Oral History Interview with Michelle Kruschke

[Interview Begins]

JONES: Today is June 20th, 2023. This is an interview conducted via Zoom with Army veteran Michelle Kruschke. The interviewer is Raleigh Jones, and this interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. Michelle, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about where you were born and raised?

KRUSCHKE: I was born and raised in [XXXXX], halfway between walking Green Bay and the Lake Michigan shoreline. We spent a little bit of time in Hawaii and a few other towns around Wisconsin, but that's where I grew up most of the time.

JONES: And were you when you grew up, were their siblings in the family?

KRUSCHKE: I had two brothers. One was killed in a car accident in 1980 when he was four and I was six. And my other younger brother lives in Sheboygan with my mom.

JONES: Okay. And it's my understanding that your mom is still with us.

KRUSCHKE: She is. She was. Her and my brother both live in Sheboygan, and she's going strong. My dad passed in 2019, so. That's pretty much the sum total of my family.

JONES: Okay. Now, it's my understanding that you have a very unique. Family situation in so far as their service to the United States military. Can you tell us about that?

KRUSCHKE: When I was in high school, my mom took an interest in genealogy, and her interest was primarily more recent immigration and ancestors and my dad's side of the family. And. We didn't know a great deal about my dad's side of the family. We we knew some things. He had veterans that served in the Prussian military. There were a lot of wars in Europe in the 1800s, which was why they came here, because they basically were tired of losing their sons and their property and everything else that goes along with war. So they came to the U.S. to kind of escape that. And my dad, I met when I was six. So it was fascinating for me to learn more about his family tree because it wasn't something that was always talked about. It wasn't a common subject. So we kind of had to go looking for things a little bit. And so my mom focused on that. And I also took an interest in genealogy, especially after the Internet, because it was easier to find documents in the United States. If you go across the pond, you don't find much because so much was destroyed in all of the wars, especially in Germany, Poland and Prussian regions. So I started doing more research and was able to trace our family back through the Civil War, through all the way through to the Revolutionary War, through military muster roles. I was able to find that every single generation from the American Revolution Forward has had at least one member of our family served in the military on my mother's side. I'm the last. None of my children joined the military. That wasn't their calling or my stories scared the hell out of them. I don't really know for sure, but I'm the last in my mother's family, and I'm the only woman as far as I know.

JONES: Wow. I am just in awe of your families. Extended military service. It's quite a quite a story that's makes is very unique to you and your and you and your family.

KRUSCHKE: And and we were fortunate to find some documentation in the Wisconsin State archives, I believe. Is a letter from a cousin who served during the Civil War. He was in a Wisconsin regiment that helped capture Jefferson Davis and his wife's overcoat. So we have that letter. My family is a is a I don't know if they call it a founding family or a pioneer family in Wisconsin, because we owned property at the time. Wisconsin became a state. So we have those documents and then I was able to find ship manifests. Our earliest relation to the United States was in the 1520s on the ship. I think it's called the Hercules. It was an English immigrant who came and then subsequently him and the other founding fathers founded New Hampshire and Rhode Island and that region of the East Coast and established those colonies, and I can document it going forward. Samuel Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His mother is a great, great, great, great, great, great aunt of mine. So we have a little famous connection there. So I've always had that sense of patriotism, I guess, and gratitude for what my family, where my family originally came from and the conditions that they came from to come to this country and have so many opportunities and so many blessings. And despite any hardships, we're still in a better place than we could have been anywhere else in the world.

JONES: So I take it you were a high school age when you decided that you wanted to go into the military.

KRUSCHKE: I was a sophomore when I started talking to recruiters.

JONES: Okay. Before we talk about that, you must have shared that your thinking process with your mom.

KRUSCHKE: No.

JONES: No, this was just on my own.

KRUSCHKE: Yeah. My parents were very opposed to me joining the military. They didn't want any of their. They didn't want any of their children to join the military. They did not like guns. We didn't even have toy guns when I was growing up. I mean, a squirt gun was a stretch for my family. My dad was a fisherman. He was not a hunter. And my maternal grandfather, who was an avid hunter, didn't think that was a thing girls should do. So there was a little misogyny in there. And at the time when I was a sophomore, my boyfriend, who was a couple of years older, had just joined the army. So my parents thought it was for his for him that I was doing it. At the same time, they didn't want to let me go.

JONES: Understood. So. You were in high school, a sophomore, and you started talking to recruiters and had you. Which recruiters were you talking with?

KRUSCHKE: Eventually I talked to all of them. I started with the Air Force. My family had gone to Colorado Springs in a tour, toured the Air Force Academy, and at around the same time was the first Top Gun movie which made the Navy or the Air Force, you know, fighter jets and stuff sure seem really cool. And the Navy would have been the second best after the Air Force. But I was really the Air Force Academy seemed to me like this great solution. My parents wanted me to go to college. I wanted to go into the military. But because I graduated at 17, I needed their signature and they were not receptive to that. So I had to wait. And in the meantime, I we always had recruiters coming to my high school. So I talked to the Air Force recruiter and I, I didn't like the jobs I was offered. And I talked to the Navy recruiter and I. Far. They had a male and a female recruiter, and I found the female recruiter. Unattractive and very masculine, which I did not want to become. Well, they also could not offer they pretty much steered me in administrative positions or cooking or something along those lines. And I know that's not the way all recruiters were, but the ones that I talked to, that's the way they acted. I briefly spoke with the Marine recruiter, but he had a specific slot that he wanted to fill as a surveyor, which is a job I did not want. And that was the only thing he would talk about. And he had to fill it like almost right after I graduated high school and. I ended up choosing the army. I felt it was the best option for me. And I got some tips from other people I had met in the recruiter's office and from my recruiters who were really great guys that when I got to military entrance processing station maps in Milwaukee to tell them what I wanted for a job and not let them offer me a job. Because and what happened at Maps is they offered me a cook, they offered me administration, they offered me. When I said I wanted to work in maintenance, they offered me a locomotive engineer, which I'm still not sure what exactly that all entails, but it did not sound fun to me. I wanted to become a mechanic. I wanted a skill that I felt I could use after the military that could cross over pretty easily. That would be a challenge. That would be something not every woman was doing. I it's not that I wanted to break ground. I just like to take the most difficult path I can possibly find in life. And that seemed to be the right way to go.

JONES: And this was all before you were even in the military. You're simply talking to recruiters.

KRUSCHKE: Right? Yeah. Okay. And when I was a senior in high school was during Desert was the Desert Storm, the Shock and awe part of Desert Storm. And that just kind of drove my resolve even harder. That despite my parents objections, this is what I really wanted to do. I wanted to serve my country. I was ready to go. I didn't feel like I fit in here in the civilian world. And I felt I could be of service and I could do more through that path.

