Hilary Lithgow and Jane Lithgow

00:01 My name is Jane. Let's go. I'm 78 years old soon to be 79. Today's date is August 4th 2020.

00:14 I'm sitting in my home in Amherst Massachusetts. My partner is Hillary Edwards Lithgow who is my daughter-in-law?

00:29 And my name is Hillary Edwards Lithgow. I am 47 years old the date today is Tuesday, August 4th. 2020. I'm in Chapel Hill North Carolina at home. And the name of my recording partner is Jane artist Lithgow and she is my mother-in-law and yeah, I've been I've been wanting to have this conversation for a long time Jane because as you are very well aware whenever we talk about military stuff David always jumps into the conversation and he and I end up sitting at the dining room table for hours and a knife scales make you know, the fact that you also are a veteran gets gets kind of pushed to the side and the more I talk with veterans the more I realized that a lot of people have really complicated relationship with

01:29 Their own, you know with this notion of a veteran identity. So I'm just kind of curious about that and also curious about what it was like to be a woman serving when you did so I'm super excited to have a conversation and I guess if let's just start with how you told your friends and family that you were joining the military and if there are any conversations from that time that kind of stick out in your mind.

02:00 Sure, just to be clear. David is my husband.

02:14 Well when I joined it was in 1968. So it's like a hundred years ago in terms of what women in the military do however I would imagine to a certain extent what I did in the military is probably pretty similar, but with the reflection of what is happening in civilian nursing because it's much more high-tech. And so anyway, I was in the nurse Corps. I will have been practicing nursing for several years at the time. There were very few nurses who had master's degree, so I was boring

03:13 And in my graduate program at University of Washington, I had met two women who were currently in the Air Force.

03:25 And they couldn't say enough good things about their experience in the Air Force. They love their job. They love the opportunity and that was kind of in the back of my mind. And so I really want to change and

03:46 I just decided I was that's what I was going to experience. And of course in those days they were recruiting like crazy because of the Vietnam war in Vietnam.

04:03 And for the most part, I think the only time women were in Southeast Asia was that they were at either hospitals in Japan or the Philippine if they weren't medibac type. So we're going back and forth. What what did those women say that that made you so interested. I mean I gather the work you're doing felt boring to you. That's what you said. So I assume that whatever they were saying it wasn't boring. But what was it that they said that made you so convinced the Navy Air Force ones are good. What I was doing that was boring was I was teaching in a state college in Missouri, Kansas City.

04:46 That was boring.

04:50 So I want to do something more clinical.

04:56 They think they had opportunities to really practice. What is the time seem pretty independent because you had a lot of responsibility but on the other hand you could pretty much practice without a lot of

05:20 Direct supervision from medical from doctors

05:29 They were very creative. They were very empathetic. They were very jolly people. They were little bit older than I was there. Probably like he had travelled they had they were just anymore. So

05:48 They really felt like they could practice nursing the way they wanted to without being military requirements, you know, but and they were not practicing in their specialty necessarily.

06:18 And they were just as new to the military as we were as as the nurses were at the time and I found out just so, you know another example of how you can be.

06:30 You have a part in deciding Howard.

06:34 We're going to relate to patients and other Professionals in the healthcare field. And yeah, it wasn't like you were stepping into some place where the order was all said and and everybody already decided NBA felt kind of influx.

06:49 Yeah, other than you know, you have to wear your military uniform the right way and you did it was your family your friends. Surprise. Did everybody expect that you were going to join the military. How did they react?

07:12 I don't really remember specific times and places. I told people.

07:20 You know that I have a twin sister. So I just asked her a couple of days ago. Do you remember when I told you I was going to be in the military and what you thought and she said

07:32 I don't know. Did you tell me you were going to do that? She said I had no idea. I thought you were going to be like a Veterans Hospital taking care of. My mother is concerned with me having to drive by myself.

08:03 From Iowa for I was going to leave from my parents home to Wichita Falls, Texas and then drive across the country to Virginia where I was.

08:14 Being stationed. Do you remember that drive?

08:30 Yeah, I didn't think much of it was hot and then to you it seems like

08:44 That makes sense.

08:48 And then hot like when you got to basic training, like what were you expecting when you like after you joined when you first were sort of becoming part of the military machine, did you have any likes or the preconceptions about the military was or what the Air Force was do you remember?

09:07 Other than those women and I met in graduate school. I didn't really know any women specifically so my reference to basic training with a lot of rigorous.

