At Ease July 2023

At Ease

VETERANS IN BUSINESS

Chloez Cafe: From boots to breakfast burritos

LIFE BEHIND THE LENS

Former Combat Camera Marine shares her story

RESOLVE SOLUTIONS

Providing a path to students in need

2023 JOBZONEJOB FAIRSCHEDULE

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JUN 14 Fort Gregg-Adams,VA Fort Gregg-Adams Club

JUN 29 Dahlgren, VA UMW-DahlgrenCampus

JUL 20 Stafford,VA Quantico CorporateCenterhostedby Cyber Bytes Foundation

AUG22 PatuxentRiver, MD Patuxent RiverNaval AirMuseum

AUG24 AndrewsAFB, MD 459 ARWAuditorium-3755 Patrick Ave.

SEP13 Fort Gregg-Adams,VA Fort Gregg-Adams Club

SEP21 Stafford,VA Quantico CorporateCenterhostedby Cyber Bytes Foundation

OCT 19 Dahlgren, VA UMW-DahlgrenCampus

NOV28 Patuxent River,MD Patuxent RiverNaval AirMuseum

NOV 30 AndrewsAFB,MD LOCATION TBA(ANG Hdq.Building pending)

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PRESIDENT

Jim Normandin jim.normandin@adamspg.com

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Eli Wohlenhaus ewohlenhaus@dcmilitary.com

ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGERS

Chad Campbell ccampbell@chespub.com

Betsy Griffin bgriffin@chespub.com

SALES SUPERVISOR

Ryan Ebaugh rebaugh@dcmilitary.com

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Jennifer Helmer Sally Covey

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jeffrey Heeney, Glenda C. Booth, Laura Hatcher, Suzanne Feigley

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Alice Swan, Glenda C. Booth, Brian Shane, Dr. Charles Masarsky Rev. Dr. Paul T. McCullough

Interact with At Ease on our social media platforms:

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New look, same great magazine

Whoa! You’ve just opened the newest edition of At Ease, curious as to the size looking smaller on stands. But take heart, for we have the same mission we always have — to be a bridge for the military and veteran community.

Undoubtedly, you will notice that in this edition with our features and profiles. We are so fortunate to be able to share these incredible stories.

One sad note, however, is we are waving goodbye to our designer Jennifer Helmer, who has been our lead designer for almost 5 years. Her creativity will be missed and I know she will miss us; as an Army veteran herself, you could tell how passionate she was in her work. Her skills earned At Ease numerous awards. We wish you luck on your next adventure, Jenny!

Finally, I would like to issue an apology on behalf of a recent edition that featured a Battle Cross that was not properly reflective of our United States Military. It was an oversight on my part and I sincerely apologize to those we offended. Readers brought this to my attention and I appreciate they felt comfortable enough to reach out to me.You can, too — I welcome all feedback!

Executive Editor of At Ease

Eli Wohlenhaus

Combat Camera Lifebehind thelens

Victoria Taylor traveled the world as a Combat Camera photographer and videographer attached to elite Marine Corps units. She found camaraderie among battle-bonded platoon mates. She felt deeply the hardwon trust from fellow Marines, whose friendships are forged not just over a deployment, but a lifetime. When she separated in 2020 after more than four years of enlistment, she never thought she’d have that feeling back.

Story by Brian Shane Photos courtesy of Victoria Taylor

“When you join and go to boot camp,” she said, “you get thrown into these platoons and companies composed of people from all over the country and all walks of life suddenly in the same “boat” as you. You’re doing all these experiences while on active duty with these people — and then you get out, and you don’t have any of that anymore, you’re alone again.”

But today, at age 28, Victoria says she’s rediscovered that pride of belonging as a photographer for the United States Secret Service.

“Being in a heavy veteran community, working with other former Combat Camera service members even, we all respect each other and poke fun,” she said. “It’s really great to feel like you belong and can relate to people with similar backgrounds, I really am so happy.”