JONES: Okay. So earlier you mentioned you graduated from high school when you were 17. So did you join the military at age 18?

KRUSCHKE: Well, I kind of compromise with my parents a bit on this one. I my birthday's in September, so I agreed to go to college for a year and only join the Army Reserve. That was my compromise to them. And the plan was once I got in, I was going to transfer into active Army when my parents really had no say over anything. So I went to college for a year. I went to basic training.

JONES: Let me stop you right there. Where did you go to college for a year?

KRUSCHKE: I went to UW Sheboygan. Okay, so it's just a two year associate degree.

JONES: So you were there for a year and then you did you joined the Army or the Reserves?

KRUSCHKE: Well, technically, it's just the army until you're done with 18. Okay. I was able to go to Army Reserve drills. Because I went split options. So I went to basic training one summer, came back and did a second year of college and then went to HIIT. And that was the point where I was going to transfer into permanent active army that I was going to keep going because my goal was to do 20 years active Army.

JONES: Okay, so then you joined in. This would have been about night, about 1992. Yes. And you joined the Reserves? I actually joined Army first and then. Tell us about where you went for your basic training.

KRUSCHKE: I went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It was the second summer that they trained women at that base. My drill sergeants had never trained women. And their their philosophy was, if it's good for the guys, it's good for the girls. So they told us straight up, we're going to train you the same way we train everybody else. And the only reason I knew there was any difference was in my company. We had four platoons of females, and in the other platoons there t was Jazzercise and all this. Girl Scouts and our drill sergeants were yelling at us, calling us names, swearing at us if we did something wrong. We were getting smoked. We were doing. Push ups till we collapsed.

JONES: So were you trained? Or excuse me, were you trained with other females in basic.

KRUSCHKE: Okay. It was not coed. It was strictly segregated. Okay. So even though. Even though we were. Matter of fact, our building had was kind of split in half and there was a firewall down the middle. And on the other side of the firewall was a company of males. But on our side of the building was all females. And we were not supposed to talk to the males. We were not supposed to interact with them at all, and vice versa. We would on a Sunday, we would all males and females be standing in line for 5 minutes on the phone to call home and we still were not allowed to talk to each other. We you know, you find ways to have conversations without directly speaking to a person. So we were, you know, we could get away with a few things, but we were still very much segregated.

JONES: So how long were you at Fort Leonard Wood?

KRUSCHKE: I was there from May until August.

JONES: Three months. Yeah. For traditional basic training.

KRUSCHKE: Yeah, it was. It was pretty typical. I was. I got there earlier. I don't know how this gets scheduled, but I got there before my basic training class started and. Didn't leave. I left on graduation day with my family. And was almost on a hold over status because towards the end of basic training, I ended up with stress fractures in both legs.

JONES: Okay.

KRUSCHKE: So I was on crutches for I managed to I got through the mandatory requirements, I got through the road march, I got through the field training exercise, I got through the tests, and then I was in so much pain, I just I couldn't stand it. Went on sick call. The troop medical clinic near my barracks sent me to the hospital on post. They took X-rays and put me in a wheelchair. They were like, You should not be walking around. I had some pretty serious cracks in both femurs that if they if I had, I was told by a doctor if I had gotten hit in the thigh, either thigh, the femur could have splintered and severed the artery and nobody would have known I would have been done and no one would have known what was happening. So they put me on crutches, and it took a lot of convincing to promise that I would follow up with my own physician when I got back home. Otherwise, they wanted to keep me until my legs are completely healed, which would have been another 8 to 12 weeks.

JONES: Okay, so for. So what did you do next?

KRUSCHKE: Well, I went home.

JONES: Okay. To Sheboygan.

KRUSCHKE: To Sheboygan.

JONES: On crutches.

KRUSCHKE: On crutches. Okay. Yeah, I did another year of college.

JONES: Okay, So at this point for that year that you were going to college again, were you technically in the reserves or were you out? Okay. You were in the reserves.

KRUSCHKE: I was. I was in the reserves. I was drilling with 3/77 Maintenance Company in Manitowoc and giving my legs time to to heal before going to 80. And then the plan was and I was to go regular army and not come back.

JONES: Okay. Now I want to go backwards. A moment to talk about the legs. Were the stress fractures the result of the strenuous physical activity you had been through in basic?

KRUSCHKE: Nobody really knows. The the doctors that I was seeing, both the army doctors and the civilian doctors had different theories. One was the I had a very slight build back then. So there were there was the strenuous ness of the physical activities, the weight of the equipment that we had to wear and carry. One doctor thought that maybe I had a problem absorbing minerals, which made my bones a little more brittle. Nobody really knew it was it was just a matter of, okay, this is the situation. This is what it's going to take to heal. And hopefully it won't happen again.

JONES: Okay. So I'm going to we pivot now back to Sheboygan. You're you're living there. You're going to your second year of college. Did you finish the second year?

KRUSCHKE: Not very well. A part of it was I didn't want to be there. Part of it was I. Had a fairly strict upbringing and I wasn't used to college where if you went to class or didn't go to class, nobody cared because nobody took attendance. And so I and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do in college, and it seemed like everything I majored in displeased my parents in some way. So I had changed my major three or four times in two years. I still didn't know what I wanted to do. Nothing that I wanted to do that I thought would be fulfilling. Was. Parent approved? I had a few conversations with my dad about, well, how much money can you make doing that? And it's like I just wanted to go back and army was easier. You had your rules, you had your regulations. You had your routine. You didn't even have to worry about what you were going to wear from day to day. It was the same uniform all the time. There was really not a lot of choice. You and you knew where you were supposed to be and what you were supposed to be doing. It was pretty simple. And being here at home, I was spending most of my time trying to please everybody around me, and I was miserable at it. So in college, my second year of college, I majored in pool and darts and ended up on academic probation. And I'm just like, you know, I'm not ready for this. This is not I was a good student in high school, and I just. Lost the passion for it. I guess I just couldn't figure out what direction I wanted to go in college. And it didn't seem. A smart choice to just keep going because I was already there. It seemed a smarter choice to follow this other path that I wanted to be on more until I figured out what I wanted to do in college, if anything.

JONES: Okay. Had the legs improved at that point? Were you still on crutches?

KRUSCHKE: I was on crutches for a couple of months after I got home. It took longer than I thought it would to completely heal, particularly the fractures in the femurs, because they were more serious. And it's not something you could cast or splint or put a brace on. So it was just kind of a waiting game. That and increasing physical activity and stuff. And so I just went to my reserve drills once a month and went to college and dodged homework and. Pretty much. That was my year until I went to AIG.

