Oral History Interview with Deanne Herber Perez

[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is August 21st, 2023. This is an interview with Diane Herber Perez, who served in the United States Air Force from September 11th, 1991 to December 15th, 1994, and in the reserves from 2004 to 2007. Diane entered the service as Diane Herber. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Meade Public Library in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. For the I Am Not Invisible project for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the room. Okay, Diane, could you tell me a little bit about where you grew up?

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah. [XXXXXXXXXXXX] but my parents moved to the northern part of the state in a small town called Tomahawk, Wisconsin. And I went, oh, my k-through-12 education was up there. My parents still live there. I go back regularly post high school. I was really looking for something to do. Kind of wanted to see the world and get out of small town America. And I joined the military to do that.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, what did your family do in Tomahawk?

HERBER PEREZ: So both of my parents worked for a shoe factory in Merrill, Wisconsin called Wine Burner Shoe. Okay. It's there for my mom. Still contracts there even though she's retired, so.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any, tradition in your family of involvement with the military?

HERBER PEREZ: So several of my uncles served at various points of time. My dad considered it, but he was a polio survivor and wasn't medically qualified to serve in the military. I don't have my mother has one brother who made it a career, but I wasn't very close to him, nor did I grew up with him. So the influence that my family had on my decision to join the military was kind of minimal. I had a lot of, my uncles who were who had all joined, didn't talk about their service, so I wasn't really in a position or in under an influence to say it was great and you should do it, or we had a great time. And, everybody kind of kept their service to themselves. And it wasn't until many years later that I had conversations with them about it, but I think influencing my decision to do it. It was kind of like I said, I was really just I wanted to do something. And I that seemed to me like a very good avenue to do it.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you have. Let's take our first break there. Okay. Sorry about that brief interruption, Diane. So we talked a little bit about what your family, and not influencing you were either way in terms of joining the military. Did you join as a result of, Desert Storm initially Desert Shield or.

HERBER PEREZ: I really I wasn't, in all honesty, motivated by that piece of it. It would have been an okay. It wasn't a non issue for me. I definitely thought about it and worried about it a little bit. But at the time I had really wanted to go to dental school, and that was my ultimate goal. And I was guaranteed a position in the dental field. So I was going in as a dental assistant. It's that was the profession I thought I wanted at that point in time. So for me it was a little bit more salt, more of a selfish decision at that moment in time than maybe an altruistic one. But that's what it was. And my 18 year old self.

SPRAGUE: What did your family say about you joining the military?

HERBER PEREZ: I think they were my parents. Anyway, we're very excited that I was doing something. I was a restless teen. They think I. I think that they believed I needed something that I wasn't getting. Growing up in a small town. And I also think, and I think that they would have been right in this, that I wasn't necessarily ready for college at that moment while I was a good student, I guess I just needed to do something different and get out. So I think they they, they supported me in my decision. I think they thought it was the right one for me at that moment as well.

SPRAGUE: One of the things that and in researching you and thinking about your story, if you could bring us along as we're going through your interview, how that involvement with the military, both as a next spouse and then maybe some of your children, that would help us out. So if I miss anything, let me know and bring me up to speed. So, where did you enter the service?

HERBER PEREZ: So I entered from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah, straight from Milwaukee to Texas. Little change.

SPRAGUE: And what was that like arriving in Texas?

HERBER PEREZ: I think so, getting there. I remember the bus pulled up and it was dark, and we all got off the bus and there were just lights. It looked like a movie scene in my mind. I thought, this can't be real because it just looked like a movie. And we were all standing there and we couldn't go into the barracks until we all sat down and pick up our bags in unison. And I just thought, this is funny, that I didn't laugh out loud, but in my head I was like, this is just very interesting and comical and I can't believe I'm here in this moment. And then I went to bed and I honestly couldn't get into my bed. It was the sheets were so tightly wound and I thought, oh my gosh, everything that I, all these stereotypes I had, they're all real. I just found it kind of surreal. So, and then of course, the next morning came and Reveille hit, and then it was, oh, yeah, it's really real. And we're in. So I stopped laughing that day. Not permanently.

SPRAGUE: And what pace was that in Texas?

HERBER PEREZ: Lackland.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, describe to me what happened that next morning.

HERBER PEREZ: Well, we were all in our civilian clothes. I don't think any of us had changed. I think we went in, laid down, woke up, and we literally were in the same clothes we arrived in. I don't remember changing, so I. I don't have that memory, but I just remember standing outside, being completely feeling disheveled, feeling like all the fun of the night before and the the surreal ness was all of a sudden super real. And I felt very out of place and quite frankly, scared. And then I started questioning, what did I sign up for? I this now is going to be hard. And it was hard, but it was a scary day. Day two was scary.

SPRAGUE: What was it like, having peers from all over the country?

HERBER PEREZ: I wasn't I still am not much of an extrovert. So again, looking back at my 18 year old self, being in that environment where I am the only person I know, that was the first time that happened to me. My entire life, I'd been around people I'd grown up with, family, friends I'd never been in an in a situation where everyone was a stranger to me. So again, it fed into that terror, almost of I have to make friends. I have to. And and those friendships are so. Important because you're, you know, the love, the sock mentality. You have to bond during that. And it was just really when I think back on it now, I, I just I'm surprised at how much I remember of how scared I was at that moment. In those first days. I just don't remember any of it being. Like challenging. Yes. But the biggest it was just I was by myself. That was scary for me.

SPRAGUE: When was the first time they gave you a chance to call home?

HERBER PEREZ: Well, I already had a uniform by then, so it was a it's a blur. I don't remember how many days into training we were, at all. And this is pre cell phone. Right. So we're standing in line at the payphone. And I remember getting my turn, and I only had my home, my parents home number, and my youngest brother picked up the phone. No one else was home. That was. Wow. I didn't expect to cry when I recalled that memory, but I remember hearing his voice and I thought, oh, it's my little taste of home, and it's my little brother. And I was. I cried then, too. Yeah. It was just such. Homesickness that I hadn't felt before either. I didn't think I'd miss my siblings, I guess. So that was a it was a surprising, a surprising emotion for me in that moment. But ultimately, when I thought about it later, I'm glad it was just him. I'm glad, like, on some level, I'm glad I didn't get to talk to my parents, but it gave me a just almost a sense of purpose because he was my little brother. He was only like 13 at the time. It was, I don't know. I think in that moment, that's exactly who I needed to talk to.

