposure." And I hadn't even told them about my experience. And I guess a bunch of people in the unit had died from leukemia, from burn pit expose so. That piece is really annoying. And then just like back pain like I have, they did, X-rays and MRI and I have like scoliosis, which is not military related. I didn't know I had it, but like severe degenerative disc disorder in my lower back. And so, there's like a lot of just constant pain and I'm too young for that. So, I'm -- it's just that piece of it that's like, gosh, like when they mean your government property, they really mean it. Like it doesn't -- we're just a tool for the greater mission. And now I'm alive, but I have minor health effects but annoying health effects, nonetheless. And like, that's, you know, lots of people have worse and that's not okay.

03:04:29ROWELL: Yeah. You mentioned that the first time you experienced back pain was during that convoy, right? Have you successfully been able to claim like a service-connected disability?

03:04:41HO FUNG: I just submitted a bunch of stuff. People have been trying to convince me to do it for a long time. And I didn't. I didn't. But I finally just made it a mission to, like, get all these things checked up when I went for my last visit. And as I'm getting these results back, I was I'm just like, okay, it's time. And so, yeah, I submitted a claim like in February.

03:05:05ROWELL: Okay. If you don't mind me asking, where did your hesitancy come from?

03:05:11HO FUNG: Feeling like I didn't deserve it. I didn't see combat. I was only in for nine years. I only had one year where I was wearing equipment like full time. There's no, you know, people have had lots worse experiences that are much worse than mine, all that.

03:05:30ROWELL: But you had supportive forces in your life.

03:05:33HO FUNG: Yes. Yeah.

03:05:35ROWELL: Were those people veterans, non-veterans?

03:05:38HO FUNG: Veterans. So, I think the catalyst was that wedding that I talked to you about that I went to. One of the guys who was in operations with me in Iraq who -- so like desk work a lot of the time, walked up limping. And I was like, what's going on with you? He's only 42 and he has had hip replacement surgery. He has all kinds of stuff messed up with his spine. And it's like he's like 100 over 100% connected for all of that. And I was like, okay, if he has this experience and this connection, like, I need to get this stuff checked out because maybe it was enough. Like maybe riding in those trucks and wearing those -- that equipment was enough. And then there's a new VP at Rogers, who is an old military guy, and he was just like, he tells you like it is. He basically, like cussed me out and told me, like, to be seen and submit a claim. So.

03:06:32ROWELL: Yeah. So just to clarify, with your burn pit exposure, was it passive exposure or were you--

03:06:42HO FUNG: Passive.

03:06:43ROWELL: Okay, gotcha. Makes sense. Is there anything else you want to share about your experience so far seeking veteran care, whether it's from the VA or elsewhere?

03:06:55HO FUNG: I honestly, I think it's been okay. Like right now I have a referral in for community care for chiropractic, so we'll see how that goes. So, so far, so good. It might be a different experience when I get a denial for my claim. We'll see.

03:07:11ROWELL: Are you worried about it?

03:07:13HO FUNG: I don't know in some ways because I didn't take the time to go to the American Legion and have somebody help me. I just submitted it all myself because I didn't have time for that. And I know I worked -- I didn't work -- when I was a student, an intern. I did compensation and pension evaluations for psych. And so, I know, because I was the one looking for every little possible detail, I could find to get people connected. And I know how hard that was. And because I was a student, I had the time to look for hours through records and find a little tiny note on the side of something that connected like depression to service. But I know people will not generally have the time or the care to do that.

03:07:56ROWELL: Do you feel that being a provider in any way has improved your-your relationship with the health care system or not -- or maybe made it feel more accessible?

03:08:07HO FUNG: Oh, yeah. I mean, I say all the time like I -- if it's this challenging for me to figure this stuff out, I cannot imagine how challenging it is for people that don't have like inner working knowledge of like how a health care system works or just the education, the privilege of an education to be able to like, know how to like access support for this.

03:08:27ROWELL: Yeah. For yourself -- this kind of goes way back to a different topic and I want to make sure I ask.

03:08:39HO FUNG: Yeah.

03:08:40ROWELL: Which is, in my research, when you were actively, you know, working with-with clients like -- with patients, it mentioned your experience giving care with like prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy. Would you mind talking a bit about what that is and what you've -- you know, how -- and the benefits you felt you saw for patients? Maybe the veterans specifically, maybe not.

03:09:05HO FUNG: Yeah, I've used that for both veterans and civilians. Prolonged exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy are the two gold standard treatments for PTSD. And what that just means is that they have the largest evidence based in randomized controlled trials showing that they work for treatment of PTSD. I have seen a lot of success, I think, and I teach classes where we talk a lot about this. In both treatments you have to approach the trauma itself. So, in prolonged exposure, you're approaching the memory of the trauma and talking about it in -- a in a supported way, but repeatedly. And then in cognitive processing therapy, you're talking about beliefs that result from the trauma and the way it's impacted, like the way you are in the world. And some people will have this distortion or belief that it's cruel to expose people to memories of their trauma, like it's retraumatizing. And I stand on my soapbox every day, all day. First, I say don't fragilize people who've been through trauma because they are the strongest people you will ever meet. They've already survived the worst of it. What makes you think they can't survive the memory? And two, if people are walking around actively avoiding and their life is so small because like their PTSD symptoms are so flared up that they can't passively function, you are doing them a disservice if you don't help them confront these memories. Right? And so absolutely, people who can stick with it, I mean, it takes a lot of guts to be able to do that kind of treatment. People who are ready, they get better. Yeah. You see them like being able to reengage in life, do things that they hadn't been able to do for a long, long time. Start -- I mean, the increase in self-compassion and just like the understanding of what they deserve is so remarkable. So.

