Women Who Serve feature
HOWEVER, IT WASN’T ALL FUN AND GAMES FOR THE TWO during their time
in the Navy. At one point or another, both girls experienced chilling moments that
have stuck with them. For Maureen, one of those moments came when she and the
rest of her crew on the John F. Kennedy Aircraft carrier were passing through the Suez
Canal in 1999 and 2000. “It was frightening because this meant that we had to pass
through Egypt, which was facing civil unrest at the time. To be allowed to go through,
our Captain was forced to give up command of the ship.” For Cheryl, her most intense
experience came when her ship went “dead in water,” meaning that the engines shut
down and the ship began to drift in the middle of the ocean. What made it worse was
when the same thing happened to her again, the power went out, which left the entire
ship in complete darkness. “It was suffocating and then we began to smell smoke.
I heard lots of shouting, of which some of the words were ‘Fire!’ It was then that I
was so incredibly glad to have endured multiple shipboard drills that simulated
those exact scenarios. Luckily for us, our Damage Control team acted quickly and we
avoided a huge fiasco. Still, those few minutes of darkness and smoke seemed to last
an eternity.”
While those experiences proved Maureen and Cheryl’s courage, there were also
times that their abilities were questioned because of their gender. As their story
unfolded, Maureen explained how, even in the early 2000s, women still had to work
hard to be taken seriously. “Women still had to fight and struggle for everything they
accomplished; they had to be twice as good and twice as smart and work twice as
hard as men. Women were still not looked at as belonging, some thought we were
only there because we were looking for a husband!” To which Cheryl exclaimed,
“Anything HE can do, I can do too. We’re both sailors!” As they continued to share
their story, those words resonated not only in their speech but in the seriousness with
which they took their oaths. “In some ways,” said Cheryl, “being in the military is like
any other job – especially when on shore duty. You go to work, do your duties, and go
home.”
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JULY 2016
When serving on a ship, you still have designated work hours, but work and home
are the same place. If you think having one or two roommates is difficult, try sharing your ‘bedroom’ with a couple hundred stacked three deep. Talk about the woes
of sharing a bathroom! But, the real difference is that you really only belong to your
civilian job when you’re at work. You are in the military 24/7, the needs of the service
come before your own. You can’t say no when called, you can’t just quit if you don’t
like it. There are watches to stand, military duties to complete, and the need to be
ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Fortunately, most of the time, vacation and
time off is uninterrupted. But, you must always be reachable and you must always
have a way to return to your duty station if summoned.”
Overall, their enlistment in the Navy, while stressful at times, proved to be a
decision that has given both Maureen and Cheryl more than they could have ever
imagined. Maureen recalled riding a camel on Christmas Day in 1999 and being one of
the few sailors to have ever crossed the equator and gone through both the Suez and
Panama Canals, which actually classifies as going around the world! Cheryl cherishes
the time she spent with Maureen in Guam “breathing in the warm ocean breeze and
enjoying the clear blue sky.” Serving is not an easy life, however. She adds, “But, it
allows you to give back to this great nation that we call home. I’m so proud to have
served and I would do it again.”
Through all of this, though, their friendship has strengthened so much that after
retiring from her job as a teacher, Maureen moved back to Hartsville to help Cheryl
raise her son, Raleigh. “It has been a wonderful help to me to have her with us since
I’m a single mother. My son often introduces her as his other mom.” For Maureen,
being a part of such a tight-knit family gave her a second chance at the family of which
she had always dreamed. “I have two sisters and a brother by birth,” shared Cheryl,
“and two sisters by choice. Maureen is one of them.”
Maureen Murphy (left) resides in Hartsville, South Carolina. Cheryl Smith also resides in Hartsville
and has one son, Raleigh. She is an administrative assistant for Sonoco. Cheryl was recently
accepted for a foreign service appointment with the U.S. State Department and will report to
Washington, D.C., for training on July 11th.
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