SPRAGUE: Did your brother talk to you anymore about that phone call by chance?

HERBER PEREZ: I don't never. I've never talked to him about that. I think I'm going to ask him about it, though, and see what he remembers.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Were, were you training both men and women together, or were they separate gendered, or. How did that work?

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah, so we were in a combine flight. I wasn't originally I was in an all female flight to start. But I had marching band experience, so they had asked if people wanted to do the drum and bugle corps. And my decision to do that was directly influenced by the fact that I could graduate from basic training, like a day or two earlier than my female flight. It had nothing to do with that. I wanted to be in trouble. Bugle corps. I just wanted to get out of there. So I took that and that was a combined flight. We were, male and female for that.

SPRAGUE: And so within the flight, within the barracks were there was at separate rooms or how did they organize that or were they all together?

HERBER PEREZ: We were in two different wings, so we were on the same floor, one of females on one side, men on the other.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What were, some of the experiences that you remember from basic that.

HERBER PEREZ: The two that stick out in my mind the most was the day we shot the M-16. I had my parents hunted. It wasn't that I was not raised around guns. I was. I just never had shot them other than a B-B gun. So for me to actually have a this firearm was a big deal. And I remember there was a girl in my unit who was turning 18 that day. She had had her paperwork and her parents signed so she could enlist at 17. So it was her 18th birthday the day we shot the M-16. And she was really sad that morning because it was her birthday. And I remember saying to her, I said, not everybody gets to shoot an M-16 on their birthday. And she was like, oh, thanks, Herber. I think I needed to hear that. And it was in that moment I remember that not so much as, yeah, it was the M-16. And that was a big deal. And I actually shot very well for never shooting a weapon of any sort of magnitude before. But I remember in that moment I felt really. Good about myself in a way that I wasn't, you know, super athletic. I wasn't called upon to lead the group or anything like that. I had no, you know, it's just, for all intents and purposes, a very average soldier, in that moment. But I realize that there's so much impact and influence we can have on each other in those moments. And I have a weird way of looking at things, and that ended up being beneficial as to being able to pull out those positive moments in there. And I just remember that experience as one of the one of them. And the other one was when we ran the confidence course, and that was so intimidating. I'd never done anything like that before. And I remember at the end, and this is just these weird memories, but the rope came and I missed it. I didn't grab a hold of it and then it didn't come back. Right. It only it swings lesser each time. And my drill instructor looked at me and she's like, go get it over the obvious. But I wasn't going to do that until told to do that. And I just remember that was the weird and funny moment where I was incapable of thought, right? I had to be told do this next. But those were my two big things that I remember about it.

SPRAGUE: What was, graduation like?

HERBER PEREZ: That's a great question. I think I was excited for our next phase and leaving because we did leave shortly thereafter. We got kind of our day pass. We got to be out in the city and that was fun. I remember being. Sad on one level, because I'd kind of hoped my family would make the trip down to see it. It was a, to me, a really big deal. And that didn't happen. My parents didn't come. So I remember being disappointed about that because I wish they would have been there, saying that I didn't invite them either. So I thought, you know, you want people to read your mind and do things, so I can't fully blame them for not being there. But I kind of I remember thinking that, like, I really wish they could be here with me in this moment to see what I just did, what I just accomplished.

SPRAGUE: After graduation, did you go directly on to your training? Yep. And where was at.

HERBER PEREZ: Sheppard Air Force Base. So we just went to another part of Texas.

SPRAGUE: Did you take a bus to get there or fly or.

HERBER PEREZ: I don't remember, I think it might have been a bus but I can't. I wouldn't bet money on that.

SPRAGUE: So could you flesh out a little more about, why you chose to become a dental hygienist or assistant, whatever the correct term is there.

HERBER PEREZ: What the that period of time, I really wanted to go to dental school. I thought that that was going to be in my future at some point. I had an interest in teeth and I know it sounds weird. I still pay a very inordinate amount of attention to my own teeth sort of thing. And at the end, I really did. I believed I was destined for dental school and a career in that, in that line of work. Thankfully, I found out I wasn't very interested in the dental field. I wasn't, I exhibited, you know, I projected my own experiences as what I'm like as a patient onto the career. And I wasn't prepared for actual patient care and what that all entailed in a dental office. And I realized I'm like, this really isn't what I want to do or where I'm going to go. And then I started taking some classes after work and I realized, you know, I, I didn't realize I always knew I was a good writer on some level, but I started taking classes and I thought, wait a minute, I can actually do this. And that started my journey. Then in higher ed towards journalism and public relations and advertising, which I've relied on since that day. But it helped me narrow my interest a little bit. So I found out that I didn't like something before. I invested thousands and thousands of dollars in it. So I think the military for that for sure.

SPRAGUE: How long was a dental assistant school?

HERBER PEREZ: I think we maybe were there. That's a great question. It wasn't very long. I think by, I think October, maybe 8 to 10 weeks before I went to my first duty assignment.

SPRAGUE: And what was the discipline like at the, the training for dental assistant?

HERBER PEREZ: Well, they phase you back into reality. So you spend your first couple weeks still marching information. They're slowly giving you your freedoms back as you, you know, get used to being a normal person again. So it wasn't we still, you know, we still did, we still marched to school for a few weeks, and then we started getting more opportunities to leave post and do things on the weekends. And that was unbelievably fun and crazy. But again, it's prepping you to go back and be a real person outside of basic training. So we we had some fun and we got to see the sights. And not that there's a ton to see in Wichita Falls, Texas, but it was a good time.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So next you go to your next duty station. Tell me about that.

