Master Chief Yeoman (YNCM) Anna Der-Vertanian, USN-Ret, at her 85th birthday. Official Navy picture
Morning, Gentle Readers! It is one of those Mondays for which there was no preceding day of rest- a flash-back to the old Pentagon Friday greeting that went: “Have a great weekend; only two working days to Monday!”
On this particular Monday, our friendly government customer has scheduled two technical briefs on prospective bits of work, and the Bandits- or, if you prefer, Vendors or Offerors- have to be in our places in the conference room by nine over on the wrong side of the Anacostia River.
Accordingly, the morning chaos is advanced a bit. There will be time to ruminate on the Arab Spring and its consequences, since the Rebels may (or may not) have secured Colonel Qaddafy’s Tripoli, and the plucky but deranged dictator may (or may not have fled.)
That will drive Assad’s thugs closer to the wall in Syria, with the realization that really angry people can unify to toss out the tyrant, and up stream consequences in Yemen as well. Maybe even Iran, who knows?
It is enough to cause one to muse on whether or not the Iraqi people would have ousted that bastard Saddam on their own, in time, without the loss of American treasure and lives, like that of our shipmate Kurt Juengling, the loss of whose life we mourn. But of course, there will be no knowing that, not ever. And the wild optimism of liberation may only be the harbinger of something worse, but for now, a tip of the Socotra topper to the Rebels in Libya as they fire their Ak-47s to the sky.
I would remind you that all those rounds fired up come back down, and sometimes have consequences for those below.
So there is that. But there is something I was challenged to do, and I am going to go ahead and do it this morning.
As you know, we have had a run of sad news over the past couple weeks that was worth recording. As they left us, we have looked back to salute the incredible courage of pilot Noel Gayler and submarine skipper Mike Rindskopf. We noted the extraordinary internal courage that sustained a not-so-ordinary dentist named Al Brown in captivity of a savage Japanese war machine.
A pal noted that that the guys who we remember for their heroism represented only a part of a nation that completely mobilized completely for global war, and the boys overseas could only be sent there is someone else stepped forward to take their place. The transformative nature of the war on American society is so deep that the consequences echo even today, and one of the heroes of that struggle left us last week as well.
The war liberated my mother from the sad rusting valley of the Ohio River, and made my life possible. She worked for the Texas Company in Manhattan. Other women just a couple years older than her were pioneers: factory workers, pilots and all the other traditionally male jobs that had to get done to keep the war machine going.
On the 4th of August, 2011, Master Chief Yeoman (YNCM) Anna Der-Vertanian, USN-Ret, passed away after a brief illness over at the Vinson Hall Retirement Community, just up the road from Big Pink in posh McLean, VA. She merits mention with the winners of the Navy Cross because she was part of a vanguard of women who changed the face of America. After her service, and that of her sisters, there was no going back.
Anna Der-Vartanian and I were both Detroiters. She was working at a steel company in the Motor City in 1942 as the Arsenal of Democracy began to churn out the tools that won the war for Democracy. Rosie the Riveter wasn’t what she wanted. She yeaned for the flexibility and adventure of travel, and the pride of service. She began her military career in 1943. She enlisted in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service program, or WAVES, and performed clerical duties stateside. She was one of 26,000 WAVES who served in the War.
After the victory, she declined to return to civilian life, and re-upped in 1946 in the Regular Navy. At the time, there was no career path for women in the service, and she essentially invented one. Back then, women couldn’t go to sea, and those who got married or pregnant had to leave the service. Although Anna had been engaged a few times, she never got to the altar. It was her choice; she thought work was more fun.
She served all over the country, at duties stations in DC, Mare Island, the Boston Navy Yard and our own beloved Pearl Harbor. She told an interviewer that she “thought it was a great life. I loved the traditions, the uniform, the people.”
She made history in 1959, when she was promoted to master chief petty officer, the first woman in any of the uniformed services to do so.
Anna was quick on the uptake and didn’t take crap off anyone. She didn’t think about being the pathfinder for a generation of American women. She faced bias so profound that it is unthinkable in today’s world. One disgruntled reserve Senior Chief wrote a blistering letter to Navy Times when she made E-8, complaining about the promotion of women when worthy men were passed over. The letter writer later wound up junior to Anna when she was a Command Master Chief, and he continued his disrespectful behavior, being loud and obnoxious about her in front of the junior sailors.
“Fall in and pipe down,” she recalls ordering the jerk. “I thought he would have a fit, but he fell in.”
In Paris, in the office of the Defense Attaché she got a taste of intelligence work, and writing up the reports that the ALUSNA collected on what was happening in NATO and across Europe to the Iron Curtain. It ignited a passion for the secret world, but it was not easy. An Air Force Sergeant was one of those who did not get the word. He decided he would disobey Anna’s direct order. Anna didn’t blink. She locked down the office and told her people no one was leaving until the job was done.
Magically, based on her presence and force of will, her people turned to and made the jerk comply. She was a leader.
Anna Der-Vartanian retired from the Navy in 1963, and then came over to the dark side with the rest of us Spooks. The CIA picked her up as a junior analyst in 1964, and she eventually had a second career as a counterintelligence specialist. I will have to ask Maurie, the grand old lady who swims with me each day at the pool. She turns 90 this summer as well, and although she will do no more than smile when I ask her about her days at Langley and in France, she may have known Anna.
Anna would not talk about it either- that is an occupational fact of life at the Agency. She served overseas in the Clandestine Service, in the Middle East, and would only say that “she traveled frequently.”
She retired a second time, in 1991, but came back to work for the Agency as a contractor after the Aldrich Ames spy scandal devastated morale. She stayed until 2007.
In a third retirement she kept busy with French and Armenian language classes, and was a beloved Aunt to thirty-five nieces and nephews who survive her.
She was awarded the National Defense Medal and other various other decorations for her active service, and the CIA may have given her more. As a pioneer over there, too, she kept her secrets.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com