Officially, she is a United States Secret Service photographer and forensics photographer, a title she recounted with more than a little pride in her voice. The job opportunity arose after Victoria’s former Marine sergeant, who formerly worked as a White House photographer to a then United States Secret Service photographer, recommended that she apply.

“I had no idea you could do this as a civilian and get paid decently for it without a degree, my experience and my DD-214 was more than enough to qualify for the position,” Victoria said.

She likes that there’s a lot of variety in the work. On any given day, Victoria might shoot for a working dog graduation ceremony, get forensic pictures of crime scenes and counterfeit money (the Secret Service has its roots as an anti-counterfeiting agency at the end of the Civil War) or get candid photos of the suited-and-sunglassed agents who protect the president.

“The Marine Corps had such a wide array of what your so-called ‘desk’ would look like every day,” she said. “I didn’t want to just have a desk job. I wanted adventure, not knowing what I’d have to do today. It’s a very diverse job. You have to be ready to go, getting dirty or dressing up nice. It’s what I like to do — organized chaos.”

Victoria and her identical twin sister Veronica grew up in Dothan, a quiet city tucked into Alabama’s southeast corner. Victoria recalled riding along more than a few dirt roads when the girls were small.

Her interest in photography had started from an early age. Growing up, she was always taking pictures with other people’s smartphones.

“I had a little Nikon pocket digital camera. I wanted to make movies at some point,” she said.

And, as a child, the Marine Corps meant something in her family. Her grandfather had spent three decades as a Marine, going from enlisted Private climbing the ranks to Master Gunnery Sergeant and then commissioned as an officer, honorably retiring as a Captain. Her little brother, Mark Govoni, Sergeant, USMC, also enlisted in the Marine Corps a year prior to her in 2014 and is still active duty.

“When we were kids,” she said, “we spent a lot of time volunteering with Toys For Tots alongside our grandfather. We grew up knowing Marine Corps veterans, getting to know all about the Marine Corps, because our grandfather was motivated and passionately loved the Marine Corps, instilling the love for the Marine Corps into my two siblings and me.”

That inspired her to join her high school’s Marine Corps JROTC program for her last two years of high school where she unknowingly started to find her calling.

“I was actually pretty nerdy in high school, I was always bullied,” she said. “Being in JROTC was the only time I was able to make friends and feel like I fit in and had real friends for the first time.”

Still, Victoria never thought she’d join the military. After high school, she attended a Florida junior college on a full-ride cross country scholarship. But two years into that, in 2014, there was no money to spend on school and she did not want to go into student loan debt, and “I really did not like college, I wanted more out of my youth than sitting in a classroom. It wasn’t for me.”

When she finally decided to follow in her brother and grandfather’s footsteps and enlist in the Marine Corps, there was only one job she wanted — and she didn’t even know existed while looking at potential options for jobs on the Marine Corps recruiting website.

“There’s like a grid with pictures of different jobs listed with information on them; in the very middle was Combat Camera. I was like, oh wow! I didn’t know they did that! I had been wanting to do film school, and combat centered MOS jobs weren’t available to women when I was joining, so I decided if I could get Combat Camera, a loophole, as you will, with opportunity to be inserted with the grunt units, then I would do that and only that MOS.”

After a lot of effort and hard work, her recruiters came through, and Victoria landed that

Combat Camera occupational specialty contract. Upon completing boot camp at Parris Island and Marine Combat Training at Camp Geiger, North Carolina, she was sent to Defense Information School (DINFOS) in Fort Meade and assigned the role of videographer. DINFOS put Victoria through a video production and documentation course where she learned about things like continuity errors in movies and how to interview and create videos.

“It’s interesting, the things you miss while watching movies, like matching action, movie mistakes, how shots flow together,” she said. “It’s an art and I really fell in love with it.”

Duty sent Victoria to San Diego, where she was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar as a Combat Camera operator. She had mostly free reign in this role to attach to a unit, fly in helicopters, document everything, get an interview, and put a story together. She quickly took to the independent nature of the role.

