Oral History Interview with Catherine O. Pampel

[Interview Begins]

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. Today is November 16th, 2023. And this is an interview with and I'm going to ask you to please state your full name.

PAMPEL: Captain Olivia Pempel.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. And did you have a previous name that you used in the military? Yes.

PAMPEL: Katherine. Olivia Stoffel.

BOWERS HEALEY: And please spell Stoffel.

PAMPEL: Stoffel is s t o f f e l.

BOWERS HEALEY: And spell pempel.

PAMPEL: Pampa l p a p e l.

BOWERS HEALEY: All right. Thank you. And you served in the United States Navy from 2008 to 2013, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. All right. And this interview is being conducted by Ellen Healy in coastal Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present for this interview. All right, Katherine, I'm going to ask you a little bit about your background before you join the military. Generally speaking, where did you grow up and what was your family life like?

PAMPEL: I grew up here in classical Wisconsin on a dairy farm out on Highway 28. Dairy farm has been in our family since 1901 for generations. I went to school here in Bascom, first at Wayne Elementary, then I want to ask a middle school and then graduated in 2008 from Pulaski High School. I mainly wanted to get into the military pretty quickly right out of the high school due to the fact that I didn't want to go back to school. I did not like school. I liked being in school. I liked learning and everything like that. But I did not like the setting. I liked being out of my seat and walking around.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. And high school. Well, let me ask you a little bit more about your family. Did you have brothers and sisters?

PAMPEL: Yes, I had two sisters. I had an older sister and the younger sister. So I was the middle child.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. And in junior high or middle school and high school. Did you participate in sports?

PAMPEL: Yes, I was a track athlete. I threw discus and shot, put in three years of high school and then two years in middle school.

BOWERS HEALEY: And was there you indicated you didn't want to continue on with education right away. What influenced you or how did you know about the military?

PAMPEL: I knew about the military. When I was seven years old. My mom asked me what I wanted to do when I wanted when I grew up. So during the summer she would take us on field trips. So I wanted to I said I wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to be a police officer. So we'd go to the fire department, we'd go and tour the fire department. We'd go to her, the police department. And then I also said that I was interested in going into the military just because it seemed like a way to be able to travel and get out of small town Wisconsin.

BOWERS HEALEY: Were there recruiters in your school.

PAMPEL: Or in in high school? Yes, in high school, I was actually sure as to what I wanted to get into when it came to the service, which service I wanted to go into. The army always seemed to stick out because I was one that was always there. Marines. I didn't really want to get into the Marines. It was just almost a little too much for me. And then when I saw the Navy, they were they travel. They could go on a boat. I've never been on a ship. I've never been out of. I was out of Wisconsin. I think the only time I ever went out of Wisconsin was when I was in seventh grade. I went to Florida for Disneyworld with my aunt and got to swim in the ocean. And I really liked it and it was a lot of fun. So I've always I've I've been an independent child, a good portion of my life. My mom could not keep me still. I was always out in the fields. I was always helping my dad with the cows. I hated rainy days because I had to be stuck inside. So I also did volunteer a lot in high school. I was a part of a church here and in Cuba. Ask my holy Trinity. I went to Catholic her work camp, which was a week long down in Rockford, Illinois, where we would actually help the people down there, whether it was in daycare, in food service or in helping the elderly rebuild their homes and rebuild and mow the lawn, things that they couldn't do on their own or they didn't have family to help them. So I also was a part of the police explorers in West Bend, where I actually learned how to be a law enforcement officer. So I went on ride alongs. We would volunteer during the parades for crowd control, and I want to expose as well, too.

BOWERS HEALEY: And you did that while you were in high school? Mm hmm.

PAMPEL: Yeah.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. So you decided on the Navy. Was there a particular recruiter that you worked with, and how old were you when you. Started contacting the Navy.

PAMPEL: I met a guy by the name of Travis Connec. Come to find out he was my fourth cousin. Somewhere in the tree line.

BOWERS HEALEY: You know his last name?

PAMPEL: Yeah, his last name was K, as in King and O. E. C k. Okay. And he he was a recruiter here in West Bend. And he ended up. And ended up at the school around January because January of 2008, my mom was like, okay, so what are you doing? You don't have anything ready for colleges. You don't have anything ready. You didn't say anything that you wanted to get into the military. What are we doing? And I'm like, okay, I guess I'm going to school today and I'm going to try to figure out what I'm going to do. So then I went to school and I met up with Travis and started the process and getting to learn about the Navy.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: I went to Holland.

BOWERS HEALEY: At that time.

PAMPEL: I was 17, I was 17. I didn't turn 18 until after our right before I graduated in June. So I was 17 when I talked to him. Took a couple of months to go through all the paperwork. And finally when I was ready, I had my parents meet and that's how I found out that he was a he was the fourth cousin of somewhere down the line because my mom was had to talk all about the family and everything like that and who do you know and everything like that, because this is what small town people do.

BOWERS HEALEY: But tell me about the qualifications that you needed that they were working with you.

PAMPEL: Qualifications I needed to be I had to have a high school diploma. So obviously I could not go into the service and could not does go into boot camp until I graduated high school. I had to there's qualifications. I had to do so many set up so many pushups and I had to do a mile and a half run in so many minutes in order to actually even get into being thought of for the Navy for those qualifications.

BOWERS HEALEY: Difficult for you? Challenging?

PAMPEL: They were challenging for me because I was not a runner. I could not do the run. The pushups and the sit ups were fine. I did I was in soccer right before I went into the military entrance and processing station, which was maps to actually be sworn in to the Navy. And I actually had to lose 10 pounds because I had to be 160 pounds at my height, which was five five, and I was 170. And I worked with the recruiter, I worked with friends. I was running a lot in soccer and trying to get this weight down. Granted, back then, it's easier to lose weight as a as a 17 year old and one as my service went on, it was a lot harder for me. So exercise was just not something I enjoyed. I liked hiking, I liked being outside and everything like that. But I just I looked at exercises, labor. It just I just didn't like it. So it was tough for me.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: So I graduated high school in June, had won two maps in May of 2008 where I actually swore in and made the qualifications. And that's where I picked my my job.

BOWERS HEALEY: And where was your maps?

PAMPEL: Maps was in Milwaukee. Was right down Good Hope Road. So. When I went there I had taken my Asvab previously and I was not a good test taker. I got a 35, which was the lowest score you could possibly get to get into the military. So few I actually was able to get in, didn't have to take that again. But with what I wanted to get into, they would ask you what you wanted to do in the military. I said, I want to get to weaponry. So they only had two slots. Are two jobs open? And that was a utilities men, which is working with H vac and refrigerants as a Seabee carrying a weapon or gunner's mate, which you worked with everything, everything on the ship. So when I heard ship, I was like, I'm taking gunner's mate. I want to be on a ship. I want to learn about weaponry too, because I never went hunting. I was never one to carry a weapon or even like I had a big gun when I was a kid. My dad had a 22 that he would shoot, you know, squirrels and ground. Hogs and stuff that would eat our garden, garden, vegetables and everything like that. But I had never shot a weapon in my life. I went into the military completely unaware of what it was and how to shoot. Which is funny because I was going in, there's a gun, it's made. So it's like, what a way to really, really ramp it up. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: So when did you actually go to basic training?

PAMPEL: I went to basic training October 8th of 2008.

BOWERS HEALEY: I Where was that?

PAMPEL: That was basic training was in Great Lakes, Illinois.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: It is the only one that's left. They used to have one in Florida and one in San Diego, but they do not have those anymore. So Great Lakes, everybody's got to go to Great Lakes and unfortunately, Great Lakes, Illinois, in the winter really does not it's not fun. So I do remember the day pretty well left for basic. And it was raining. It was cold, dreary, a really yucky October day. All my family came out to say goodbye. I had packed up what little I had, which wasn't much because they told us not to bring anything. Really? Because your letter just calls on your back. Got sent down to the hotel in Milwaukee to await being sent to take a bus to go the maps. So my recruiter, Travis, came down or came over to the house, picked me up, took me down to the hotel. And that night I had I didn't have a cell phone, so I didn't have to worry about a cell phone. But I guess apparently using a hotel phone, you rack up charges. So I called. I called my family. I call her to let them know that I was there. Come to find out when I was leaving that morning, like the bus was leaving. They told me I had charges on my on my room, and I was, like, panicking because I'm supposed to get on this bus. I have to go to two maps. I can't miss this. I got to go to the you know, I was just so I was in knots. So I quickly called my mom, told her the room number and told the place. I was like, here, this is my mom. She will give you all the credit card information. She's going to pay for all of my charges, which was like seven bucks. Not even so it was like nothing. I didn't have any I didn't have any money because they told us not to bring anything. So the only thing I had was my ID and my Social Security card and the clothes on my back.

BOWERS HEALEY: That was it. Okay.

PAMPEL: So go ahead. So it was 4:00 in the morning and I'm getting on the bus getting two maps. And then that's where they pretty much in a sense, you swore in again, signed all the paperwork. And then we had a van that took us down. And this was the time when 94 and 41 and everything like that down there was full of construction. So it was just we had to drop army off at the airport, Marines off at the airport, Air Force, out the airport. And then they've got to drive all the way down to Great Lakes. So we took a bus or a van. It was a van. So then at the time I smoked Cigarets, So the guy was like, Hey, you guys, you need a cigaret or anything. You're on one more before you guys go to boot camp. So we all lit up and everything like that right outside boot camp. And then then that's when I went through the doors and then that's when that started.

BOWERS HEALEY: When you say go through the doors, what do you mean?

PAMPEL: There are the gates, I should say the gates of of boot camp. They have actual gates. Like we literally drive through this archway off of Buckley Road and you drive in and then then you are officially Navy property.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. So how long was your boot camp?

PAMPEL: Boot camp was eight weeks. Okay. So October 8th to December 2nd is when I graduated boot camp.

BOWERS HEALEY: And when you went to boot camp, was it integrated with men and women? Yes. Okay.

PAMPEL: Yes, I was an integrated division. Women and men.

BOWERS HEALEY: And what sort of things did you do and learn in boot camp?

PAMPEL: Oh, well, we started started out pretty much you're up at 4:00 that morning at Maps and you're up until 4:00 that next day processing. So you're turning all your pockets out, you're putting all your cell phones, all your stuff, all your clothes. You're changing into gear that they issue out. And then your you have P tests, you have weight requirements. You got to go through, get all your uniform items. It was a lot. And we only had one phone call and it was like, frickin, hi, I'm here, I love you. Goodbye. Pretty much. And it was they gave you a phone card. And I've never used a phone card in my life because they never had to use a payphone. So that was fun because you have to dial all these numbers and just to get it now. Now they actually just use their cell phones and I'm like, they should be using those those payphones. See how hard it is to use a payphone. But anyway, so pretty much I got hold of my dad. I was like, hey, come on. My sisters, I love them, but I got to go. So it's literally only 30s.

BOWERS HEALEY: What kind of uniforms were you issued?

