Just Shut Your Mouth & Do What You're Told: Surviving in the Army

By Debra Haraldson

It was 1973 when, as a very poor (grade-wise) junior in high school, I decided to join the Army once I graduated from high school. Living in a very small southern Minnesota farming community, my options were limited and I, having spent the best part of my high school days having fun and ignoring my grades, would not be accepted in any respectable college or university. While thumbing through the current issue of Cosmopolitan, a card fell out, urging me to send in for more information on the Armed Services.

My initial service of choice was the Air Force but they wanted a minimum commitment of four years. Since the Army only wanted three, I chose it instead. I signed up for the Delayed Entry Program joining before my high school graduation, after which time I would go on active duty. Joining early guaranteed my promotion from E-1 to E-2 once I survived Basic Training.

Eleven days after graduation, I was on an airplane to Columbia, South Carolinas Fort Jackson. It was early June and extremely hot. I was all by myself unless you count the other hundreds of women who were also beginning their Army careers. It was scary but I took comfort in the fact that we were all in the same boat.

This book describes my experiences in Basic Training, my computer training, and my two and a half years in The Pentagon as a Computer Console Operator. Back in 1974, women in Basic Training trained with other women no men allowed, however, some of the Drill Instructors were male. We were still considered members of the Womens Army Corps, commonly called WACS we were not fully integrated in the regular Army until 1976 or so. But we trained wearing fatigues, boots, wool socks, hauling field packs and canteens just like the men.

I was and still am, opinionated, mouthy and contrary to authority. How in the world did I survive three years in the Army? I stood steadfast to my motto: Just Shut Your Mouth and Do What Youre Told.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 23, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469112480

Debra Haraldson

Debra Haraldson lives in Seattle with her husband Steve and cat Tigger who, as of this writing, is still alive and scratching at 18 years of age. Debra is a Systems Analyst for a small (so you know it’s not Microsoft) software firm and is still a struggling senior at the University of Washington. She has visions of clawing her way down the corporate ladder to work for any non-profit organization that will tolerate her sense of humor and her anal retentive, strict Lutheran, Norwegian, Midwest work ethic. Her goal is to help bridge the great digital divide between the technically haves and have nots in the Pacific Northwest region.

Book preview

THE DECISION

Whenever I tire of the question Why did you join the Army? I respond with I was drafted. The look on the inquirer’s face is quite priceless. They begin doubting their knowledge of current events: Did I miss the morning headlines? Did I somehow not pay attention to the lead story on the evening news? What’s going on here? I’m reminded of the time I was collecting signatures on a petition supporting the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1990 at an AFL-CIO rally on the Mall in Washington D.C. A woman looked at me strangely after I asked for her support. With just a hint of disgust, she grabbed my pen and clip board and said, You mean that thing hasn’t passed YET?

After my I was drafted remark, the conversation either changes or the more intelligent will understand my attempt at humor and truly want to know why I joined the all-volunteer armed forces in 1974. Actually, I joined in 1973 while a senior at Jasper High School in Jasper Minnesota, choosing to enroll in the Army’s Delayed Entry Program (DEP). The DEP offered early enlistment when you were not qualified to be on active duty in exchange for a quick promotion from the rank of E-1 to E-2. At the time, women had to be eighteen years of age; men could enlist while still seventeen.

During my senior year in high school, my parents had young children to raise: a daughter 10 and a son 7. My father was the hard-working owner of one of two grocery stores in town and barely making ends meet. I felt the last thing he needed was a daughter in college, barely making grades meet. I knew very little about scholarships, loans, etc. Besides, scholarships were for those who did well academically and my record was less than sterling. I’m sorry to say that I goofed off a great deal over the 2.5 years I spent at Jasper High School. Prior to moving to Jasper in the middle of my sophomore year, I was an A student at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis. Somehow the small town of Jasper sucked my ambition and drive to succeed right out of me.

My other choice, besides college, was simply getting a job. I wasn’t about to hang around Jasper, waiting tables or working in the drug store selling cheap cosmetics and gas relievers. I could have moved to Minneapolis to find work. After all, I lived there the first sixteen years of my life and still had lots of friends and family in the area. But even then, I would probably have to depend on my parents for money to get started. I wanted to make a clean break of it, for their sakes and for mine. It was my opinion that I had very limited choices with regards to my future.