“When you’re attaching to a unit, everything’s pretty unpredictable,” she said. “They can brief you, but when you’re shooting with your camera, what’s in front of you is not going to be what’s on a piece of paper. Everyone loved my videos, I worked hard; I did a really good job when I was a videographer.”

While based out of Miramar, she attached to the command element of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit as a photographer and videographer in early 2018.

That deployment turned into on-the-job training for how to shoot technically sound photographs. She ended up publishing five to eight images a day to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, or DVIDS, over the eight-month deployment.

“That’s pretty much where I learned how to be a photographer,” Victoria recalled. “I was never good with numbers — shutter speed and aperture and ISO. I mean, those numbers didn’t make sense to me on a camera so I was just pushing the buttons and changing the settings to point and shoot; if it didn’t look good, I would adjust until it did.”

In her liberty time away from Combat Camera, even while overseas, Victoria never stopped cultivating a love for volunteer work, a passion that grew from all that Toys For Tots work as a kid. For her efforts, she was officially awarded the prestigious Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal (MOVSM) earlier this year.

“I’m really proud of that, because you had to do continuous volunteer service over the period of three years,” Victoria said. “I was volunteering in soup kitchens overseas in Singapore and India, and I was doing volunteer work at schools in Italy while I was deployed. I grew up volunteering with family through Toys for Tots and giving my time to other causes while active duty and even deployed was a joy.”

Victoria Taylor explained to At Ease that something else occurred during this deployment — a life-changing experience that haunts her still.

On Christmas Day 2018, when the 13th MEU was in India, Victoria reported that she was sexually assaulted by another Marine, a man she said was a “total stranger.”

Several females on her deployment reported similar experiences, she added, a situation that was reported on in 2019 by the Marine Corps Times.1

“You hear about it, and you see it, and you don’t think it’s going to happen to you, but then it does,” she said. “It’s scary. I have PTSD from it, from people touching or scaring me. Going through a PTSD episode for the first time was a big reason I got out. I realized that I can’t function the same and trust like I used to. It’s heartbreaking, not just for myself but for the many other women on my deployment and women veterans in general that have had to suffer Military Sexual Trauma (MST).”

“I used to be the Marine that said, ‘oh, I’m going to do 30 (years), I’m so motivated!’,” she added. “After my MST, I realized I couldn’t, that was a big reason why I got out.”

Victoria stressed to At Ease that she wants to discuss this episode in her life openly “because it’s okay to speak out and report these things, even if it happened 10 years ago. You’re not going to be blamed and you’re not alone”.

“I have struggles and it was hard to accept what happened. It was difficult to say out loud. I think it’s important to say that I am a sexu-

al assault survivor and that it’s OK to speak out,” she said.

When Victoria finally left active duty, it was in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic erupted across the United States and locked the nation down for months.

“I got out at the worst time possible to integrate back into society… the day I was leaving, everything was closing down,” she said.

She had enrolled for the only option, distance-learning college classes, through George Mason University. But 18 months into that, virtual schooling felt miserable to her.

“School felt like a money suck, it was a waste of my GI Bill,” she said. “I was like, I don’t need a degree to have a job, they aren’t teaching me anything new or that I will need to use, and I want to be a photographer or a videographer.”

With new resolve, she went job hunting. Walter Reed Navy Medical Center in Bethesda hired Victoria for audiovisual production work. Then, a few months later, the Secret Service opportunity came up. It was such short notice that she had to rush to print hard copies of her portfolio at a drugstore photo counter, but she was determined to present her best for this job interview.

“I’ve never been more nervous for a job interview in my life,” Victoria said. “But they loved my portfolio, my background and my experience in the Marine Corps. Being able to handle unsure situations and government officials, being confident around weapons. It was honestly a perfect fit.”

A year into the job, taking pictures for the Secret Service is a role where she’s able to connect with other veterans and former Combat Camera operators, and feel that swell of mutual respect and admiration — to find that camaraderie she worried she’d never feel again.

