Laura Slattery and Alex Lyon
Description
Laura Slattery (47) interviewed by Alex Lyon (28) about working for a homeless shelter and nonprofit called the Gubbio Project, growing up in Los Angeles, CA and attending Catholic school, her service in the Medical Service Corps in Hawaii, working in Mexico during the Salvadoran Civil War, protesting the School of the Americas and getting arrested, spending three months in prison, and studying non-violence.Subject Log / Time Code
Participants
- Laura Slattery
- Alex Lyon
Recording Locations
St. Anthony FoundationVenue / Recording Kit
Tier
Partnership
Partnership Type
OutreachInitiatives
Keywords
Subjects
Places
Transcript
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00:05 My name is Alex Lyon. I am 28 years old today is April 9th 2013. I am at the leasing Anthony foundation in a quiet little room and I am sitting here with Laura and Laura and I are both we both work in the in the tenderloin in in different capacities at them right across the street from each other.
00:36 And my name is Laura Slattery and I'm 47. And today's date is April 19th, April 9th. Sorry 2013. We are at st. Anthony foundation in San Francisco.
00:51 And I'm talking with Alex and we are Partners in the work with are on house brothers and sisters who?
00:59 Live and work in the tenderloin
01:03 So Laura, I'm going to run into each other a couple different times. Just remember different things. Remember way back when you had the Martin Sheen thing in our in our dining halls, I think the first time I ever met you I've always really
01:20 Like the idea of pic of your project. I always thought it was just like kind of one of those things that you know, a lot of people might know about when you hear about it's like
01:30 Why did not exist before I kind of the thing so so I'm very interested to just talk to you about kind of your background and whatever that means so I thought we could just going to start from the beginning. Where you from.
01:47 Well, I'm from Los Angeles, California. I also wanted to know though. You said the gubbio project. I was wondering if I should just say a word or two. But with that is if you want it will definitely get to that too, though.
02:01 So
02:02 Project is where people who are without houses a sleeping on the pews of a Catholic church, and I'm the director there, but I'm from Los Angeles originally went to a
02:15 12 years of Catholic School fifth of six kids
02:21 But we apparel who your parents.
02:23 My mom is Diane Slattery. My father's Martin Slattery and my mom work for Lockheed. My father works for Hewlett-Packard both for 30 years one of those kind of like you just don't see just don't hear about that anymore. I could have folks are working for one company for 30 years, but they both did.
02:44 And
02:46 So we were raised.
02:49 My mom places on her own for a good portion of that that that time of my youth but she scrimped and saved and sent us all to 12 years of Catholic school. And so by the time I was a senior in high school
03:11 For my four siblings were all in some sort of college. And so there wasn't my mama's on her own raising us at that at that point. So there wasn't a whole lot of money for college. And so when I got this opportunity was recruited by the United States Military Academy to play basketball, and so
03:30 I kind of took that opportunity where you were bad about had you been in like a basketball player up until that point. I played softball and basketball and volleyball in high school.
03:42 I was keen on my sister right above me and played softball at one of the local colleges and I thought it was so cool. And I wanted to play college ball as well as small Catholic School in I think I found yesterday that I called Up Notre Dame and said he will call you think you know, so but there was a it's a long story, but there was a
04:27 A fellow that I went to school with he was the only one that he come from my grammar school and I was kind of at the top of my class academically and in grammar school and he was both went to the same high school and his father is going to take a liking to me and he was this West Point basketball fan and would follow them and you can do all their progress and this and that and he put the bug in my ear and called up the coach and said a you know, you should do this. This would be great. I didn't have a whole lot of people banging down the door for me to play. I Can Do Better Than This offer came in so I flew back and really impressed when I went to the academy was the students seemed really immature and Ferb for college students and and yet fun they were you know, they were engaged. This is West Point. Yeah, so I could back for a visit.
05:25 And then I thought you I can't do this. This is this is great. So anyway, so I decided to go ahead and go to Military Academy.
05:37 Had the idea ever entered into your mind to go to like in the military military academy, or was it like purely basketball?