HERBER PEREZ: So I went to little Rock Air Force Base, and, Yolanda Burns was my host airman. She helped. She picked me up, got me into my dorm and situated and gave me kind of the pulse check on the clinic and showed me around base. She was great. But I found myself again in another environment where I don't know anybody. And this is hard. This is a really. It was very difficult for me as a young adult to be in those situations, but I quickly made some friends. We were just down the street from the hospital, so my suite mate and another couple of women down the hall, we would all walk to work together and it turned out to be this really great friendship. And it was a good time.

SPRAGUE: And that was with the 3/14 medical Group.

HERBER PEREZ: Yes.

SPRAGUE: And then was there a subunit within that or just the three four?

HERBER PEREZ: Just the 314 at the at the dental clinic was included in the medical group.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And you were there from it looks like January or February 92nd all the way through 94. Yeah. Roughly. What was a typical day like you given part of us walking down the street?

HERBER PEREZ: I was very, very fortunate. I had a very traditional job, you know, the 9 to 5, as they say, had to have, call hours. But we had a very large clinic. It was a large base. So even the times that I pull or had to be on call weren't, it wasn't super regular. So that afforded me the time to go to school at night. It got me out on the weekends and we could, you know, kind of do a little bit of travel and do the things that young adults do. I was very lucky in that, that we just didn't have a lot of, insane or extra demands on our time.

SPRAGUE: What kind of procedures did you do?

HERBER PEREZ: Everything. Extractions. We, I cleans teeth, fillings. You know, all the basic stuff, root canals, things like that. Just basic dental fair. We did have one. One of our patients at one time was a was a dog, and it was a, one of the police force canines that we had to help. And that was I did not get to work on that, but I was there. We got to see the dog and the sedation and the dentist who worked on him. So it was really interesting. But other than that one thing, it was just all very traditional dentist stuff.

SPRAGUE: Would you have recognized any difference between what a dental assistant does in the military world versus what they do in the civilian world? Are there different boundaries or.

HERBER PEREZ: No, there's not. As a matter of fact, I worked as a dental assistant then all through college. What I couldn't do, though, was hygiene. Even though I was trained in the military to do hygiene. That civilian wives doesn't marry, they need to do boards and things like that and required education. So that job skill did not transfer just to the civilian licensing world. But I was able to do be a dental assistant. The only difference I would say, between civilian and military is we were still trained in triage in case of an emergency. So there were and because we were attached to the hospital, we were expected to know certain basic first aid type things in case of a large scale emergency. That would be what our task, what would be. So we did have some training in that, but other than that it was very comparable.

SPRAGUE: Did you treat, both, military and the dependents or were the dependents separate?

HERBER PEREZ: So the dependents were mostly separate? We did. If there was emergency issues, obviously we'd see them. But for the most part, we saw all active duty, very few retirees. And this, family members were usually on the economy in the local area.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you work with a, a regular team of people, dental team, or was it you did it mix up? Okay?

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: What was it like? Working with a dentist? What was that like?

HERBER PEREZ: It was great if you got the right dentist. So right there is always the one person that no one wanted to work with. And. I still remember him. Still don't want to work with him if he's around. But I did. I was very fortunate. I had two dentists who I worked with for the bulk of my time there. One of them retired and then I went to the second dentist. I was very, very lucky and working with two very good professional dentists, and I had just had great relationships with them, kept in contact with one of them throughout the years. Yeah, I guess I was very lucky.

SPRAGUE: Were you ever called into an emergency examination with a dentist?

HERBER PEREZ: Yes, I did call when we were on call. We would sometimes get, you know, a big abscess tooth. Someone's in pain right. And really what most dentist would do is get the patient out of pain and come back in the morning like we did very little work after hours because dental emergencies are pretty much few and far between.

SPRAGUE: This may seem like an odd question, but I've got to ask it. Based on my research, were both officers enlisted served by the same dentist, or were they separate?

HERBER PEREZ: Okay, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Some of the earlier ones from World War Two are like, we went to a different.

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah. No, we were all inclusive. We did have one dentist who I worked with after the first dentist I work with retired, and then we were in charge of all the flight personnel, so. And the reason for that is there were recalls and things are on a much tighter timeline. So they did keep those kind of separate. But other than that, everybody was treated the same time.

SPRAGUE: Anybody in there who you remember, you mentioned a couple dentists, any special people who were mentors or good friends of yours at the time?

HERBER PEREZ: Oh, 100%, yeah. I I'll say it a million times. I honestly, when I look at all of my service, I was so fortunate to just be put with good people. I mean, we all have, you know, like I said, I did mention the one, Dennis, who wasn't the best one to work with, but for the most part, there was a lot of laughter, a lot of camaraderie, a lot of closeness on the team. And I've just been lucky in all of it to have. I still have friends from that time of my life, so it was good.

SPRAGUE: Any experiences that you remember fondly from that time?

HERBER PEREZ: Well, I already mentioned the dog. That was one that I just. That's an experience. Where are you ever going to have that again? We had just my core group of friends that I hung out with while I was there. We always just had so much fun. And it would be, you know, oh, we're going to drive here and swim, or we're going to go to try out this club or let's go into little Rock and see this. We just had a very good sense of community and exploration and all of that. And I, we were all scattered, across the US now. And thanks to the beauty of Facebook and social media, we're still able to keep tabs on each other and follow each other's lives. I just it's always about the people. I've just been lucky to be surrounded by good people.

SPRAGUE: So one of the curiosities that I have and one of your pieces of paperwork says, were you, it seems to me that Operation Desert Storm had already wound down, but you were in support of it maybe a little bit at the end or not or.

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah, I never deployed. I was my first tour. I never deployed in in any of my service, but, I was stayed in Arkansas. But because you enlist during the war time, you know, in the theater and the campaign, you're considered a a veteran of that time frame, but we weren't. Yeah. My unit was never tasked to do anything outside of the ordinary.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And the 3/14, was that where they, C-130s where they. Something else do?

HERBER PEREZ: They were C-130s.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. Tell me about, your decision to, leave active duty.