“We all poke fun at each other,” said Victoria. “‘Oh, that one’s in the Navy, they don’t really work; that’s a Marine, she’s a crayon eater.’ You walk into a room and already have something in common with these people. You know you’re on the same playing field.”

Today, Victoria makes her home outside Washington, D.C., where she cultivates her love for volunteering and dance through participation with the USA Cheerleaders Organization and as a semifinalist competing for Ms. Veteran America 2023, a competition raising money and awareness for Final Salute Inc. combatting homelessness among women veterans and their children.

She and her boyfriend, an active-duty Marine Corps sergeant, are talking about getting married. Down the line, she wants to be a mother and raise children.

This is her dream job, but she’s got other plans, too.

“Yes, I do have a lot of dreams — a really big bucket list of things I want to do,” she said.

“I haven’t done everything I want to do, I have a job, but I still want to follow my dreams and make them come true.”

1https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marinecorps/2019/05/30/assault-fraternization-harassment-punishment-book-reveals-noncommissioned-officer-misconduct-aboard-13th-meu-deployment/

Growing officer pool officer

Story by Glenda C. Booth

Making it look like America

As a youngster in Petersburg, Va., becoming a pilot was his dream, said retired Army Major E. Sean Lanier. He achieved that dream flying Blackhawk helicopters in many of the world’s hotspots. Today, kids are his passion thanks to his grandmother, Alice Lanier, nicknamed, “Ms. Peaches.”

“She believed in helping kids,” he said. “Everybody’s kids were her kids.”

So far, he’s “taken in” and nurtured over 550 kids and is eager to help more. Lanier sees a wealth of undiscovered potential in today’s youngsters, so he founded Resolve Solutions, Inc., (RSI) to mentor, counsel and unleash that potential.

RSI has helped minority students in 23 states earn $43 million in offers to pursue an undergraduate degree. He’s helped prepare them for college and matched them with colleges and ROTC programs.

“Our nation has never fully utilized all of its human capital,” he said.

Lanier is addressing what some call the “military manpower shortage.”

Photos courtesy of Resolve Solutions

VMI Cadets at the BEYA STEM Conference for exposure to key leaders in the DoD, internship opportunities, post-graduate employment opportunities, and graduate school opportunities. This year, Resolve Solutions successfully had 22 middle -high school students attend the BEYA Stars & Stripes mentoring session and the college & career fair portion.

Midshipman Jasmine Forbes, United States Naval Academy (USNA) 2023, and I at the 37th Black Engineer of the Year (BEYA) STEM Conference at the Gaylord Hotel this February.

The NBC television network reported last June, “Every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goals, say multiple U.S. military and defense officials, and numbers obtained by NBC News show both a record low percentage of young Americans eligible to serve and an even tinier fraction willing to consider it.”

Lanier said the manpower and womanpower are out there. It’s not being tapped.

He especially sees underrepresentation of minorities as officers as problematic, believing that the officer pool should “reflect what the country looks like.” This underrepresentation weakens national defense readiness, he maintains, arguing that there’s no dearth of potential recruits.

“There is no shortage of talent in this country,” he said. “The talent is not aware of the opportunities.”

Lanier founded the nonprofit in 2018 to improve recruiting, retention, graduation and commissioning of promising students, primarily from historically underrepresented backgrounds. RSI supports students in several ways: helping them understand varying admissions processes; helping them get

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) scholarships for postsecondary education; mentoring them; funneling them to colleges’ summer bridge programs to learn about campus life; and connecting them to a college appropriate for the student.

The goal is to connect with 3,000 applicants a year and from that number, choose 500 for ROTC scholarships or enrollment in the service academies.

Lanier also strives to inspire young people with a “big picture” view of the military, to help them understand that “serving in the military is much more than jumping out of airplanes, kicking in doors at ‘O dark 30’ and blowing stuff up.” There’s a wide range of opportunities, from physical therapists to accountants to interpreters to intelligence officers, careers in all military branches that they’ve never envisioned.