09:21 Physical

09:25 So I would say

09:30 The majority of time was

09:35 Listening to weaken out the mission of the Air Force spending an inordinate amount of time getting measured for all kinds of uniforms and try putting on things and getting alter it in exactly.

09:55 Learning eneldo ranks in order and how you had to interact with people or not interact with our March people at basic training for doctors dentist and nurses with a big variety of people who somewhere very adept.

10:32 Related to military whatever is

10:41 We had a simulated airplane crash in the middle of the night and we had to among the flames and the smoke and whatever in the ground which turned out to be a disaster that the sergeants the next day just went crazy yelling.

11:05 And then we had to go into a large chance that was full of smoke and tear gas and really really hot inside when it's off.

11:22 What a syringe and give yourself an injection through your uniform at your leg. Well, I didn't find out hard at all again the sergeants who are crazy because it

11:42 Those are the only things that were related to what I might have thought we were going to be doing but that was

11:50 That was at the lake. What did it feel like to go out to the simulated plane crash like we did it just feel fake or did it feel scary?

12:04 It was after the fact of the scary knowing what a disaster the training event had been because I know they would say all you know, you spent 20 minutes on somebody who was basically never going to survive because I left and die when they should have

12:33 Triage them to take care of it is it was very surprising when the rest of the days have been pretty easy all of a sudden it's not like, you know, this is what you got to be ready for not just in a combat area. But you know anytime you got a lot of airplanes coming in and out of the base jobs at Langley. So, you know, it's scary. But what do you think of those things where they were going to yell at you? No matter what it didn't feel like it did feel like people have genuinely screwed up like did you

13:19 I just want to make the point that this was serious business, but then there was a lot of

13:26 Well, yeah, there's clearly a there's a lot of things I want to ask but I'll just jump ahead to this one for the moment. We talked a little bit about this, but I'm curious about your impression of sexism in the military and whether it seems like sort of the Power Balance between men and women was similar in the military compared to the civilian world at the time or whether things were better or worse. And yeah, just just how you experience that

14:02 I think because

14:05 Most of my time and my interactions with

14:11 Men and women wore in the hospital setting it probably was different then.

14:20 Across the base generally

14:26 Of course, there is a very clear distinction between officers and non-commissioned.

14:36 A lot of very young men who are the corpsman in the hospital setting.

14:47 So in a lot of sort of older older women time, I got to Langley you are an officer.

15:04 Yes, I ordered as a second lieutenant.

15:09 And because I had a higher degree than the average person within six months. I was promoted to Captain so, you know, it wasn't.

15:27 The people in hospital setting the doctors and nurses were sort of like a big family is so it was amazing how you sort of all of a sudden became very this is our territory last thing. I was like the job I didn't feel

15:48 Any sexism specifically

15:51 People I worked with that's not true. However

15:57 If you look at the Officers Club.

16:05 There were other female officers on a base of course and all kinds of other.

16:12 Ariat

16:17 But

16:20 You know David laughs and you looked annoyed is that Eddie stories from the Officers Club that stand out of any sort.

16:56 And they could you couldn't wear.

17:00 You can wear civilian clothes into the rest of the Officers Club, but

17:08 But you could not wear flight suits which is what the pilots would have a line when they were the SAG are which they thought I was like really cool and you know, nobody no women pilots around fireplace what I was interesting. You yeah, and I I wonder that newness that you were talking about how the doctors were, you know, also kind of new to the situation. I just wondered if that might have created you no opportunity for a more egalitarian situation like that. Absolutely no more about quote the military. Then the nurses did in terms of how they should interact with somebody that was higher than they were.

18:08 You know if you got somebody who outranks you was in the bed and you're the doctor, it's like, okay.

18:20 They didn't have to.

18:25 And I didn't have to deal with that I'd relationship and they didn't have a lot of clinical practice for the nurse and so they weren't all that great.

18:48 Managing some of the things are finding the right.

18:55 We're used to that interesting. So is maybe a place where the nurses like had more Authority than they would have been a civilian situation?

19:06 Message I got

19:10 Graduate school

19:18 United can't get friends of mine and

19:22 Did you ever see them with your in the military?

19:26 No.

19:27 I did not.

19:33 I think one was going to go to be a chief nurse.

19:38 Mabea

19:42 I think maybe it was some place in California.

19:47 The other one, I don't know where she probably getting.