HERBER PEREZ: Well, I had met my husband by then. I got married when I was 20. He was in the army. And the army was. His unit was stationed on our air force base because they were jumping out of our planes, which was great at the time because that's how I met him. And we had gotten married, and he his enlistment was up before mine. And we had plans to go to college and school and, and get out and do the next phase of our lives. And I think with the focus being on school and college, that was my impetus for getting out. When I did, I was accepted into the early and early admission program at Madison, UW Madison. So then I petition to be released from active duty early so I could start, and I was granted that. So then we both, went to school at Madison and moved up this way.

SPRAGUE: And were you on IRR at that time or not. Yep.

HERBER PEREZ: Yep.

SPRAGUE: And tell me about UW Madison.

HERBER PEREZ: That was great. I loved every minute of my college experience. My husband, who is now my ex-husband at that time was still my husband did ROTC and he was going to get his commission. We hadn't planned on going back active duty. Really? He was going to be a National Guard, a reservist. I did not choose the ROTC route, and I'm not 100% sure why I didn't do that at the time. I. I took a couple classes, but it really wasn't in my future. I knew I wanted we were going to have kids and we were going to do, you know, this whole different life I had planned for myself. And that's where my focus was. And when my, ex graduated, I had another year school left. I got pregnant with our oldest. I had her, I did graduation walk in May, a week after I delivered her, but I still had one final to take, so I really technically didn't graduate until August of that year. But that was my plan. I was just going to have this great career and be a mom, and I wasn't looking to go back into the military, but life has a way of changing things for you. So.

SPRAGUE: And what did you major in at in Madison?

HERBER PEREZ: So I was journalism with a focus in advertising.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, tell me after that, having your daughter and then how how things came along.

HERBER PEREZ: So we were living in Waukesha at the time, working in Milwaukee, we had just I mean, it was just a normal everyday life for a, for a good bit. He, my, my ex-husband at the time was doing training and he did a whole bunch of stuff for, for his career path military wise. And then we moved from Waukesha up here to Sheboygan because that's where family was. My ex-husband's mother and stepfather had moved here. I still have family in the area like we were. We were trying to be civilians. This was going to be our, our, our path. And then I had page, I got pregnant with page. My second, and 911 happened. So I was just about ready to deliver her. And 911 happened and my ex left. He was special forces at this time and he left and they sped up his training to get him ready to go. And page was born a week after 911 and that changed everything for us. It changed our focus. It changed our our attitude as a family. And we we never left the military after that. My. We were. He was activated for so long it made sense to stay in and we did. We became a military family then and. That's just how it happened. But I think then by that point, too, we had a much better understanding of what our service actually meant and what we were doing and why we were doing it. I think a lot of people had that kind of feeling. Post nine over 11. But for us, it just definitely became more of our of our mission.

SPRAGUE: And where were you on nine over 11.

HERBER PEREZ: Here in Sheboygan? I was driving, I was on my way to work in Milwaukee. I was still working down there. And I remember, like, you know, you hear it. I'm hearing it on the radio. And I, on some level, I kind of thought it was a joke, a poor one, but a joke nonetheless. Until I got into my office. And then the TVs were on, and everybody was standing there watching TV, and I mean tragic and horrible and processing all of those emotions. And I'm pregnant, so I'm super processing emotions, which was beautiful. But it hit me on my way home that afternoon knowing what my access career path is, was, I knew things were changing for us. I knew it, and I just it was a different level of terror, a different level of of fear, of the unknown. And it was that was a day. And I was trying to process it all. What does it mean for our country? What does it mean for me? What does it mean for my family? What does it mean for my husband? My kids? Like it was it was a very, very emotional day.

SPRAGUE: So, how did your, then, now ex spouses decision to go on a Special forces? How did that affect you and your family later and starting this point forward?

HERBER PEREZ: Like I said earlier, when I was 18 and joining the military, my decisions were very selfish and self-centered. That's probably the nature of many 18 year old kids, right. We don't see always what our contributions do. By the time I'm in, you know, my late 20s and I'm dealing with. This new sense of purpose or desire to effect something positive. We really it really helped me or it really put my own contribution. Well, my contribution. Being a veteran is is its own thing, but my contribution is being a military spouse in this moment was it became so much a part of my identity and I embraced it. I, I believed wholeheartedly in what my husband was doing. I knew his training was gazillion times harder than anything I'd ever been through. And I took all of that in, and I was going to, you know, I was there. I was the supportive spouse. I was going to raise the kids, and we were going to do this. It was it just had such a different meaning for me in those moments. And I put so much more credit and support than on my husband's career and what we were doing as a family to support the mission in the cause and all that than I ever did in the years leading up to that. It was, I felt I was almost more effective as a military spouse than I was in, in my own service in the years prior. However, I still felt I could do more, and that's when I made the decision to re-enlist in the reserves. And that.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about where you. So you were in Sheboygan, but you were working in Milwaukee, but then you also have this thing where you're then husband gets it sounds like he was activated for active duty. Help out walk. We just sketch that out for me really quick.

HERBER PEREZ: It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Like in retrospect, there was a lot of moving parts there. There. I moved back home with my parents for for a short amount of time. I stayed with them, I think, for about six months. My daughter, my oldest, started kindergarten up in Tomahawk. At that moment, I couldn't be a new mom or a new mom again and have to deal with everything. I couldn't do it. So I moved back home. Then eventually we joined. Like, the timeline gets so fuzzy because so much happened. We did come back here. My daughter finished kindergarten here in Sheboygan. Then we moved to, Georgia and then North Carolina with my husband and. Then why did I come back here? I cannot remember why when I joined. I honestly cannot remember why we came back to Wisconsin in that moment. But there were many points in my access career where if he was doing one thing, we'd be doing another because it was how I coped with that. It was easier for me to. Ignore what he was doing. And I say that with the utmost respect. But if he's in danger, I can't be thinking all about that. That was too stressful for me, so I would focus on something else. We're going to go live with Grandma and Grandpa. We're going to go do this. And so Sheboygan became a very it was almost like my hub. And that stayed. When he transitioned to the Foreign Service. Sheboygan still remained my job. I would come here in between assignments if we were in a third world country. This was our escape constantly. I always just this is my this is my home base. So I was still doing that when I joined the reserves. When I decided to join the reserves, it was, again, I had gotten an opportunity to do a job that, quite frankly, was fascinating and interesting. I got assigned to the Public Affairs unit. So when I made that decision, I was worried because I didn't want to be in a situation where we would dual deploy and I'd have to leave my my girls with my parents. I never wanted that. But I still felt this call that I had to do more, so I did. I enlisted again, and I did, I did that assignment until my ex decided to take a active duty special work position out in Utah, and that's when I left my service here in Milwaukee and went out to Utah with them.