Talking with a student at the Black College Expo in San Diego this past January who wants to become an Aerospace Engineering major and a pilot in the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. Navy. Meeting students where they are and assisting them with pathways for their specific goals is vital to building immediate trust and reinforcing confidence in their decision-making, according to Lanier.

A student from Albemarle Public Schools Lanier met at the CYEP UNITE Conference and Career Expo at Capital One Hall in Tysons Corner. He coincidentally had a goal of becoming a military officer and Lanier said they “hit it off.”

With RSI’s guidance, Army Second Lieutenant Nathanael Gaines, Jr., from Woodbridge, Va., got a full ROTC scholarship, graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021, and is now in flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama. He fondly recalled Lanier helping him attend a college orientation workshop at Virginia Military Institute when Gaines was 15.

He believes that Lanier and RSI “gave me the life skills I needed to get into college,” like how to apply for scholarships. He credits RSI for “giving me the tools to be successful.”

Cadet Tiana Frierson from Suitland, Md., a junior at Ohio State University, thanks RSI for helping her “make college a reality.” She expects

to graduate in 2023 debt free as a second lieutenant, continue to medical school, become an Army doctor and pay back with service.

2LT Nate Gaines, with Lanier and prospective VMI student Jonathan Dameron at the VMI Open House event in February 2022. Nate served as a gold bar recruiter for VMI Army ROTC for 90 days before reporting for flight training. His responsibility was recruiting events and speaking about the benefits of ROTC. Jonathan was a high school senior at the time of the photo and attended the VMI Open House to help finalize the decision of his school choice after earning a 4-year Army ROTC scholarship. Jonathan is now a 4th Classman (Freshman) at VMI.

Above: Tiana Frierson at the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument in the background. Right: Lanier and Frierson during an interview with a local news station in Columbus, Ohio.

2LT Nate Gaines at Initial Entry Rotary-Wing Training (IERW), Fort Rucker, AL, next to a UH-72 Lakota helicopter.

Funding challenges

The biggest obstacle in this work is finding funding sources. Currently, most funds come from small donors.

RSI also pursues grants and foundation and corporate sponsorships and reaches out to RSI alumni and parents.

For more, visit https://resolvesolutions.org/.

Supporting students

To find talented young people, RSI reaches out to high school principals, counselors, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) instructors, coaches, veterans, and others, people he calls “local champions.” Most JROTC instructors are retired military people. While RSI’s main focus is on minority youngsters, “Anyone willing to serve, we are eager to help,” Lanier emphasized.

RSI personnel start by sitting down and listening to students. Then they evaluate the student’s situation and try to determine if ROTC can help them. With the students and their families, they explain that the college admissions process is separate from the ROTC scholarship and service academies’ nomination process.

“Every child needs two or three adults in their lives,” Lanier said, “and sometimes it’s not the parent. Students must take ownership of their decisions [so they can cope with problems] when things get tough.”

Military from the start

Military service is in Lanier’s blood. He grew up near Fort Lee (now known as Fort Gregg-Adams) in Virginia. His father was a medevac pilot in the Vietnam War. Many of his uncles served in the military and his grandfather was in the Navy in World War II.

“Being in the military is what you did as a male,” he said. “Serving was a must.”

He attended the Virginia Military Institute from 1990 to 1995 and majored in history. He then went to flight school at Fort Rucker, became an Army aviator and flew Blackhawk helicopters in South Korea and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and then worked in supply logistics in Germany, Italy, Iraq and Afghanistan. That adds up to 20 years of active duty and four in the National Guard and Army reserves. He retired in 2015.

RSI is on a mission to find the unique gift in every student, light that fire, and steer young people on to a successful military pathway and career. He’s determined to find undiscovered talent, their spark and aspiration.

“That’s the secret sauce,” Lanier believes, and by finding and mentoring these promising students, Resolve Solutions will also strengthen the national defense.