05:48 It was economic and basketball said there was like a lot of money for college. And so even though. I ended up the top of my class in high school, but on paper my mom and dad made too much money. And so but my dad was it was worth another picture and so there really wasn't any money for college, so
06:10 That was part of it and the other part was just the adventure of it then going and playing basketball and had no desire to be in the service.
06:18 I talked when I went out for my recruiting visit. I talked with the staff in the hospital. I thought I would go into the medical field, but just go be a doctor and I thought this would be a way to actually get medical school paid for and then I would never hurt nobody like I still do you know if I could be a doctor?
06:40 But then when I was at the Academy, they change the regulations so it had me like two for one year it is when I had checked it out. I could have been you know a doctor quickly in and out of the service quickly, but when I got there they had changed the regulations and it was going to have to be in the service till I was 40 and so
06:59 Nothing like a bit of a commitment to a twenty-two-year-old. I was like, I'm not sure I'm ready to commit like that. So I actually I'm kind of jumping ahead in the store, but then I decided to not go into Medical School directly out of out of West Point and went into the service because they had just that was the first year in the 200 + year of South Academy at they allowed us to go directly into the medical service Corps. So I did that when I was a lieutenant of a platoon medical platoon, so we're stationed in Hawaii with the 25th Infantry Division. So what did your photos you liked your day today life living in yellow work as a
07:44 A medical appointment titled medical service Corps medical start at court. So what would you do?
07:52 So
07:55 3 days a week we show up at 6 or 6:30. I can't remember which for physical training with the with a company or the battalion.
08:06 And then go home and shower and eat and then come back by 9. We do motor pool at least twice a week. So
08:17 My platoon had
08:21 5 tons and Humvees for all the medical supplies and so we would do maintenance on those vehicles for a good 3 4 hours twice a week. And then the other days we would do training my platoon had 35 people in it.
08:43 I think I would see about 2728 daily because we also had the medical we had the mental health section in my platoon as well, but they were doing their own thing. But if we had deployed they would have come with us, but then we had you know, Dental techs and X-ray techs and nurses and all those kind of folks in so they need to keep their training up in a field environment and new cross training and we are they had kids of supplies and we had in the military stuff. So we had 10 Stevie medium cheapest small SUV largest. And so we had to do a lot a lot of what we did was maintenance on a day-to-day basis are the 10 still working. How do we set the tents up? How do you know these are these are medical personnel, so they didn't have a lot of those military skills. They had a lot of there.
09:32 Medical skills but not necessarily military feels about how do you even you know, how we drive the Humvee had we had we communicate with the ambulance platoon. How do we if we go to war, you know, what's the setup going to be in? How's it going to run and all of that and then we had a couple of deployments we went to
09:49 South Korea with team spirit, so it was a whole month the whole platoon as part of the company is part of the Battalion. It's part of the division went over.
10:03 Today today was there's always interesting new things as well. So we
10:11 What time the troops were like I didn't want to sign for a lot of their equipment and that's why I was kind of responsible for all this equipment at the day in and day out. So we decided that we're going to take a big warehouse and we're going to divide it into six different, you know units and so that took us quite a bit of time.
10:35 Are there other people that you really connected with in in your Platoon?
10:43 Are people that you've kept in touch with from that time?
10:50 Does not not really anyone like that that I connected with as a as a lieutenant that I stayed in touch with in my platoon.
10:59 At West Point that there are people that I still stay in touch with
11:05 My roommate for example for 2 years lives not very far from me and we go out once a month for International Food Night of a hard time.
11:21 When you come in when I came in at 22, and I'm in charge of 35 people in my platoon Sergeant has a daughter who's older than me.
11:35 I've always felt a little uneasy with hierarchy and so difficult to kind of be in that position where I am supposed to be in charge and there's a strict hierarchy in the military. It never really felt that comfortable and it was in that hired at the top of it. I just had some difficulty with that. How did you deal with it in in the moment? And what could you do?
12:10 I think I'm still kind of young and so God's trying it out, you know, you try different things on so I'm like trying on the leadership role in in this way. I think there's many different ways to be a leader.