PAMPEL: The uniforms that I were issued, the first during processing days. We just wore our uniform, which was a pair of sweats. We called it the Smurf suit because it was blue and had navy written on the sides, and then a big old Navy emblem on the front. And then we had our yellow t shirt and blue t shirts and we had to wear tennis, tennis shoes. And that's what we had to wear until we were processed in. So we had to go through medical. We had to go through all the stuff, we had to stencil all of our stuff. So we had to stamp our name into our underwear, into our socks, into our shirts, into our hats. The uniforms that we were issued to were I had a dress blue uniform that consisted of a jacket, a white shirt and slacks. And then this combination cover that if you sat on it or crocheted in any way, you had to pay for it again. And that was $35 for guys had a Dixie cup that you could do whatever you wanted to. And it's $7. The only thing that they couldn't do is get it dirty because it was white. And then we had the new uniform, which they replaced what they call the Johnny Cash's, and which was the Summer Whites and the Winter Blues. They introduced this new uniform that was like we call them the peanut butters. It was a tan top and black shirt or black pants. And the woman top was not tucked in, which was a first. It was actually cut for a woman, which was crazy because our utility uniform that we had to wear, which was a blue button up shirt and these polyester pants you had to tuck in and where you wore them, it made me look like I had a top and a bottom. I had no stomach because of the way that the pants came all the way up to your midsection where my mom would want me to wear my stuff. I always hated that. I like to wear my stuff on my hips. Well, I had to wear it on and above my my belly button. So I made me feel like I was at home again. So that uniform was a working uniform. Utilities were what we used always like we were wearing them all the time. So you had to iron. You had to make sure that your boots were shined. You had a hat that said recruit on it. And. So when we went through processing days, we got all of our uniforms. So then we had to pack all of our stuff, naughty bag. And we had to walk from processing days, which was here all the way across the road, which we actually went down into a tunnel. Down into a tunnel. Pretty much singing anchors away. So we were allowed to march with our all of our stuff on our back. The our garment bag and our hands. And we're marching along. And we had to march in our ship, which we call all of our barracks rooms were called ships. So I was on ship ten, which was the USS Enterprise. I had to march almost one and a half miles with everything in my hands. And my my back never carried anything this heavy other than hay bales. Never on my back, at least. All the way to ship ten. And then we met up with whoever was else was in our group because we actually were like separated because the men and the women were separated in some way. At one point during sleeping quarters, men and women are always separated.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: So they weren't able to they weren't we weren't able we were right across the way, but we were separated during sleeping quarters. We actually in one sleeping quarters, there's 40 females, 40 females, 40 men. And it's two divisions. So my division was 0027 and our sister division was 028. Now, we would always break off sometimes when we were doing learning about the Navy and stuff like that, we break off in divisions, but we always did everything together for the most part.

BOWERS HEALEY: You mentioned that there were 40 women. 40 men approximately. Was that the ratio of your class?

PAMPEL: For the most part, yeah. A lot of the lot of them were ratio around 40. Or so. Come to find out. Throughout my career, the woman, the rate of women in the military went way up.

BOWERS HEALEY: Oh. Do you know what it went up to?

PAMPEL: Well.

BOWERS HEALEY: At least I can.

PAMPEL: I can. I can kind of give you a rough guesstimate. When I got my ship, when I got out of boot camp and out of my schooling, when I went to boot and when I went to my ship for the first time, I was the only female gunner's mate. And our berthing was held 40 females and were barely full. When I was about to leave in 2013, it was full. We actually almost had to switch out to a male berthing because there were so many females.

BOWERS HEALEY: When you were in Basic, were there other women who were going to be gunner's mates?

PAMPEL: I had one other female in my division that was actually in class with me throughout my gunner's mate career, and then she left to go to San Diego where I went to Norfolk, Virginia.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: Her last name was Rose. She was tall, scrawny, and I didn't think that she would be able to even shoot shotgun because she was just she was just so scrawny. I felt that thing would just blow her backwards. But anyways, on boot camp, you every week was something different. We'd learn. So ship handling. So how to bring a ship in to in from out to sea. So mooring in the lines. Putting the lines around the bollards and faking all that stuff down. And how to I'd say it was firefighting, how to combat fire because on a ship we are our own electricians were our own plumbers were our own firefighters were our own everything because nobody else can do it for us.

BOWERS HEALEY: And you learned all that in basic as opposed to in your follow on training?

PAMPEL: Well, the the plumbing and the electricians there, they have their own jobs. But as for firefighting, everyone's a firefighter. Okay. So I actually had to learn how to be a firefighter. So putting out fires, knowing what what extinguishers to use for what fires. How how everything works. When it comes down to it. I got to learn more of it when I was on the ship because there's only so much they could teach us in boot camp, but we learn that we learn weapon handling. So my expertise, which was not so expertise, I did not do well shooting the weapons. Actually, they made fun of me because I. They're like, you're going to be a gunner's mate. Oh, man. I wonder if you're even going to make it through a school. And I was like.

BOWERS HEALEY: What weapons? Did you did you shoot or qualify?

PAMPEL: We qualified in the pistol, and then we did the shotgun. We did not do any rifles. So no M-16 fours or anything like that. So it was literally the pistol that you qualified in in boot camp and the shotgun. So that was it.

BOWERS HEALEY: And what kind of pistol that they have you?

PAMPEL: That was the Beretta. Now the Beretta 92.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: And and then the shotgun was a mossberg 500. I didn't learn more about any of my weapons until I got into school. So those were the only two weapons I learned about. And then we did, you know, P T and stuff like that. But we marched everywhere. Marched to a dinner, lunch, breakfast. We marched to school. And then we marched to the city hall, which was the large gym that they had. The best I think the best days that I had were on Sundays because it was church day. So it was called holiday routine. You got to wake up at six instead of, you know, 4 or 5 or anything like that. You got to wake up at six. You got breakfast in the morning and then you got to go to church. Now, church was all different denominations. I am baptized Catholic, but I went to different ones because I had friends that were in different ones. So some one weekend we went to Lutheran. Another weekend I went to Christian another week and I went to a Jewish ceremony, the church service, church service. And how they even had Wiccan, you know, is something that you never would have thought that they would have, that they had services for just about everything. Muslim, Hindu, Islam, anything.

BOWERS HEALEY: Mm hmm.

PAMPEL: That was all the days, too, because then you could you could gossip with the other people that were in different weeks. Oh, What are you guys doing this week? Oh, what are you doing this week? Oh, man, I'm almost done. Oh, I. Oh, I just started. So it was always a lot of fun to, you know, listen to other people's stories of what's going to go on. What's. To happen and everything like that because it was the only time you could talk to people that were outside. Your division because you were supposed to be like literally your division and your sister division and that's it. You don't talk to anybody else. This is the only day that you can actually talk to anybody. And they didn't care as long as you guys weren't like, the only thing that we couldn't do is swap email addresses or phone numbers or anything like that until we were out of boot camp. That was like a strict thing. And come to find out somebody didn't know that and they got sent back to day one of boot camp because they swapped information in front of our division commanders portal area that they sat in. And that was bad. That was the night of Battle Station. So the last night before we go graduate, this person does that because this other person getting sent because they did not pass their third physical fitness test. So if you do not pass your third physical fitness test, you actually get sent back and held back from graduating boot camp. You have to pass your last one.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay?

PAMPEL: And you have to pass what they call battle stations, which is pretty much a 48 hour ordeal. So battle stations consisted of the morning of we wake up, we get to wear coveralls, which is so cool because we haven't worn these things at all. We've been like pressing on. We've been waiting to wear them. And it's just one piece, a one piece suit, pretty much. In a sense, it's just it's like coveralls that you wear at a mechanic shop. And these are the uniform that we got to work because we don't have to wear utilities, which is great.

BOWERS HEALEY: Your whole division.

PAMPEL: The whole division, because we were about to go to battle stations. We're almost done. We're almost done with boot camp. So we all get to wear the battle stations stuff and we. Go and take our third test. And we ended up. Going to chow and everything like that. And then the night, like once the night started, we all started kind of getting jittery and everything that we're about to go to Battle Station.

BOWERS HEALEY: So I'm going to have you hold just a moment. I need you to one of my recorders is not doing well here.

PAMPEL: Oh.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay, it's 1100 and we have been recording for about 28 minutes, but the zoom has not been recording. So it just started again. Okay. All right. Sorry to interrupt you.

PAMPEL: That's fine. That's fine.

BOWERS HEALEY: All right. You're talking about battles.

PAMPEL: Battle stations, which is like the last thing before you graduate. Night starts coming in. And we're all starting to get really jittery. We're all talking to each other. And it's I think it was like a little bit after Thanksgiving. That's right. Yeah, it was after Thanksgiving because it was December. Thing was December. Now it's November 30th. We went to battle stations, so we had to march in snow because it was snowing. So we marched from our ship to battle station. So battle stations in. Great Lakes is actually it was designed by Disney and the Navy. It is called the USS Trailer. It is actually a full ship in a building like it's all all the the sounds and the lighting and everything was like designed by the Navy through Disney. And it's like real life ship life. So what we do is we marched in, got a little synopsis on the ship we were going on, which was the USS trailer. And then we the doors opened and then you got the ship and we're on the pier and you're looking up at a ship. It's got mooring lines coming down. There's birds in the air. And you can hear the sounds of the ocean and all the things. It was just like you were in real life. It was almost as real life as being on the ship, except for you didn't have the smell.

BOWERS HEALEY: You mentioned the USS Treasure. How do you spell that?

PAMPEL: Treasure? Is t r a y e r.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. Thank you. Yep.

PAMPEL: Okay, So we all got we all went out on board and we all got dismissed to our what they call birth things or sleeping quarters. We all hunkered down there and then each of us were in a line and we were in a group. And battle stations consisted of us standing watch upon the bridge. So watching out for ship contacts, air contacts, reading them out to engine room maintenance and like going through the engine rooms and making sure all the pressures were right. And then it was we doctored Yorktown to bring on goods and stuff like that. So we literally made what they call what we called a working party because it's a party because we're all together. But we had to work. So it's you know, you're bringing on the food, you're bringing on the supplies to bring it on the ammo, you're bringing on all the stuff. And you're literally like just doing this motion forever until they say, okay, everything's done. And then we got back out to sea and then next May to know everything. That's what they call the shit hits the fan. Each l'evolution that we went through in battle stations was kind of based off of things that happened in the Navy, like the USS Cole. So when the USS Cole was bombed, that evolution was all about saving people in the berthing that was hit by the IED that was on the small little boat boat, and then the USS Forrestal, which was when I am in the. Trying to think the on the flight deck of the US as fast all there was a bunch of. Cash and fuel that drained out and started to fire. They actually had to jettison all these ship these planes off the ship what we added to the firefighting for that. So it was out there. We were out there fire fighting fire. And then there was one where smoke was in one of our our work rooms. So we had to go and go down a scuttle and we had to go in darkness and we had to hold on to each other and get through pipes and everything like that to get back up another scuttle. And then there was one where the ammunition room that actually I ended up working in when I got on the ship was flooding. So we had to put a jubilee patch around the pipe while it was still kind of flooding. We had to get this ammunition out. So we had to bring ammunition out. It was chaotic, but it was it was enlightening, actually. I really enjoyed that because it kind of gave us a taste of what the ship life was going to be like, because I'm not going to go out on a ship right away because I had to go to school. I had to go to actual school. So I was in school for a while before I went on my ship. So it was kind of nice to be able to do that. The only thing is you couldn't fall asleep. And people if you were caught falling asleep, you would get kicked out and then you'd have to start everything all over again. Luckily, no one in my group fell asleep. And then the moment of truth was us getting down to the pier. And that was the moment where we all started crying, because that was when we got a Navy ball cap. So we went from recruit ball cap to Navy ball cap. And to this day, the Proud to be American song always gives me chills and makes me cry because that is the song that they played when our record division commanders actually handed us our Navy ball cap and considered US sailors and not recruits.

BOWERS HEALEY: And for what period of time did you have to stay awake? How long was it?

PAMPEL: That was 48 hours because after that, we didn't go back to bed because that was it. I think we got done it around like 930 in the morning and we had been in doing battle stations from. I think they started at eight, 9:00 at night and we were up until 930. And then after that we had to go to haircuts, get us all nice and looking pretty for our moms and our dads and all of our family. So we ended up. Having to go in March to the processing on the side, which was another mile and a half, sleeping, practically felling, feeling like we were sleeping. I actually think I did fall asleep because I think I remember marching. And then next morning and I'm like sighing over to the next person and they're like.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: So I do get haircuts. So we weren't we weren't able to go to bed until that night. And that was I think we went to bed at like ten.

BOWERS HEALEY: You mentioned having to get a haircut. All the women had to get haircuts.

PAMPEL: Yes. Unfortunately, if your hair touched your the bottom of your collar. So we had a collar that came down like this. So if your hair touched the bottom of the collar, you had to get a haircut. And then all men, when you first get in, they all get shaved, completely shaved. So then they can pretty much, in a sense, get to that point where they can give it a higher tight. Once we were able to graduate, so all the men got the high end tights, all the women had to have haircuts. Now, I don't know if they do. I kind of envious of like the army and everything because they actually taught us, taught them how to do the the soft bun and all the stuff. I didn't learn that stuff until I got out on my ship because then I started actually growing my hair out. I actually I didn't need a haircut while in boot camp because I had had them cut it so short that by the time boot camp was done, I didn't have to have haircut. So I had actually donated that. I had about 13in of hair that I donated and I had them cut it like to like above my ears. I that pretty much told them, give me a bowl cut. I don't care what I look like. So exactly. Because I could see I saw some of the women that had like the shears out to hear that they were cutting people's hair like like this. And then they'd shave your neck. And it was just like, I am so glad they're not touching my hair.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay, So.

