Carol Ann Youngquist Macola and Mary Katherine Curran Santine, both are U.S. military veterans who served in the Vietnam War era who live only blocks away from each other in Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood. But they’d never met until they boarded a plane together last month.
It helped that the flight was a special one.
“I can’t tell you how great a day it was. It was amazing, an experience I will never forget,” Santine said.
They were two of the 93 veterans taking part in Operation HerStory’s all-women Honor Flight Oct. 6, an event designed to bring visibility and recognition to women U.S. military veterans from Illinois.
Macola used a variety of adjectives to describe the event: “fabulous, phenomenal, fun, exciting, poignant, emotional.”
“The women on the honor flight were all wonderful and every woman had a story,” she said. “The accomplishments of some of them were just awesome. And everything went so smoothly. The honor flight volunteers were so prepared, so well trained.”
Honor Flights are all-expenses-paid plane trips to Washington, D.C., that allow veterans to visit Arlington National Cemetery and military monuments in the nation’s capital. The flights are arranged by nonprofit organizations through the Honor Flight Network, a nonprofit started in 2005.
For Macola and Santine, the day started at 4 a.m. at Midway Airport. There they met each other for the first time, even though they have lived only a few blocks apart for many years.
They can thank a third Morgan Park neighbor for the trip, Elisabeth Pennix, a U.S. Navy Reserves commander and a judge with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, who also joined the flight. Pennix and Ginny Narsete of the U.S. Air Force began Operation HerStory to highlight women veterans. Their goal was to ensure that every eligible Illinois woman veteran who served between 1940 and 1975 was invited on an Honor Flight.
Pennix said Operation HerStory raised the funds to pay for the flight and recruited the participants, while Honor Flight handled the logistics.
“We asked them to put together a day of honor for a group of women so they would have an opportunity to bond with their ‘sisters in arms,’ since this rarely happens,” Pennix said.
There have been times, she said, when women veterans have even given up their Honor Flight seats to men.
Macola wasn’t sure about participating when she heard about the flight. She had not had many positive experiences with veteran activities, because they were basically a men’s club. At one, it was assumed she was the wife of a veteran. When she said she was the veteran herself, the men running the event didn’t know where to “put” her, she said.
She had an advanced degree in English when she enlisted in the mid-1970s and received a direct commission as a second lieutenant in the Army. She joined the Military Police Corps after basic training, something groundbreaking for a woman at the time. She was first in her MP class but, she said, she didn’t receive the honors usually awarded at graduation so attention would not be drawn to the fact that a woman had beaten out all the men in the class.
After her time in the Army, Macola had a career as an English teacher and has been active with several nonprofits such as Girl Scouting.
“This is something I have felt all along — the importance of doing something for someone else,” she said. “Service in the Army, in the Girl Scouts, puts you in a specific community with the same desire, the same motivation. There is something greater than me out there that I wanted to be part of,” said Macola; “I am very proud of my Army service, but as a veteran, I never fit in anywhere. This is something that applies to a number of women veterans.
“People just don’t care about our service.”
Santine said her sister talked her into applying for the Honor Flight. A nurse in the Air Force in the 1970s, Santine said she really had not been active in veteran activities since then.
She enlisted in the Air Force, becoming a captain, because she “wanted to help save lives.” For part of the time, she was stationed at a hospital in the Philippines where U.S. military personnel severely wounded in Vietnam were sent for specialty medical services.
“I always say it was the best awful job of my life.,” Santine said. “What made it special was not only working with the patients who were just grateful to be alive and cared for, but being a part of an overall organization that was helping people. It was having a family that watched over you and I liked that.”
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Her experience was somewhat different from other women in the military because it was medically oriented, she said, not driven as much by military procedure. She had the camaraderie and support of her sister nurses. After her military time, she continued working as a nurse in Chicago area hospitals.
For both Santine and Macola, their service came to an end when they had to choose between the military or marriage and motherhood. The two situations were not compatible for women in the 1970s.
“There were different rules then, and I am glad they are changed now. I really was up for a military career, but it was just not doable,” said Santine, who married and has four children. Macola married and has two children.
Both Macola and Santine had visited Washington, D.C., in the past but not all of the monuments were there then. They were most touched by the Military Women’s Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial adjacent to the National Mall.
Both women reported it was a more meaningful experience to visit the monuments with people who could relate to the emotions they were experiencing. Pennix said the all-women flight allowed them to open up in a way they could only do with their sister veterans.
Their Honor Flight experience also resulted in a new friendship for the two Morgan Park neighbors.
They were overwhelmed by the reception when they returned to Midway Airport as they were greeted by cheering friends and neighbors and escorted by military personnel.
“As military and a woman, it was nice to get that recognition. It made me feel like I did make a difference as a servicewoman,” Santine said.
“This honor flight made us realize, yes, we belong, our service mattered. I didn’t have to sit in the corner. None of us had to sit in the corner. We were all so proud of each other, listening to each other’s stories. I’d like to get together with all of these women again,” said Macola.
For Pennix, those thumbs-up review meant one thing.
“Mission accomplished,” she said. “And we’re going to continue our efforts. This opens the door.”
Carol Flynn is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.