Alice Acker and Zachary Acker

[00:03] ALICE ACKER: Years old. Today is Tuesday, September 14, 2021. I'm coming to you from Bainbridge Island, Washington, which is a suburb of Seattle. My partner's name today is Zach and he's my son.

[00:20] ZACHARY ACKER: Hi. Thank you. My name is Zachary ZACH Acker. I'm 30 years old. It's September 14, 2021. I am joining this recording from the beautiful University of Washington located in Seattle. And I am excited to hear your story, mom, about your time in the military and your relationships with me and dad and my sister. So first question I had was kind of open because it's something I chose because I heard it to our household growing up a lot and something that I think has had a profound effect on my own development and understanding of your time in the armed services. And it's helped me to kind of like come to terms with some, some of like the ways you are. So I've heard you say a lot. The best decision you ever made was joining the military because you met dad and were able to start a family while you're in the service. You always back that up. You vehemently back that up with the second best decision you ever made was knowing when to get out. And I want to know, like, when did you come to this conclusion and if it still holds true today?

[01:58] ALICE ACKER: That's a great question. And I didn't realize I said it as much as I do. The best decision I ever made is because I straight out of graduate school and looking for a career and the Air Force was it for me. I came in as a commissioned officer and as a lieutenant. They sent me to the Bay area of San Francisco. I'd never been to the west coast before. I got exposed to job responsibilities that at 27, I don't think I would have had in the civilian world. I had a large staff. I had nine warehouses, a huge budget. I was responsible for as the medical logistics officer for the third largest medical center in the Air Force. And not only was it day to day operations, but I also managed all of the contingency warehouses in the event we went to war. So that was pretty cool. And I met some pretty cool people and saw pretty cool stuff, including meeting your father, who was in the Navy. I met him while I was on vacation in Hawaii. The reason I say that the second best decision was leaving was because I had started a family. Right. In order to get home from my deployment, Desert Storm. When dad was deployed, I was deployed. There was no caregiver for you. It all fell through. I had to resign my commission and that's something I take seriously. My commission meant a lot to me. It was my identity. And when I resigned my commission, I did it with the understanding that I would never have to deploy again and never be faced with having to leave you or, in the future, Rachel, your sister, behind.

[03:51] ZACHARY ACKER: Interesting decision that you had to have made, because the choice is so obvious if you have to. Well, to me, it's obvious. If you have to choose career over family, it should always be family. But when you identify so strongly with your job, that's almost an identity crisis is what that decision led to. I'm happy you chose your family.

[04:14] ALICE ACKER: Thank you.

[04:15] ZACHARY ACKER: I am, too. And I wasn't planning on saying this, but I think growing up in a household where both of my parents were officers, just for context, you were in the Air Force, and dad retired from the United States Navy. So I grew up in this household where both of my parents had these really illustrious careers before, like, I came into consciousness. So maybe I was around at the beginning or I was around at the end of your career, but I've got very, very, very limited memory on Dad's time in the Navy and none in your time in the Air Force. So I grew up in this household that I knew. Both my parents were military and identified strongly with their military background, but it was never something I experienced firsthand, except for, like, healthcare or going on base to take care of grocery shopping. There's always that connection, but never really a strong identity. And so I guess I got a taste for it, but was never as immersed. And it kind of led me throughout my life to if there ever was any issue regarding the military. I had this really unique perspective of saying, like, I grew up in this environment. I'm very familiar with this environment. I know I can, with my Department of Defense dependence card, get onto any US Base and instantly find someone that can help me if I ever need anything. It was this amazing social net that you and dad provided for me and Rachel.

[05:59] ALICE ACKER: Well, I think we kind of made some jokes about it, too. I can remember there was a big storm coming, and Dad's kind of a slob. Actually, not kind of. He is a slob. And this big storm was coming, and all of a sudden he started filling the bathtubs up and started getting all this stuff cleaned out of the garage in an hour. Right, right. And we said, oh, my God, Dad's going into military mode. So I think even though you maybe your exposure was, as you say, going to the commissary or having that little ID card or staying at the halakoa. You still saw it in mom and dad, the way that we performed, punctuality, some of the precision that was military carrying over.