SPRAGUE: So. Service. Join the reserves, 2004. You're at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. That was with the for 40th.

HERBER PEREZ: For 40.

SPRAGUE: Years. And it was that was that what was the title that was at a public affairs office. What was the.

HERBER PEREZ: Office of Public Affairs? And I was a public affairs specialist. And my weekend drills consisted of. I mean, we got, I think, one of the best jobs ever. We got to interview and hang out with everyone else. So our job was to report on what was going on around the unit, which was great because we got to know a lot of people. And which the irony of me not wanting to meet new people in my early stages ended up being something I really enjoyed and loved to do later, and to tell those stories about all the cool things our people were doing and what we were able to accomplish was so much fun.

SPRAGUE: So at some point you would have had to have decided, I'm joining this reserve unit. Because I want to because it's a great job versus the concern over maybe being dual deployed.

HERBER PEREZ: Yes. It wasn't, I was going in very much under the assumption and assurance that this unit wasn't being asked to deploy, and if it would be asked to deploy, what often was happening at that time was the reserve unit would be moved into a active duty unit, while the active duty unit would deploy. So I felt safer in my decision that I wouldn't be expected to leave my kids behind. I was prepared for it. Obviously, I made, you know, all the arrangements. But I think ultimately when when push came to shove, eventually I had to admit that I wasn't able to fully manage my house, my job, and everything my husband was doing because what my ex-husband was doing took him very much out of the picture of the home in my career. Right. They were very distinct. He had his own staff and he liked what he was doing. So when I had to make the decision to move on, I made the choice to be with my family, and. That's where we left it.

SPRAGUE: What? What is that like? Dealing with a spouse who's in South land, and you're not. You're not with them serving. What is that? And being doing what you were doing. What is that sacrifice like?

HERBER PEREZ: It's horrible. It was horrible. I wouldn't have said that in the moment. I think I had, I've been very, very fortunate. I volunteer in the area at a hospice, and I started doing that in 2017. And then we left and came back. So I've been again in and out of this community. But this, this, these three veterans, they're all Vietnam era vets. And I were having lunch one day and I said, I have a really hard time with being called a veteran. I was because I said, you guys did so much. So much was asked of you in your service. Not much was asked of me. And straight up military service. My military service, not a lot was asked to me. I had a great job. I had great friends, I had fun, I loved, you know, almost every single moment of my military life. I wasn't asked to deploy. I wasn't asked to, you know, do all that really hard stuff that we sometimes ask our soldiers to do as a spouse. However, I was asked to do all of it and still have kids and still have a life and raise kids who are well-adjusted and normal. And that was a tremendous burden and ask, I feel, when we were in Fort Bragg, there was a, a woman who who ran kind of our family readiness group, and she was a very seasoned military spouse. Her husband was career special forces, and she was Instrumental in defining for me what it meant to be a spouse of an elite soldier and handling the the deployments where, you know, you don't know when he's going to you don't know when you're going to hear from them when they're coming home. Where are they? Where are they? That's a that's a great question I don't know. That is. Living in that. Living in that was hard. Raising kids. And that is really hard. So again, I spent a lot of time ignoring it. That was my coping mechanism. And like I said, I would come here and my brother or my youngest brother at the time was living in Tampa. I'd go visit him on a long weekend. I just did a lot of. Pretending things didn't exist. And that's how I got through it. And I feel a little bad saying that because, like I said, the military was asking a lot more of him. Truth be told. But being a family. You're not necessarily asked, I guess, where he kind of was. And he made decisions and we weren't we weren't asked. So we just had to do. And we did. But, yeah, it was hard. It was very hard.

SPRAGUE: What do you think about the sacrifices that military families make and and the public's knowledge of.

HERBER PEREZ: So. My daughters and I have started, a business. We call it kids and combat boots. And we're looking at avenues and how to recognize military kids specifically. And this was born out of, Covid and our time spent together. It was post like my divorce was fresh. The girls had to move home with me. We spent a lot of time together, a lot of time talking about things. And in those moments I realized that. We had very different interpretations of what was going on. We lived in the same house. Same right. But we were. We each had our own experience. So fast forward to where we are with that and answering your questions. We really had for me in having these discussions with my with my own children, I realized that. I can say it was really hard for me as a spouse. What we asked of our kids was insane and they did it. Not only did they do it, they excelled. While they were doing it. They moved a million times. They made a million more friends. They rose to the occasion in every community we put them in. But yet when it came time for them to go to college, they didn't have, you know, a 15 year relationship with so-and-so. They didn't have people they could call on to get their letters of recommendation. They were relying on our network, and they sometimes felt very disingenuous doing that. So we have this whole premise of how do we recognize our military kids? How do we give them credit for what they're doing? And in all of that, we believe that telling our stories is really what's going to bring us together. And that, for me, was one of the reasons why I did this. I wasn't going to do that. I am not invisible project. Because I didn't think I had enough to say, but I had to I had to pull that back because I'm I'm constantly telling my kids and other military kids that your voice matters. You think it doesn't matter? You think you're you're just normal kids doing normal things, but you're not. You're doing a million amazing things. And I think that when we talk about our stories, it really gives us a more holistic view of what it means to serve our country. So going back to answer your question, how I think the from a spouse perspective, we do a better job. We have as spouses a little we have more resources. We have the ability to make more adult connections with each other when we're in these spaces that. Sometimes leaves us isolated in a, in, you know, we, we talk amongst ourselves and with ourselves because we understand and there's not a lot of, translation that needs to go with that. We we don't have to hear the I don't know how you do it speech from our civilian counterparts. So it's easier to act in those spaces. However, now I believe that it's much more important to have these conversations with broader groups of people. My focus is is definitely on on my kids and on other military kids, because I do not believe that we do a very good job of telling these stories and telling, or acknowledging what we're asking out. Our military families, I think we do it. But yet there's there's still the otherness about it. The the why couldn't do it. I know not everybody can do it, but I bet everybody could do it if they were asked. But some people aren't asked. So it's this whole quagmire of it's over there, but let's not make it over there. Let's bring it here. Let's talk about it. And I and I do. I think that the more we have these conversations, the more we're going to value what it means to defend this country. It's it's way more nuanced and more difficult than I think we give even ourselves credit for.