As I lay on my bed one evening reading the latest edition of Cosmopolitan, that great work of literature by which all young, single women’s lives were guided, when out fell a card for information about the United States Air Force. I sent the card in—it was free after all and I was bored—and the Air Force sent me a recruiter. If I had known you could simply order a male through the mail, I would have done so sooner. Lord knows the field of available, intelligent, out-going men who want to actually LEAVE Jasper was very narrow.

The recruiter became my recruiter—one becomes very possessive about the person who is about to change one’s direction in life forever. He set up the appointment for me to take the official Armed Services tests—both physical and academic. I spent an entire Saturday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota taking these tests to determine where my special talents were residing. I could have told them without all of this fuss: foosball, practical joking and furniture refinishing, the latter of which I did almost exclusively during shop class. (Remember shop? Working with the dullest blades imaginable and I’m not talking about the shop teacher.) But the Air Force currently had no openings for someone with my skills so they had to find some that were hidden deep down that were useful. I wholeheartedly trusted the tests to reveal what my career would be as a proud member of the U.S. Air Force.

Several weeks later, the results were in. Seems my strength was in engineering—the kind having nothing to do with trains. The only part of the test in that area I remember is the one where they display a three dimensional item all laid out flat, with dotted lines where one would fold to create it. Anyway, I really didn’t take these results too seriously. I figured I could sign up for any career and they would take me regardless of the tests. I mean, how picky could they be? The Vietnam War was still on and the draft was discontinued in 1973. They had to rely on people re-enlisting and schmucks like me volunteering—I thought I could call the shots.

It was during this time that I began to re-examine my decision to join the Air Force. Not only were the uniforms goofy looking but they required a minimum four year-hitch, where the creative or more desperate Army offered two—and three-year commitments. The two-year option was not without fault. You could choose your Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) but not your permanent duty station, the place you spend the bulk of your time after completing all training. Opting for the three-year program gave you freedom of choice in where you would be shipped but only if they needed your newly acquired skill set at that desired location.

So I called my Air Force recruiter and broke the news to him: I was leaving him for his competitor. He took it well and we parted forever. Since the tests I took for the Air Force applied to the Army as well, all I had to do was contact my Army recruiter and choose my three year career. Piece of cake.

While I was working in my Dad’s store, my recruiter brought over all the applicable paperwork to enroll in the Delayed Entry Program. This meant I was Army property on paper, on loan to Jasper High School, but the Army would take custody once I had my diploma in hand. I would be government issue (GI) on June 4, 1974, eleven days after graduation. My recruiter also brought over a huge book that listed and described career opportunities available in the Army. Being a female recruit back then was a bigger disadvantage than it is today. It seemed as if half the book was designated for male recruits only.

I began looking through the part of the book I was authorized to access to see if any of those enviable career choices would reach out and grab me. Each page described one MOS and listed the length of training required and where it was conducted. I was open to almost anything except those job description that involved one of two things: blood or a typewriter. Believe me, that really narrowed my choices. It wasn’t that I couldn’t stand the sight of blood or other bodily fluids, or that I was untalented in the typewriting department. I really had no desire to fall into typical female roles. I could do that staying in Jasper. I was making a break for it and I wanted to go all the way with it.

In addition to being picky about my three year job, I was determined to spend minimal time after my eight-week Basic Training experience to learn my career. After all, I was only eighteen years old. Weeks seemed like months and I was not going to spend any more time than I had to doing something stupid like learning something new. Seems I was already looking forward to 1977 when I’d get OUT of the Army, when I had not even started this great adventure! Therefore, my focus while cruising through this book was on the upper, outside corner of each page, which informed me of the length of training. If I saw a short one, I’d look at what the job was and decide whether or not it was a keeper in my small arsenal of career possibilities.

I completely ignored the descriptions of any career opportunity that had a two-digit indicator in this location. Soon, I wasn’t even reading about those that took longer than eight weeks. I finally found what I’d been searching for. I, Private Debra A. Haraldson, would proudly and bravely serve my country in the United States Army as a Computer Console Operator. Duration of training: three weeks at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. This was my kind of training. Of course, I knew nothing about computers but I figured they might catch on and take off. I mean, look at the way the pocket calculator captured the technological world. Did I know trends or what?

Since I