20:01 If not a promotion in rank a promotion in their job that Mason's kind of this before but it occurs to me that if you were working in a kind of egalitarian situation kind of in the military if when you left the military you got, you know, you felt that you were going into a a worse situation. I mean like when you first started working and we can we can talk about other parts of your transition out of the military to but did you feel like you left some kind of gender heaven and went back to hell or was it not that simple

20:50 I did something that I didn't think I was going to be doing. I had applied for a position at NIH and I had been accepted into a program at Bethesda.

21:09 Which was part of it was clinical, but it included being on a horse a research team.

21:19 And

21:22 And that's what I was expecting to do, and then I didn't.

21:36 So

21:38 You know, I came back into it world. It was like totally different that I guess I didn't expect it to be the same.

21:47 A very short time and it's community hospital and then I took a clinical position.

21:57 Yeah, and I know from when we were talking that you didn't feel like you had a lot to say about about the transition out of the military, you know for a lot of veterans that's really hard and has like a really uncomfortable unexpectedly difficult transition, but for you you were saying it didn't really feel that that

22:24 I don't think it's I think I felt lost in you know, what I wanted to do. I had several good friends.

22:40 In the military nurses

22:46 And they went off in different directions one got out actually about six months after I did the other ones stayed in at Langley.

22:58 For a while, they both eventually got married and took completely different jobs one with a state program for Elder Care something witches.

23:14 Only difference she wasn't in a hospital setting.

23:20 So, you know I commiserated with him some but

23:25 And I just had a whole different life after that. So yeah, we're sort of it lighting the whole fact that you were engaged to somebody else who's in the military and they know we're just going to leave David out of this for the moment.

23:45 I got married and so, you know, you just sort of so I have a whole different life right after that.

23:53 Course

23:56 Yeah, if we have time at the end, I want to Circle back to your your first encounter with David family and the politics of the war. But given the time that we have. I'm going to hold that aside for the moment and ask you the two other questions. I really want to make sure we get in in the time we have and then if we have work, so overall top do you have thoughts about how your time in the military affected you like what you learned about yourself or do you think you'd be different if you hadn't served in the military?

24:31 Most likely I would be different.

24:38 You know, I

24:41 I knew I didn't want to do what my sisters were doing with which was you know, become a elementary school teacher living in Iowa. That wasn't really what I was.

24:57 At least you know when I when I was at age, that's not really what I want to do it all so I think I thought it would be

25:06 More interesting, but also, you know, I did things that I probably wouldn't have done before.

25:18 And

25:22 Yeah, I think I learned I had more confidence in myself and I

25:31 I really thought about it, but now I'm thinking about it. It seems like you know, I was

25:38 Find the one who is more reticent less outgoing less popular.

25:53 And she was always there around me. We were in from a small town and we were the twins.

26:03 You remember Judy reacting when you got out of the military?

26:11 Are you still there? You know the balance of power between you guys change like and she noted but we were certainly different people. Well, I would hope that if you both got the same Christmas present that you would get to open yours first.

26:35 I know but you told me a little bit about the kind of exercise you volunteered for just so we can have it recorded for posterity. The the one with the the depressurized plane. Can you tell that story?

27:14 Sure, I think a lot of the reason that they offered people out at Langley they offer people in the hospital.

27:23 Doctors and nurses to go to San Antonio on preacher was

27:30 In this chamber where you could

27:35 See what it was like to be in a Medevac kind of airplane and bringing people back to the US from Southeast Asia. And so react behaving can you in it be pressurised situation? So so I went with a group of people from the hospital doctors.

28:15 And

28:20 After after some talk about the plane itself and whatever is in they made you take off your mask and it was depressurize and you were supposed to be able to do activities. That would not only protect yourself and whatever but take in the mindful as much as you could tell they do oxygen or whatever for the people that were caring for and it was really interesting to see that the nurses as a whole lot better than the doctors. Do I have and how should I breathe? No, it was like, okay. We know that in my mind. It was like, you know, I know we're not going to die in the simulator experience.

29:18 And I could write I can you know do whatever and I was like, okay, I probably can do this if I had to.

29:32 And I think all those kinds of experiences.

29:39 Make you look at yourself a little bit differently. Yeah.

29:44 I didn't get panic the Bingo sings in the in the

29:49 No, oxygen situation or the tear gas situation or the

29:55 I'm sterile techniques that you had to do. What am I?

30:02 And do you think it was discovering that you could do it or discovering other people couldn't do it that made the difference or both?

30:12 I saw that.

30:18 I think it was North reflecting on what I could do.

30:22 Were you surprised?