SPRAGUE: Closing out the reservist service from 04207. Did you do you you were doing write ups. Publications. Were there other things that you did in that role as drew?

HERBER PEREZ: So one of my favorite things we did, I had like I said, I had just had so many good experiences. We did, press tour where we got to ride in the C-130 and take a flight, and we flew it up to green Bay, and they lowered the back deck and we got to see Lambeau Field from the sky. That was cool. It was. Wisconsin's a swing state, so George W, an Air Force One landed here several times while we were working, and we always manage the media for those visits. And there's something just impressive about seeing Air Force One close up and and what that all means and entails. So that that was amazing and fun. And the Blue Angels were here for a flight show, and we got to do the, the press tour with that as well. So we got to fly in Fat Albert, the C-130. At the time, we didn't go in the fighters. That's fine with me, but we just had some really tremendous experiences with that unit that I loved.

SPRAGUE: What on the civilian side were you doing or where you were mostly.

HERBER PEREZ: At that moment, I was working in advertising. I was with an advertising agency here in Sheboygan.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. Moving ahead. Tell me about after at one point, you decided, at some point, you decided to get out of the reserve unit. Tell me about, oh seven forward when you're what you were doing then. And, if you went back to school or what you did there.

HERBER PEREZ: So I did go back to school. I graduated in oh seven. I got my master's degree in public administration from Brigham Young because we were stationed out in Utah. Then at that moment, my ex-husband was trying to get his career started in the Foreign Service. So we were, and successfully was able to do that. We transitioned over to D.C. area where he did training and stuff there. And then I was working for the Nuclear Energy Institute at the time, which is a civilian. It's an eight. It's a we use civilian use of nuclear energy. And I really enjoyed that job. I really felt that I was writing, I was editor, I was really kind of in my element at that moment. And then, my ex got sent to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Just before that, we had our surprise child number three pop up. So we at that point, it as much as I love my job and we were on new adventures, we were moving to Florida and I had another baby to take care of. So I did stop working then. And I was just, you know, a stay at home mom managing the household with three kids. And then my ex deployed again. So we we just had this constant theme in our in our marriage and in our life. In my marriage, it was he was here and gone and and I would not pay attention to those things. And I my kids can attest I never had a countdown as to when he was coming home. I never played into any of that. He's here or he's not. And we went on with life. I didn't want our happiness or our normalcy to be tied around his being home or not. I didn't want my kids to be excessively sad if dad was gone. I just wanted them to know that all of this is normal. It's just another day. And then. We're in Florida and I ended up pregnant with my fourth, which was great news because we had two girls who are older and and two boys who were younger, and we had Zach and while we were in Florida. And then from there we went to Venezuela, which that's where his Foreign Service career took us. So I was in all of that. I was a mom, and I was holding my kids together and in a way that I felt was good for them. And we just had, you know, we did what we could and we had a lot of fun while we we're doing it.

SPRAGUE: What was it like readjusting to him, coming back?

HERBER PEREZ: There were moments we all we you know, there's always that honeymoon phase where it's going great. But there were moments where, you know, as having toddlers and they would look at him like, who are you trying to discipline me? Like you're you're a stranger. You know, there's no relationship there with the kids. I think, as you know, as my girls got older and they could understand more, we talked about it, but we still didn't revolve around it. I don't know if that was the right way to do it. It worked for me. It worked for my kids. It got to a point, though, because he work. He just traveled a lot, military and, government service. He was just in and out a lot. Some days he'd be home and they would be surprised or like, oh, you're home or oh, dad's not home today. We just didn't put a lot of our life around. If he's here, if he's not, life goes on. We're going to keep living it. If he's here, he can participate. If he's not, he doesn't. And we just. We do. Us. So with that though, we got hyper independent as well. So when he would come home, he sometimes felt like the third wheel. Right. Because well, what's going on? How can I help? Where can I interject myself? So that's why when I say it worked for me, it may not have been the perfect, the perfect path, but it did work for us. But it did cause some issues when he. When he did want to reengage with the family, for sure.

SPRAGUE: Do you think that, characterization of service as safe than, Foreign service? Do you think those type of tours affected the family? In a tougher way than if it had been, a non deployed active duty tour?

HERBER PEREZ: No. I don't think it did. I think in all of it we remained. I mean, the divorce notwithstanding, we remained a very strong family unit. And that's part of, it's part of where I'm moving my attention now in recognizing my kids and their and truly their service. Because we just had such a high level of resiliency through all of it that I don't think it. I don't believe it was harder or even better or anything. I just, I mean, it was what it was, but I think it I don't know, we just always rose to the challenge and, and we looked at everything as an adventure and. My kids were always up for it. Like, we just. What's next? We never, we never fell into a a negative thought pattern with any of it. It which can can happen and we've seen it happen, but it was just everything was just a new adventure. And we we tried really hard to treat them that way. And I think ultimately that benefited us as a family.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about you, continuing to work, in public relations and, going forward. Tell me about how that worked in various places that you were working on that and stuff.