JONES: Okay. And when was that?

KRUSCHKE: That was in 1993. Okay.

JONES: But what was it? Did you make it to May four? Did you finish out the second year of college?

KRUSCHKE: I did finish. Okay.

JONES: So. Must have been tremendous.

KRUSCHKE: It was. Yeah, it was. Well, the semester ended, I think, at the beginning of May, and I came to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland at the end of May.

JONES: Okay. Now, let's talk about how you ended up going to Aberdeen, okay? Because I know there's a story there. Would you tell us the story of how you decided to go the route you went?

KRUSCHKE: I'm not sure what exact.

JONES: Well, okay. When you went to to Aberdeen for, for training, it was in a particular area.

KRUSCHKE: Okay. Okay.

JONES: And you haven't told this how you selected that area yet?

KRUSCHKE: My high school boyfriend was in the army and he was a 63 whiskey, which is a heavy wheel vehicle mechanic. And I started looking at maintenance as a career choice because it was something that could. Follow me outside. I thought cars would be cool and working on cars would be cool. And being a woman that works on cars would be cool. And the Army's a great place to learn that and. I when I went to maps, they offered me. Admin administration. They offered me cook and there their mistake was the fact that I could see the the computer screen, I could see what was available, and I knew what I was looking for. And when I saw it on the screen, I said, I want that job. And it was a feeling. Electrical system specialist for heavy wheel and track vehicles. And I'm like, you know, they 63 whiskeys were in abundance. They didn't need them. But this was something that was more specialized and was still in maintenance. So I'm like, that's the job I want. So that meant I had to go to Aberdeen.

JONES: Okay. Now, other than the the high school boyfriend, was anybody else in your family a mechanic?

KRUSCHKE: My brother's dad loved cars and he was always working on cars. So any time we would see his dad, his favorite was Lamborghinis. So he had Lamborghini models all over the place and they had their hoods up and you could see all the engine components in these little models. And he was always popping the hood on somebody's vehicle and tinkering around at it. And then the other side of it is they're the sum of the man. And a lot of the men in my family had no idea how I was other than the basics of of checking the oil and fill and filling the tires. They didn't really work on cars, so there was a lot of very expensive trips to the mechanic. So, you know, I'm thinking, oh, hey, you know, I could save my family some money because we're not wealthy and maybe I could learn something that would be useful around the house, even because a lot of the, you know, lawnmower engines are not tremendously different from any other combustion engine. So I it was just looking around me and seeing in my family what there was and what there wasn't. And in my case, it was more of what there wasn't. So it wasn't that I, I didn't grow up with the experience of having my head under the hood of a car. I listened and a lot of times girls were kind of in a different space in my family. And I was I was interested in the guy things. I was interested in guns and hunting and cars and stuff like that. So I would just sit off to the side and pretend to be invisible and just listen and absorb everything I could. And that's kind of what directed me towards maintenance because it was something useful. It sounded like hell, a lot more fun than being in a kitchen for an entire day in a hot, sweaty, disgusting kitchen all the time, or trying to cook out in the field or sitting there filling out paperwork for hours on end. It just seemed to be more exciting.

JONES: Okay, so I take it that Mom was not terribly pleased with the direction you were going in for your training?

KRUSCHKE: Mom and Dad were both very displeased with my training. Neither one of them wanted me to go. I kind of argued pretty hard. Or this career path. And. They they did not like it. They didn't want to see me leaving home like that. They wanted me to go to college and do some, I don't know, b something academically extraordinary. And I wanted to get my hands dirty and shoot guns. And they really didn't know how to handle that except, you know, if anything went wrong. I got a lot of I told you so's, but. They. They came to be proud of my service. And it took many years for that. There was some adversity while I was in the service that. Proved challenging over the years, but they claim to be proud of the fact that I served in the military and. My dad told me before he passed away, he was proud of me because he thought he could have done what I did. And my mom still brags about me because I'm very active in the veteran community, so I'm still out there serving. And she tells all her friends my latest adventures.

JONES: I'm struck by the independence that you exhibited at the age of 20 to a go into the military when the folks were pushing you to do that and B, to. Try to get training in the mechanic field. When that wasn't. What the people in your family did.

KRUSCHKE: Well, it wasn't what the Army wanted for me either. Yeah, I mean, that's not a girl job.

JONES: Right. Right. Okay, so that we've set the stage. Now you go to Aberdeen and you're going to receive the specialized training. Why don't you tell us about that?

KRUSCHKE: I shipped to Aberdeen at the end of May in 93 and was kind of in a holding pattern because they were redistributing the schools. So each area of maintenance. It was mostly 63 series, so 63 whiskeys six I was a 63 golf, 63 delta. All of these different groups were in cohorts and each cohort was either in Aberdeen Proving Grounds or Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Grounds, which was a short distance away, and they were moving my school, the 63 golf school from Aberdeen to Edgewood, and they didn't want to start my cohort until the move was complete because they were doing some renovations on poles and a bunch of other stuff was getting moved around and changed to other bases entirely. And so the school was being redistributed and I had to wait until everything was moved over to Edgewood, and then I got moved over to Edgewood before I could actually start school. Okay. So that didn't I don't think I started until like the second week of June, so I was there for a couple of weeks with it.

JONES: Could you describe for our listeners what Edgewood is?

KRUSCHKE: Well, Edgewood is kind of a subdivision of Aberdeen. It's a small post.

JONES: Game.

KRUSCHKE: That is technically part of Aberdeen Proving Grounds. But because of the way geography works, the military had purchased Aberdeen Proving Ground had purchased Aberdeen Proving Grounds as a post Edgewood area, if I remember right, had been an impact site for training. So they used to lob stuff to that area and then eventually they cleaned it up and turned it into a training area with people. So we had it was a very small post we had. Two. Three barracks buildings, three tourists, three administrative buildings, a mess hall, a troop medical clinic, a chapel, and a very small parks. And then it was also there was there was some active military units. There was a helicopter unit that was stationed in that area because it was easier for them to to come in and out. And then there was some civilian contractors. There was a chemical plant on Edgewood. That was run by government contractors. I didn't learn until the recent PACT act what they were actually making or using or the chemicals that they had. But. We were Edgewood is was kind of a contaminated area, but it was a very small training area. And it's I'm not sure exactly why the Army divided it up the way they did, but that's how they were able to acquire land for the post and the expansion of the post.

JONES: Now, when your training started, how big of a group was this?