12:23 For my 18 months that I was the platoon leader. I was trying it on that way and getting different advice from fellow lieutenants and sergeants about tried this way or tried that way. I'm much more comfortable with walking with our solidarity as opposed to do this because I'm in charge, you know, and like I said, so that way you don't
12:53 But I never really found a way of actually being comfortable in that role and in that environment.
13:05 So, how did your parents feel about you?
13:11 Going to the academy and then actually enlisting.
13:18 So
13:21 When's the last time I think it's 6 now and then a three additional years of being in the individual ready Reserve?
13:37 So I was actually very surprised my mother tell my father, my father and told him about it or whatever you'd like to do. I actually didn't even know that he actually had been in the service. He was in the Korean War and the Navy and Anna. Had a good experience but it and not said anything. Actually. I didn't find out till I was a sophomore at the Academy that he actually had been in the service and my mother always very supportive of me wanting to know that I'm kind of in Earnest. And do you write my mom sat with me if I flip the coin about whether I should go to UCLA or West Point, you know, and I think she wanted me to go to West Point. I think she thought it would be
14:28 An exciting and prestigious and she graduated from UCLA. Remember her telling me one time about
14:34 The people at what at at UCLA when she was a kid when she was going through that they had it was so big and that's something people bought and sold papers and you can get your sitting in a lecture class with 500 people and I was kind of her experience there and integrity was so important to me and I will not lie cheat or steal or tolerate those who do and I just thought well that's not going to happen. You know, what West Point in my class is going to be 20. And so that was kind of compelling.
15:11 To live a life of Integrity interview and institutions in my own desire to to be in you know, what was reflecting on you know, why I went to West Boynton what the draw was and it was this and I think it's a draw for a lot of soldiers is the military is to give your life for something greater these days values of duty honor integrity.
15:43 And then later in my life. I got out of the military and that's why I ever thought of this is you know, not that I ever thought that institutions are perfect. I didn't
16:00 But there was a kind of a unit definitely a disillusionment aura learning about how
16:07 How flawed they really can be you know, and so when I got out of the service, I went to live in Mexico for a walk. I want to be a volunteer and learn Spanish in Mexico.
16:24 I had accidentally applied to medical school and had some time off after I got to the military and I was wanting to learn Spanish and living community and work with the poor. So I actually had gone down to the border between El Paso and ciudad Juarez and I ended up living in and see that what is in a community. There are some friends are going down to El Salvador. And so I went down to El Salvador for 6 months during the year of the Peace Accords after their 12 years Civil War. What year was that? It was 1992.
16:55 Since I learned quite a bit about u.s. Involvement in El Salvador in a way that I had had never known before I was like to say that cuz I didn't learn everything. I needed to know about life at West Point Military. What did you see of it? Like what was the cuz it kind of just reframes I would imagine, you know.
17:16 A vision of something that you had just being involved in the academy and doing the work afterwards and then kind of seeing it for maybe another angle. What did you like? What was that like
17:33 I'm not sure how to answer that question. What was it like?
17:39 Other images you have it.
17:43 I'm living in this very small village that had actually been evacuated for 3 years. It was called 10 and single.
17:52 And
17:54 They were
17:56 Do it holds all over.
17:58 In the in the downtown area in the church, you can even see them on the outside of the church and then I learned that that was a US helicopter that had come in and probably even flown by Salvadorans, but then I learned that the military the US was pouring in a million dollars a day at the height of the war and
18:20 It's so much evidence pointed to collusion of the Salvadoran forces with the death squads and also they feel like
18:33 Seeing
18:37 That
18:39 United States investment and money was going
18:45 To kill people that I had actually come to kill family members of people. I've actually come to to love and to walk with and to be in communion with right for no other reason that they were thought to have been subversive or have the wrong politics or you Civil Wars a nasty thing and ended El Salvador's was nasty.
19:10 I also I think it was a slow kind of Awakening because white when I went, you know, I went straight from the military to living in community in ciudad Juarez and the five of the people that was living in committing Community with a tall protested. The first Gulf War 1 had lost her jobs. They have in the marches and I was in Hawaii and I have volunteered to go to the first Gulf War. And so this was a 1991 Salomon we're talkin. It's just enough for months after the war had started and I'm living in community with these folks who who had protested officer and if people are going to die I want to be over there and so I'm sitting with these people, you know, where it is and the other like it it's called vacation Laura. Yeah. It's called the bathroom.
