By Abby LaForest

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — Carol Hebert, a retiree from the U.S. Army and the Michigan Army National Guard, has spent the majority of her life surrounded by the military.

“My brother-in-law was a Korean veteran, and a real good friend of the family, he was like my second dad, was a W.W.II veteran…his [the brother-in-law’s] daughter, she joined the Army too,” Hebert explained. “She was a year older than I am, and I went and visited her. She was a medic, and she was stationed at Fort Bragg [now known as Fort Liberty,] and I went down and visited her just to get an idea. What I did know at the time, [was that] medics had it made. They had nice condos and they had it made, they didn’t have to qualify with a weapon, they didn’t have to go to the gas chamber [training] and I thought ‘oh, you know, this is pretty cool.’”

Following her high school graduation, Hebert, now 63, thought back on how her life had been influenced by the military, and the inspiration of her close family led to her enlistment into the U.S. Army.

“At 17, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, growing up. College was far from my mind, and with Joe being a Korean veteran and Daddy Don [her second dad] used to take me to the VFW all the time,” Carol recalled. “So, I used to hang around with all of the veterans down at the VFW and go to the talent shows and the Christmas parties. Between the two of them, they had a really big influence on my life, and that’s why I ended up joining the military. Actually, at one point I wrote an essay [for the VFW] and won tickets to the Michigan International Speedway because the VFW sponsored a contest…”

Upon enlistment, Carol’s original MOS was a 61B Watercraft Operator, before all of the numbers were switched around and she was transferred to an 88K Watercraft Operator. Her active duty service took her down to Panama in 1988, where she participated in Operation Just Cause, which involved the U.S. working to depose the country’s de facto leader General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. She entered during the time when women were just starting to enlist in the military, and ran into some obstacles along the way.

“At that time when I first joined, women were just starting [to] integrate into the Army, but the guys weren’t liking it, so they weren’t too keen on having women being in the military,” Hebert said. “So, when I got to my permanent party unit, instead of actually putting me in my MOS like I was supposed to have, they put me in an office because I was a female…they didn’t want me on the boats with the guys. They figured [they could] put me in an office and ‘she can handle the paperwork.’ It took a long time, but I eventually did end up being on the boats, but it took a long time to get there.”

Carol also recounted some of the difficult events that happened while she was stationed in Panama, with her husband Larry, a Vietnam War veteran, and their two children accompanying her to Central America.

“I didn’t want to go down there by myself, so I fought it…and him [Larry, Carol’s husband] and our son and daughter came with us, they were both little then. I was an Operations Sergeant, I was [in] Dock 45 in the water down on the canal, and bad stuff was going on,” Hebert mentioned. “One of the guys that I actually got stationed to in Panama with, we in-processed together, he was in the jungle and he ended up getting killed by the Panamanians…To go Christmas shopping…all the big stores and everything were on the Pacific [Ocean] side, the Atlantic side had your post exchange and stuff like that, but it didn’t have as much as the Pacific side. Well, a family went over to the Pacific side and went to go Christmas shopping. As you’re coming back across, you have to stop at checkpoint Charlie because of the Panimanians. They confiscated all of their Christmas presents and that just started the whole ball rolling.”

Hebert explained how the conditions of being on active duty while in Panama not only took a toll on her, but also the rest of her fellow soldiers. She commented about a time where she had gone for three days without sleep, and how some situations would give others an adrenaline rush.

“We had an M60 on the front line, and we had some guy walk right in front of the M60. They were freaking. You’re talking live ammo, you’re locked and loaded with live ammo, and they’re freaking, and they walked right in front of the M60,” said Carol. “He didn’t get killed, but some of those guys were just freaking. We lived in military quarters and I would go home and I was locked and loaded, but the minute I walked [into] that house, I unlocked it. My magazine went in one place, my M16 went in the other place so the kids couldn’t get it because they were little then. And when I left, the minute I was out the door I was locked and loaded.”

Carol had been in the military for a total of 24 and one half years, including her active duty in Panama in 1988 and joining the Michigan Army National Guard from 1994 to 2005. As a woman in the military, she remembers being actively involved in a combat role despite women not technically being allowed to do so.