KRUSCHKE: I actually didn't know right away I was house. It was coed. At that point the MLS trainee and. I was housed in a barracks with the previous cohort that was finishing up and getting ready to move on to their permanent duty stations. So I didn't actually meet any of my classmates until I transferred to Edgewood. Okay. But my my class, once I transferred to Edgewood, my class, I was one of seven.

JONES: And you were the only female.

KRUSCHKE: Yes.

JONES: Okay. How long was the training?

KRUSCHKE: 12 weeks.

JONES: Okay. And that was 12 weeks of. Tell us about the nature of the training.

KRUSCHKE: Well, the first part of 80, all of the 63 MLS is are together doing classroom work. So the stuff that's common to all the MLS is learning what a combustion internal combustion engine does and the parts of it in the internal combustion engine and the different military vehicles and reading wiring diagrams and things that are common to all maintenance and molasses have the classroom portion for the first part of 80. And then you get split off into different parts of the maintenance school and you're just with your cohort from then until the end of 80. So for the first part, there was probably. 2530 people. In the classroom section. And then when we split off, there was just the seven of us.

JONES: You know, when you had the generalized training with the 20 or 25 people, were you still the only female in the group?

KRUSCHKE: No, there were there were a couple more. It was kind of nice to see because when I first got to Aberdeen, I was the only female other than a drill sergeant. In in our air, in our part of the post where we were barracks, I was the only female. So I didn't I had no idea if there was if I was going to meet any other female trainees at any point when I got to Edgewood. When I first got there, I was the only female, but they were trickling in from different basic training posts so that people didn't all come in at the same time. So there was probably a week. At Edgewood, where people were coming in and coming in. And there were three companies in Edgewood, and I was in Bravo Company. I think there was. But six women. In my barracks, in my company and Bravo Company in my platoon. And there were some more females scattered around the other companies and platoons. But there weren't many in my class in the classroom portion, I think there were. Four or five of us. There wasn't. There weren't many. It was mostly men. None of our teachers were women either. I mean, we had female drill sergeants, too, for the hounding part of AIG. But the academic, the learning part of AIG, none of them were women.

JONES: And I take it you were just immersed in book learning initially?

KRUSCHKE: Yeah, we had a stack of technical manuals. We had technical manuals for Deuce and A has, which are from Korea. We're used in Vietnam and we were still using them in the nineties. And then we had technical manuals for new things like in the early nineties, the M1 Abrams was a new vehicle. So we had, we had stacks of technical manuals that we were working out of.

JONES: Wow. Okay, so. Again. How long was that training at Aberdeen?

KRUSCHKE: I was in Maryland for the training part was 12 weeks. And then. I was there a few weeks before training actually started and I ended up on hold over status. I couldn't pass the final T test to graduate because I fractured my legs.

JONES: How did that happen?

KRUSCHKE: It's it's just stress fractures. It's caused by stress. And you add in caring around toolboxes and things like that. And these are really heavy ass toolboxes and generators and alternators and huge parts that come off of trucks. And the stress of training just reopened those old fractures. And so that put me on hold over status. And then an incident occurred that. I reported. And that caused a lot of other problems. And it's unfortunately an incident that is very common in the military and still is.

JONES: Do you feel? Do you want to talk about it?

KRUSCHKE: I'm fine with it. I, I was I look at it this way and I'm going to kind of do the end before I go to the beginning. I spent a lot of years being a victim. And then I figured out how to be a survivor. And in the last few years, I figured out how to be a thriver. Because surviving wasn't good enough for me.

JONES: I missed it.