20:10 The military is this idea of the sense of community people have your back and even like living in community with these folks who I love and I'm still in contact with all of them, but it wasn't a sense from me of
20:25 The deep bond and connection you have with folks that you're in the military with and then
20:30 I'm there anyway, so so it was kind of a tight. I begin to start questioning their living with them because here I always thought that the peaceniks were, you know, like my image of people in the 60s, you know, the Paisley wearing pink go get ahold of you all those horrible stereotypes are the three times that I had after 7 years in the military, right? And here I was living in community with people who are very committed. They were face based they were there because their face told them that they needed to walk with support and and they were
21:02 Smart committed not at all like I had imagined so it started to kind of
21:11 Rotten my awareness. And then from there I went down to El Salvador and then had that experience.
21:19 I really question is because I had to live in for 8 months in in in in Mexico and starting to learn about Dorothy Day and and the Catholic pacifism in non-violence. And I was like, wow these things are this is really amazing and then I went down to El Salvador and I was like, well, you can see those how people can be justified in fighting back. I mean after they killed Oscar Marin, they killed the church ladies and they kill all these people that went off Romero's funeral and they just so you know where mowing down people and you can really see then so on the one hand and like I could see Catholic pacifism people just lie picking up arms to defend themselves. They have these campesinos. I came back to the States. I was kind of in the middle of all of that and I thought well, you know, I studied violence for 7 years. So I'm going to go study of non-violence insights when I went up to the graduate theological Union to the Jesuit School of Theology and got my Master's in kinesiology, but it was really in and of the valley of non-violence, so
22:19 What was the spiritual grounding of Martin Luther King and Gandhi in a breathy day and why would these people so grounded in their Theology and also that then I'll come that became a Theology of like not violent and non-violent God we can change the rate of God hear. How long were you in El Salvador? I was just there 6 months are there.
22:45 Are there like you remember that some of the people that you actually is some of the folks who didn't work the kind of Seno's just talked a little bit about those are Amino 1% of those people share.
23:03 Mother is Nina Ava in the community college. So there's nothing you ever who?
23:18 Always prepared us our meal every day.
23:23 And it was chappie, who is a
23:26 A 13 year old
23:29 That had stepped on a mine about 5 or 6 years earlier when he was out in the fields and it had like five or six operation since then and now
23:42 He was doing okay, but I was just whenever I saw him I thought here we are. Yeah, this is this is what happens when we have mines, right and people people just walk and they blow up kids.
23:54 Linda was the woman. I can't remember her name.
23:58 But her and her son
24:00 I thought I heard her younger brother.
24:03 She's pretty young but you told me the story about where she found her father and her father had gone out on a night Patrol It's like because you couldn't really win and situation in the Civil War right because if you
24:16 I didn't go on the night patrols with the military.
24:21 Then they would kill you because obviously you were a sympathizer with the Korea and then if you actually did go on the night Patrols in the area would kill you because you're a sympathizer with the Army in the middle. And so her father was put in that situation and actually had to go out for a patrol one time with the Army and then he disappeared. They didn't say that. He didn't come home a couple nights later until they had to go out and they had to find him and they found him go to recognize his socks sticking out of a shallow grave and no one else would help her and she must have been like 11:00 at the time. She has around her younger brother with eight and the two of them had the
25:03 You know.
25:06 Take your father out of the the grave and then figure out what to do with him and build an amino kindig another Graven and no one would help because again if then if he's been killed by the Korea and you're seeing is helping the Correa family or that the military family or whatever you get you to get tarred with that then we help them but you were just too amazing young woman when I saw she wasn't in like 20 as it was earlier. So This Is War also just the beautiful people we did some work with them kids. We worked in the church and
25:46 And just I was always surprised at how
25:51 How happy folks can be you can. Nothing you do in their living out in the middle of nowhere. They've all lost family members 200 people in that Village were killed when the Army came in and strafe. So the town yet people getting by in their Sharon and there, you know, they're they're making their lives together. So how did it affect you personally like what you kind of immune to spend time in the military you go over to El Salvador. And then after you come back to the States from from El Salvador kind of all these experiences
26:24 Kind of developing inside you what what did you do when you came back to the States? What did you want to do or what was your did you have kind of a
26:33 Something that motivated you Direction right now, that's good. I felt like my work was in the United States.