[06:45] ZACHARY ACKER: My dad's name is Jamie for the listeners out there. Yeah, there's this weird, like military mode in your trainings. Like there's very like things that you do day to day, which is very structured like an officer, just the way you will communicate to a stranger. But then there's these weird like moments of crisis that happen because of like a storm or, you know, whatever. And all the training comes through like instant.

[07:14] ALICE ACKER: I was the readiness officer. I can't help it. That's just the way it is. I'm ready. I'm ready.

[07:21] ZACHARY ACKER: So I gu. We've got the Air Force to thank for that. So it's 2021. President Biden has just pulled out of Afghanistan. We've been at war there for 20 years. That's an entire generation. There's children or there's soldiers that served in Afghanistan that weren't alive during September 11th attacks. That's so much time. And I think there's just such a disconnect between American society as a whole and what the military is about and what they're committed to. So what is something you think every American civilian needs to know or should know about those that serve in the armed forces?

[08:11] ALICE ACKER: I'm going to go a little bit bigger picture on that because that's kind of, kind of what I do. I think the Israelis have it right when they say that the military is the great equalizer, that once you've been in the military, we're all the same. I mean, I will talk to someone who is the lowest rank or someone who is the highest rank or was the lowest or was the highest. And we're all the same. We share that military experience. We share the personal sacrifice that again, I left you when you were three months old. We share that. And I think that it's lacking in a lot of current people that are very selfish. I mean, I hate to say the 23 year olds or the X's or the wise or whatever, but if you have not given as profoundly as we've given and people have given their lives as, you know, and their limbs and everything and there's as of their spouses, if you have not been part of that, I think there's a certain selfishness that you have. And I think that my sisters and brothers that served in Afghanistan and perish in Afghanistan, I would go up and give them a giant hug because they're My family. Right. And I don't think there's other people out there. I have a friend who's very, very into naval aviation. Oh, I just love naval Asian aviation. Well, did you surf? Well, no, I was busy doing other things. I'm not really military. Well, you know what? Sorry, you can't have that. You're not entitled to it. I earned it.

[09:48] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah, I earned it.

[09:49] ALICE ACKER: Yeah. Yeah.

[09:52] ZACHARY ACKER: You, Drew made an interesting point about, like an equalizer. And like, I'll say lightheartedly, you know, just because of the way I worked when I was in college and stuff, but I'll say lightheartedly, like, everyone needs to work in customer service. Everyone needs to work in food industry or retail for at least a year. So you can just understand how terrible people can be sometimes. But to take that a step further and say, no, that not just, you know, customer service or retail or service industry, but to go into social services or the armed service, I think that's right on. And when I talk with young Israelis, too, they're 22, 23, just going into college because they just had this national unifying experience of serving in the armed service. And, you know, it's. Most everyone does it there and they all come out with a shared experience and it creates a homogeneity, if that's a word in the society that is really only, you know, benefit. It benefits the collective. Everyone goes through it together. So I agree.

[11:14] ALICE ACKER: You kind of lose your identity, right, because you're given clothes to where you're told, where you're going to work. You have your own language. I mean, we have a very specific language, even telling time, know, 2300. What is that, 11:00pm but we have our own way. So in a way, you know, again, being an officer, it's not the same as someone who went through boot camp and was stripped. You know, I was a direct commission. I had two and a half weeks basically living in a. In a hotel with maid service. That was my indoctrination into the military. It was called Mimzo. Military indoctrination for medical service office. Yeah, right.

[11:51] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah.

[11:52] ALICE ACKER: But, yeah, we had made service the whole thing. So I can't, you know, say that my identity was totally stripped. Like it would have been someone who had their head shaved and whatnot, you know, at Paris Island. But definitely, you know, we did feel that we were part of a greater whole. And even, you know, when patriotic music comes on, even to this day, when I. When I hear the national anthem at a storm basketball game, I stand right of course I stand.

[12:15] ZACHARY ACKER: I salute two punches at this guy at the 4th of July parade. Do you remember that?

[12:21] ALICE ACKER: Like, I do, I do.

[12:22] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah. There's. He was. There's this drunk son of a gun, I think, cussing at the American flag or something during the national anthem. And. And I can't remember where dad was, but we were right in front of the cafe there. And you. You let him have it during the national anthem. And if I remember correctly, he put his head down and walked away. Because nothing defeats the drunk like shame, right?