KRUSCHKE: So in July. When I was in Edgewood, a number of us from my platoon decided to get a hotel room, a couple of hotel rooms off post and have a party, because it was I think it was around the 4th of July, and we were all young and dumb and I was 19. And everyone else around me was 18. No, no, I was 20. Everyone else around me was like 18, 19 years old. So I think there was like maybe two people who were even of legal drinking age, but there was plenty of alcohol. And we we decided to do this and that's how we were going to blow off steam on our weekend. And we had two rooms at the hotel and one we dubbed the party room, and the other one we dubbed the Quiet Room. So if you had enough to drink or just wanted to get away, you could go to the quiet room and crash on one of the beds and. At one point. After copious amounts of God only knows what alcohol. I don't even remember what we were all drinking. It was very colorful. Let's put it this way, everybody. Kind of like we stopped that The anybody who was legal age kind of bought whatever they could buy. And we just kind of mixed a match. But at one point. I was there with another soldier, kind of a date. We were supposed to go to the movies. Me and this other person. And I was approached by one of the females in my platoon who wanted to go to this party, but she would be the only woman, and we were not allowed to do that. You had to bring a battle, buddy. The females did, and she could not get anybody else, any of the other females to go to this party. And I kind of had this weird because I was older, I had this weird sense of obligation that, well, you can't get anybody else. You can't go alone. I'll. I'll go. I'll talk to this person I'm supposed to go to the movies with. He decided to come with us, so she would not. So she would have a battle buddy. At one point during the night, me and the guy I was there with decided we'd had enough. Every thing seemed okay for. The female that I was with, she we knew we all knew each other. We had been living together for weeks by that point. So me and this guy went to the other room and just kind of watched TV, and we're drinking a little more. And. A knock on the door came to the door. Somebody who? From one of the other platoons and a guy from my platoon who wasn't even invited. Nobody really liked him. He was one of those guys that was kind of a hanger on. He just would show up places and try and fit in. But he was a little creepy and kind of annoying. And it just he gave off bad vibes, in my opinion. But so these two guys are at the door and they tell me my female friend is got angry, got in an argument with somebody and left. She just walked out of the hotel room. She's drunker than hell and they wanted me to come with them to try and find her so that we all wouldn't get in trouble for underage drinking, amongst other things. And I didn't want to go. I was intoxicated myself, wasn't walking to straight and wasn't seeing too good. And. But. I was there as her battle buddy. It was my duty to. Find her and make sure that she's safe. So I went with these two guys. My companion stayed behind. He did not go with me. I went with these two guys and we kind of got split up. I got the creepy guy and the guy from the other platoon where, like, there's a pool somewhere outside the hotel. Me and the creepy guy go one direction and the other guy goes the other direction, and we're going to kind of circle around. That was the plan that I was told, and then meet back at the doors we were coming out of while the other guy disappeared. And I started walking with this. Person. And he noticed on the other side of the parking lot there was a small stand of pine trees, and he was like, Well, let's before we go around the building, let's go over to these trees and and see if maybe she sat down over here and is kind of chilling out. And he had this big, huge, like monster cup full of alcohol and soda. And any time I objected, he was shoving it in my face. Drink, drink, drink more. And we managed to stumble over to the trees. And I'm like, you know, I got to sit down. I just. I need to sit. I couldn't see straight, couldn't walk straight. I needed to sit down. So we sat under the trees and he was. Kind of not next to me, but kind of, I don't know, perpendicular, I guess, or at a right angle to each other. And I started talking about, you know, maybe we should go. We never I never went to the other road. I never went to the party room. I didn't know if she really was missing or not. I took them at their word. I my mistake, if I made a mistake, was I didn't check, I didn't verify. And I talked about, well, why don't we go back to the room and see if she's come back, find out what happened? Maybe she got a cab. I'm trying to talk my way back into the hotel because I just did not feel right on many levels. And she was trying to calm me down and relaxed me and kept handing me this cup, telling me to drink. And at one point he took my hand. And stuck it in his pants and asked me if it was big enough for me. And I was in. A state of shock. I had never even read about. I had no idea what to do except to to get my hand away from him because he had me by the wrist with my hand down his pants on his penis. And I'm just trying to figure out even more how to get away from this guy. And when I panicked, he. He's tried to placate me. He's like, You know what? You're right. Maybe we should go back to the hotel, go back to the room, check things out. And we made it as far as the door of the building. And he's like, You know, the pool is back over here. Why don't we just check the pool real quick before we go back in? And we are heading towards the back of the building where there was this big stand up of woods and it was dark and I was panicked and terrified and didn't I couldn't think straight. I couldn't figure out what to do to get away from this guy because I didn't know what his intentions were. And at the same time, if I was wrong and drew attention, that would be a problem with military regulations and and laws and different things like that that we were all breaking by being underage drinkers at a hotel. So my brain was going a thousand miles a minute in about 100 different directions. So I'm trying to figure out how to get away from him without causing a scene and and save my life. Because I felt like if I went to the back of that hotel, I might not be coming out. And I didn't know how to get away from that because despite military training, when you're drunk as hell, there's no self-defense training in the world that is going to serve you in any way, shape or form because you can't fight drunk. It's. I don't know if somebody can. Nobody taught me. I thought that maybe. The other guy who was supposed to be going the other way around the building. I was really praying that we would run into him. Uh. And so he had me by the wrist and he was leading me to the back of the hotel. And any time I pulled away, tried to pull back. He would just hold my wrist tighter and he'd shove this cup in my face. And I'm like, I was I was pretty much at that point so terrified I was, okay, I'll I'll take another drink. Okay. I'll walk this way, because I thought if I didn't anger him. I would be okay. And when we got to the back of the building, he headed straight into the woods. And there was bushes on both sides, and I got my legs scratched up a bit and. I. Had heard about fight or flight response to traumatic events. But there's a third one that they didn't teach about back then, and I hope they do now. And it's the freeze response. There's fight, flight and freeze. Some people will run from trauma, from danger. Some people will fight that danger. And then there was me in the third category. I froze. I said, no, f I don't know how many times I kept telling him no and that we needed to go back and he needed to stop and. Then I just stopped. Saying anything. I was trying to figure out what I could do or say, because any time I moved, he had my wrist and he was pulling me towards him and keeping me close to him. And. I hope my brain was just I was just reacting. So he. Was having a little trouble. Maintaining an erection, I would imagine, from the amount of alcohol. So I made a joke about whiskey dick thinking that he would get so disgusted he would quit. That didn't work. The only thing that did work is I. Pretended to pass out. I just went limp. I closed my eyes. He. He shook me and I didn't respond. I didn't do anything. And then when he finally stood up. Then I opened my eyes and. Fix my clothes. And we started heading back to the hotel. He apparently got what he wanted because he headed straight for the door. We had come out of that other guy, never showed. So I've always theorized that the other guy was somehow in on it. I don't know what to to what degree, but he was. He was there in the beginning to convince me that I had this duty and that it was a dire situation for the other female. And all I could think going back to the hotel and I even said it out loud, don't tell anyone. I was so ashamed. For something I had no control over. Because I. Hadn't. There's nothing you can do or learn that can prepare you. And I didn't know if I reacted correctly because I had never heard about the freezing part. I'd only heard about fighter flight and I tried to get away. And I couldn't fight him. So I took this third path. Which automatically made me question my own actions. And. We went back to the hotel and I went right to the party room and the other female I was there with had never left. She had been there the whole time. So in my opinion, I was set up by these two guys and no one else knew what had happened. And. We went the next day and we all went back to post. He had during the night had tried. Touching the other female and she, I guess, decked him and he never he didn't try it again. But when I heard that we were still at the hotel and when she said that, I. Told a few of the people that were still there. One was my platoon leader, what had happened. And we all were young and dumb and decided that in order for to avoid everybody getting in trouble, the best course of action was to not talk about it. To keep it a secret because we had all been trained by the army that. A lot of women who report sexual assaults are lying. That it does happen rarely. But the ones that tell stories make the ones that it really happens to look like liars. So. You don't want that. You're basically trained. If it happens to you, shut the hell up. Because what's going to happen next is going to be worse. In some respects. We went back to post and we went back to school and we went back to our routine and I couldn't handle it. I was I was numb. An angry. And I didn't like feeling that way. And I discovered that if I. Scratched at my wrist. I had a little prong on my watch. It was a metal prong. And if I just kept scratching on my hand or my wrist and one spot. It would hurt enough. That I didn't feel the other things that I felt for a little while. So I have scars to this day because cutting became a way. Feeling something else. Somebody in my class. We were still in the classroom portion. We hadn't even split off into our cohorts yet. So the person sitting next to me in class saw what I was doing and reported it. To the school. And I was called in to the hunt, even know what the positions call is kind of like the principal's office. And he asked me why. I was cutting my hand and wrist and I wouldn't tell him. And then he informed me that if I didn't tell him, he would have to call the MPC because that was considered destruction of military property. And I could be charged. So I told him. And then they called C.I.D. The Criminal Investigative Division. And I was interviewed by a CIA officer. He was arrested. Temporarily by another CIA officer. They held him out in cuffs, is what I was told by classmates. And then the division started. The people that I think believed me. Didn't say anything. They. They just wanted to. Avoid the topic and they wanted to forget it happened. And then there was the other ones who didn't believe me, were very vocal about that. I was lying that I made it all up, that I was out to get him, that I never liked him. I'm like, I didn't know this guy enough to like or dislike him. That night I had a creepy feeling from him, but other than that, I never talked about him, never talked to him, didn't know anything but his last name. And he wasn't even in my cohort, so I didn't give a shit. I. They because we were both under 21, we were put in an alcohol assessment program, which is like the Army's 88 day program only we were sent to the exact same group. And when I found out that he and I were supposed to be in this group together, I stopped going. They couldn't make me, so I didn't go. I requested to be added to a trauma support group. And in the trauma support group, I was called a liar. I was told I was making it up. I was just trying to get attention. I was trying to ruin somebody else's career. It was all bullshit. I wanted it, everything. So I stopped going to this support group. I was sent to a psychiatrist, army psychiatrist. And I think the goal was to have me labeled with some kind of behavioral disorder or mental issue, because then they could kick me out. I was told by my female drill sergeant in front of my platoon leader and three members, three or four members of. They were they were there to reclassify. They were being trained in a new MLS prior service they were called. So it was like three or four members of prior service. My platoon leader, my female drill sergeant, that because I was drinking. I deserved What happened? I asked for what happened. And I deserve what I got. That came out of the mouth of a female drill sergeant. She also told me I didn't act like a rape victim. I don't know how a rape victim is supposed to act. Apparently, she knew somebody who had been assaulted at some point in her life, and I didn't act like this other person, so I must be lying. My. Reaction after the assault was. And this they don't they they don't talk about much when talking about sexual assault and sexual abuse. I became very promiscuous because. When I said, no, that didn't work, that didn't stop what happened. So I just didn't say no. I. Was able to survive. I. I didn't. I wasn't in a life or death situation if I didn't say no, if I just went and did whatever somebody else wanted that kept them happy and kept me alive. So I became kind of promiscuous. And I think part of that, too, was just to feel something other than what I felt. And was kind of like cutting. But they don't they don't talk about that. The stereotype of sexual assault victim is that. The victim doesn't want anything to do with the other gender, with whatever gender hurt them. They they don't. They don't. You know, if you're a woman who was raped, then you don't want anything to do with men. They don't tell you that There is another portion that instead of being. Instead of isolating from men, they go the other direction to try and find positive attention or try and feel something other than they felt or feeling so disgusting that that's all your worth in the world is to just. Be somebody else's play, too. They don't tell you that part. It's not in the books. My I told my family, which was hard. And when I got put on hold over status because of my fractures and I couldn't pass the test, my family assumed that I would be able to go home anyway and recover, feel my legs, take a p t test with the reserve unit in Manitowoc and get my graduation certificate and everything would be fine. When we found out that was not going to happen. My family started talking to Senator Feingold's office to try and get me out of Edgewood. I was moved from Bravo Company to Charlie Company. I was moved from Bravo Company to Alpha Company to Charlie Company because they needed to separate us and they didn't want to remove him from his support system. Because he was threatening suicide. He was stating to somebody that he was suicidal. So they didn't want to remove him from his support system. So they moved me twice. I was the victim. But who cares? I was treated differently by everyone when I moved to Charlie Company. The first sergeant there had gotten a full briefing on what I had reported and took an instant disliking for me and was a complete dick the whole time I was there. At one point. There were several Senate investigations going on in Aberdeen. And. It turned out a year later. Senate investigations determined that there were drill sergeants assaulting trainees in Aberdeen. That whole scandal came up a year after I was there. Well, I was there in 93. This the Senate investigations for different things but also for sexual assaults was starting to ramp up. And I was called into the battalion admin and a female command sergeant major. Had me come into an office. She wanted me to call my family. On speakerphone so that she could hear everything and tell my family that I made it up and to tell Senator Feingold's office to cut the investigation. She couldn't figure out how the phone worked to make it do the speakerphone thing. So she left the room for about a minute and I was able to tip off my mom. I was on the phone with my mom and the command sergeant major couldn't figure out how to put it on speaker. So while I was still on the phone with my mom, she left the room to ask and I was able to tip off my mom very quickly. And this female command sergeant major came back. I said to my mom all of the things she told me I was to say to my mom and my mom was on the other line saying, she's there. Right. And I would try and, you know. Yes. Know, I, I would just try and answer as simply as possible. So the sergeant major would not know what we were talking about. And I honestly don't remember whatever happened with that, because the scandal the year after. Pretty much that was all anybody cared about when it came to Aberdeen. Nobody really cared that things like that were happening before and that it wasn't always the drill sergeants who were the perpetrators. It was the other trainees who were also perpetrators. But that wasn't good headlines for CNN and other. Cable news networks at that time. Eventually I was allowed to go home. I think Center finds Gold's office had a lot to do with that. It took a few more months before I was able to pass the test. It screwed up my promotions. It caused a lot of problems. But it also kept me from transferring into the regular army because it would follow me everywhere my career was over.