HERBER PEREZ: So it's difficult. I didn't work, full time or outside of the home for many, many years. And when we were stationed in El Salvador, I did work at the embassy for about six months. I tried to do certain things as a freelance, just to keep my mind and myself occupied in spaces where it wasn't necessarily conducive for me to have a job or even, be out on my own very frequently. We were stationed in three third world countries, and it just wasn't, you know, it just was different. So I didn't spend a lot of time working. I spent a lot of time in and out of the workforce. When we after we were in Honduras, we got back to I was working here in 2017, and then I went back to work, in Virginia, in Northern Virginia when we left Honduras and I worked for Manassas Park City Schools, and I loved it. I was there three years grade team, when my boss retired from there. That's when I made the move back here. My divorce was final. My ex was okay with me leaving the state with the boys and coming back here to something that gave us a little more, support, a bigger support network. Sure. Logan's a very easy place to raise kids. So I came back here two years ago, and I started working for Lakeland University. I still volunteer at the hospice. I love that I write for them again, that whole stories and our connections to people, I just it's something that that I, it's the core of my existence and I wouldn't feel full without doing it. So my work history hasn't done, you know, I haven't had this illustrious career of my own, but I've been, again, super, super fortunate to have these just tremendously good people in my life because of where I've. I've landed. In all of that, like, I bring it back to the project that my girls and I are working on. It's it's I just always feel like, what more can we do to give back and to support each other? It's a very isolating career and lifestyle. So how do we make it less isolating? How do we how do we connect with each other? We have so much technology at our disposal, how can we use that and make our community more vibrant and and supportive? And that's where I spend a lot of my free time and space. Now.

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned it earlier, that perhaps this, this issue has always existed with military families and the challenges that they face. And I think you said your approach was one of informing people, making them aware of, okay. Yeah. What? How what other approaches do you think you could use to. Continue to inform or better inform the public. What are some approaches that you might use?

HERBER PEREZ: So we really do. And I think I said this before, our stories connect us. I believe that I, I don't I don't say that lightly, but I'm also well aware that not every story connects every person. We're all very unique individuals with such unique experiences and perspectives. My story might not resonate with you, but it might resonate with someone else. Your story might not resonate with me, but it might resonate with someone else. And the more stories we tell and the more experiences we share, the more connections we're able to make and foster these opportunities for understanding. It's not, it's not in an effort to garner sympathy or. Even accolades. None of that. I don't I don't, I don't believe that that is at its core. I do believe that when we are able to fully understand and hold space for an entire human experience, we have just richer relationships. And if we can do that, if we can make enough connections and enough awareness and enough. Intentional, community building between our civilian populace and our very small military family. One. When it comes time to invest in, you know, our enlisted soldiers lives or the schools on post or whatever, that that isn't going to be over there, that it's going to be a part of our our collective experience in our awareness of what we need to support and uphold. And it's not over there. It's a part of us, and we all have a responsibility in that. Some families choose to do it. Others don't. And all of that's okay. But until we have an awareness of what we're asking our military and our military families to do, we're we're selling them short. I think.

SPRAGUE: What else would you want people to know about your your mission with kids in combat boots, your business?

HERBER PEREZ: Well, we hope it's wildly successful in the sense that we're able to give every military kid that recognition and to say, we see you, we support you. We know that you've you've served you've had somewhat of a career at this stage. Your whole life has been in support of a mission that's greater than you. And if we can somehow tell and illustrate that to every single military child and give them something that they can take to the world to say, yeah, I'm this means something, this, this, whatever it's going to be tells the world that I'm resilient and that I contribute and I support and I have done all these things as a young person, then we will have succeeded in our mission, and that is our ultimate goal.

SPRAGUE: Do you have other, outreach efforts, in the community here locally with veterans?

HERBER PEREZ: So personally, I still volunteer, with the hospice as part of the We Honor Veterans program for a member of the American Legion post in Plymouth. We're working with, very fun gentleman who helps the family support system in Wisconsin for National Guard and Reserve families. And we've been introduced to an incredible network of military kids in Wisconsin. So, yeah, we do. I say we my daughters and I work very close together. My own, my own volunteer services is separate from that. But we do try to stay very well integrated into our community here as well. Neither one of my daughters live here, however, so I have to say two. But they get involved when they can.

SPRAGUE: If you could, please explain to the public what, with the hospice, the We Honor Veterans program.

HERBER PEREZ: Absolutely. So we honor veterans as a nation wide, program that facilities can be a part of. And what they do by pledging to be a part of the We Honor Veterans program is they have an increased, awareness as to the needs of veterans in, in hospice. Anyway, as far as how that goes and in their end of life care, they're much more well versed in benefits where how to access benefits, if there's any were any benefits for the veteran there. As a facility there, I volunteer for the Sharon S Richardson Community Hospice and as a facility, they are very, very, just tremendous in understanding the veteran community, even though they're not veterans themselves. The the patient care is is amazing. But what they've been able to do then also is foster a community of other veterans. So we what I volunteered the most with is what they call the pinning ceremony. So we get to go into patients homes, or assisted living centers. Sometimes at the inpatient unit we do it as well. But we have these really great experiences where we meet a veteran and we thank them for their service, and we give them this really beautiful quilt that's produced by other volunteers in the community through the Carmel Quilt Project. And we're able to just have these great interactions with with families and with patients. And we also have veteran to veteran visits. I don't necessarily participate in a lot of those, because I'm still, you know, working and mommy and all my other free time. But when I'm able. To do that. It's veterans meeting other veterans and just spending time together and talking. You know, again, it's that shared experience that we don't have to explain to another veteran. It's an easier connection to make. So when people are in because hospice isn't for the actively dying, it's for people who are at the end of their life, and they're looking to find more meaning and comfort in their end of life care. Some of these relation relationships go on for years, and it's a beautiful thing when it happens. The opening ceremonies bring me a lot of personal fulfillment, and it's one of the, I'm so grateful that I'm a veteran so I can do this. I can serve in another way now because I was a veteran and these I've just been every one of them blows my mind. I the families are so appreciative. We've been in rooms where family members have never heard their loved one talk about their military service. Like, and you're World War Two veterans, Vietnam era veterans. There's a lot of, baggage really, that they came home with. And many of them didn't talk about it. So, you know, oh, yeah, he was in the Army or she did do this, but we don't know anything about it. But we come in and all of a sudden it's an opportunity to learn and and share that experience. And the families just are tremendously the gratitude we walk out of there. I've never Yeah. It's just it's one of the most beautiful things I get to do with my time, I love it.