PAMPEL: There's no style. There's no style. It was just get it off the get off the collar.

BOWERS HEALEY: So you say you did graduate. Where are your parents or did you say yes?

PAMPEL: Yes. So the night after battle stations, we all got to go to what they call recruit heaven. So pizza and Pepsi and everything like that, all the goodies that you couldn't really eat. And video games and all the stuff. It was literally like a big old lounge to celebrate for us getting through battle stations and everything like that. I gave a quick phone call to my parents to make sure that they got down to Great Lakes okay, which wasn't much of a drive for them. They they said, yes, they got down there just fine. And then as we were marching back to our barracks to go to sleep so that we could get sleep before graduation the next day, it was snowing so lightly that it just was really there's no wind, which is something we were battling in Great Lakes. It was just kind of a light snow. And then like you could see off in the distance, dear, and just stuff like that. So it just like made us all just really emotional because we all just kind of like started crying. It was just really weird. But. So the next morning they always announce what the uniform of the day was and the uniform of the day. They actually told everybody that they had to wear the ski mask, and there was just all these women that had to have their their makeup done and everything like that. There were there like crying to chief and the petty officers, Oh my God, do we have to wear our our mask and our mask? I'm going to get my face done and all that stuff. And it's just like, no. Just all we had to wear it was our. Our scarf, which that scarf is a wool scarf. And you breathe just right. You'll get some of that wool into the back of your throat and makes you feel like you have a hairball. Is absolutely horrible design. I don't know who designed that, but and it was funny because we were wearing this into the parade hall with all of our parents there, and none of our parents could point us out because we had we had the mall scarf over our face because it was cold and everything like that, and they didn't want our faces to get cold. So we're all just like like this. All of our parents are like, trying to like, Oh, my God, I don't know where it is over there. I finally get to my area where we stand, and we were able to take everything off and put it behind us. And my parents actually did find me. And then at that point where I got to see them, then that's where I was just like, you got to keep it together. Got to keep it together. Oh, my God. I can't wait to see them. Two hours later, we had two people fall out. We had two people fall out of the of boot camp graduation because they locked their knees. So when you lock your knees for certain upon a time, you end up feeling this really bad rush of blood from your head. And then you get dizzy and then you fall over. And there are people that actually some of the sailors that would actually walk through to like look at our eyes to make sure we're not glazed. Then there'd be somebody behind you walking and then catch the person. So it's almost like nothing happened, but people can still see it.

BOWERS HEALEY: It's funny how many sailors graduated with you?

PAMPEL: Oh, gosh. I think there was. And there was like 13 divisions of, I think at least 80 people each. So that it was large. There was it's a large parade hall. Everybody in my division graduated. We didn't have anybody setback. The only person that got set back for a couple of them that were in my sister division due to not making weight or that person that decided to give her information and then got sent back.

BOWERS HEALEY: So other than that, did you have any attrition? Did you have people that just said, maybe it's not for me?

PAMPEL: We had one one person that actually escaped from boot camp. She actually, like were in this, like, known processing days. She literally, like was asked and she asked to go to the the restroom. She bolted it out the door, I guess climb the frickin fence and actually ended up in an admiral's garage, from what I remember hearing. And then was taken to the brig, which is like a jail for for the Navy and then brought back, which was weird because we thought she was going to get kicked out. And then we had one in my sister division that was a part of that military or jail type thing. I guess they got rid of that. But this woman was like literally. She was withdrawing from her drug of choice or whatever it was because she just was always so sweaty. She was hot. She was always feeling like nauseous and everything like that. But apparently what from what I remember hearing from what she was saying, is that she was forced into the military. But then we had a handful of people that actually came into the military to get their U.S. citizenship, which was a lot of fun actually, to do here, where their stories, people came from China, Africa, Europe, and they all got their citizenship. So that was really cool.

BOWERS HEALEY: They got their citizenship. Well.

PAMPEL: I think they actually got the citizenship after boot camp was done, they actually were able to get their citizenship into being United States citizen. So I think it was after boot camp that they got there, they actually were able to take the oath and become United States citizens.

BOWERS HEALEY: After boot camp. Did you have leave or not?

PAMPEL: No, no. I had about two days to wait for a bus to take us across the street. So I was not leaving Great Lakes where a lot of my friends were leaving to Florida for aircraft aviation jobs. Some were going to Mississippi for to be a yeoman, which is secretary. And then others were getting the sense some some were actually just getting sent to their ship because if they were what they call UN designated, they did not pick a rate, they did not pick a job. So they were going to be working on the ships either in an engine room as on an on designated engine or a designated seaman. So so we got sent over and then I got sent to my next barracks, which is they called the processing barracks because it was just kind of like where they put everybody until they can figure out when your schooling is. We had three schools that we had to do in a school. We had to start with ships handling type schooling a little more further into it, along with actually how to handle hazardous materials. So like when we were doing maintenance and stuff on the ship, all the all the hazmat that we had to handle how to handle it with gloves and goggles and all that.

BOWERS HEALEY: What does a school stand for?

PAMPEL: A school is just an apprentice. School is what they call it.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. Did you have more than one a school to go.

PAMPEL: To know that the eight the gunners made a school was the only one that I had to go to, but I had two other class, two other classes I had to take in eight in the school environment. Okay. One was that ship's handling and the other one was like wiring and technical stuff. So how to read schematics, which I have never, never even touch that stuff. I don't even know what it was. When I was in there, I was like, okay, I'm just learning. Come to find out, one of the guys that I served with and he was supposed to be a gunners mate. He found out that he was colourblind because they had to. We had to look at wiring and he was getting it all wrong. And that wasn't good to have because unfortunately a lot of our ammunition is color coded. So he actually ended up having to get booted. He ended up either getting in a. Her job in the Navy oriented up out. So I'm not totally sure though. But then I was at a school in Great Lakes, Illinois for a year, eight months, because I went there in December of 2008 and was I left there to go to my ship in July. End of July and August into August.

BOWERS HEALEY: I should ask your contract, how long was your contract for?

PAMPEL: Contract was four years active and then four years reserve.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. She has a theory. And I asked you that because she had a fairly lengthy a school eight months.

PAMPEL: And eight months. And a lot of it was really not even just the school itself. The school was easy. It was about three months, but it was just a waiting process, getting everybody in and getting everybody through everything. That was the part that was the hard part was just being put on hold waiting for the school to start up. And certain people got put brought in and gone to school. And I think but we also had on the Great Lakes side for training, we had all the rates that all the jobs. It seemed like it was, you know, quartermasters. And and then you got all the engine room play the engineers and then you had you even had. People that were going to go to Seal school or Seal training out in Coronado. They were this is their induction area where they learned how to do everything. And then they got sent out to Coronado for Seal training, which was that's rigorous. But I met a lot of people. It was definitely, definitely a hard one. Adjusting to the school life because I was 18, in a world of a lot older people than me, that had worse attitudes than I did, and I felt like I had to grow up. I felt like I had to you know, this is this is this is you know, this is serious. We got to get serious now.

BOWERS HEALEY: Being 18, it was like it was like a lot of other people. There were 18 or 19.

PAMPEL: I had maybe 3 or 4. Everybody else was either they had gone to college, they were unsure of what they wanted to do. So they got out of college and then they were they just want to go in the military and ranges between. I think most of my friends are between the ages of 20 and like 35. So it was definitely different. But I thought I had to grow up. I actually thought that people actually were looking up to me to be an adult. Well, a school's like college. It was like a college life because with the military instruction and everything like that, going out after school and everything like that, you could do just about whatever you wanted as long as it was. You came back at a certain time and obviously had to be. You had to turn.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you have homework or study?

PAMPEL: Yes. Yes. Most of the time a lot of that stuff was done in class, but there was tests we had and there was for a school. We had four unit tests. Three units and then one for the big one right before we graduated. And with being a gunner's mate, you learned not only just the weaponry itself, you learned about the schematics, sold electrical stuff that I learned about in the previous class, how to do maintenance on all these weapons, how to take them apart, put them back together, all the other ammunition, color codes, what the ammunition does. And then we had hands on with torpedo tubes. So for taking a torpedo out of a torpedo tube, putting it back in. And then blowing. And then we actually were able to open up the door and actually blow out air, which is pretty much, in a sense, a manual way of being able to. Blow the torpedo up over the side. And then we even learned about weaponry that we didn't even handle, which was they called it a mark 19, which was a grenade launcher. They did not have them on the ship. When I got on the ship, they actually disbanded them because they were having issues When the the ring was pulled, the weapon, the grenade wasn't being launched. So they were having issues with that, possibly blowing up the side of the ship. And yeah, I think that's the reason why they got rid of all I think army still carries Mark 19 but we got to learn about them. There's a lot of weaponry that we learn about that I didn't even touch.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. What weaponry did you touch and did you get to fire?

PAMPEL: I shot. I see. I handled the Beretta nine millimeter handgun. The you two enough. M16, which was the rifle and 14, which mainly we use them 14 on. On the ship as a way of getting shot line over to the other side during an underwear replenishment. And then shotgun. I shot the 50 caliber machine gun, the 240 Bravo machine gun. And then I was actually the senior technician of the five inch Gun, which was a large cannon on the front of the destroyer that I was on.

BOWERS HEALEY: And as you shoot those for familiarization or for qualification wise.

PAMPEL: And then in need of, you know, if we ever have to shoot, you know, man, the guns and everything like that. Most of the time it was just familiarization because I'm the one doing all the maintenance on it, taking a part, cleaning them, loading them, all that.

BOWERS HEALEY: Does the Navy have armories or are the we are our armors, the gunners, mates, armors gunners?

PAMPEL: Me I saw the armors I was so I graduated Gunner's Middle School in July 29th of 2009. Had gotten my orders to the USS Gonzales STG 66 out of Norfolk, Virginia.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you get a choice or was that what you.

PAMPEL: Yes, I got a choice. I got three choices. I got and I got to choose where I wanted to go. And I chose Norfolk, Virginia, San Diego and Japan. You all you could go. And I got my first choice. I wanted to go to Virginia because I wanted to still be in the States, but I also wanted to travel the eastern side because I knew that area, that Second Fleet area, would travel most of the Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I wasn't sure about going to San Diego just because I'm not a big fan of California. I'm still not a big fan of California.

BOWERS HEALEY: Anyone in any school that was particularly influential or mentor or.