30:26 I was surprised I even did it. What do you mean you volunteered you were surprised?

30:39 You have to do these kinds of things I would have said.

30:45 I think.

30:48 I don't know.

30:49 I was surprised I did or not looking back on it seems like I wasn't the type. That would be the time I

30:59 I know I want to do it when I was there. I want to try it. I can say knowing you as I do that you're certainly I'm not surprised you could do it like the person who I know is definitely the person I'd rely on to depressurized plane. Not not not your mom and and Ruby and that whole tradition of women getting on with it and doing 10 million things. Well and with no fuss, I wonder if that had some some roles to play and in your

31:39 You know, it's a long time ago. It really is. It's like a totally different world.

31:45 Yeah, well good.

31:52 You know, we had three three boys are all pretty close in age. And now I have a son who's 42 and he has two children and he has said to me over and over and over again. I don't know how you raised three boys, you know.

32:10 And it's it's different, you know.

32:15 The different world

32:21 Well, you you you teach us all a lot about getting on with it. Don't worry about the sterilize procedure.

32:32 Well, the the last person I want to make sure we get to talk about is you know, I think sounds a little different after this conversation. But I whenever I've asked you and we talked about this about military stuff. You said that you that you don't think of yourself as a veteran and I always wondered why that is.

32:59 Well

33:01 I think that I didn't really make.

33:06 A big difference in terms of the military goals at the time. I wasn't sitting in

33:16 Cancer hospital or whatever were there was stolen during going on, you know, the mission of the war and all that and I know what they told us, you know.

33:33 The mission that you have this is to the doctors and nurses, you know is to support the pilots and their mission. Well, okay, but

33:46 I think I think she's thinking about being a

33:52 Veteran you needed to be somehow a soldier. I didn't think about it that much and I hear this term about combat veterans and then everybody else about your own status is of a trainer.

34:31 I'm not sure does really.

34:36 I understand it.

34:39 I understand what they're talking about, but I don't think

34:46 Yeah, that makes sense.

34:49 You certainly understand something about the military that civilians don't but that's different than calling yourself a veteran.

34:57 Yeah, I mean they're there were it seemed to me like there were a lot of places a lot of times in my experience where the military people were pretty much one big family kind of person, you know, you could sort of feel that

35:16 No matter who was identify.

35:24 I didn't know there was like, you know or one of you after you get out of the military, if you came across other people who had served you felt connected automatic Bond kind of kind of thing like true. Just people in the Air Force or just for nurses or really

35:45 I think it was true. But you had some sort of I don't know Lottery some sort of identity with the Air Force's at a smaller.

36:03 Like the hospital group as compared to those who didn't try.

36:20 Yeah, and did it ever come up in day-to-day life at all. Now that kind of camaraderie or that does that ever get touched off?

36:28 Well, it's interesting because I have a group of friends that I that different setting in New York City and there were several military.

36:42 Veterans, okay combat veterans and whatever is no women royalty to the Army which was

37:02 And different from being in the Air Force identify yourself as having served.

37:19 In those conversations like do they know those Madness Combat veterans that you were also in the Air Force?

37:30 Because David So subtle and quiet.

37:35 But it didn't really you didn't you didn't feel like you had to get into a contest with them about your military affiliation.

37:43 And one of them actually said to me that you know, you were really the first person first one officer that I've really ever talked to.

37:53 Well, they picked a good one.

37:58 I don't know how that could be that he would say maybe he was just oblivious. You talk too many and never noticed before. All right. Well, I think we're towards the end of our time. So I'm just going to say thank you for agreeing to do this in the middle of the night after I was so excited about hearing about storycorps and and that it's been really great to have this conversation with you. I don't think we've ever talked about this stuff and how long we known each other.

38:29 Since you were so I'd say, you know any day we get to open up new conversation after that many years is a good day.

38:44 It is it is.

38:48 Misrepresent

38:53 My experience because all in all it was a good one. I think that comes across pretty pretty strongly and changes my view because I always attributed your can-do spirit to your your female relatives. I think that's probably my you know, my indoctrinated feminism. So I just assumed it was your mom and grandma Ruby taught you to be the way you are and now I think the military played a role in it to mother and grandmother. I wonder I would wonder what they would make of this conversation.

39:38 I have no idea you have to sell any quilts in the military, but I'm not sure it's that different.

39:45 Alright, well, thank you again Jane. And yeah, we're going to have this for the for the posterity.

39:54 Me, too. Thank you.