03:11:03ROWELL: Yeah. Based on those experiences and your experiences as a provider? And maybe personally. What would you -- what would your best advice be for some -- a servicemember or veteran who is experiencing, you know, distress with their mental health, or was it past trauma? And who is, struggling to reach out or be ready, I guess, to receive assistance? I don't know what to--.

03:11:32HO FUNG: Throw that little caveat in there that they're not. Yeah. I mean, honestly, there's so much literature and I just think like. Implicit knowledge around this idea that support people help. Right. And so, there's a saying that even one supportive person in a child's life can make all of the difference in the way that they develop and like whether they end up with PTSD or mental health conditions as a result of their circumstances or not. There's a lot of evidence in the resilience and post-traumatic growth literature that, like it's support systems and people that help people get through these things. And so, you know, what I would say first is pick up a phone, drop an email and like get connected with somebody. It doesn't have to be a mental health provider. It just has to be somebody who you can start sharing with and that you don't. I mean, you don't have to be ready to talk about it to seek help, you have to be ready to talk about it, to do something like PE or CPT the two interventions that I just described. But there are all different types of ways to get help from mental health providers that don't include like confronting the trauma in that way. And so, people can teach skills for how to tolerate those big emotions and tolerate stressful situations and just like get that help you understand your values and get back to living a life that you feel is worth living. And so, it's-it's really connection. I mean, that is if I had to recommend one thing, it would be connecting with another human around it.

03:13:11ROWELL: Yeah. So, this is another big question. But so just for you, in what areas do you feel that veterans are well cared for presently and areas in which they could be better cared for?

03:13:28HO FUNG: Yeah. When I think about the veteran space, I think that's improved drastically. So, a lot of my disgruntledness has to do with like the military culture itself. I think we've done so much better at recognizing the need and the disparities in services for mental health and physical health for veterans. And I feel like most people in this country are on board with helping support that. You know, I don't -- I've never actually heard anybody -- I mean, there's a lot of polarization around a lot of issues. Veterans are never one of them. Like nobody will say, no, don't treat veterans, right? And so, I-I think they're making care more accessible. I mean, there was just a law passed in January that now veterans in crisis can seek mental health services anywhere and the VA will pay. So, if they're in crisis, they can go to inpatient. They can get up to 30-30 days in residential or 90 days and partial hospitalization. So, there's lots of federal legislation being passed to make sure financially veterans are supported. And I think there are a lot of organizations, even if they're not traditionally veteran related, that have people within organizations that are working on getting care accessible. So, I think overall, we're doing an okay job where it could improve. I mean, it's a say, I think it would be the same for any population of people, right? Making it more accessible to people who identify as sexual minorities, people who are not white. You know, BIPOC or other groups, Asian, making it accessible to people who don't fit like that traditional white, heterosexual, cisgender mold. I mean, that's the biggest disparity. And I think especially for veterans who are trans, there's so much fear in the country right now with a lot of LGBTQ stuff being turned over and lack of support and like it's-it's very hard. It's-it's probably the hardest to be transgender in the military. And so, I think focusing on some of the groups that have been historically discriminated against is the biggest area of need.

03:15:47ROWELL: Thank you for sharing that. So, you mentioned, of course, that its veterans are often not a polarizing issue and then almost anyone would support to increase care for veterans. Have you ever identified tension between the, you know, people's desire to help veterans and difficulty confronting issues within maybe the military system or military culture? Have you ever seen that kind of conflict in the world, or is that more theoretical for yourself that you've been working through?

03:16:31HO FUNG: I have -- I think I have to say something out loud and maybe that will work me to the answer. Because one thing that I see is people using veteran issues incorrectly to support causes. So, it's not exactly what you're asking. But people say --put -- throwing around means like we have all these homeless veterans and yet, you know, you want to throw money at X issue and that -- it pisses me off when people use the veterans to support their cause. Because one like in the Milwaukee area, for example, they've done an excellent job. Any veteran that wants to be housed in the Milwaukee area is housed. There are lots of veterans, not lots. There are veterans who are not, and they choose not to be housed. People go around, they go under bridges. They go to all the places where there are veteran populations. They do it regularly and they help get them access to services if they want them. And so that upsets me. I-I met a person and now I can't even remember his name. But Stand Up For Heroes In New York. I got to go to that. And he was somebody who had been blown up by an IED and lost like limbs and part of his face and-and hung out with him and met him. And it was like right after that that I saw a family member use his -- like it was him -- a picture of him. But it was a meme about some something somewhere. I can't remember what the issue was. And I just like flipped. I was like, "Did you talk to him? Did you ask him if this is actually an issue he cares about? Because I bet you didn't. I bet you're just using the fact that there's a disfigured veteran to support a cause that you have no idea if -- And I don't know either. Like you have no idea if he would be in agreement with that." So that's the kind of stuff that most angers me and comes up for me when you ask that question. I know it's not an answer to your question, but it's an issue. Yeah.