PAMPEL: I wouldn't say there was really anybody that was really influential. We didn't we didn't meet people and become real friends because we were always getting shipped out somewhere else, that kind of thing. I did make friends. I do still have a couple of friends of mine that I still talk to. I think what became most influential was the wide variety of ethnicities and cultures and the fact that small town Wisconsin, where we're all so close knit, we can still be close knit. And being a big family, I found that as big as this world is, it's really small, you guys. Hey. Hey. Dang dogs like to play too much. I don't I don't see anybody really being influential in a school. I don't remember a school much really, actually, because it was just a blur for me because I was learning so much and it was I felt like I was always on the go. But when I went when I got to my show, I actually got some leave before I got to my ship. So I packed everything up. My mom picked me up. Got to go home for a week. And I've got, you know, just repacked everything because some things I didn't need to take with me when I went out onto the ship and everything. So I repacked things, took certain things. I was only allotted my sea bag, my garment bag and a backpack. So that was all I was able to take on the ship. So I left my house or my my parents house on August 14th of 2009. And my brother in law took me down to O'Hare, where I flew out to Norfolk, Virginia. And then I thought I wasn't going to get picked up because the guy that I was supposed to meet me there didn't meet me there for almost an hour and a half because he thought that my plane was coming in a different time. So I was stranded at Norfolk International for an hour and a half. Like I had no one's phone numbers, no nothing. I was like, Oh, my God, I am so scared right now. So I just went to the USO that they have in in the in the international airport. And I just hung out there. Got myself some soda, had a snack and everything like that. And then the first class that picked me up. Was we finally got there and he's like, apologizing cause he's like, This is not how I wanted you to, like, learn about this ship and learn about our division and everything like that. I'm so sorry. And I'm. I'm. I'm fine. I just was, like, scared that. Oh, my God, I think I missed my bus or however I was supposed to get to the ship. Okay, So. So I took the van ride over to the base, and I'm. Looking at those ships, looking at them in pictures and looking at one person, two different things. Carriers look like just like they looked as long as a block. A block long. Like if you imagine a roadblock. It was large and tall. My ship, it looks large to me. When I first got to it, I was like, Oh my God, this is huge. I am going to get lost. I feel like I was so scared. I was just I was excited and scared all at the same time. I call it nervous sided. I was nervous and excited all the same time. I got inside and had no idea where I was going. So my first class had shown me the barracks. I was going to, the berthing I was sleeping in, and I got to my my rack that I got to pick. They call the beds are called racks. So if you can imagine a little hallway ish type three beds this way, three beds this way, and then there's another set of three beds this way. And you have about this much room to walk with six people living in your aisle. And the beds are not big, they're not comfortable. And I can say, well, I can say they're comfortable when you're really tired, but their mattresses are like, you're sleeping on a sack of straw. And. I got the bottom bunk, which she pretty much, in a sense, crawl into, got my stuff kind of like situated on my bed. And then my first class wanted me to meet him up in the mess decks. And I'm like, I have no idea where I'm going to mess Decks is called is known as a cafeteria. So I met him on the on the mess decks and then I met a couple other people from the from the ships that were in different divisions. Some of the females that were in the barracks are in the berthing area. Actually, one of them actually I met my one of my best friends that I still talk to till his day. Her name is Amy Riggleman. She lived in the rack that above me kitty corner to me in the second second one. So she was she was very influential in my career. There will be more people.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. There's what you mentioned, the ship here on the USS Gonzalez. And what was your unit?

PAMPEL: We were we were the combat gunnery division. So c G division, part of the weapons division on the ship. Then they break down into three designations in there. So c, g, o one, c, g, o two, and c, GO3, c, g o. One was in charge of the five inch gun and all of the ammo in there. CVO two was the actual gun complex system that actually shot my gun, the five inch gun. And then CDO three was all of the armory stuff, all the nine mils, all the rifles, all the weaponry, all the ammo and everything like that. So that was that was that was the designations. But we all work together. It didn't matter what what designation n c g division. We all worked together because we all had a job to do it. And it was large. It was a large job because not only do we maintain all the ammunition and the weaponry, we teach people how to shoot, so we have Ranger instructors on on the ship that are in our division that go to school, designation school for that and teach people to shoot because we have to have watchstanders. So when we.

BOWERS HEALEY: Where do you teach the people how to shoot were done.

PAMPEL: In port is usually at a range. It was over at the Little Creek base in Norfolk, Virginia, and then out to sea our flight deck. We actually rig up lie shot line and hang targets. And while the ships moving in this way and we're shooting weapons, as long as the waves aren't crashing over and we're not and during any type of lightning storm or anything like that, we're shooting guns because we have to get all of.

BOWERS HEALEY: And what happens to the ammunition?

PAMPEL: Ammunition goes right to the paper and we're far enough away with all all of the water. We're just surrounded by water. We're we're completely water locked.

BOWERS HEALEY: So does that go into the water?

PAMPEL: Yup. Goes in the water. The none of that ammunition could go far enough to hit anything because we were so far out. A lot of the a lot of them, a lot of our weapons qualifications. And then also like when we had to do just our dry runs of making sure our weapons worked and everything like that, all that stuff, we made sure that we had no one in our designated area because some of the weapons, like the five inch gun, you can shoot 30 nautical miles. That's the horizon. So when we shot that, we'd make sure no one was around that. Not even not even Shamu couldn't even make sure shampoos are out of here. No, no, no, no marine life either. We didn't want to. We don't want Peter or any of those people on us. So. So when getting to know the division was interesting because I was the only female I was the only female gunner's mate on the USS Gonzalez until 2000, 2011. So two years I was the only female gunners man.

BOWERS HEALEY: So, you know, just from a historical perspective, when the Navy opened up Gunner's mate, two females.

PAMPEL: Who I think it was not until I don't think it was until the 90s.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay, But you just happened to be the only female. Yeah, I.

PAMPEL: Just happened to be the only female that got sent there at the time.

BOWERS HEALEY: Had your division had females kind of mates before?

PAMPEL: 1 or 2.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: But they moved on to other ships and that kind of thing or moved out, got out of the military.

BOWERS HEALEY: How many sailors are on the USS Gonzalez?

PAMPEL: We had 288 enlisted and. Two. It was like like 15, 16 officers, like 300 people. 400 people, most of them made up by enlisted. So enlisted are anywhere. Anybody that's from E one to E nine, which is all the enlisted and then officers, anyone from O one to. Six would be the highest would be the commander, which be our CEO.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: The big guy. Big head honcho, which actually was kind of cool. We did have a female commander when I first got on. Her name was Lynn Atchison, So she was on for a little while. Oh, my gosh. Seriously? Too. Seriously. Stop, stop, stop. I'll send you guys outside. She's a waste. Can't even hear myself think anyway.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay, so you had a female commander for a while. And what was that when you first got there? So your first six months to a year, what was your daily routine like?

PAMPEL: Daily routine was waking up at 6:00 in the morning, getting breakfast and then heading up to the flight deck where we would meet our division for quarters. Its quarters was pretty much your daily. We go through the the plan of the day. So we literally had a list of what actually we had to do. So anywhere from daily maintenance to trainings that we had to host or give out or go to. And then. Lunch and then whatever we had to do after lunch. And then that kind of thing. So once quarters broke, then we went on to our specific areas where we had to go. So let's say we were doing gun maintenance and all the 50 cals. We go out there, disarm all the 50 cals, and then brush them off with what they call CLP. So was pretty much in a sense, making sure that they're all oiled up, greased up, ready to go and ready to shoot. And then sometimes we'd have a gun shoot, so we'd have to prepare for that. So we'd have to set up all the shot line, set up all the ammunition load, all the magazines, all that kind of stuff. Sometimes we had maintenance on the five inch gun, so we had to have somebody topside to make sure nobody was walking in the firing circle because you get hit by that gun near. A thing is moving and moving in a groove. And so a little bit of everything. And then we'd break for lunch. We would eat lunch with everybody. Sometimes afterwards, I was working on qualifications, so they called personal qualification standards Pcsos. So you would work on learning how to be a lineman on the gun range. You go and learn how to shoot the weapons. How? We were even learning stuff that wasn't even in our hour. As being a gunner's mate. I would go and learn things about engine rooms. Some watch standing stuff that we had to do, so we had to stand watch. When in port we had a officer of the deck, which is usually an officer or a chief. A petty officer. The watch, which is usually a chief or enlisted. And then we had a roving watch. So all those watches had to be manned and armed. And that's what us gunners mates as duty gunners would be. We would be the one to arm them.

BOWERS HEALEY: So when you stood watch, were you armed?

PAMPEL: Yes.

BOWERS HEALEY: With what?

PAMPEL: I was armed with a nine millimeter. So then, for the watch standing and everything, the roving watch was the only one that had the rifle. They had the rifle and they had a nine millimeter on their. On their hip. Perhaps the watch would carry a weapon. And so the officer deck, they both carry nine millimeters. So they're the ones those two are the ones to make sure that people are in and off the ship are supposed to be there. They're supposed to come in and off the ship. They're supposed to sign in, all that kind of stuff. So we don't have people coming on the ship that aren't supposed to be there. Roving watch is just roving the ship, making sure nobody's falling over the side. Nothing's being know, you know, funny business or anything like that. And then anything coming in towards the ship. So if we're in port, something that's floating in the water, it's coming towards the ship like a box or something like that. They can call out a security. Like a security alert or something like that. The Xbox and water and everything like that. So I stood I have I was qualified to stand. Petty officer the watch. Roving watch. And but when I got my duty gunner, I was designated as the duty gunner because I was.

BOWERS HEALEY: I wasn't mean to be duty gunner.

PAMPEL: So you arm all of the watches on the ship. You make sure that we in every ammunition room and locker, they had a temperature gauge. I actually had to do the temperatures of all of the areas. The ammunition were kept. So all of the ready service lockers up topside, all the magazine rooms, the missile rooms, the torpedo rooms, all of it. I had to record all the temperatures and usually that was done usually after like the 10:00 watch in. Flat out. So I do that night and then we would just make sure that if there was ever a security alert or any type of issue, we would be the ones to. Are any of the people that would come down to pretty much, in a sense, any type of security reaction force. So kind of like a Swat, like a Swat team would come down in that sense. They'd come down, they get armed, and let's say there's a security alert. Somebody held somebody hostage in the berthing or this actually, I can give you an example. We were in Yorktown getting ammunition and we were about to leave and one of our sailors decided to commit the act of. Trying to take over the ship. I can't remember the I can't remember the name, but he literally was holding an ax at our lines, trying to cut our lines and everything like that. And he was threatening the commander. He was threatening the XO. He was running everybody. So I was in the midst of eating a taco. And next minute, you know, we're all getting called down. Security alert on the forecastle, which is the front forward part of the ship. Got to go down to the to be a duty gunner and arm these people. So shotguns, nine millimeters and everything like that. And they'd have to wear hard, the helmets, the flak vests, the whole nine yards. And then they got to make through the ship and they got to make it up to the forecastle. And pretty much, in a sense, hold this guy at gunpoint.

BOWERS HEALEY: So what happened to that individual?

PAMPEL: If that individual got sent to captain's mast and he got kicked out, but he could have gotten way worse, Our seal at the time was very lenient. Come to find out, he was fraternizing with officer and officer and got her pregnant. So fortunately, some people found out about it and then he was trying to take over the ship. So so that's security reaction for so anything any type of security threat to the ship we would deploy. So duty gunners would be the ones to em arm up and make sure that they are all armed up. And then when they bring back the weapons, we make sure we got all the weapons back and all the ammunition, all the ammunitions got to be accounted for and everything like that because you have weapons and you have ammunition, you have to be accounted for because people can be. Yeah, not trustworthy at all.

BOWERS HEALEY: Throughout your tour in the Navy, were you always aboard the USS Gonzalez? Yes. That was your only ship. How much time would you say a percentage wise, you spent in court and how much at sea?

PAMPEL: Oh, the longest I've been out to sea was in 2012, where I was out to sea. 200 and no. Yeah, 293 days of the year of 365. And I was only in port for whatever was left.

BOWERS HEALEY: Where, where, where were you?

PAMPEL: We were doing we assisted a transport of a decommissioned submarine from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Panama Canal. The Coast Guard was taking the. Tugging the ship. Ah, the submarine down. And we were just security, just making sure that nobody was trying to take it over or, you know, mess with it. Got it down to the Panama Canal. And actually, that was our first my first ever swim call, which you actually get to swim like you did, jump off the ship and go swimming. So there's a lot of measures that get thrown into that. You know, nothing gets discharged over the side. We have a lot of different watches. Make sure like no sharks are around. We have a ribbed, rigid hull inflatable boat in the water. Kind of making sure that there's no sharks around. And also to retrieve anybody that starts getting a little too tired in the water. So we all got to jump on the ship. Well, jump off the ship and in the water. So I got to swim in the Caribbean Sea.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: And that was a lot of fun. That's to jump off the ship on the missile deck. It was 40ft into the water and off the flight deck. It's ten. And they only told you to swim for so long because you actually had to climb yourself on background of the ship. And then it was like this rope ladder, kind of imagine the kids, kids, playground stuff, that rope ladder that had like double squares and everything like that. And that was hard because if you're bouncing around and waves and everything like that and you have to try climbing ten feet back up onto the ship back where you are. So. So that was a lot of fun. We ended up in Key West. We ended up in Key West for I think it was just supposed to be something fun. So we went to Key West and I got to see Key West, Florida hung out there. And then we ended up completely bypassing Norfolk, Virginia, and going right up to Fleet Week up in New York City. Okay. So what Fleet Week is, is they invite New York City or whatever. City invites sailors, Navy and Marines, pretty much. And then Navy and Marines of all other ethnicities, all of their cultures. So different different countries come and we do we come in our our our ships and we do like a parade of the sails in the Hudson Bay. So we're all in dressed in our whites and everything like that. And we're floating in the Hudson Bay. And then we ended up parking over in Staten Island. And then we literally it's like a week of we're here and this is the Navy and then the navies of different cultures and countries and stuff. So there was I got to see Katy Perry in concert. I got to see Tim McGraw. I got to go to the New York Yankee Stadium. But you had to wear your uniform. That's the thing. You couldn't go out in your civilian clothing. You had to wear a uniform. And then when you're on duty on the ship, you're the designated tour guide showing people around the ship and everything like that. And actually, we actually caught a Russian spy. I was on the back leg of a tour and the guy that was in front of me that was doing the tour and I was just kind of making sure people weren't like going be, you know, all being lost or left behind. I saw this guy and that was just kind of like, when you have a tour guide, tour guides are usually like, Ooh, guns cool, This is so cool. You're not inside the guard and taking pictures and everything like that and asking the most crazy off the wall questions. So then when we were over at a 25 millimeter gun on the amidships area, I scooted over to the officer deck and had them call for authorities because we might have a spy because this guy is asking very obnoxious questions that some tour guide just random Joe off the street would not ask unless he was about to build a ship. So he got he got taken into custody by NCIS and. We were we had tours of well over 10,000 people a day coming on Girl Scout troops, everybody.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you ever know what happened to the individual? Russian? No.