JONES: Okay, so you eventually left Aberdeen, went back to Sheboygan. The legs healed. And what happened next?

KRUSCHKE: I stayed in the reserves because no matter if I stayed regular army. Everywhere I went. Somehow what happened in Aberdeen would have followed me.

JONES: I understand.

KRUSCHKE: So I stayed in the reserves. I was determined to at least finish my contract. I knew I was never going to get to 20 years retirement. And the reporting what I did in Aberdeen. Screwed up my promotions. I. I was an e two for four years. And once I got the once I passed the p t test, my unit tried to fast track my my reserve unit, tried to fast track my promotions as as much as they could. But it took me. Four years to make it to four.

JONES: Okay. So how long were you in Sheboygan? It essentially in the reserves.

KRUSCHKE: I finished my military career in the reserves, so I did six years in the reserves and two years in the inactive reserve. So I did my entire eight year contract from Sheboygan.

JONES: Okay. But. I thought you were. You went overseas.

KRUSCHKE: I did. What? My reserve unit. We had some forward thinking commanders. Okay, to.

JONES: Let me interrupt. Just so I'm clear, you were back in the reserves. Yes. And while you were in the reserves with your entire unit, for instance, activated to go overseas.

KRUSCHKE: Yes and no.

JONES: Okay. So tell us about that.

KRUSCHKE: I my reserve unit did a mission in Germany, and that was a substitute for annual training. That that was our annual training. We went to Germany. We were our mission was a support mission for the U.N. who was working, trying to. Bring peace in Rwanda. So we were painting vehicles, prepping vehicles at the same time we were taking in vehicles that were coming out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and preparing them for shipment back to the States. At one point there was talk that we were going to go to Rwanda. Just kind of the scuttlebutt, the gossip that goes around that since we were already working on that mission and we were already in Germany, it would be really easy just to send us forward. The U.N. pulled out. Of Rwanda. So we kind of dodged that horrible situation. But yeah, I was I was in Germany very briefly. My unit actually went to.

JONES: Let me.

KRUSCHKE: Around in 2003.

JONES: Let me interrupt you. I'm trying to get. A It's straight on. When you were in Sheboygan after Aberdeen. How long were you back in Sheboygan? How many years?

