There once was a Vietnam Veteran hiding in one of my old closets. She sought refuge there, just a week after she was discharged from the Air Force in 1971. This was the day her young husband, who was also in the Air Force - burned her military uniforms, shoes, and coat, in an effort to rid them both of any reminder of her service to our country.

Those were the days of an unpopular war and my military career embarrassed him, even though he was still in the Air Force. Civilian neighbors and acquaintances invariably, upon learning that I was in the military, would be abnormally curious about me. A jealous and very private man, he forbid me to tell anyone who didn't already know, that I had been a WAF. Assumptions would be made, not all of them complimentary, especially those coming from men and our peers of the time, who had not been in the military. In many ways, I think he was just trying to protect me.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the foundations in feminism movements and women's liberation of that era, had all of women subconsciously nodding in agreement upon hearing, the slogan, "You've come a long way, baby!" Yet, as women, we all knew that the same old tired double standards were everywhere. It still left us with a long bumpy road left to travel down.

Therefore, I couldn't entirely blame my young husband for his attitude. Worse than his attitude, was that of some of my own family, who advised that I just leave that part of my life behind -- never to be mentioned again. However, at the same time, my husband's actions and mind-set were the most devastating. It was like he, and others were saying that - I had to hide a part of me. Therefore, this secret left me hanging in a mental closet where I did not want to belong.

I was a minority inside a minority, for I was a non-nurse Vietnam veteran. Although most of my military service was spent state-side, that time was in a world apart and quite isolated from our civilian counterparts. By the time I was discharged from the Air Force, I re-entered a world where I did feel that I fit in.

I did not know how to relate to other women of my own age, who had not been in the military. Their life concerns seemed shallow. They were all caught up in the latest fashions, newest TV shows, their babies, and their husbands. Even though all of those things also defined me as a woman - to me their worlds were very limited.

It wasn't that I didn't care about those same things, it was exaggerated importance upon which they placed their trivial concerns. Furthermore, I found that being prohibited to speak of what I'd been doing for the last four years was a huge handicap. Additionally, I'd lived on base for a couple of years, many events like Kent State, anti-war protests, and the riots in D.C. -- weren't part of my reality. Quite simply said, because watching television or reading the news wasn't part of my daily routine. A normal day was getting up very early, working long hours, with limited free time and one television for several hundred people to watch, if there even was one available. The Military Times was pretty much, the only newspaper laying around to read.

At first, never being the kind of woman capable of accepting being ordered around by my man - I didn't fare very well at keeping this secret. When I did speak of it, it was immediately obvious, that our civilian peers often didn't understand what I was talking about. The women acted weird and their husbands and boyfriends had way too much interest in me. This caused problems immediately. I felt like I spoke a different language and no one understood. I didn't belong back in the military and I didn't belong in the outside world.

These were my realities hanging in that closet of secrets, whenever I spent time with civilians who had no military background:

• I didn't know how to say what it was like to live on a base of over three thousand men, and be one of only eight women.
• There were no words to explain how the housing quarters we lived in was divided, so that Vietnamese pilots also could share the same building. Revealing what the impact of that situation was unexplainable.
• What do you say about your fellow female soldiers, the ones who committed suicide, or the ones who deliberately got pregnant to secure a discharge from an impossible situation?
• Telling them how humiliating it was to be forced to line up to be given birth control pills (the military needed to protect their investment and too many young women were getting pregnant) - wasn't a topic I wanted to bring up.
• How do you talk about tagging the great right toe of a corpse and bagging a body? This too, became just another subject matter, not likely to come up in conversation.
• Would they understand daily sexual harassment? None of them, if they worked, had been targeted with what today we would label "sexual harassment" on a constant basis by their bosses. Likewise, the jeers of older enlisted males that included suggestions about being pimped out, as one of Uncle Sam's whores, weren't repeatable.
• What would they think about being subjected to the scrutiny of jealous military wives, worried about a female working alongside of their husbands?
• What would they think about having bricks and rocks thrown at you by local civilians, when you went off base in your uniform?
• Likewise, how could I tell then about being spit upon, just because I wore a uniform?
• They hadn't been to Vietnam, lived as a squadron or on base -- so would they understand about spending the day picking up cigarette butts as a punishment for not passing an inspection?
• They didn't know anything beyond what the nightly news told them, and I didn't know what was being told on the outside. Therefore, we didn't have a middle ground on a lot of subjects.
• They never had to process out of the military, broken and distraught soldiers returning from the war. The ones who showed you pictures of dead bodies, wept for their lost companions, or took their boot off to show how a rat had chewed off their toe, while sleeping in Vietnam -- closet memories that stayed inside my mind. Unspeakable human tragedies too heartbreaking to repeat.
• They never had to accompany a four star general on a whirlwind trip to inspect his troops and be told, "Your only job soldier, is to come to the dinner table each night and look pretty. It wouldn't hurt, if you showed some of the other officers a good time. If you know what I mean?"