PAMPEL: No, I'm sure he he got his. He got what? He was coming to him when it came down to it, trying to steal stuff and take over and whatnot. But so Fleet Week was yeah, it was just a big old party really. And, you know, I got to see all of New York City pretty much. It was a lot of fun. And then after that it was just getting ready to go on deployment because deployment was that next year. So it was, you know, ammunition on loads and a number of different underwriters because usually we do a set of trials before we go out on deployment to make sure we have all of our certifications up, because both my deployments on the USS Gonzales were Horn of Africa area piracy operations.

BOWERS HEALEY: So now you said you were out at sea for 293 days. That included Panama and Fleet Week. And did you just continue being at sea?

PAMPEL: Yeah, I think I was only in in I think about a month or so where we had a month of leave and everything like that before we went on deployment. So we had a month where we could go on leave and say goodbye to our families and everything like that, grab whatever we needed. And then we went on, on our on my second deployment in January of 2013. So in the first deployment, I actually missed the first half of that deployment because I was in C school, which was it's a I don't know what C school means. I just know it's like an extra.

BOWERS HEALEY: It's almost a how to describe it. C Like the Alpha letter.

PAMPEL: Yeah, the C Charlie So C school, it's, it was designated on the five inch gun. So I learned all about the five inch gun. How to be a maintenance person, a technician and how to shoot it.

BOWERS HEALEY: And where was your C school?

PAMPEL: San Diego.

BOWERS HEALEY: OC.

PAMPEL: I was there from March of 2010 to June of 2010. And so pretty much everything about it, all the schematics, all the maintenance, how to shoot it, how to how to maintain it, all the stuff, everything. You're literally a one man show. And then when I got back to my ship after the school was done, that was that was a trip. I literally was on planes and ships for almost three days straight. I flew from San Diego to Norfolk, Virginia, just long enough to grab whatever I needed from because I had an apartment with a friend of mine, just grab whatever I needed to go to the ship. But a lot of my stuff was already on the ship. Flew out of Dulles, out of Norfolk, Virginia, to Dulles in Washington, D.C., and then Dulles to Heathrow in London, which I was actually, like thrilled. I could see London yet to go at Heathrow and everything at that. Our plane didn't take off until nine and we couldn't check our bags in until six. So I had we literally had to sleep on the ground at Heathrow and hang out with our bags for the whole day. And I was bombed because I really wanted some fish and chips and actually be able to drink a beer and not be of age in another country. That would have been cool. But I didn't actually I shouldn't say that I did have TGI Friday's dinner because Heathrow is huge. It's like a mall in a freaking airport. So we went to T.G.I. Fridays, had food, and then I got a beer. So I was I was pretty stoked about that. That flight from London to Ethiopia was a seven hour flight, and I had the wall behind me so I could not lay back horrible food. And we watched Date Night with Steve Carell and Tina Fey in three different languages. And I couldn't sleep. And then we got to Ethiopia and had a small little hopper plane to Djibouti, which is a funny word to say, where we actually ended up sitting at the Camp Lemonnier, which is an army base in Djibouti for 4 or 5 days before waiting for our underwear replenishment ship to take us to our ship. It was quite, quite a trek. Jetlag sucks. I was up at 4:00 in the morning or up until I was up until 4:00 in the morning because I. I was eight hours ahead of everybody else. So I had to wait certain times to talk to my family and let them know, hey, I'm here. And this.

BOWERS HEALEY: Was your first or your.

PAMPEL: Second? This is my first deployment. First of all, this was my first deployment. And I had, I think, three other people from my ship flying out with me. So we were never flying alone, which is good. So we were at Camp Lemonnier for four days. Sleeping in a box, which is kind of like those little boxes that you see on like big tanker ships and stuff like that are kind of like a like a semi truck.

BOWERS HEALEY: Where were you when you were sleeping in.

PAMPEL: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti?

BOWERS HEALEY: Air conditioned?

PAMPEL: Yes.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: It was air conditioned. Lot of sandstorms. You. All of your food had to be eaten in the mess hall because even Eminem's melted because it was so hot. I literally would walk not too far from the mess hall to my room and they be melted. They're just mush.

BOWERS HEALEY: Camp Lemonnier Was that just a stop or whatever?

PAMPEL: It was a stop. There was a stop waiting for our underway replenishment ship to get there. I remember what the US on us it was that we, I think was the second you hear us. Yeah, us. And a second juwita was the one that picked us up. So we drove from Camp Lemonnier to the dock or the port to pretty much board this, this ship, which this was kind of like a mix between Navy and civilian. So it's like merchant Marines. They're the ones that. Replenished us in fuel, food and mail. So these ships, large ships were actually how we were able to not have to go into port to go and get our gas. So all of our fuel and everything like that was done. Alongside this ship moving, I might add. Underway. Replenishments are the most dangerous evolution in the Navy due to the fact that we are a moving vessel moving next to another vessel carrying large amounts of fuel at a given time, going only so fast. But the waves and the weather can always be a factor. So with underway replenishments, we go alongside the ship. And my job as a gunner's mate started off as a lineman. So I'd just be holding line. I'd be pulling in the probe, that kind of thing. And then I once I got my qualification to be a line gunner, we actually carried an M14 and a spool of shot line. We'd have a partner next to us holding the shot line. We put this rather large rubber bullet which know called the butt plug, shoved it into the forward part of the M14. And what we were doing in this operation was taking this line and shooting it across to the underbelly of a punishment ship so that they could give us their phone line or the sound powered telephone so that we would receive it. We would retrieve all this. And then another line was for the probe. And the other line was for the the line that would go at the forward part of the ship to kind of know how many feet we are away from the ship. So we're not too far away or not too close. So there's three shot lines that had to be shot. And the first time I ever shot, I hit the guy with the white helmet in the head, but that's why they were helmets. But it was a good way to aim. And we always, always joke that if we got it and if we got to the shot line in the water, the first try you had, you owed everybody in the division a beer. And the next part did not make it in the water. So I made it and I made it across and everything. So the person next to me actually held the shot line. So when it sailed, the crossed, once it got to the ship, they clench the shot line to stop the line so it didn't have to go because if you wouldn't have let go, it just keep going. And then we would.

BOWERS HEALEY: Clench it with what?

PAMPEL: Your hands. So the shot line actually goes from the inside out. So when they clench, do they actually stop the line itself? But yeah, you actually stood next to me and we both wearing hair protection, hearing protection. Yeah, He actually had to clench it close the shot line.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: It's an interesting evolution. I was kind of wondering why we would have somebody standing next to me while I'm shooting a gun. But it is what it is. And then once all of everything was brought over, then we would just be sailing along while we were refueling. And that is how.

BOWERS HEALEY: And what speed were you sailing? Oh.

PAMPEL: I would have to say probably about ten, ten, 15 knots. Not really fast, but then not really slow either. And then while the the the fuel was being we were being refueled, we also get our mail and our food. So mail and food were brought across by this called a span wire connected in the mid ships area of the ship. So they would connect their stuff and then they would press a button and this thing would just get pretty much in a sense, you'd have this crate sailed across over the ocean and into over by us, by the ship.

BOWERS HEALEY: What's the distance between the two ships?

PAMPEL: Distance was I think it was almost, I'd have to say, about 150 to 200ft. It was it didn't seem far, but it was it was far enough because sometimes pallets weren't necessarily together. Right. And then you'd have the fall in the water like soda, like monster, all the stuff that we always really just enjoy can just bend the really bad food or something like that, you know, because sometimes when we got our food. Perishable items. So your fruits or vegetables and everything like that would come molded or not necessarily in the greatest condition because they've been sailing on the ocean for so many days. I think strawberries were the worst because they they would just mold right away. And whenever I I'd have to say that the eating on a ship is not fun because you're you're you're not getting your vegetables and your fruits like. You should just due to the fact that those items do not last long. So your lettuce and everything at that storage browning after a while because they're frozen and then they get they get refrigerated and they just lose. Sometimes they're just really mushy. And the only thing that actually last of the best was apples. So I eat a lot of apples and bananas, but like your watermelon and your fruit, the like, the berries and stuff, they didn't last long. A lot of that stuff, you were just getting canned stuff like I had my mom send me Mandarin oranges and she actually did. She sent me 12 cans of Mandarin oranges. It was the only box that didn't look like it was crunched because my mom actually took a full roll of duct tape and duct tape the box and it actually looked like a box. Some things that we get in the mail, it looked like it's crunched. And you were wondering if it even if whatever is in there is actually still together. But yeah.

BOWERS HEALEY: Tell me about your leadership in your first six months or a year when you were on the USS Gonzalez, both at the enlisted level and if you had any interaction with officers?

PAMPEL: Yeah. So the our command master chief, who pretty much is the senior enlisted person on the ship, she her name was Dianne Roll her. And I actually do talk still. She's doing very well. She I think definitely her she would be one of the biggest influences I had on the ship starting out in six months, being on the ship, just because the way she carried herself, all of her advice. I always could come to talk to her if I needed to. She was fun. She actually wanted like us to have fun while working, knowing that our jobs are the best and they're not the most fun. But she always have. We should always be able to crack a joke or, you know, be silly and that kind of thing. And then our our gunnery officer, we always just called all of our officers were like called like gung ho and auto and all different. I don't know. I don't know. I don't ever call them gun owners. You just call them ma'am or sir or. And her just I don't know. It just was weird trying to call a person gunner. She was a lot of times when we got a division officer for our division, they were pretty ripe or new to being an officer in the Navy. They were right out of out of the Naval Academy, and they were kind of learning their ropes as an officer on the ship from our chief actually, and the chief that I had for six months, he actually stood me aside and was like, You are not a male. You are not a female, you are a gunner's mate. I will treat you as such. You need help. You say something. There is no strong man. There is no strong woman. There was only a strong gunner's mate. So I. I had a lot of respect for him just because he didn't see me as somebody that a woman pretty much. She didn't see me as a woman. He saw me as another equal, another sailor, someone that can carry the weight just as good as the men. And being a gunner's mate and a female was difficult on the ship just because I was in an all male division. I mean, not to say that they were they weren't, you know, sexist in any way or anything like that. They were very welcoming. They just knew that I could carry my weight. And most of the time I didn't have to say much. They just looked at me, Hey, do you need help? Nope. Okay, good. That kind of thing. They weren't like, Oh no, let me carry this. And I'm like, No, I got to do this. I got to know how to do this. A lot of this ammunition was to man carry anyway because it was 200 pounds, you know, boxes of ammunition were really heavy ammunition in the five inch gun was 80 pounds in around in the 35 pound powder. And I had to know how to carry my weight. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: Now, you mentioned you were the only female in your division on the USS Gonzales when you joined it. You've mentioned a couple of other females, about 300 people on the ship. How many would you say were female arms?