26:45 I had a very good experience and a connection a deep connection with the people but I also felt like I could stay here and I can actually work in El Salvador in Latin America and then I can do that but I felt more urgent to me in with the training. I've had the skills that I had to come back to the United States and try and work for change it work for a little bit more of a demilitarization of our own country. And so when I came back I was chopping for a while and I taught high school for a while as well. But that's what I went to school to study for not studying on violence in to see how can we actually choose differently as a nation and which that eventually led me to protesting the school of the Americas which was the school that is now named win SEC at Fort Benning, Georgia and right before August 2002.
27:38 I just gone down to Columbia and then a non violence training in Columbia. Seeing a lot of the same things there that I was seeing in El Salvador people that the campesinos are caught in the middle and they're kind of trying to organize and trying to make a living and yet there's all these armed actors are so the paramilitaries the military and he's got diarrhea and so we had gone down to try and teach him nonviolent techniques and came back to United States and learned that the most soldiers how many countries that were trained at the school of the Americas were coming to Columbia or half of the students. So I thought you had just trying these people and they're going to go up against You Soldiers who've been trying by the our government in low-intensity conflict and that should not acceptable to draw awareness to the school and one of the ways of doing that was to walk onto the post in protest of the school and two in 2002. I walked on
28:38 With 85 other people saying We would like you to close the school. We don't feel like we want a school that teaches Latin Americans had better kill each other on our soil at Fort Benning as as a former military. Like I have a responsibility to the institution country to say if what we're hearing about this school and if the facts are bearing out correctly that
29:13 Safeway sample of the murders of in El Salvador Oscar Romero in the church women in the South a vast majority of them have been trained at the school of the Americas and they're going back to their countries that committing atrocities and their manuals that were found it kind of implicated.
29:32 Non-violence organizers as the enemy and so I thought we need to draw attention to the school. So when I got I got arrested and ended up spending three months in in prison and they're doing a little bit of riding appearing in some of the videos and stuff. You asked as a vet speaking out against this military school Shanghai. I feel like it betrays the principles of the military.
29:55 Then places us investigate. It was calling for National had called for its closing until we get investigated to know so that was my my encouragement and I hope was that they would investigate the school and then eventually closing.
30:12 Lightning
30:14 Prison for three months or jail for 3 months. What's that? I mean had you been expecting that and what's it? What's it actually like to be a month in and you're just sitting in jail kind of like all these things kicking around in your head and like, where are you at emotionally with that?
30:32 In the moment of it
30:35 I was expecting it because the year before they had given out pretty hard sentences ever since 9/11. This was unit 2001. This was 2002.
30:47 It was at a minimum security prison. And so basically it was on an Army Post in army barracks. It's weird kind of I've been here before.
31:01 But ten years later, you know nothing so very familiar the rules and regulations and the order and
31:12 All of that, but I was in a very different space I could still put up with that but I could see very clearly a kind of the dehumanization of the whole system. It's that may be very sad the dehumanization of the the system the effect that the system had on the women, but also the women with each other, you know, I was always hoping for early but I was there with four out there was four of us from the bay area that actually got sent to prison. So there was four of us are in the minimum security prison together, so
31:47 That was a great support and then I was so close to my community. I had many many many many visitors every Friday Saturday and Sunday and so it actually was more like a retreat for me have time to to think and reflect and write get a check from that point in your life. What was your road to 2 ending ki-rin in the tenderloin neighborhood? What kind of how did you steer this way?