KRUSCHKE: And so what?

JONES: How many years were you back in Aberdeen or she'd be back in Sheboygan in the reserves after the Aberdeen experience?

KRUSCHKE: Six years.

JONES: Okay. And were you in the OR when you were in the reserves during those six years? Was that a full time job?

KRUSCHKE: No, it was it was the typical Army reserves. One weekend a month you do an annual training. Although I sometimes volunteered for extra duties when there was something big going on.

JONES: And and so during those six years during your reserve commitment, you were a mechanic working on trucks. Correct. Okay? Yeah. And then it at some point. Was it just you or was it your entire reserve unit that went to Germany?

KRUSCHKE: No, it's the whole unit.

JONES: Okay. And when was that?

KRUSCHKE: That was 94.

JONES: Okay, so.

KRUSCHKE: The year after Aberdeen.

JONES: Okay. And how long were you over in Germany?

KRUSCHKE: It's like three or four weeks.

JONES: Okay. And after Germany. Where do you go next?

KRUSCHKE: Kate. We came back here.

JONES: To the U.S..

KRUSCHKE: To the U.S.. To Wisconsin. Yeah, to Wisconsin. My. My company was in Manitowoc. And I lived in Sheboygan and later in Manitowoc. So in 94, we went to Germany. 90. Seven. I think we went to New York. Okay.

JONES: Where we were. Seneca Okay.

KRUSCHKE: We were in Seneca, New York, in Finger Lakes region. Okay. There was a post armory that was being closed down. And by then I was a recovery driver. So I drove a Hemet wrecker.

JONES: Okay. And I. Seen a picture of that. And my reaction is it's huge. Tell us what it is. Tell us about that.

KRUSCHKE: Our battalion had some military journalists documenting this big thing. We are moving. It was several companies from around the country. A lot of active duty units were already in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so the rest of us that stayed behind had to pick up the slack. And we went to New York and we were moving munitions from New York to Pennsylvania. And my company being a maintenance company, we were fixing the vehicles that were breaking down. And bad things happen when civilians move your trucks for you. And at the end of the one day, I pulled the helmet into the maintenance bay to put it away for the night and I got out of the truck. I'm five foot three. The tires on that truck are about the same height as me. And there's a couple of steps and then there's kind of this steel cable ladder to get out of this truck. So little me is climbing out of this truck. And the Army journalists were there, and a couple of them came up to me and asked me, was that your truck? And I said, Yes, yes. Well, where are you guys from? Wisconsin. Oh, you're from Wisconsin. I'm like, Oh, my God. Really? But other than that little. Idiocy. They thought it was the coolest thing to see. Little girl. Me, I could sit in an engine block with the hood down. I was that small and I could get out of it by shimmying through the wheel well, So doing it? Yeah. It's a long story how that happened. But yeah, so I'm just this little bitty person getting out of this enormous truck that's used to tow big trucks and. So they wanted they wanted pictures of me doing my job. So we set up a. A kind of a scene with my helmet and a five ton cargo truck behind it and working the little switches and stuff like that and making it all look all army and everything. And they ended up putting it in some. Army magazine. Thank. So. Yeah, but they thought they thought it was the coolest thing and. I guess it was. I was the only woman that drove a helmet. Yeah.

JONES: So how long were you in New York State?

KRUSCHKE: They sent my company in in shifts. So each group's we were there three weeks, each group was three weeks, and they overlapped because of the length of this mission. They didn't want to send the whole company for the entire period of time. So they broke us up. So I was there. Three weeks.

JONES: And then it was back to Wisconsin.

KRUSCHKE: Back to Wisconsin.

JONES: And after the New York experience, did you ever get assigned anywhere else?

KRUSCHKE: No, I couldn't. Every time I got orders to go somewhere, I got pregnant. So I was married. And it seemed like every time I was scheduled to ship, I was supposed to go to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for field training. And it seemed like every time I had orders for some place I was pregnant, I ended up. I had four kids. So, yeah, by the time the number four came along, baby sitters were few and far between. My husband at the time was in our it was in the same unit, so we had the same weekends, the same annual trainings, and we decided that she had a better shot at getting his 20 year retirement than I did. So when my contract was up, I got out and I stayed home with the kids.

JONES: And was that about the year 2000?

KRUSCHKE: Yeah, Well, it was 1998. 1998. Yeah. I transferred from the reserves to the inactive reserves.

JONES: Can. So essentially, while you were there in Sheboygan, life just came along, so to speak.

KRUSCHKE: Pretty much nothing stops whether you're active duty, National Guard or Reserves. You still have another component to your life outside of the military. So, you know, there there were husbands and ex-husbands and for children's for children. So, you know, life goes on. You're you're never you're never really a civilian. The military never really leaves you. And especially when your reserve that Milt you're you're still 24 seven military they can call you up at any time and send you anywhere they want. So there's always that in the back of your head. You've always got a duffle bag packed in a closet just in case. So but you try and have as normal a life as everybody else. And. For me, that meant marriage. It meant kids. It meant going back to school. And finishing what I started. And. Trying to carry on. To the best of my ability.

JONES: Now for those six years that you were in the reserve in Sheboygan. Were you the only woman in your unit there?

KRUSCHKE: No, we had females cooks supply admin for quite a few years. I was the only woman in the motor pool though.

JONES: And I assume. Um, there were some difficult times. Being the only woman in the motor pool.

KRUSCHKE: Yeah. There was. It's hard to describe. Now, everything would be called harassment. Sexual harassment. Back then, it was just ribbing. And as a woman, you just learn to keep up and give it right back. But the majority of that was just verbal sparring, back and forth kind of stuff. There were occasions where. Things went. Over the line. And you. Get past it and keep doing your job. But I became fluent and in sarcasm and profanity and very creative in insults back for the ones I received and. Know, I had to teach my I my my language is is so colorful. I had to teach my children that there were grown up words and there were kids words. And the words I used were grown up words that they couldn't say. Because it just becomes ingrained. In my case, it just became part of my life that I just react to every situation like I'm still there. So.

JONES: In March of 2000. This win your time commitment ended with the reserves. Is that correct?

KRUSCHKE: Yeah, totally out.

JONES: So. Now let's I'm going to pivot away. It is before we move on to your life. Post-military. Is there anything that you want to tell me about your service that we have not covered? That you would like to cover.