PAMPEL: I would have to say starting out we had. We had about, I'd say about 60 females.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: About 60. And that was including, you know, chiefs officers and the lower enlisted. And then it had grown. By the time I left in 2013. I'd say it was almost 50, 50, 50% men, 50% women. We had a significant amount of females come in pretty quickly. And I had in 2010, no dozen, 11. I had two females come to our division and they were actually worked alongside me with the five inch gun. Both of them are still serving and I do talk to them at times. Both of them have gotten up in the ranks as well, which is I'm very proud of them. They definitely have shown shown their training and everything like that. And they've they've definitely made it made it very far, and I'm very proud of them. But we had two different divisions with Gunner's mates. We had our missile division, which was vertical launching System Division, which is CRM, and then US CG. They had a CRM, had two other female gunner's mates. Both of them are out. One of them actually lives in Minnesota, the one too far away from me. We still talk. I actually did tell her about I am not invisible, actually. And she said she'd check it out. So. Being a female on a ship. It was not easy. And it was not hard. It was hard to live with 40 or so other females in one berthing. Just because you're living on top of each other. And then we all synched up on our monthlies. And then there was people that just didn't listen. Because in on a ship, our plumbing is really like narrow. You don't put any anything but toilet paper because we have one ply toilet paper because it was just so thin and everything had to disintegrate really quickly. Don't put anything down. People were not listening. They're putting pads and tampons and stuff and then flooding the birthing. That was one of the hard ones was having to end up standing a watch to make sure that the women coming in and out of a bathroom didn't have anything in their pockets. And if they were coming out with anything in there, it's like say they had to go in and change their tampon or something. They had to go in, change the tampon. They had to show that they changed it and then throw it in the garbage. That was probably the hardest part of the whole. Being on the ship was having to make sure that these women were doing what they were doing and then making sure they were hygienic. I had one woman that I had to literally like like I had taken money out of my account to buy her coveralls because she was a new, new, new seaman. She was on designated, but she was also not prepared. She was right out of boot camp. So boot camp, you don't get issued a lot of coveralls while coveralls are the the ships when you're underway, that is the ship's uniform, while she's also getting dirty, grimy painting and needle gunning and priming and everything like that. So she only has two pairs of coveralls. I took it upon myself to order her whatever she needed because she didn't have any money either. Because getting on to the ship and everything like that and only getting paid so much money as a starter. Steamer recruit. You're not getting paid much. So she didn't have much money. So I took it upon myself and we ordered all of her uniforms that she needed and another pair of boots. We have to stick together. So and unfortunately, she did not enjoy the fact that I did that for her. But we got to stick together and we don't. We didn't. Being on the ship is already hard enough. Unfortunately, you also need to take care of yourself because hygiene is the biggest, because out in sweaty conditions, you're doing work with hazardous materials. You have to clean yourself and you have to have clean uniforms. You have to have clean everything. And, you know, safety is key and safety includes hygiene. So I. I enjoyed my time on the ship. I miss it. I think the best part about it is at night when the sun's going down and you can just see the stars. It's like stars everywhere. It's like actually like being able to see space out in the out of the ocean. I ended up making it to a gunner's mate second class, which is an E5. Surface warfare. So gunner's second class, the second class on a destroyer are usually what they call work center supervisors or a supervisory role. I was supervisor of the the Sego one, which was the five inch gun. So I had four people under me where I trained them. We conducted maintenance together. We conducted all of our checks and we did all of our gun shoots together. I was also part of the mentor program on the ship as well. So I mentored an enlisted that were under me. So third class and below I had a mentor of my own. Her name was Tina Delgado. She was a an electrician's technician. And I would have to say another one of my influential. People that were on the ship that I met her and I would hang out, out, out in port. We used to hang out at each other's houses. And I realized that when we were in port for a long time. It was funny when I first met her, it was weird because I'm not one. I'm very humble. I'm not one to like, think I was ever popular because by all means, I was never part of the popular group, even in high school. But apparently she had heard about me and was excited to meet me and I was like, Are you talking about me or me? What about me was so exciting to meet. Like, I'm just the third class. At the time I was only in third class. When I'm just third class, I don't know what did I. I don't. It was. It was just weird. It was. It was that was the first time we met. And she apparently had heard such great things about me and she was excited to meet me. And that's kind of where our friendship started. But she was also my mentor. So mentors on On the Ship always wanted to make sure that you're doing all your qualifications, you're meeting all of your standards in the division, somebody to talk to if you're having any issues, that kind of thing. Other roles I had on the ship, I was the part of the Sexual Assault Prevention Resource Group. I was an advocate for my division and my. Department. So what that is, is when people either get sexually harassed, sexually assaulted or anything like that, even though I don't want to think about that, they have they have the means of being able to come to us, whoever is an advocate and talk to us and tell us the situation so that we can take it upon ourselves to assist them and give them any resources that they need, whether it's they want it to be confidential or Non-confidential Non-confidential you're going to NCIS, you're going to the commander, you're getting this reported with certain people. Knowing it confidential is you only have your mandatory reporters knowing it. So chaplains, us nurses, doctors and that's it. Confidential is harder because we can't necessarily prosecute people for things. Unfortunately, that is, sexual assault is a big thing that's still in the Navy. And unfortunately, we're human and it happens. And I that was probably the hardest part of my service was the people that I met and the people that I had helped. That that that part of my service shook me because I always when I was a kid, I always had that superhero mentality. I always wanted to save them all. And unfortunately, I couldn't save everyone. And. Out of the 36 people that I did help with their their reporting and getting the. Prosecution and everything like that and getting the people justice, I lost two of them to suicide.

BOWERS HEALEY: Unfortunately, while they were selling maybe.

PAMPEL: Yeah. So and suicide to this day is still is one of those things that happens both in the military and and and and veterans enough and. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: But do you feel that they the suicide was related to the assault? Yes. Yes. Did any. And the aggressor being discharged?

PAMPEL: Yes. To both of them. Both of them. Both men ended up being discharged and prosecuted.

BOWERS HEALEY: Oh, the ones that were related to the suicides or.

PAMPEL: Yes. So, yes, the aggressors to both those situations. The two people, they were prosecuted and taken care of.

BOWERS HEALEY: So discharged from the Navy or not?

PAMPEL: Yes. Yeah, Discharged. Okay. Unfortunately, that is just something that we don't we don't tolerate in the Navy. And I don't tolerate anywhere in the United States or anywhere.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you find that it was sometimes just difficult to find the proof? Of an allegation?

PAMPEL: Not necessarily finding proof. It was not being able to give because we're not we're not able to give. Trying to think of the word. We weren't we couldn't give them their answers. They had to come up with everything so they could ask us, you know, can I go this route or should I go this route? And I'm like, This is the information that I can give you. You have to make the decision. I can't make decisions for you. So we were pretty much advocates. We advocate for the person, but we could not tell them what they needed to do. This is the better route or this is the better route, or this is how this needs to be done. We couldn't do that. It was hands off and hands on all at the same time. And unfortunately, trying to put somebody in that position and trying to make decisions is really hard because their mind is just frazzled. And. The hardest part was just just trying to get them to get them through it without like, getting down on themselves or trying to regress back to like, the person that they, you know, especially abuse, you know, abuse and everything like that. People are always very wanted. Like, oh, it was my fault. It's my fault that that happened. And we just try to like give them the all the resources they needed. So chaplains, therapists, that kind of thing as well. So but that was one of the roles that I had on the ship.

BOWERS HEALEY: How many months did you you indicated that the 36 people you assisted. How many months were you in that role as an advocate?

PAMPEL: I was in that role for two years. Two years, because it wasn't all on the ship. It was we. So when we were in port in Norfolk, Virginia, we would be considered on a 24 on call if we were an on duty. So somebody could call us and be like, Hey, we have this situation. You need to meet them at the hospital or they're going there for a rape kit or something like that, or they need to meet you here. So then I'd go and then I'd meet up with the person, whether it was at the hospital or somewhere private. And then that's when I bring out my big fat binder and we start going through things and filling out paperwork and everything like that and getting people's numbers, people to numbers to call so that we could get the started, whether it was confidential, non confidential.

BOWERS HEALEY: So for the sailors that you assisted, were they all female or were some some male?

PAMPEL: So it was a mixture.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: It was a mixture. But fortunately, that.

BOWERS HEALEY: And if you were called upon to assist, you indicated that your your rank, you rose to the rank of E-5. Would you be assisting people of equal rank and below or ever?

PAMPEL: Everybody. That didn't matter. One thing one said once, it kind of got to that point, we were it was there was no rank. It was whether it was just a human, a human needing help. It didn't matter if it was a commander or it was an admiral or even an E nine, which was a master chief. It didn't matter. They were human. At that point, it's not ranks involved.

BOWERS HEALEY: Now, you indicated you usually met with a one on one. Did you did you with the people ever meet with a team or they were just referred out to a chaplain or to somebody?

PAMPEL: It was I mean, when it came down to it, it depended on the situation. I would meet with them. So, like, if we were going to go to NCIS, if we were going to go to a chaplain, obviously I wouldn't go in with them with the chaplain. Chaplain would talk privately and everything, but I would be there as their advocate. I'd advocate. I would tell the situation. I would be there as moral support, shoulder to cry on that kind of thing, along with giving them any resource that they needed possible.

BOWERS HEALEY: Before you were assigned their duty, did you receive any training?

PAMPEL: Yes. Two weeks worth of training. All in-classroom training. That's that big binder.

BOWERS HEALEY: Is that apt?

PAMPEL: It. It was in our phone. It was at one of the. Many schools that they have there. I can't remember what building it was and.

BOWERS HEALEY: Switching topics a little bit. Norfolk's big place. Did you enjoy being at Norfolk?

PAMPEL: Oh, I did.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you enjoy about it?

PAMPEL: The beach.

BOWERS HEALEY: Off.

PAMPEL: The beach. It was kind of like. I enjoyed actually, the beach. I enjoyed them also San Bridge, which was actually in North Carolina. The craziest part about Virginia is that Norfolk area and the Hampton Roads areas that it's pretty close to the Elizabeth City, North Carolina. So down there, you'd have less bay water and more ocean water where it was more blue than brown because what we always said when we came in to pause, we were so excited to see brown water because we were close to home. And so the Hampton Roads Bay, Chesapeake Bay areas, the little more brownish water where if you go under sand bridge or in the North Carolina area, you actually got to see blue blue water like it was actually like the ocean, not this bay. I enjoyed the food. I came there thinking when they were talking about barbecue, I was thinking they were talking about brats and hamburgers or sloppy joes. I did not think that they were talking about pork pulled pork. I'd never even heard of a pulled pork sandwich in my life. And I had a friend of mine show me what it was. So we they we went to a place called the I was at the border station was a gas station. And it was weird. It was like we're going to a gas station to go out, pull pork. But apparently it was the best pulled pork went there actually was. And they taught me how to eat it. Apparently you have to have a bun. The pulled pork and any type of barbecue sauce that you want. Coleslaw and potato chips. And you eat it. And it was really good. It was really delicious. I actually very much enjoyed that. I, to this day, still eat pork. I will make it myself, smoke it and everything. I learned how to make biscuits and gravy. I learned how to make shit on a shingle, which apparently is dried beef and creamed chipped beef or whatever it was. First time I ever had that was on the ship. And don't eat it out of a can. That was bad. I ate it by making it on my own when I got into an apartment and made it myself. And it was so much better than in a can because apparently that's how they eat it on the ship. Can biscuits and gravy and can chip beef. And I'm like, this is gross.

BOWERS HEALEY: But you mentioned that you had two deployments and they were the Horn of Africa. And the the mission was to observe piracy.

PAMPEL: Yep, piracy operations.

BOWERS HEALEY: Did you actually observe piracy?