“Even when I joined the Guard, you couldn’t be in the 107th. You couldn’t be in the engineers…I was in the 175th out of Marquette,” Carol remembered. “You had to be in a maintenance company, you couldn’t be in an engineer unit because that was considered a combat unit, and women couldn’t be in combat. But, I’m here to tell you that women were in combat even though they said they weren’t in combat, they were…I was in combat, not that I shot anybody but back then…we were locked and loaded because we didn’t know what we were expecting.”

Looking at how women have mostly equal opportunities to men in the military today, Hebert also took a moment to comment on the state of sexual harassment in the miltary.

“It’s about time…we led the way, it was a long, hard battle,” Carol said. “There was a lot of sexual harassment during the time I was in [the military] and it was kept under the rug, you couldn’t say anything. Now it’s more advanced where they’re not…it still goes on, I know it does, but it’s nowhere near as bad as when I was in.”

Despite some of the difficulties Hebert faced during her military career, there are also moments that she discusses in a positive light.

“Now that I look back at my military career, I didn’t think I did a lot, but now that I look back at it…,” Hebert commented. “When I was [in] active duty Army, I was in England for two weeks, because…they had a merchant Marine ship with old Army mothball boats in it, so we got the opportunity [to go] every couple years, take those boats off and run them. I got to go to Germany three times when I was in the Guard. I did some traveling, I didn’t think [that] I did, but I did. I enjoyed Germany a lot. I’d love to go back to Germany.”

Over the years, Carol has been involved with the AMVETS, or American Veterans Organization, where she started out by joining in Covington and eventually serving as the District Commander for three years. She has also served as the Michigan State AMVETS 3rd Vice Commander, as well as the state’s executive director for nine years. She eventually made her way up to the AMVETS National Funds Coordinator, also joining the National Suicide Prevention Committee and then becoming the National AMVETS Programs Director, a position she recently retired from in June of this year.

“AMVETS, which stands for American Veterans, is a veteran’s organization just like the VFW and the American Legion, but it accepts all veterans,” Carol detailed. “You don’t have to be, like, for Disabled American Veterans you have to be a disabled veteran, Marine Corps League you have to be [a] Marine, [for] Purple Heart you have to be a Purple Heart recipient, AMVets takes every single one of them. As long as you’re a veteran and you’ve been honorably discharged, AMVets takes you.”

Hebert also took the time to explain the AMVETS Rolling to Remember event, where veterans drive across the country in order to educate the public about veteran suicide. Carol spoke about her most recent participation in the event that goes from the West to East coast.

“AMVETS One [is] a bus that went from Sacramento all the way to Rolling to Remember in [Washington] D.C., it used to be Rolling Thunder but now AMVETS took it over and it’s Rolling to Remember,” explained Hebert. “So the bus came cross-country from Sacramento to D.C. but it made stops along the way to educate the public on veteran suicide, because it’s 22 veterans a day. It [might be] less than that, but one is still too many as far as we’re concerned. So I took a plane all the way out to California and got on the bus with these guys and we stopped in Salt Lake City, we stopped in Kansas City…”

Veterans organizations, as well as having the support of veterans around you and knowing what you’re going through, is a key component of supporting veterans and their wellbeing, according to Hebert.

“By joining veterans organizations, like the DAV and the VFW and the Purple Heart, Wounded Warriors, the Marine Corps League, stuff like that, the only people who can know what you’re going through is another veteran…” Carol said. “…[When] you’re married to somebody like a civilian, we’ve seen lots of divorces because of that. But because we’re [Carol and Larry] both veterans, and because we know what it’s like, that’s the only way we’ve gotten through what we’ve gotten through…it’s your family. I have some of the guys I was in the army with on my Facebook, they’re your family. They’re all grown men and they’ve gotten married and have kids of their own and stuff like that, but they’re still your family.”

Carol’s pride in her military service will stay with her throughout her life, and to this day, she is still actively involved in making sure that veteran education and care is a priority of people in the United States.

“Once a soldier, always a soldier. Once a veteran, always a veteran,” Hebert proclaimed. “There’s no looking back, only going forward.”