SPRAGUE: How did your experience as a veteran inform being a military spouse?

HERBER PEREZ: I think for me. I knew I think I inherently knew because of my own experience that my husband couldn't do his job well if he was worried about home. It's hard to separate. You know, we do our best as humans to to keep the home and work separate. But life, life is life. And I think somehow I spoke to that hyper independence, earlier, I think I just intuitively knew that this was my domain and I'm going to take care of it. That's his domain, and let him focus about his domain, I think. I don't think that was ever that needed to to be told to me or nobody. I don't think anybody shared that with me. I just think I knew that that that was my job is to make sure he could do his job. So I think in that way, maybe that was a, a benefit, that he didn't have to worry when he was gone of what was going on at home.

SPRAGUE: What do you do on Veterans Day?

HERBER PEREZ: Well, what do I do on Veterans Day? I think a lot. I had a, I mentioned earlier, I had, I struggled with my own service for a long time because I thought my service was fine. And I do I it was I had a great time. I got to do so many fun things. I didn't think it counted. So when I, I was asked to speak on behalf of the hospice at one point, and, and that forced me to put some things into perspective that included my own service. And why did I discount it? And I came to the conclusion in writing that the reason why I discount my own service is because I probably had the best case scenario I had fun, I wasn't asked to do anything incredibly difficult. I wasn't asked to spend a year away from my family in a foreign country. I what I wasn't asked to do any of it. My ex-husband was asked to do a lot more. He spent a considerable amount of time in combat. My veteran buddies who are Vietnam era veterans, they were asked to do a lot more. I have friends who were wounded in combat. They were asked to do a lot more. We had a good friend die in Afghanistan. He was asked to do more. So. It's easy for me to discount my service because I was asked to do a lot. My friends here, maybe at Nomura, veterans who I work with at the hospice helped me come to terms with all that because of what they do on Veterans Day and Memorial Day and Patriot's Day. And one of them told me this. You played the game. You didn't have much control over where the ball landed in your court, but you played and you played well. So. Let's get to work. We got we got more teammates to support. And he was right. So now I don't discount my service as much. I am honored to have done it. I am able I'm looking over there because my the jacket I wear at the hospice is over there. I'm able to do that because I served. So I spend those moments where we are honoring veterans and, and our, our loved ones. And I spend a lot of time thinking.

SPRAGUE: I'm going to bring this over to the course. There you go.

HERBER PEREZ: Yup. There it is. And it just brings me that I wear this to all the pinning ceremonies. And it like I said, I served and I get to now serve others because of my service. And this is where for me, where where the beauty of it lies. And I am grateful for it every day.

SPRAGUE: If you could bring it up just a little bit. Yeah.

HERBER PEREZ: Yeah. We got a name tag, and then I have. Are we under Betts pen? USO, I'm a strong supporter of the USO, and then my service branch for it, and, of course, is on there.

SPRAGUE: Wow. Nice. Very nice.

HERBER PEREZ: This isn't a uniform, by the way. We all wear different things to pinning ceremonies. They do require, you know, a degree of reverence and professionalism, for sure. Some of them wear their American Legion outfit or and pins. Other people will wear just a jacket. Some are much more casual. We have one of our volunteers who still fits in his navy uniform, and he wears that. And that is beautiful. And we love seeing that too. But yeah, it's it means a lot to me to be able to still do these things or to be able to do these things because of my service.

SPRAGUE: Wow. What would your life have been if you had joined the military?

HERBER PEREZ: How do you want to think about that? Well, I have thought about it. I don't think I would have successfully left Tomahawk. And not that that's a bad thing. I don't feel I would have been afforded this very rich world view that I now have, my best friends. I have best friends here, but I also have some in Kosovo and DC, and I have a very robust life because of that decision to leave home at 18 and to to go on this path and this journey. I have had tremendous experiences and I have a much more, global way of thinking. But in that, my kids have that my kids are able to do, so much more. And that's where my real joy and I feel my real legacy is going to be as and what magic they're going to make and do in their lives. My oldest is a second lieutenant stationed at Air Force Base. She joined the Air Force. And she's doing great things. She's a tremendous leader. She's. Just a beautiful human being and soul, and she's now got this career path of hers. And it's because of where, you know, the foundation we gave her. My second is a senior at Florida State. She's in ROTC. She's going to get commissioned in the Air Force as well. That ability to affect generations. I. It means the world to me to have put forth children and young adults that are going to make a bigger difference than I ever could have imagined making, and I never would have been able to do that or give them that tool without the tools I had as a young adult myself. So yeah, I think I would have just. And again, not that bad. I just would have. I probably still be living in Tomahawk.

SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview?

HERBER PEREZ: Actually, I went to talk about the I Am Not Invisible project on behalf of the hospice. When you were doing the the call for veterans in Manitowoc, I didn't go with the intent of participating. I went with the intent of talking about some of our volunteers who had helped organize the event and in interviewing them. How come you're not doing it? I said I'm not here for that. I'm not here for that. This isn't about me. This is about you. And she said, no, this is about you. And again, she pulled back it. I guess maybe dealing with my services is is the there's layers to it all the time and I never looking at it as it was about me. It's never about me. It's about everybody else is doing so many more things. We have to tell those stories. But then I'm always reminded by my friends and my colleagues that if I'm I'm preaching one thing and I'm practicing another, and they remind me that my story is just as valuable as everyone else's. So I got in line and I got my picture taken because I was called out, and I'm glad I did it. I when I told my girls about it, they were ecstatic. They're like, that is the coolest thing. I'm so glad you're doing it. I can't wait like it just again reminds me that our stories are valuable. Mine's included in there. It's not always easy to talk about ourselves, but it's important.

SPRAGUE: Did we miss anything you'd like to cover?

HERBER PEREZ: I don't think so. This was a great, great opportunity to to take a walk down memory lane a little bit.

SPRAGUE: Okay, well, that concludes the interview. From one veteran to another. Thank you for your service.

HERBER PEREZ: Thank you.

[Interview Ends]