| Mary Belknapp nee Shea |
| Last updated 03/13/04 |
| I enlisted in the Womens Army Corps in January 1971 as I wanted the training to become an FAA Air Traffic Controller and the Army was the only way I could obtain the training, with a 3 year enlistment. My hopes were to break the barriers faced by women in the FAA at the time. I attended basic training at Fort McLellan. After basic, I was sent to Fort Rucker in April 1971 and attended the ATC school on Tank Hill. I was awarded MOS 93H20 in August 1971. I was sent to Vietnam in September 1971. My first assignment was HQ, USARV, in Long Binh. Myself and 6 other WAC's were assigned to a very menial job of controlling air traffic at a very small VIP helicopter pad deep within the command compound. It was boring duty as the daily traffic count rarely exceeded 40 movements in a single day. ATC was not really needed there, but the brass felt ATC was needed for some odd reason. I was only there for 6 weeks. The only names I can recall were another WAC named Bighaus and our NCOIC was named Harr, a male. After Long Binh, I was assigned to MACV. The so called "Vietnamization" of the war was not negotiated yet, but US troops were on the decline and RVN given more duties. With MACV I worked with a team of regulars and WAC's moving surplused ATC equipment that the Army had no more use for to areas where RVN troops were concentrating. Although HQ'd out of Saigon with MACV, we would reposition the equipment to various locations and train the RVN ATCers on the equipment, teach them ATC procedures and move on to another location after a few weeks. This took me to II and III Corps to various areas known only as code like J47, C56, R99 etc. They were not really close to any major cities or US troop concentrations, but nearby bases were Tay Ninh, Dau Tieng, Ban Me Touit, Phan Thiet. In February of 1972, I fell ill with malaria and was sent to the hospital in Saigon. After dropping from 130 to 95 pounds, I was evac'd back to the states to recover at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. I fully recovered, but the Army washed their hands of me and discharged me in April 1972, honorably. I was an Air Traffic Controller in Vietnam. Even though I was not assigned to any of the larger units, I worked live traffic at base and field locations and am very proud of it, along with the other sisters who were ATC in Vietnam. I managed to break the sex barrier of the FAA in 1973 and worked tower in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, then moved on to approach in Longmont, Colorado. I resigned in 1979 to raise our son and add 3 more children to our wonderful family. |
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