03:18:29ROWELL: No its very relevant. Its very relevant. I appreciate you bringing it up.

03:18:34HO FUNG: But I think similarly, people who are impassioned by like this hero worship and like this veterans can do no wrong mentality, also will not take a hard look at like the things that are wrong in the military culture.

03:18:50ROWELL: Mm-hmm, yeah, absolutely. So, we're kind of winding down here I wanted to ask a logistical kind of chronological question. So, your name changed to Rae Ann Ho Fung from with your second marriage. Can you just let me know what year that was? Just for the record.

03:19:15HO FUNG: Oh my God, what year was it?

03:19:17ROWELL: So, it's been a very long day.

03:19:19HO FUNG: 2019?

03:19:22ROWELL: Okay. Yeah.

03:19:23HO FUNG: Yeah. The year before Covid.

03:19:25ROWELL: Oh, okay, great. Is there anything you want to share about that really quick?

03:19:28HO FUNG: Oh my gosh, I'm sorry.

03:19:30ROWELL: That's okay.

03:19:31HO FUNG: My kid is calling me.

03:19:32ROWELL: You need to take a break?

03:19:34HO FUNG: Yeah. All right let's pause. Okay.

03:19:36ROWELL: Okay, this begins Segment three of the interview-interview with Rae Ann Ho Fung on March 21st, 2023. So, I was going to ask you about your husband's -- your current husband's activities with veteran communities.

03:19:54HO FUNG: Yeah. So, Charles is -- I think it's important to understand that he is Chinese Jamaican. He was raised in -- born in Jamaica. They moved to Florida when he was a kiddo. And so, his kind of racial identity was part of the catalyst for what got him involved in veterans' stuff, which is -- I'll explain. He of course -- it's been a really polarizing political climate, and he found himself engaging in a lot of really senseless arguments on social media, just like trying to get people to understand the experience of people who are not white in this country and like why some of these supporting some of these politicians would feel like a personal injury. And he just was going down the rabbit hole every night, something. And he was complaining about it. And one day I just said, what are you doing about it? Because I could not stand listening to it anymore. I was like, "Oh my God." Like, "This is not helping." And so, he really took that seriously and he started thinking about what could he do about it. And so, he joined Team Rubicon, which is, you know, a organization that was created for veterans who are kind of trying to find their purpose, repurposing their skills to help with communities, you know, in disasters after disasters. And so now it was only open to veterans at first, but they've opened it to civilians since. And that he -- people always think he's the veteran in our -- because he just like where's all the utility stuff. It's really ridiculous in an endearing way. But he reached out and joined and his kind of philosophy is like, I need to go into communities and like immersion. We know immersion experiences, like when you get experiences with people that are different than you, that's how you start to change. And so, he wanted that for himself as well and for people to like, relate to him. And so, he started doing that. He's been on deployments around the country like helping after some of the tornadoes went through in the mid south -- middle, southern -- mid-southern parts of the country. Whatever. Like they, they just go they go to homes and clean up yards and like everything. So that's his involvement and now he's-he's in some leadership position for the Milwaukee area where he -- I don't know it's a fancy title, but he coordinates like events so. Volunteer events, monthly social events, and things like that. And so that helps him feel connected and helping kind of be the change he wants to see in the world.

03:22:53ROWELL: All right thanks for sharing that.

03:22:54HO FUNG: Yeah. Yeah.

03:22:56ROWELL: So, kind of moving towards wrapping up here. And another big question, reflecting on your service with the Guard. What is most meaningful to you today in the present? Do you think? What do you hold on to? You know, that still feels like this -- Yeah. This item feels important to me.

03:23:23HO FUNG: I can do anything. I think that's what I hold on to. Which is really powerful for a kid who lived in a trailer park and had a parent that was in prison and a parent that died. When I think about the circumstances, when I'm reflecting on the little me -- that I faced and like the who I am today, the military was such an integral part of me proving to myself that I'm worthy and I can do it. So, I think that's the biggest takeaway. I mean, I survived a lot of crap going through that and lots of good things too. But like that, I think that's the biggest takeaway for me.

03:24:05ROWELL: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that.

03:24:06HO FUNG: Yeah.

03:24:09ROWELL: And to conclude, is there anything else we didn't cover that you might want to discuss today?

03:24:18HO FUNG: I do not think so.

03:24:19ROWELL: We covered a lot of ground.

03:24:20HO FUNG: I think we covered everything.

03:24:21ROWELL: Absolutely we did. So, thank you so much for your time today Rae Ann. This concludes the interview with Rae Ann Ho Fung on March 21st, 2023. Thank you.

03:24:32HO FUNG: Alright, thank you.

03:24:33ROWELL: Thank you. TRANSCRIPTION END