32:24 If I was working with Pate been a non-violent service for 7 years after I decided I would study non-violence. And then from then I taught for high school for a year. And then this position of Fellowship actually opened up from the Ford foundation called new voices fellowship and I applied with this organization called but she been a non-violence service and patchy bearnaise the greeting that the franciscans give each other means peace and all good and
32:53 They got the scholarship to be the international Outreach person and also the gay lesbian bisexual transgender. Rich person for the non-violence work is over seven years. I I did that work and it was very gratifying and satisfying but it was long range work. You not going to see the other changes overnight in system until I was wanting something that
33:21 Was both direct service and social change work and I've actually found that at the gubbio project is direct service because we're providing people day in and day out a place where they can rest and sleep and get very much needed.
33:40 Amenities at blankets and sleep, but then I also see that.
33:53 Coming to really challenge how people look at folks who are living on the streets.
33:58 A lot of folk did you say to them homeless image comes up the homeless as many different stories in different people who are homeless as there are
34:13 Individuals, right and so by inviting people welcoming people who are living on the streets into a Sacred Space challenges others to think differently about our brothers and sisters were living on the streets.
34:31 And especially that this
34:34 When people are sleeping on the pews in Saint Boniface, there's two there's two masses that happen one at 7:30 and one at 12:15 and people are still allowed to sleep and stay until he was sent a very strong message both to people who are
34:49 Worshipping have come to the mass that your community basically is much larger than just the look people up here in the front celebrating the mass and it sends a really strong message though to the folks. We're sleeping on the PS2 that we're not going to kick you out just because we're doing something more important than you because there's nothing more important than you you are as important as what we're doing. I think that's really very healing.
35:12 That that sense of belonging that that folks don't often get when they leave it on the streets.
35:19 And you're talking about how you know the term home I mean
35:27 People of all types can be homeless and there's all types of homeless situations. Are there individuals who have come to the gubbio project that for one reason or another like you've kind of identified with or you've
35:45 They're just kind of stood out to you in in what you're doing specific cases specific individuals specific kind of instances of like a homeless condition that are unique, baby.
36:03 Can I see a lot of vets on the streets that are that are living on the streets that come and rest on the pews at the gubbio project?
36:14 And still stories are always it was pulling my heartstrings because
36:21 They want to be a service. They still want to be a service in some way and yet they're honest and they don't want to I don't want to take advantage of the system and so there.
36:34 They're kind of stuck cuz I don't want to their Lou too prideful to take the government handouts, right or something has happened in the service so that they don't feel like that but we can really claim that vet benefits, but they also in and they're kind of like well I can make it on my own I made it. You know, all this time is it nice is not at the Vietnam Vets to this other vets to that. I seen that from from the first Gulf War and
36:59 Just had to be in particular he was in the medical service was a medic in the first Gulf War and our paths never crossed. Right cuz I never actually got sent over to Iraq, but he did.
37:15 And he's he's on the pews and I've tried to connect him with the Veterans Administration that we talked about his service and and he's always got a smile on his face and but he staying outside and he just he says only I'd like to you know, I'd like to get house but but doesn't somehow doesn't take the actions. I can't take the the steps that he needs to take to actually make that happen at my heartstrings of you served your country and how can we how can we help you? Now, you know, how can we help help you to accept help?
37:52 Just from your perspective as somebody's been through the kind of the military.
37:58 Institution. What do you think that is like why why a case of that individual why is it difficult to?
38:08 To have them want to be out.
38:10 Look for them to accept help.
38:16 Like this inside it is this I'm okay. Don't worry about me.
38:21 You know.
38:26 I think it's just that you're just not used to focusing on yourself or your own needs. Like I don't really have any needs and I'm okay, but a Catholic States military the Catholic church, and neither of them really help you focus on what your needs are.
38:50 He needs to be a balance a good recognizing of what we all do have neither one of our needs and how can we work with others to get their needs met and also have to get our needs met but I think it's like oh, yeah. I'm okay. Don't bother about me, you know, I'll be okay.
39:10 And
39:13 Where do you stay your your story continuing? Like what is what is Laura Slattery?
39:22 You know place in the world in in the future.
39:30 I hope it continues to be a that balance of direct service and social change trying to make the world a
39:38 An easier place to be good.
39:42 Wonderful. Thank you Laura. Thanks Alex.