[12:50] ALICE ACKER: But, yeah, people, we have the liberties we have. We can have a beer at a Mariner's game because people died for us. People fought for our liberty, you know, back to 1776. So I take it seriously. And I know the people that have. I mean, I remember I worked at Madigan Army Medical center as a contractor, and I remember seeing people coming back with sand on their shoes still, that were patients in our hospital, and you knew where that sand was from, and you saw it in their eyes. So, yeah, it's. It's. It's the great unifier. And I think that we all need to give back. John F. Kennedy was right when he said, ask not what you can do for your country. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

[13:38] ZACHARY ACKER: I'm actually. I'm reading a book on JFK right now. It's very, very interesting. We're in the Air Force. Air Force for eight years and got. And resigned your commission when you were a captain. But what is the main thing, retrospectively, that you learned about yourself from your time there?

[14:04] ALICE ACKER: I remember hopping in a car in New Jersey. Believe it or not, I am a New Jersey girl, which you all know and. Or will know by as I keep talking. But I hopped in my little Honda and drove cross country and pulled up at this base with these people in uniform. And I'd never been to a base like you. I knew my dad was in World War II and served in the Philippines, but I was like, wow, I could pull into this base and start a whole new life. I'm a lot stronger than I thought I was because I was alone. I started it alone. And I would say probably within about three hours, I met my roommate and we became dear friends. You've met Dawn. We're friends to this day. She. She introduced dad and I. And so, anyhow, yeah, it was. So I learned that I could do a lot of stuff. I could do a lot.

[14:59] ZACHARY ACKER: That was like a first. Like, first day on the Job, like, okay, you're on your own. Totally came to that. You came to that realization that like self awareness and independence, like right off.

[15:10] ALICE ACKER: The bat, no choice. I had no choice.

[15:13] ZACHARY ACKER: Right. Thank you.

[15:16] ALICE ACKER: I guess I could have gotten in a car and driven back to New Jersey, but that probably wouldn't have been such a good idea. Leaving was a good thing.

[15:24] ZACHARY ACKER: I think that sense of independence and self reliance is like driven a lot of your decision making in your adult life. How when you got out, like it was a very obviously, like you were going back into civilian life and you wanted to focus on your family. But what is something that you did to help you readjust? And would you recommend it to other service members transitioning into civilian life? Like, did you have a coping mechanism or some way to kind of ease the transition?

[16:02] ALICE ACKER: Well, it was kind of interesting. I wanted to focus on you and Rachel. But on the other hand too, I still had this tremendous guilt for leaving the military. So what I found is my first job as a civilian was working at Kapilani Medical center in Hawaii. And how I think I got that job was the woman who hired me. Her dad had been a colonel in the Air Force and she knew that what I came from my structure. So I think that I never totally let go of it. I mean, I, you know, I get my care at the va, I've got my buddies from the Air Force I'm still friends with. So I never, of course, you know, dad is military, so I never let go of it. So I can't say I totally did transition. I would say that once it's part of you, it's always part of you. But do I wish that I had stayed in? Yeah. If I didn't have you and Rachel, I would have stayed in. But that was more important to me. I didn't want to want to sacrifice your lives by, you know, leaving you. And I knew it wasn't fair.

[17:08] ZACHARY ACKER: I think that hits the nail on the head too. Like you never fully leave. There's always some part of you, some part of your identity that is so strongly attached to that time because of either training or in day to day life in the military, you're never really fully to exit even after your commission ends.

[17:31] ALICE ACKER: And I was like 27, right. So I was in my mind young. Yes. There's people that are 18 when they go in, or 17. But in my mind professionally, you know, I was 27. I'd gone through graduate school, I'd done in a residency, so I was young. Sounds like you're having A big party there at University of Washington.

[17:50] ZACHARY ACKER: No, it's nursing students.

[17:54] ALICE ACKER: I understand. I want to talk about leaving you and all of those things.

[17:59] ZACHARY ACKER: Oh, I want to. I can. We can. I've got two other questions that I really want to get.

[18:05] ALICE ACKER: Sure.

[18:05] ZACHARY ACKER: And then we can dive into family, because that's the bulk we've been doing. We have 30 minutes left. Also, if the background noise gets too loud, let me know. It's a pandemic. But still, slowly, students are coming back into the hospital. Okay. I wanted to know, like, what is one thing you miss terribly about the military and what is one thing that you don't miss at all?

