A Puerto Rican in Germany

East Meadow resident recalls time in Women's Army Corps

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Carmen Rivera delicately placed her official military photo taken on Nov. 6, 1972 in her palm. This month marks 45 years since Rivera joined the U.S. Army. 

“Wasn’t I pretty?” she laughed. 

She spread several snapshots of herself in uniform across a table at the Salisbury/East Meadow Senior Center, which she calls home. Each photo, Rivera said, represents a different milestone in her quest to make a life for herself, apart from her parents.

“She wanted to be independent,” Rivera said, tapping one of the pictures. “And you know what? She got her independence.” 

Rivera was born in 1948 in Puerto Rico. She was one of 12 children — a common family size at the time — and was bound by curfews on a vibrant island she desperately wanted to explore. But as time passed, her mother, Aida, grew dissatisfied with their island life.

When Carmen was 12, she, along with her mother, father and several siblings, moved to Long Beach. Rivera’s eldest brother had already been living there, and found them an apartment. Carmen enrolled in the Long Beach City School District, where she learned English, studying intensely until she became fluent several years later. She graduated from Long Beach High School in 1966.

“I wanted to go to college,” she said. “But I couldn’t afford it.”

Instead, she worked odd jobs. She made enough money to help her parents keep their apartment, but not enough for college. For six years, Rivera helped her family financially, but she grew restless. The daily cycle became predictable, and her home life became unbearable. 

“I needed an escape,” she said. 

In October 1972, she stopped by a Women’s Army Corps recruiting office, a U.S. Army unit formed during World War II to enable women to serve in noncombat positions. She approached a recruiter and said she would sign the paperwork on one condition: “I demanded to be deployed overseas,” she said. 

The recruiter complied. Rivera enlisted on Nov. 6, 1972. After spending a few grueling months at Fort McClellan in Alabama for basic training — where, Rivera said, she pushed herself through physical and emotional tasks, including overcoming a brutal gas chamber stint — she was stationed at Fort Jackson, and later, Fort Hamilton. In 1973, she was deployed to Heidelberg, Germany. 

“My mother was so mad at me,” she said. Rivera told her mother about her enrollment in the WAC the same day she shipped off to basic training. “She cried and cried for days,” she continued. “But I had to do this for myself. I needed a way out.”

Rivera, a private second class, became a record-keeping clerk, processing marriage, birth and death certificates, along with rank and salary changes. Throughout her six years overseas, she processed more than 700 records. She wandered around Germany during her free time. The culture shock, she said, is still vivid in her memory. 

“The language was so hard to learn,” she recalled. “Everything was different: the food, the people, the way of life. Everything.” 

She trained beside men and women, sometimes in the German fields. For a brief time, she said, she was stationed in the Hurtgen Forest — the infamous Black Forest — where, 30 years before, German and American forces had battled in one of the deadliest confrontations of World War II. Although she never saw battle, Rivera said that her job allowed her to meet almost every soldier stationed at her post. While some chatted about their next deployment, she said some would whisper about those who had died in combat. 

“You could tell which ones were affected by battles they saw,” Rivera said. She saw soldiers who were stationed at her post after fighting in Vietnam. “Just the way they talked and acted, it was obvious,” she continued. “I was fortunate to stay [in Germany], but I always said a prayer for everybody out there fighting.” 

Rivera said she soaked in the culture that filled the desire to experience a foreign land. She was independent, traveling on her way to France, England, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria.

Rivera met a soldier, got pregnant and gave birth to her only child, Richard, in Germany on Dec. 31, 1976. She eventually ended her relationship with her son’s father.
She was discharged on April 19, 1979, and returned to New York. While she lived in Levittown with her son and mother, she applied to the Western Nassau Post Office in Garden City, but did not receive notice right away. She worked a couple of odd jobs — as a secretary at a doctor’s office in Freeport and at a wallpaper factory — for six years until she received a permanent job at the post office in 1985.

“And at the same time while working in the post office, I took care of my son with the help of my beloved mom,” Rivera said. “And after my son grew up, I took care of my mom until she passed away. It was very, very hard. But looking back now, I would not change anything because that makes me the person that I am now. And I like being me.”

After working at the post office for 26 years, Rivera retired and moved to the Salisbury East Meadow Senior Center five years ago. Today, she attends veteran‘s events around the community, including parades and awards ceremonies. She was recently awarded a citation by State Assemblyman Tom McKevitt for her contributions in the military.

“I am 100 percent happy to have served this great country,” Rivera said. “I am so proud to be a veteran. I would do it all over again if I had to.”