The isolation I felt back then, left me with many stabbing doubled edged and conflicted feelings. Additionally, I was in some ways, just as uncomfortable about my own gender, who were still in the military. At different bases, I'd lived in difficult situations with women who came from all across the U.S. Many of them came from troubled backgrounds.

A lot of them were in the military solely, because they were running away from unhappy home situations, and not all of them were mentally stable. Some of them, earned the stereotype reputations put upon all women in the military, by their own bad and promiscuous behaviors. Being in the Air Force, had also given me a great mistrust of my own gender.

That same isolation became bottled up inside my own shifting attitudes towards our country's involvement in Vietnam. I silently questioned if the war was worth the sacrifice of our own young soldiers. I enrolled in college. In a speech class, I was assigned to give a presentation about how "Vietnam changed America." A male classmate, whose turn to speak was before mine, found himself the butt of rude comments and jokes, when he admitted he had participated in the war. Horrified, I never gave my speech that day. I was afraid of the same fate - I suddenly slipped out of the class and never returned that semester.

Nasty little subject, one that I wish still isn't a big part of the military experience for young women today or in my time. In my father's day (WWII and Korea), a woman serving in the military was looked upon as something less than a lady. Sometimes, that was true even of the nurses (unless you were the male patient), then she apparently morphed into an "angel."

I entered the Air Force as a young eighteen year old, and I was very naive. I had grown up in a sheltered environment, living partly on a ranch that was fifty miles to the nearest neighbor. Even during the years when we lived in town, my world was confined to my home, my relatives, our close friends, school, and the neighborhood. Nothing in my background could have prepared me for the harassment women in the military often endure.

Furthermore, joining the Air Force was not my idea, it was my mother's. She even kept my enlistment a secret from my dad until I was already sworn in, knowing how he felt. She meant well, she wanted me to experience the world and be on my own. To say, I didn't have a clue, would be a huge understatement. My father's generation's attitudes, were pretty much the same attitude of the young men serving in the Vietnam War. There was an assumption about you, before they even knew your name. In many ways, these were the realities of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

• How many of us were raped? I don't know, but I know it happened to several women I knew.
• How many of us were propositioned by our superior officers? A lot, or pretty much all of us, as far as I can tell.
• How many of us were stalked by our fellow soldiers? More, than anyone can imagine.

Remember, all of this was happening before such terms as:

• Date rape
• Workplace harassment
• Sexual harassment

were a part of our everyday vocabulary. Nor, were they subjects that were taught in school, the workplace, and by the military. Many of the laws that are in place today, didn't exist back then either.

Time heals a lot, or at least puts it into perspective. Gradually, I discovered I couldn't completely escape admitting my role in the military. So, I cleaned out that closet of shame, fear, and confusion. I didn't throw everything out, I kept some of the good things, like:

• The Air Force paying for my college education.
• Having been in the Air Force gave me a veteran's preference in obtaining jobs on Capitol Hill.
• Having a military background was an advantage in a work world of older executive males -- because I understood the jargon and the work ethic they had learned in their own military stints.
• Most of all, among many other things, the Air Force taught me I could do things -- things I never would have imagined I was capable of or had the courage to do.

Today, I am grateful for the time I spent in the Air Force. That part of my life no longer lives in a closet of denied memories. The greatest gift being in the service gave, still continues today - - for without the VA's health care system, I would have no health care, thanks to a pre-existing medical condition that prevents me from obtaining health insurance at any price. Now living with breast cancer, I don't know what I'd do without that blessing.

Therefore, I've shared these military memories, because I hope the young men and women serving our country today, will remember that no matter how history views their time in the military either today or in the future - - that they should be proud of doing their best and making sacrifices others weren't willing to do themselves.

I also, hope our government will honor its commitment to them when they return, especially when it comes to making sure that the benefits they earned - - are exactly what was promised to them. It seems like far too often, what our government promises today, will be taken back or dramatically changed tomorrow.

Most of all, I hope that the family and friends who love them, will try to understand the transition and healing process required of returning from such an experience. They all deserve our respect and honor, regardless of how we feel about today's wars.