[18:32] ALICE ACKER: Well, I can start with what I don't miss and I didn't miss. Sounds familiar. Again. Leaving. Leaving my family. And that was pretty painful, not having a backup plan to have for you. We can talk about that later. What I miss is. I don't know, the secret language. I've never been in a sorority, but you have a secret language, a certain way of communicating, a shared expectation. You know, we all. A sense of honor. I mean, those are things. It's interesting. I had an interview at University of Washington, which I ended up getting the job. And they asked me, what is one thing you don't like? And I said, I don't like people who lie. And I mean that to this day because basically, you're taught not to lie. And it torments me that you know about that, because that's a sense of altruism that you learn, and it torments me when I can't. So, yeah.

[19:44] ZACHARY ACKER: Got a couple questions about joining the military. Both you and Dad's parents or father served. Dad's dad was in the merchant marine. And your dad.

[19:55] ALICE ACKER: Grandpa.

[19:56] ZACHARY ACKER: Sorry. Yeah.

[19:57] ALICE ACKER: Your grandpa was in the Navy on that side, maybe.

[19:59] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah. And then your dad, Harry, was telecommunications from the army in the Philippines. So when, I guess, when you decided to join the Air Force, was that a decision that Grandpa helped make? Was he a part of that? And if not, how did he react when you told him that's what you were going to do?

[20:22] ALICE ACKER: That's a good question. So I grew up kind of in a military mode, too, that whenever I would need money, I'd have to fill out requisition forms for my father to tell him what I needed money for and what I was going to use it with.

[20:35] ZACHARY ACKER: With.

[20:37] ALICE ACKER: And so I kind of grew up in that mindset. But I think when I decided to get commission, my mom, you know, Grandma and grandpa were living in Portugal. That's where they Retired to. So it wasn't like we didn't have FaceTime. We weren't able to talk, we weren't able to communicate much. So I was on independent operations most of the time. So when I told them that I was going to Shepherd Air Force Base for my training, I think that they were actually pretty pleased. And the thing that they were pleased about was I was coming in as an officer. I wasn't coming in as an enlisted. My dad was enlisted. And they were, they were proud of that. In fact, that's probably the most proud. Proud of me they've ever been. I think, you know, all this other stuff that I've done, some pretty kick butt stuff, I don't think that they're nearly as proud that I came in as an officer. You know, that was the big deal.

[21:32] ZACHARY ACKER: That's kind of puzzling.

[21:34] ALICE ACKER: Terribly puzzling. I know, I know.

[21:39] ZACHARY ACKER: So I had a similar experience in 2007 when I was thinking about enlisting or joining ROTC. And I remember you and D, you and dad were supportive of me pursuing that career path. But I'm curious, like, what kind of side conversations you had or behind the scenes conversations you had? When I was going through that process.

[22:12] ALICE ACKER: Basically, Zach, you had eczema and eczema again.

[22:17] ZACHARY ACKER: Well, they told me to lie. They told me to lie about that.

[22:19] ALICE ACKER: That was it. They told you a lie about that other recruiter. And I knew that if you had eczema and you were trying to get a good SEAL on a gas mask in a chemical or biological warfare situation, I knew that that was. It was not good. You could die. And so I was not pleased with the whole recruiting process, so. And you also were looking at army because you wanted more combat stuff. And of course dad and I, not Army. So it was your decision, however you wanted to go. But to be honest, when that recruiter told you to lie, and I actually did call the recruiter, you might remember this, and kind of dressed him down the same way I did with that guy on July 4, saying, what is this? You know, how dare you tell my son to lie? What kind of honor is that? I know you have your quota numbers. I know all this stuff, but this is. This is not. This is not right. And at that point, even though I resigned my commission, I quote, unquote, pooled rank and went totally into military mode, and I think he was actually kind of happy with when you pulled your paperwork.

