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Third post in a five part story
DEANNA AND THE SPECIAL FORCES
It Seems
someone told the 300 Haitians that the US was paying two dollars a day for
tearing down that wall. She explained that was not true, and sent them on their
way. They never figured out how that rumor got started.
I asked Deanna how much of a problem being
a woman in a world of fighting men was for her. “Well, there’s always initial
skepticism. But once they get to know me, there’s never been a problem. My behavior
generally influences those around me eventually. Never be weak, never back
down, and never, but never, say, Can you carry this for me?” And, I’m sure,
always use that gruff business voice I heard on the phone, though she never
mentioned that. She also mentioned that
readily being willing to jump out of a plane helped a lot.
Deanna’s initial team Sergeant in civil
affairs was with the Special Forces, a Green Beret. He initially took her out
to test her. They put on packs equal to one third of their body weight or 50
pounds, whichever is greater, and he took her out on a forced hike for 12 miles
in less than the cutoff point time of four hours. He then gave her a compass
and a map to prove she could master land navigation. After additional testing,
she proved herself to Sergeant Foster. They remained close friends throughout
their careers, and are still face book buddies today. Later during her tour in
Haiti, she met up with Sergeant Foster and the team that she was pulled away
from. He told her that the Marines could
have cared less that their team leader was a woman. They were upset that they arrived without
one.
After five months in Haiti, she came home.
She found her vet position in civil affairs had been done away with, and she
was reassigned to the Army’s only airborne vet detachment, the 248th
(The only one that jumps out of planes) which was also at Ft. Bragg. Her team’s main function was to be ready for
any kind of emergency situation where the Army needed vets and food inspection. They had to be ready to go within 2 hours of
being called. She only had to deploy
with that team once. Her team was sent
to do hurricane relief in the Virgin Islands. Not too bad, compared to Haiti.
Her assignments officer suggested she put
in for a year in Korea, which would be a good career move, though she would
have to leave husband Keith. That was a bummer, but she grudgingly put in for
Korea.
While she was preparing for Korea, things
were changing. Rules were changing regarding women in the Special Forces. The
Special Forces had never had a woman attached. Some of them remembered Deanna
from Haiti, knew she had proven herself there. The general feeling seemed to
be, “we’ll eventually have a woman in this group, so we want one that won’t embarrass
us.”
So, instead of going to Korea, Deanna
became the first woman vet ever attached to the Special Forces, the Third
Special Forces Group. 3rd
Group’s area was Sub Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. She immediately started
preparing to support 3rd Group’s missions but since they had just
returned home from Haiti, they didn’t have anything big planned right away.
The Fifth Special Forces Group from Ft.
Campbell, KY had lots of missions planned in the Horn of Africa. They would go
in, work with the locals to help train them in fighting and helping with their
needs. The population is very agriculture oriented. They needed a vet. They
needed Deanna. Her first mission was to
Eritrea, a mixture of Christians and Moslem villages. The villages were
permanent, not nomadic. They are much
like Ethiopians, and right on the Red Sea. There are two ports on the Red Sea
that could become militarily important someday. This mission was humanitarian,
and hopefully would help win their hearts and their good will. Their country
has only been independent for six years, and they badly needed vet and medical
assistance. They have very nasty diseases in their flocks, some preventable by
vaccination, but they had a hard time getting the vaccine and had very few vets
in the country. Deanna worked with their
Ministry Of Agriculture and planned to assist them with a vaccination campaign
for Peste Petit de Ruminants (Plague of small ruminants). It’s similar to dog distemper and was
devastating to unvaccinated flocks. Deanna was able to obtain the vaccine in Kenya.
Her and five Special Forces men along with their Eritrean vet assistants traveled
to a different village each day in Land Rovers. They worked long, very hard
days. They eventually vaccinated 140,000 of their sheep and goats. Each day,
the village threw a big celebration at the end of the day, killing and roasting
a goat, though they were very poor. Those people loved to see them coming. A
very rewarding experience for Deanna and the men! Occasionally, they would go to a village
where no, or very few, animals appeared. They would eventually learn that most
all of the animals were killed the year before by the disease in a major
outbreak, and only the ones that were naturally immune survived. If those
immune stragglers came in, they were vaccinated anyway. The locals just felt
better about it.
These people are very hard, and very hard
working people. They have to travel for great distances to reach a water well.
Bad water kills many people in East Africa. After two months, her team returned
to Ft. Bragg.
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CONTINUED IN FOUR DAYS - Next, 9/11 occurs, and Deanna starts training for Iraq.
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