Guest speaker Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Tetatzin, who served in Afghanistan and in Iraq, noted that situations are improving for women in the military.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
New and familiar faces of women who served in the U.S. military gathered at the Malibu Daughters of the American Revolution’s 12th Annual Women in the Military Luncheon at the Malibu Tennis and Riding Club on Saturday to recognize the commitment of women who sought out civic duty in what is still a male-dominated institution.
Though the gender ratios have not changed completely, many things about today’s military have, said the event’s guest speaker, Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Tetatzin, who serves with the U.S. Navy Seabees. Tetatzin, who was most recently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, shared her experiences of active military duty both stateside and abroad with an audience that included veterans from World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
While serving with the Seabees, Tetatzin managed and directed construction and engineering projects throughout the world, from designing military infrastructure to building water wells in developing countries. She was awarded the Bronze Star for her seven-month deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan where she commanded more than 300 troops of Army Special Forces, the Navy Seals and the Marine Corps.
“I owe a lot of who I am to the Navy,” Tetatzin said. “I changed from a quiet person to one who was able to take charge and bark orders, to be loud, proud and decisive. I am responsible for other people’s lives, and to direct them everyday and have them rely on me for direction.”
Tetatzin, who is married with two sons ages 7 and 9, said her family is supportive of her military service, but being deployed is the hardest part of being in the military. Her husband, a restaurant manager, takes time off while she is deployed to take care of her sons.
Regarding women in the military, Tetatzin said she has seen change during her 12 years of service, especially in the support services a woman receives. She said the Navy has placed an emphasis on not only having more women in the military but also retaining them, and making it known that they can have children while on active duty and even take sabbatical leave.
Working at a California Pizza Kitchen to pay her way through Sacramento State University, Tetatzin, a civil engineering major, saw information about the Navy’s Civil Engineering Corps Collegiate recruiting program that paid tuition and allowed students to finish their degrees with the commitment that they would enter the Navy after graduating. (The Navy later paid for Tetatzin to return to school to earn a master’s degree, which she obtained from University of California, Berkeley.)
It sounded like a good deal, she said, but she had no idea what she was in for. Tetatzin was the only woman of four to survive a grueling boot camp in Pensacola, Fla. The other three didn’t last past the first week. She went on to serve in deployments throughout the world and with positions at bases across the country, in locations like Hawaii and Virginia, in addition to California.
The environment during her last deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan was very different from some of the others where she was deployed to direct and participate in military humanitarian construction projects, she said. Though the bases in Iraq and Afghanistan offered many amenities, there were days filled with the sounds of mortar shells and panicked running to their bunkers, Tetatzin said.
In August, Tetatzin will ship out to Africa for a six- to seven-month mission for disaster recovery aid work in three locations where she will oversee construction of water wells and clinics in villages, and military infrastructure at several ports.
While Tetatzin said she has reevaluated her tenure with the military every several years, she has lasted 12 and thinks she’ll stick it out for at least 20. There are places she said she would still like to be deployed to, such as South America, and hopes that she can eventually get a permanent duty posting for several years that will allow her children to live abroad.
World War II, Korean and Vietnam War veterans, who helped pave the way for women like Tetatzin, were present at the luncheon and shared their own experiences. Some, like Carol Jackson, joined and stayed in the military as a career, while others, like many of the female World War II veterans, patriotically joined during the war and only served several years. Not allowed in combat, many of these women provided administrative and support services on military bases throughout the U.S.
Iris Coleman Hodges said while working at a shipyard in Richmond, Ca., she passed a poster that said, “Free a Man to Fight.”
“That uniform looked good compared to what I was doing,” she said.
In her course of service, Coleman Hodges was able to see former President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Camp Lejeune and witness soldiers return home from the Bataan Death March and POW camps.
“I realized what war was all about,” Coleman Hodges said of her experiences. “And I still haven’t forgotten everything yet.”
Katie Rollins and Rebecca Gray, seniors at Malibu High School, were recognized Saturday for their academic and extracurricular achievements with Good Citizen Awards, an annual DAR honor that recognizes talented area students. Rollins, who wants to be an engineer, and Gray, who wants to be a doctor, are both waiting to hear back from colleges.