[23:28] ZACHARY ACKER: So anyhow, another thing, because this is in 2007 at the height of the Iraq surge, and he asked me Why I was scared to join the army. And I said I wasn't. I don't need this anymore because some other things that happened. And he said, well, we want people that want to serve their country, not for college benefits. And I asked him, well, then why is there a $23,000 signing bonus right now? But anyway, that's neither here nor there. So you, You. You. You joined Air force in the 80s, kind of like during the time 84. Okay, so Reagan was in office. Correct. Defeating Gorbachev, we're outspending the Russians, kicking their butts. What made you pick the Air Force and what was like, the main benefit that was appealing to you was because you knew you'd get a sense of independence, or was it something more?

[24:23] ALICE ACKER: I'm going to tick people off with this one. Just because the Air Force is the best. It's clear and simple is the best, you know, I knew it. And I remember talking to a Navy recruiter. I said, why? And I was just playing them against each other, right? And I said, why should I join the Navy? And she says, well, first of all, we have cuter uniforms, and second of all, we have better duty stations. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm not joining the military for cuter uniforms. Then, as a tribute to Grandpa, I called the Army. And this is again, before the Internet. Hard to believe that there was a time before the Internet. And they transferred me about five times and finally disconnected me. And I'm like, well, that's all. Yeah, Air Force was the right thing. So the Air Force took me to Washington, D.C. they treated me like a human. They made me feel valuable, not just a piece of. Of meat. So that's why I joined the Air Force.

[25:18] ZACHARY ACKER: Put you up in a hotel, you understand, barracks. I'm not even going to ask about training or boot camp because it was probably in the Four Seasons.

[25:25] ALICE ACKER: Well, the Four seasons of the weather, but not the hotel. Yeah.

[25:29] ZACHARY ACKER: Okay. Okay, Fast forward to 87, I think. Is that when you met dad or 86?

[25:40] ALICE ACKER: I met dad in 85 and married him in 87.

[25:45] ZACHARY ACKER: 85. Okay. So you met dad on vacation while you were in California. You went to Pearl harbor with Don. And can you tell the story of how you met him? Because I have. I have a version, but sure like it on record.

[26:04] ALICE ACKER: So one of the cool things is we could fly anywhere we wanted for $10 space available, and that included an MRE, a meal ready to eat that they would serve you as your airline food. And so I went over on a C141, which was a cargo plane with dawn. And we had no idea. We were just wanted a vacation. Hawaii, never been. Right. So the last night in Hawaii we didn't know where we're going to stay and we just said, oh, let's go to Pearl Harbor. And we pull into the bachelor's officer quarters and for $4 we got a beautiful ocean front room into swimming pool, hot tub. What else? What else could we want? We were single.

[26:47] ZACHARY ACKER: This is the officers quarters. This wasn't the Hale.

[26:50] ALICE ACKER: No, Pearl. Yeah, yeah.

[26:53] ZACHARY ACKER: This is overlooking Ford Island, I think sub base.

[26:57] ALICE ACKER: So anyhow.

[26:58] ZACHARY ACKER: Oh, okay, okay.

[26:59] ALICE ACKER: So there were submarines all over and we're thinking, oh, this is really cool. Ah. Giggling. Last night in Hawaii and Dawn went off somewhere and I decided I was going to do laundry. That was another thing. They had free laundry facilities. So I was doing the laundry and they had this machine and the machine was a beer machine. Pardon me. Whoops. A soda machine. And it had beer in it. Weirdest darn thing. I'd never seen anything like this. Yeah, soda machine. And there were signs all over that said no submarine photography allowed. No submarine photography allowed. So I had my, my 35 millimeter camera again, no iPhones. And I surreptitiously was going to take a picture of this beer machine because it's like, this is really kind of cool. But I also knew there were all these signs that said no photography. So I'm getting ready to take the picture of the, of the beer machine and your dad comes by and goes, who are you? What are you doing? And I thought, oh my goodness, I'm going to be arrested and you know, trying to take a picture of this beer machine. So anyhow, push comes to shove, dawn comes back from wherever she was and she's a happy go lucky Texan. Hi y'all. Why come up to our room? We've got some wine and some this. So yeah, that's how I met your father. And then we just, we wrote letters after that.

[28:14] ZACHARY ACKER: And there you go, laundry too. What the. What the heck was he doing there?

[28:18] ALICE ACKER: Oh, he was trying to pay his bill. He just happened to walk by and I got. I was very paranoid and the door was open, but no, he wasn't doing his laundry. So anyhow, that's my story. It's very, very strange story.

