Veteran's Day 2022 -- Never Forget
This photo of my mother was taken in a Washington DC photo studio. It's not dated, but going by the pictures I have of her, I believe it was before I was born. Most pictures I have of her are from passport photos or after she retired in 1993. I have none from when I was a year or so old to her retirement from Federal Civilian Service (that's the exact term used on various commendations I'm looking through). The last one is on her retirement in 1993, in thanks for 37 years of service. That makes her start date in 1956.
I've been dwelling on this last commendation all day. I was born in 1960. For all of my teenage and adult years, I have accepted and believed the story I was told. I have repeated it in discussions, probably here on Facebook as well. I had no reason to ever question the story or doubt it. As the story went, mom was in the USAF and had to get out when she was pregnant with me. Women could not be in the US Armed Forces and pregnant back in 1959-1960. Supposedly, my mother was re-entering the USAF a few months after I was born, but couldn't get her rank back so she chose to go civil service by 1961.
Of course there was more to the story. I always had nannies and my mother never stayed home with me during my childhood. Part of the story was that she was suicidal after finding out she was pregnant. She attempted suicide and was found in the bathroom and of course my father got her to the hospital. I think I was told the story to explain what I believed to be her mental health problems. This involved my parents separating and later getting a divorce. Supposedly it was an explanation albeit a negative one. But it was all LIES. What in the hell was the truth when such terrible lies were told to cover it up?
Yes, the dates do not fit. I have a large pile of papers to read, but I've been stuck on that one all day and night.
My mom was definitely in Korea during the Korean War. I know that because I have a DD 214 form saying it. My mother never spoke about it though and I only knew when the VA informed me back in 2016. So she was in the USAF. They tell me nothing beyond that.
My mother took me with her to Stuttgart and my father stayed in Belgium with SHAPE when I was either 9 or 10 years. She took me to Berlin, East Berlin, and a more rural area of East Germany a couple of times when I was 9-11 years. Once she left her purse on a bus in East Berlin. It had our passports in it. I recall the bus driver running after us as she pulled me with her to return her purse. A few years later when I questioned my mother as to why we were in East Germany back then, she told me she had to pick out a china pattern. I suppose I believed that for many years, even though it made no sense.
When I was 16 years, I recall her working in intelligence headquarters on Ramstein AB in Germany. It was a huge building and one day I went to get some money from her. I was unable to enter where she worked. It was on the 4th floor, behind a vault. I had to wait a long time for her to come downstairs after the military guard contacted her. Not long after that, I moved out. She was never there anyway. Not too much longer and she left Germany. I stayed.
Many years later, after my son was born, and was perhaps 3 or 4 years old, I left him at my mom's while I ran errands. When I returned, my father had Alex at his place (where I'm living now). I remember my father telling me to never, ever leave him alone with her. I questioned him, because let's face it... this makes little sense. He just repeated his earlier statement, adding, "Vicky, they wiped her mind a long time ago. Just promise you will listen to me." My father died without ever explaining anything about her to me. He died of a heart attack back in 1998.
A couple of my friends and relatives may have met my mom back in 1994, when I had the beach house. She came by with her friend Shirley a couple of times. I know we had barbecue, and I don't know how to barbecue, so definitely guys there... maybe Robert, maybe Raul and a couple of other friends. Well, Shirley was retired CIA. One day when my mom was annoyed with Shirley, I recall her saying that Shirley was CIA and "always thought she was better than me, they all did." I do know that my mother was DIA and when I reflect on her comment, I think it was a reference to the competitive atmosphere between CIA and DIA back then. Shirley was mostly blind, legally blind for sure. She later moved to the Villages (retirement community in Florida).
So what did my mother really do? Who is she? What did the US government do to her? How specifically did they "wipe her mind a long time ago"? When exactly was "a long time ago"? I have many old passports from her and she has a drastically different look in most.
Too many freakin' questions!
I intended to post this on Veteran's Day 2022, and posted it a few days earlier on Facebook. Now I am posting it as a prelude to a lengthy post You will have to wait and see what the next blog post is about. I'm going to let this marinate here for a few days. Think about it when you read the next post.
EDIT on 17 November 2022:
Someone asked me a question yesterday and I tried to explain it to her, but I don't think she got the point. She asked why I've been taking care of my mother for 12 years now when mom was never there for me. My response is simple...
Ah, but my mother was there for me as a child, as a teenager, as an adult, and always has been. I will admit that when I was younger, I didn't understand this and sometimes *punished* her for not being around by ignoring her calls or not responding when she sent me flowers or brushing her off in general, even disappearing for a week or more as a teenager. But all women are not the motherly type for one reason or another. Just because women have reproductive organs doesn't mean they have the capacity, the ability, or the desire to be mothers. We see women that killed their child in the news too often. Society needs to fix this perception that a woman is a lousy human being just because she's not loving and attentive to her children or doesn't want children. Women are more than baby machines. I suppose I thought that we were beyond these stereotypes in this century, but the recent battles with the SCOTUS says we are not any different in this regard than we were 100 years ago.
My mom may have left me with nannies and ran out the door to work, but she's always been there. If she knew I was sad, she sent me flowers. If I was far away, she jumped through hoops to make sure I had presents to open on my birthday, Christmas, Valentine's day, Easter, almost every holiday. She took me shopping and bought me nice clothes. If I asked for money she gave me what I needed. More than once she rescued me from bad situations. She was always a phone call away when I was barely reachable.
My mother loved me so much that she always made sure I was in the best care possible. As an adult I have been closer to my mother, but it was always a relationship with distance. There's so much that I didn't know about her until the last five or six years. The most interesting thing to me was in 2017 we were watching a movie on the AMC movie network and her eyes lit up, she was so excited, and emotional for the first time in a long while. The movie is, "The Last Time I Saw Paris" with Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson. She managed to tell me during the movie that she named me after the little girl in the movie, Vicky. I ordered a couple of DVDs of the movie, of excellent quality, and we watch it regularly. When the internet was out for a couple of days after power was restored last week, we watched it at least 5 times. It always makes mom smile.
I've learned more about my mother in the last 10 or so years than in all of my previous years. Not much in life is black and white... Life is full of lessons and surprises.
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