KRUSCHKE: When I was in Germany. I found myself in a similar situation as Aberdeen. A lot of drinking, a lot of German beer. Unfortunately, events somewhat repeated themselves. And this time I fought back and ended up with a concussion for it. Because I fought back and I had my head slammed into a concrete floor. And because of what happened to me in Aberdeen with my commands and the people in leadership around me, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't talk about it. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to be stuck in Germany, a foreign country, Like I was stuck in Aberdeen, which was only a few thousand miles from home. It was just another state within my country. So when when it happened again. I kept my mouth shut that time. I don't I don't even I don't think I told my family even I didn't I don't think I told anybody for years. But. And the only reason I mention that is because that's kind of the end of the Aberdeen story, is that was another consequence of what happened in Aberdeen is I again was in a position where I thought I was around people I could trust, that I couldn't trust, and I got hurt. And because of the way I was treated the first time I buried the second tenant. And it's not that I'm a magnet for these kinds of nightmares or that I put myself in these positions because I trusted the wrong people or because I was drinking or the kind of clothes I was wearing. There's no excuse for what happened. The reason I tell my story is because it's still happening. It's still happening to other men and women. And it shouldn't be. And it consumed. So much of my life. That. I was dysfunctional in many ways. But that being said and those things having happened. The only regret I have about my military service is that I didn't go to. Kuwait or Saudi or Afghanistan, because when I joined, that's what I joined for. I joined to fight for freedom. I joined because I believed in the message that we were getting on the news and I believed in what we were doing and I believed in serving my country. And I have a lot of guilt about not. Having the opportunity to do that part. But regardless of all of the things that I went through, there were good times for sure. I have good memories of the military. I have even more sense, the military with my veteran brothers and sisters. I would not. Take any of it back. I don't regret joining. If I could go back, I'd do it again. I would still sign my name. I still consider myself in service to my country. My contract never expires. I swore an oath. That I still believe in to my death. And. I. Did my service to the best of my ability. And I don't regret a single second of it. And good, bad or otherwise, the person that I am today is because of all of it. And if I took back a single second of it, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

JONES: Okay, so it's. Now you've been out of the military for 23 years. What you've been doing in those 23 years?

KRUSCHKE: Oh, dear Lord.

JONES: Four kids. I see your.

KRUSCHKE: Kids. What do you do? I've got four kids, four ex-husbands. I currently my children are grown. My baby is 22. When I first got out, I went back to school. I got a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in secondary education. I became a teacher. I taught for a few years in teaching school, and I taught the Menominee Indian School District up in Encino. Yeah. Yeah, actually, Neal, but. Yeah. And. Then I was laid off. Stay at home with my kids for a while, went through some marital transitions. Went back to school, got my master's degree. In English, and I started teaching college English.

JONES: Wow. Where am.

KRUSCHKE: I taught? In Milwaukee. I lived in Oshkosh, but I taught in Milwaukee. I taught. I started at Kaplan University. I also taught at Strayer University and Stratton College. I taught Argosy Online. Another university online. I was an adjunct. So adjuncts are cheaper than full time teachers.

JONES: I know.

KRUSCHKE: And four kids is not cheaper than an adjunct salary. Right? So I picked up classes wherever I could pick up classes. So sometimes my course load was heavier than a full time instructors. But, you know, you get bills to pay. So. And I enjoyed teaching college. I really did. I didn't enjoy the two hour commute by any stretch. That was not fun at all.

JONES: When you were going to Milwaukee?

KRUSCHKE: When I was driving to Milwaukee, yeah, I was on the Oshkosh school board briefly, which is how I ended up teaching college, because I spoke out against the State teachers Union and kind of got blacklisted. So I had a real hard time trying to find a middle school or high school teaching job in the public school system. So I'm like, All right, well, I've got this other avenue. I'm going to go down this road and to college. And I really enjoyed it. I love. I love teaching.

JONES: Are you still teaching now?

KRUSCHKE: No, actually, I retired in 2013. Okay, So ten.

JONES: Ten years ago already?

KRUSCHKE: Yeah. I am a disabled veteran now. I had a lot of issues with PTSD over the years. I've developed some health issues. Some of it may be linked to exposure to chemicals from Edgewood. Some of it is just in time and getting old. Yeah, I have a lot of back problems because of the the gear we would wear, the tools and stuff. We would carry the work that we did because, you know, I didn't work on, you know, little Chevy Novas. I worked on big five ton cargo trucks and helmets and. Big, big stuff.

JONES: I've seen the pictures of them on line stuff that Oshkosh truck makes.

KRUSCHKE: Yeah. And and I've I've worked on tracks, too. I worked on 1138 two's armored personnel carriers. I worked on components of the M1 Abrams back when it was still classified. So a lot of that is a lot of wear and tear on the body. And clearly I had some issues with sturdiness. So it just kind of snowballs. And as you get older, those things get worse. Since I retired. I've started a couple of businesses. I've always felt this need to contribute to my family any way that I can. I wasn't able to work full time anymore. It was actually recommended by my doctors not to, that it was making things worse. So I did other things. I had a craft business for a while for like six years. Now I'm back in school. God help me. Getting another master's degree in business management and Certificate Nonprofit Management. I'm doing a business management internship with a veterans organization here in Green Bay. I have a nonprofit that I founded and kind of put on the shelf until I felt I had I don't have the experience, so I'm trying to get the education to be able to run my own nonprofit. And my goal is to work with veterans through art therapy and animal therapy. But the animals I picked are reptiles. So I have I used to have cats and dogs, but I'm allergic now. I have 15 snakes and lizards. 11 different species. I find them to be relaxing and therapeutic and easy to care for. I can't handle a dog or cat who's going to be begging me for attention and things like that. But I can handle a reptile that. Doesn't care if I'm around as long as it's fed. It's pretty low maintenance system and they're very relaxing and they they can be companions. Some species, some are just nice to watch and handle and feel that tactile sensation. So that's pretty much what I do now, is I'm finishing. I've got a year left of school, I've got my internship, I've got my animals I'm working with and taking care of and socializing. I'm active in my Legion post. I'm in American Legion Post 539, which is an all women's Legion post. I was just elected first base commander.

JONES: Is this in Sheboygan or Greenville?

KRUSCHKE: Green Bay? I live in Green Bay now, so I'm active in my Legion post and then I'm also active in a nationwide organization called the Women's Veterans Network, which is it's a social networking for female veterans that teaches self care. And how to handle stress. How to balance your life. How to find those moments to refill your cup. And so that my my mission is this working with veterans now.

JONES: Well. Thank you very much for doing that. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your military service. And also thank you for agreeing to do this interview for the Wisconsin Veterans Oral History Project.

KRUSCHKE: You're welcome. And I honestly I hope that these interviews and my interview will encourage other people to come forward and tell their story no matter what the story is.

JONES: I'm going to press the stop button.

[Interview Ends]