[28:30] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah. What? So whatever. After having wine, why did you decide to write dad letters back?

[28:41] ALICE ACKER: I decided because, I don't know, he was a nice guy, he was cute, I liked him. And then he sent me a letter right around July 4th. And I remember. And he said, I know a heap. Heap h e a p about birds. I'm like, well, that's kind of cool because I was a botanist undergraduate. So, you know, that was kind of what nailed what nailed it for me. So on our third date, he actually sent me a check for $3,000 right after the third date and said, meet me in Hong Kong. I want to buy you a stone. So I thought, this is kind of cool. So I take some of the $3,000, go to Hong Kong to meet him to buy a stone, which I suspected was an engagement ring. And he wasn't there because they did real op missions. He was off chasing Russians somewhere in his submarine. But anyhow, bottom line is, yeah, we eventually got together, and I get to hold that over his head that he stood me up in Hong Kong.

[29:37] ZACHARY ACKER: Philippines. Didn't you, like, figure something out? I did.

[29:41] ALICE ACKER: I did. I did. I figured out where their. Where their upkeep was and that they would be in the Philippines. Philippines. And I was able to get on a training mission from Hong Kong to the Philippines with some air force people that I bumped into and ended up then seeing him in the Philippines. It was a long story that's longer than the StoryCorps version. I can tell you about it sometime.

[30:06] ZACHARY ACKER: Around the world. So what advice would you have to other military couples then? Trying to make it work joints, two.

[30:17] ALICE ACKER: Different services is impossible. So that's what I would say. You have to make a decision what you want to do. It's very, very hard.

[30:25] ZACHARY ACKER: When did you and dad decided after you got married, when did you decide you wanted to have children?

[30:32] ALICE ACKER: After the air force endocrinologist told me I'd never, never be able to have children because I had a hormone imbalance. And I said, well, I'm going to prove it to you, buddy. So I had two kids. So as right after he told me.

[30:44] ZACHARY ACKER: That you were pregnant with me when Gulf War one started, how did you find out you were deployed? Like, were you still going to work when you were eight months pregnant? How did that news unfold?

[31:01] ALICE ACKER: I was on maternity leave at the very end, and the war was escalating at the time, and I had been promoted to a lieutenant colonel position in a new unit, even though I was a captain and I really didn't know the people, it was at that point I was reserves, Zach. I went from active to reserves, and they kept assuring me, oh, you're really good operationally, you know, don't worry. We're always going to keep you on the States, we need you here to support. To back. Support. Backfill us, I guess, is what it was. Or support us. And I went out, you know, I had you, and you were a C section. And, you know, I'd lost two babies before you, and I went through a lot of intense infertility treatments to have you. And I kept being told by this new unit, don't worry, we're going to keep you stateside. You're fine. And I get a phone call. It's sort of like. And was no caller id. It's like you kind of wonder. You get this call. And I knew in my gut. And they said, you're deploying tomorrow. So I had. I had 12 hours. And you were breastfeeding at the time.

[32:12] ZACHARY ACKER: Yeah. That's unimaginable to think that, like, as established as the military is that there is no, like, SOP in place to protect new mothers from deploying. Not only deploying, but supporting combat missions.

[32:28] ALICE ACKER: Well, there is now. Now it's one year. And I'd like to think I made a dent in that because I wrote a letter to Dick Cheney, who was Secretary of Defense at the time, saying that a lactating woman does not make a good airman, soldier, sailor, whatever. You know, there's a lot of. It wasn't necessarily my, you know, a choice that I wouldn't be good, but you have this hormonal stuff going on. I mean, you have your.

[32:53] ZACHARY ACKER: You're.

[32:53] ALICE ACKER: You're lactating. And some of the gals that were deployed with me, there were two other ones that also had brand new babies. And remember, this one gal was from the south, and her grandmother took these old bed sheets and wrapped them around her breast really tightly so she wouldn't develop mastitis was a real issue. And so she went to Cheney before you went? No, I went when I was there. I went when I was there.

[33:18] ZACHARY ACKER: Okay, okay.

[33:20] ALICE ACKER: And saying this is not right. And again, no email. So everything was snail mail. Right. So I had to write letters and just hope that they would get to him.