PAMPEL: We I was a part of what they called the visit board and search and seizure or VBS us. I was a part of that team where kind of like the security reaction force I was talking about earlier. We would take it upon ourselves to go on to other ships or small boats, what they call skiffs, to make sure that they were just fishing or they were just, you know, they were just doing what they were supposed to do and not smuggling items, people or doing any type of unimaginable things. So what we would do is we'd load up the our rigid hull inflatable boat, go out, sail out to them, and then we'd have an interpreter with us and we go out there and we would pretty much, in a sense. Secure the ship, pretty much secure the skiff, and then do an investigation pretty much, in a sense, investigate, make sure that they were just fishing. They were just, you know, hauling what they're supposed to be hauling. So if it was a bigger boat, it was if they're hauling goods or something like that and they weren't smuggling drugs or people or anything like that or doing any type of terrorist acts because at that time. That was around the time Iran of that era was the whole Captain Phillips thing where people from Africa had come on on board and tried to take over a tanker ship. So what they do is they would just go on there and they would want to take their goods so they could sell it. So that's what we would do, would go in there and make sure that their ships were doing what they're supposed to do. We never had any issues. I did not have to take anybody into custody or anything like that. It just was it was a stressful situation. Just because you have these people that don't know how to speak English and you only have one interpreter and interpreters with the team leader and you're just making sure everything's secure and that you don't nobody has any weapons or anything like that or they don't want to harm us and that kind of thing.

BOWERS HEALEY: So what countries were you operating off of?

PAMPEL: Uh, we were Hausa. The Horn of Africa was is Mogadishu and Somalia. And then a little bit in Djibouti. But both my deployments were actually the Horn of Africa deployments for the same reason for piracy operations. The second one was a little bit more rigorous due to the fact that the terrorist group Boko Haram had started infiltrating more and more of the Mogadishu and Somalia area. So that one, we were a little more on high alert for those situations because they were also there was Marines on the ground as well in those areas. Pretty much, in a sense, scoping everything out when I was leaving and pretty much in a sense, what we do is we. Kind of like kind of like relieving a ship. So we were we were going back from deployment and our the ship that was taking over for us. Apparently when we were up on the Suez Canal, the ship that relieved us, which was one of my friends, that was a five inch tech as well from school. They got to shoot the five inch gun into borrower, which was a small community that Boko Haram was in. And I was like, Dang it. All this training, all this stuff, and I didn't get to do it. So what the five inch gun actually is used for mostly is naval, naval surface fire support. So Marines and Army on the ground give us a coordinate, a bunker or whatever to shoot a building and everything like that. And we're out in the we're out in the horizon is what it is, pretty much. So we're out 13 nautical miles from the from the area and they give us coordinates and my fire control and pretty much in a sense trains the gun and I'm the one in the pocket looking up, making sure everything is working, rounds are going out, rounds are coming back and everything like that. So we pretty much, in a sense, helped Marines and Army on the ground with my gun being as far out as I could be, nobody can see us. So I just shoot this large 80 pound round at this bunker and blow it up. But I got to miss out on that.

BOWERS HEALEY: You mentioned far away idea. Any idea how that's spelled?

PAMPEL: No, I have no idea how.

BOWERS HEALEY: Local or what country.

PAMPEL: That was. I think that's in Mogadishu, but I'm not totally sure.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. All right. Well, I was wondering if I should have you show some of your things or if did you re-enlist?

PAMPEL: Yes, I did. Yes. Yes. I really started in 2012. For another four years I had already. Well, Max. I had when I was on my second deployment. I had picked up orders to actually go on to my sharp command, and my short command was going to be in Panama City, Florida. All right.

BOWERS HEALEY: Hey, stop. Well.

PAMPEL: My short command was in Panama City, Florida. I was supposed to be in armor in the Coast Guard based on there. But when I came back for my second deployment, I had to do a physical fitness test. So you have to not only do the running the pushups in the sit ups, you had to make your weight requirements. And the weight requirement for A55 female was 160 pounds. I was 165 pounds. And then since I was overweight, they had to do a body fat or BMI. And unfortunately with that, they have to tape your neck. They take a dressing like like you're doing a dress fitting. Measure your neck. Measure the part of underneath your breasts and then your Maximus portion of your butt. And you have to take and they do a calculation. Everything. I was a half inch off. And that unfortunately, ended my career. I had done I had failed three times in a four year position for your career. Because I had not made my fifth year yet. I just I had just made my fourth year. And unfortunately, that ended my career. So I did not make it to Panama City, Florida, and I did not make it to Shore Command. I was then processed out. And my last day in the Navy was November 20th, 2013.

BOWERS HEALEY: So you were just charge based on for weight.

PAMPEL: Not making a weight requirement because at that time they there was things that you could you could do to stay in. But at that time in the in the military, they were trying to kick a lot of people out for just I have no idea the reasoning, if it was political, if it was. I just know that there at that between 2012 and 2013, there was a big mass movement of people where they were taking people that had so many years and at a certain enlisted rate, our enlisted rank and pretty much in a sense giving them the boot and giving them compensation for it.

BOWERS HEALEY: And the type of discharge you.

PAMPEL: Received, I recall I received a general under honorable conditions at first, and then I saw that that was wrong because I was told I was supposed to get an honorable discharge. I looked it up and unfortunately. They were wrong on that one because I had no UCMJ articles. I did not go to Captain's mast. And not making weight centers is not a masterful offense. It's just not making within the military standards. That's an honorable discharge. So I actually fought Big Navy for that. I had contacted my commander.

BOWERS HEALEY: And they were discharged after.

PAMPEL: I was discharged because I had to sign it. They were allowing me to not sign the deed to 14 to get out. So I had to do that after I was discharged. So I fought for it. I had my commander sign letters. I had all the paperwork filled out, and I also had everything printed. So I had all my my awards and where I was at and what I did. And I didn't have any UCMJ. And then I finally in February of 2014, I got my honorable discharge DD2 14 in the mail. And with that, I went to school, the GI Bill, and actually moved back home here. I wasn't from Virginia and I moved back home here to Wisconsin.

BOWERS HEALEY: And weren't sure what to do for school.

PAMPEL: And I was I went to Waukesha County Technical College and I did an associate's degree in criminal justice and law enforcement.

BOWERS HEALEY: And went in to do that.

PAMPEL: I was there from August of 2014 to December of 2016.

BOWERS HEALEY: So you actually lived in the Waukesha area?

PAMPEL: I live in Germantown, actually. I lived in Germantown in a mobile home park. Okay. That was when I was with my previous wife. But we lived in a mobile home out in Germantown, and I went to school and had a lot of odd jobs. I worked at Speedway, I worked at Home Depot. I worked everywhere just just to get myself through through college. And then I graduated. And then I ended up getting divorced. And then. While I was at Waukesha County Technical College, I saw that I noticed that they had a veterans group like a just like a veterans club. And then I met with the veterans supervisor liaison and had talked to her and was asking, where's the the veterans hangout? Where are veterans? Go and hang out? And she said, I don't know the multicultural room. And I was like, Multicultural room is filled with people that just got out of high school as veterans have seen war and everything like that. And I had I don't know, I just I was I was venting that day or whatever. I felt really bad for it. And she still hangs it over my head to this day. We still talk. I told her we need a place to hang out. We need a place for veterans to go, hang out, do our homework, and then a place where you can be not in a back office and be central so that US veterans can be like, Hey, I got a question about this. You know, in the VA or this in my 911, I had my GI Bill. So in 20 2015, the summer of 2015, I had became a part of the Student Veterans of America. I became a chapter president for the Waukesha County Technical College and brought it up to the board. The president of. The school and said, with you guys redoing this part of the school, is there any way that you could fit in a veteran's service center or some sort of place for veterans to go hang out and do their homework and find somewhere where our liaison can be somewhat central? And we had gotten donations from Home Depot. We had gotten donations from areas around Waukesha County in and then also grant from the school. And with being a chapter president, getting a big grant to be able to put that in. And it is still to this day active. So they have a there's a veterans service center at Waukesha County Technical College. And I was a big part of it.

BOWERS HEALEY: All right. And then what brought you back to your hometown? Of course.

PAMPEL: I miss my family. I miss my family. I needed to get away from Virginia. I was when I got out, I was really bitter. I was very unhealthy in my eating. Just saying, you know, F the Navy, F military. I actually almost threw away all this stuff because I was just so pissed off. But I came back home and was with my family and my mom was a big supporter of me when I was out, out to sea and everything like that. So she was very hurt to hear that I was about to throw everything away because she's one for memorabilia. So it's all my I mean, I'm glad that I didn't throw it away, but I came back here and also because I wanted to become law law enforcement officer. And Wisconsin is known for their criminal justice system, being our criminal justice degrees and everything being quite strong here in Wisconsin. And so I'd pick Waukesha County because it was one of the one of the better schools here in in Wisconsin.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. So and I'm going to talk to you about your memorabilia in a little bit. But you mentioned wanting to become law enforcement. So what is it that you do now?

PAMPEL: I'm actually an emergency medical technician. I'm a basic EMT, and I kind of switched out, kind of go off of back when I was a seven year old, ask me what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a law enforcement officer. I wanted to be a firefighter, paramedic. And in the military, well, I've definitely hit all all quadrants because law enforcement wasn't working out so well. I just I applied at I was Lucky County Sheriff's Department and was placed in the jail. So I was a jail deputy with numerous amount of abilities to get out on the road to send problems, have them send me to the Law enforcement Academy, because I did try to put myself through the law enforcement academy, through my GI Bill at Waukesha County. But since I was not sponsored by a department, I was kind of dropped to the bottom of the list. So they needed to get the people that had already a job offer, already a job, said they wanted to send them through the law enforcement Academy before somebody like me that doesn't have any prospects yet. So I saw that opportunity to go to Zaki County, and since they were going to put me through, I figured I would try it out. I was there for two years and had tried three different times to getting out in the road. And I was I didn't make the cut each time and I couldn't be in the jail anymore. It was it was really hard. It was a really hard job to be in the jail, to be with, you know, human beings just like us, just they got caught kind of thing and they just there. And it was just a toxic situation. And I was always working. I got paid a whole lot of money and everything like that, but I sure as hell didn't get to use any of it because I was working. Oh, so I ended up resigning my position there and then tried my hand at construction for a little while. I was actually an apprentice through the sprinkler fitting Union Union here in Menominee Falls. So sprinkler fittings putting in fire suppression systems in industrial, commercial residential buildings. So I did that for a little while and due to medical issues, I get vertigo really well, really easy. And being up in a tall area, I started feeling worse and worse. I. Every time I was up there. So I had to resign my position as an apprentice. I was with the design build fire protection in New Berlin for a year. But I couldn't do it anymore because of my vertigo. So then I was like, You know what? My wife was at the time just had volunteered for the Aspen Fire Department and wanted to be an EMT. I helped her through college. I was like, hell, let me try it. So I did. And come to find out I actually enjoy it. I really enjoy being an EMT. It's grueling. Does not pay well at all, but it pays enough to keep a house over my head, food on my table. And the schedule is nice. I work 24 hour shifts and I get 48 hours off afterwards, and every two weeks I get a full week off unpaid. So I work 8 to 9 days a month and I still get paid enough to pretty much the overtime and all that kind of thing myself. And then I volunteer here and you ask them. So when I'm not an EMT with Life Star, I'm an EMT with classical fire department.

BOWERS HEALEY: So. Right. Okay. Let's talk about some of them. You've got some in front of you and some I have to put aside because I check up your table.

PAMPEL: So you're fine.

BOWERS HEALEY: So I think the way to capture this is not by having me zoom in the table, but if you want to hold up what you've got and talk about your rep. Go ahead.