[33:28] ZACHARY ACKER: And then you eventually wrote Senator Inouye, Hawaii, and she was the politician who was able to. Well, you resigned. So how did that letter unfold and what was the outcome of writing to your state senator?

[33:44] ALICE ACKER: Well, what happened is when I was in Ramstein is where I ended up going to. To Germany, which, again, is a weird thing because my family are Holocaust survivors and my dad was born in Berlin. So not only am I kind of in a depressed mode, but I'm also in Germany, which Made it kind of rough. And anyhow, when I was there, dad had set up so that his mother, Mary would come and babysit you again. You were three months old. And Mary decided after two weeks. And actually she had a return ticket, which I didn't know that. No, she really wasn't staying the whole time, even though she signed all these things to the military. She only was coming for two weeks. And so. And dad was getting ready to deploy to the North Pole in a submarine. So there's a panic, right? There's a panic. What do I do? What do I do? So I ended up writing a letter to Dick Cheney, as I said. And I also wrote concurrently to Daniel Inouye, who, for those of you that don't know, Daniel Noe was a war hero in World War II. He was part of the Hawaiian 442nd. Exactly. And he lost an arm. And he went on to have an illustrious career as a senator, in fact, the senior senator from Hawaii. And I wrote to him, and I remember watching him during the Watergate hearings. And I always had a thing for him. I thought he was really incredibly brilliant and kind. And. And I wrote to him as a war hero and said, here I'm in Germany. My kid, my baby. I don't know what I'm going to do. I was sent to California with the understanding that I would resign my commission. They would send me home if I'd resigned my commission. So I went to California. In the meantime, you're in Hawaii. And dad flew to California, basically put you in my arms. I hadn't seen you forever. I barely recognized you. I remember you had a really nasty diaper rash. He said, okay, I gotta go now because I'm deploying tomorrow. So he hopped on a plane back to Hawaii. Luckily, your mom is resourceful, and a lot of this is my military training. I was able to find a friend of her friend's mom who could take care of you. So until I was able to separate, and then I separated, and then eventually dad came off of his deployment medicine, California.

[36:13] ZACHARY ACKER: So social net in place.

[36:16] ALICE ACKER: Yeah, but I'm glad you asked about that. I still, to this day think you have eczema because you went straight from bottle of breast to bottle. And I feel guilty every time I look at when you have skin issues, that it's my fault. And there's still some vestigial things that there was a lack of bonding and I'm sorry for that. And hopefully this interview is. Is giving you some insight into what mom went through and getting us closer I think.

[36:40] ZACHARY ACKER: I think it has. And we can always project that frustration on old Dick Cheney.

[36:45] ALICE ACKER: We can.

[36:48] ZACHARY ACKER: We have a few minutes remaining. I've got some questions about the military today and con and I want to compare and contrast that to your experience. But do you think that the overall mission of the United States military today is. Is the same as it was when you were serving, or is it different? And personally, how would you define enemies of the Constitution, foreign and domestic?

[37:12] ALICE ACKER: You're getting me into my thinking mode and now I'm kind of drained out. It's the same. The military is the same. Okay. Things have changed. As far as open homosexuality is new. As far as more acceptance. I guess in a lot of ways those things have changed. In our days, I knew some same sex people that had remained closeted. You would see like this woman drop off this other woman around the corner and I'd see her walking up to the hospital and the other one was driving and then they'd pretend that they hadn't seen each other. I mean, we knew it. We knew it existed and we knew that the people were there, but they were closeted. So I've seen that openness and for that I'm thankful because they were nurses and they were amazing nurses. So. But I think as far as the missions go and as far as what's in our hearts, we're still the same. And it's been that way.

[38:04] ZACHARY ACKER: The theme that I've gotten from this conversation is just the overall sense of tradition and the continual, the continual, like, sense of really strong identity is the stretches generations. Yep. And there are definitely challenges on an individual level. We like to think that the military takes care of us. Certainly it takes care of its soldiers better now than when it did with you when you're having me. But thank you so much for that answer. Kind of caused more questions which we can follow up on.

[38:42] ALICE ACKER: We'll talk about it some other time. Okay. But I thank you for taking time out from your busy day, taking care of, of COVID patients and carrying on the healthcare mission. Yes, thank you.

[38:57] ZACHARY ACKER: Thank you.