PAMPEL: So start with this. This is the enlisted surface warfare pen. Okay. In order to receive this, you have a large book of qualification standards that you have to learn everything about the ship, every department. So engineering, supply, navigation, weaponry, everything. So pretty much, I don't know. We used to call this the the glorified tour guide pen because you could be a glorified tour guide because you know everything about the ship, everything, all the work, inner workings and everything. But no, this was three months of staying up late doing tours of the areas of the ship, memorizing things, going on two boards with one with the first classes, and then the third one of the second one with the chiefs. And that was when I got pinned and I got pinned by my corpsman. Her name is Katie Lounger. She was one of the first people I met on the ship when I first got on. And her name is Kathryn, but she swears up and down that that her way of spelling Kathryn with the K and our Y end is more beautiful. So I, I had gotten my, my first pen and everything like that from her. She actually had an engraved but this, this one isn't it. This one of the engraved one is in off eyeshadow box. Okay. And then this is the tab that would go on your shoulder pretty much signifying what ship you are on or what base you were from or anything like that. It was kind of like an insignia kind of thing, just kind of saying, Oh, hey, you're from USS Gonzales, Oh, hey, you're from Great Lakes, that kind of thing. So it was worn on dress uniforms, so dress whites and on the white shirt of my dress, blue uniform. So you didn't get to see it in my dress blues.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: This is the insignia for Gunner's Mate. So across canons, Gunner's mate is known as the third oldest rate in the Navy. And this is was worn usually on the back of a ball cap. And they had different rate, different jobs and everything like that that each had one of these little pins that, you know, kind of just told you, hey, you're a gunners, mate. Hey, you're yeoman, that kind of thing. See, this is the stripe that you get after four years of being in service and then proceeding after that, they'll build up. Every four years. You get a stripe, and then when you hit 12 years, you get gold. Gold stripes. So it's then I've seen people I think my master chief, she had like 20, 26 years and so she had eight of these darn things or seven some of these things. So and then the various. Insignias to. State what my rank was and my job. So this is seem an apprentice or e to this is seaman seaman recruit does not get a tab at all or anything like that. And then each one of these has a gunner's mate cross canons on it. So this is for my whites and this was for my blues.

BOWERS HEALEY: How long did it take you to make E to E two?

PAMPEL: I had gotten right after I graduated from. A school. So a year. Okay. So within that time. And then I got seamen right when I got into C school. And then this is third class Petty Officer, I received this rank in my second or my first deployment while on deployment after I had come back from C school, I took the test and found out that September so September of 2010 that I found out that I received third class. So I got to wear. This one on my ball, my garrison cover.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: And then my last rank that I made was second class Petty Officer. So two chevrons, the crow and the gunners made cannons. And then this is the perspective cover insignia. I had received many ribbons. I got three, three rows of three. Every one of these except for this one. And this one has a respective medal. So if I hold up the medals, there's only two of them that I would wear on one side that doesn't have a medal. So when I wear medals, I'd wear it like this, and then I'd have the two ones that don't have a medal on this side. That just would just be a ribbon.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay.

PAMPEL: So each one of these. These two were the pistol and the rifle, and I got expeditionary. So I had trained and shot the weapon and had scored, I think it was above a 220 or something like that on both of them. I can't remember the the qualifications for it, but it was I got expeditionary, so I was awarded those. This is for sea service. So out to sea on a deployment for more than three months. And the star is. So I did two tours. These two are for global war on terrorism. So global war on terrorism and expeditionary. Global war on terrorism. I received those two on my two deployments of the heart of Africa since we were fighting for the global war on terrorism, the McDonalds or the National Defense Service Medal. You only receive these when we are at a state of war. So people that don't wear these, usually they were serving during the peace time. But since we were still fighting overseas with Iraq and Afghanistan, we got this one. This is your good conduct ribbon. So after four years and all three years, good conduct, you get this and then they'll be respective stars after every three years. My ship got Battle E, which was during our in serve and during which is a large inspection. Like political people come out and you have to like top to bottom look at the ship and everything like that. We scored in the top tier, so we got to receive the badly. And then this one is a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. I received two of them. The first one I received was four during a. Underweight. No, it was it was on load. It was a weapons on load. I as a. Petty officer third class. I had made the ship. Be able to make it in on time to also unload all of the ammunition as a third class never being able to do. I have never had never done it on load and unload, taking all the ammunition off the ship. I was a safety officer in the in the belly of the ship in the deep magazine, and I was able to get our ship underway on time with no. Discrepancies or anything like that and no injuries. So I received that one. And then the second one, the Star, I think I received that one for oh, I wish I had the the certificates. I think I received that one after in service, after we earned the battle e I and I received that because we had scored the highest in the five inch gun. Among other ships that were a part of that big inspection. So. And then this would be the this would be the respective metals. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. And you had a complex few.

PAMPEL: Oh, yeah.

BOWERS HEALEY: See, those are framed.

PAMPEL: The framed pictures. So I'll start with this one. This is. This is the graduating class for Gunnar's main school in 2000. 10 or 29. This is the. The class I grew. I graduated with. And actually, I'm right here holding the shotgun. And the woman that was in my bootcamp class. Bootcamp graduating class. She is right here. That's Rose. So she was able to graduate with me, and I guess we were the first the first class to recreate these pictures because they were doing them for a long time and then they stopped doing it. So we were the first ones to recreate this this picture. And I absolutely love this picture. It's one of my favorites.

BOWERS HEALEY: Great.

PAMPEL: And then this is my bootcamp division. So. I am. Gosh, where am I? I always can point myself out. That right there. And I'm right there. So Division 027, these were my recruit division commanders. And then each division got to design a a flag to pretty much, in a sense, signify 027028. And then I think it's I think we can make kind of made fun of already. She was really short is like in this picture she's on the step but she was literally like only like five feet tall but she was a whippersnapper. So it would I think we had our our flag sense like we're not duly uncapped or something like that and are duly noted. We're not on set because that's something that she would say like, we're not we're not unsatisfactory, we're satisfactory. We you know, we go all the way kind of thing. She was very. Prideful in her in her work and in being in service and everything. She would call all the all the men nasties and all the and everybody else would be Cookie. She'd call everybody Cookie and oh, my God, she's just a freaking funny person. So this is a shell back to defecate. So to earn this, I had to go through the equator at zero zero and pretty much do what they call community hazing. Pretty much, in a sense, us as dirty, smelly poly wogs. It's actually an old. Seafaring type story where you got poly wogs and you got shell back. Shell backs are the the, the, the brute force. They're they're they're clean. They're not poly wogs and we're probably dogs are smelly, stinky, dirty and they don't know how to work that kind of thing. It's called King Neptune and Davy Jones locker and it's a whole other story. But in order to receive this, I had to crawl on my hands and knees outside on the ships, getting sprayed with sea water, garbage thrown on me, singing silly songs. Finding dolphins. And, you know, just it's a whole lot of just funny nonsense. And then at the end, right before you show up to the kings or the King Neptune's board, you have to take a cherry that is placed in the royal baby's bellybutton, which the royal baby is the fattest guy on the ship. And you have to remove that cherry from his belly button. And mine had sardine sauce on it and it doesn't taste good. We didn't have to eat it. I spit it out. But yeah. And then you had to stand in front of King Neptune's board and pretty much state why, what your crime was and why do you feel you you have deemed yourself as a shell back and I said I procrastinate too much and and then they sent me into the royal bath of pretty much what they took chemical lights, the the glow lights and they put it in the water. And then you just bathed yourself in that. And I was green for like two days. And then and then I'm a shell back. So everybody that's a shell back gets the royal shell back. Certificate. And my second deployment, I got to be a shell back. So I got to I was the royal barber, so I put really nasty stuff in people's hair. So mustard and ketchup and just curly bad Tabasco, all that kind of stuff. So I got to I got to I got to pay people back on that one. But you didn't have to participate. You there was it was a volunteer thing. You could you didn't have to. But it was fun. There was something to do. It's it's and that's one of the big reasons why I went into the Navy was tradition. Navy has a whole lot of old traditions that they still hang on to today. Shell back ceremonies, the pinning ceremony for the chiefs even to their uniforms, just how they design their uniforms and everything like that. The fact that the crackerjack uniform is still around, the fact that women are wearing that uniform, I kind of jealous because that uniform seems so much nicer than being called flight attendants because the jacket made it look like a flight attendant. I mean, that's what I look like. I literally was asked if I was a flight attendant one time. Yeah.

BOWERS HEALEY: And so that's a uniform that wasn't present when you were in the service?

PAMPEL: No. Know the crackerjack uniform is present. It's what the males use or wear.

BOWERS HEALEY: But you were able to wear.

PAMPEL: It or not. No, no. I wore the dress. Blue jacket, the jacket, the shirt, and then the combination cover.

BOWERS HEALEY: And now the crackerjack is something now.

PAMPEL: So it's it's unified. So women and men both wear the same uniform. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. All right. You've already talked about. Your medals and and your discharge and coming back. Is there anything else that you would like to add to this this interview?

PAMPEL: Nothing pertaining to my service or anything. I'd just like to thank this, the movement, the I am not invincible. The fact that we put ourselves out there as women and serve this country and we're not our husbands, you know, we're not our husbands that served. It's us that served. And. I actually was told about this this movement by a friend of mine from Washington County. She works at the county administration. And she was also she's a marine Corps, but she was a.

BOWERS HEALEY: Do you know who that is?

PAMPEL: Terry Gunderson. Okay, Terry.

BOWERS HEALEY: And besides learning about the I am not invisible program or initiative. Have you kept in contact with other veterans since you got out of the service?

PAMPEL: Yes. Yes, I have.

BOWERS HEALEY: You told me about the Waukesha chapter that you were instrumental in and what other types of contact have you had with veterans organizations or veterans?

PAMPEL: I'm a part of the American Legion here in Bascom Pulse 384. I am active with there with the Legion Post doing honor guard for military funerals. I just did the assembly for Veterans Day at the high school. I have shared my story, displayed all of my pictures and everything like that for kids in the middle school, because during Veteran's Day, when my nephew was in sixth grade, he had asked me if I would come in and talk about my military service for Veteran's Day, because that was that was what they wanted us to do. So I brought all my stuff and I showed them I had bullets that spent cases and stuff like that. I had all of my medals and stuff. I had pictures and something for them to kind of see and to ask questions. So I was able to be a part of that one. That was a lot of fun. I am active with the VA and I use all of my benefits. This house is funded by the VA's home loan. I Yeah, I very much use all my benefits because I feel that we might as well. I mean, I did. We are the 1%. We are the 1% that serve. Granted, some people that wanted to serve couldn't serve. But whenever somebody says Thank you for your service, I always come back with thank you for your support because none of us over there or anywhere in this country could do what we do without the support of people that are back home. So I came up with that years ago because I was not sure what to say other than You're welcome. And I don't feel that is like that's that's I just don't feel like that suffices. That you're welcome. Like, I'm not I'm not like I'm a superhero. Oh, you're welcome. For for your freedom or anything like that. I, I always wanted to come back with something like, thank you for your support because, yeah, we can't do that stuff over there and fight these wars and everything like that without the people over here that are supporting this and. Yeah.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay, great. And tell me about the T-shirt you're wearing and you get that.

PAMPEL: This is from Grant style. It's this will this we will defend it. And it's I think it's patriot. I think in the back.

BOWERS HEALEY: Oh, okay. All right.

PAMPEL: So I and I fashion a lot of military type t shirts and stuff like that just because I just enjoy wearing what they have to offer. And I mean, for the most part, I, I think ever since I went into wearing a uniform, I still am actively wearing a uniform and I still actively enjoy wearing the uniform. So I wear an EMT uniform. It's a pair of blue slacks that are that of the the tactical types pockets on the side and, and a button up, button up, kind of like my utility shirt almost. So for doesn't have military creases. Thank God those things are so horrible to try to iron on so. But yeah, now I, I, I, I don't, I feel weird not wearing a uniform actually. I think ever since my service and everything like that, I, I feel weird not wearing a uniform just because it's just, it kind of signifies who I am in ways as well as it. Just. It feels right. I hate. I don't know, I, I even when I was wearing construction, I didn't wear a uniform. I just wore a pair of water pants and a t shirt or a sweatshirt or whatever. And I felt really out of sorts because I didn't have a uniform and it wasn't clean. It was impressed. It just I don't know. I think I've really never grown out of the military in ways. So.

BOWERS HEALEY: All right. Well, I don't have anything else to ask you. I think you covered just a multitude of things and explain Gunnar's may very well.

PAMPEL: Thank you.

BOWERS HEALEY: You're very open with providing this information. And on behalf of the Veterans Museum, I want to thank you for participating in this oral history. And again. As well as I want to thank you again for your service, Your support of the nation is really appreciated, the deployments and all. Mm hmm.

PAMPEL: Oh, thank you for the interview. It was amazing to talk about this stuff. It's been a while since I've talked about it, so.

BOWERS HEALEY: Okay. Thank you. The time is 1306. And that concludes this interview.

[Interview Ends]