Students from Franklin Military Academy (VA) who were individual West Point Leadership Ethics and Diversity in STEM (WPLEADS) prize winners at the Howard University Senior Leader Development Conference (SLDC) event on Feb. 2, 2023.

Students from Huguenot High School (VA) who were individual West Point Leadership Ethics and Diversity in STEM (WPLEADS) prize winners at the Howard University Senior Leader Development Conference (SLDC) event on Feb. 2, 2023.

Chloez Café offers a taste ofhome in the heart of NOVA

Story by Alice Swan

Photos by Jeffrey Heeney

When Army veteran Joe Herrera and his wife Carolyn opened the doors of their dream restaurant in September 2019, they couldn’t imagine those doors would be forced to close within six months. But the couple is grateful for the customers who came to love Chloez Café as soon as it opened, for supporting the café during the COVID-19 shutdowns, Joe shared, adding that Chloez has become so popular the couple is expanding into retail space next door this summer.

Located in the Fairfax Station Square shopping plaza on West Ox Road in Fairfax, Va.,

Chloez Café has quickly become the go-to spot for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for many retired or former military in the local area. Perhaps because they, and every customer who comes into the café, enjoy a hearty welcome from Joe, who treats everyone as if they were guests in their home, noted Carolyn.

Joe said that the couple had always had a dream of opening their own restaurant. After retiring from his 34-year management career with Aaron’s Furniture, and Carolyn retired from her position with Time Warner Cable, they got serious about making the dream a reality.

“We looked at what this area needed, and in (Fairfax) they didn’t need another pizza place or taco place,” said Joe. “We wanted to do something different, so we came up with the idea of an all-day breakfast restaurant. We named the café after our youngest daughter, Chloe.”

“Coming from the furniture industry, I knew what customers want and how to sell,” Joe said. “The hard part was getting the menu right. So Chloez serves breakfast all day, along with lunch and dinners featuring home-cooked meals. It’s an Americana menu, featuring fresh ingredients, locally

sourced and all handmade.”

Another feature is the calm and welcoming atmosphere Carolyn created for the café. Inspired by the family’s vacations to Aruba, guests can soak in the friendly, beach-themed environment without the background noise of tv screens. It is summer year-round at Chloez.

In no small way, the café lends its success to the lessons Joe learned while a member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard. The discipline, attention to detail and drive for perfection he absorbed as a young Soldier are behind the spit and polish shine found in Chloez’s kitchen and seating areas.

“In the military you learn discipline; getting things done at all cost, leading others by example,” Joe said. “That’s always carried me through my career and (at Chloez) it’s no different.”

Joe also shared the keys to success that he relies on.

“If you can do these three things you can get your customer back almost 100% of the time: offer good food, good service and a great experience. If you can hit those three out of the park you will get your customers coming back. Focusing on these has been key to our success so far.”

Those key ingredients are what keep longtime customers, like retired U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Fields, dining at Chloez. He shared that he and his wife come to the café 3 to 4 times a week, and often bring friends.

“We love the food here, and it is always good. We are also impressed with the staff,” Fields said. “You see people of all ages here, especially families. It’s a great atmosphere and they have great coffee.”

The foods Fields raved about starts with the breakfast/brunch selections (available all day), featuring hearty breakfast burritos, Eggs Florentine, omelets, Belgian waffles, and stacks of old-fashioned buttermilk pancakes. The lunch menu offers your choice of hoagies, highlighted by the Steak and Cheese Supreme or the Super Italian, along with 11 different gourmet burger choices. Dinner meals change each evening, from Mexican Night, Italian Pasta Parties, Homemade Meatloaf or Grilled Steak. The café social media sites keep diners up to date so they don’t miss their favorites.

Joe and Carolyn said they have no regrets leaving the corporate world behind to make their entrepreneur dream come true. And Chloez’s continued success is truly a family effort. Besides managing the front of the house, Joe brings his Yuma, Ariz., roots into the menu with his homemade secret salsa and turkey chili.

In addition to handling business operations for the café, Carolyn often gets behind the stove to cook, and her homemade vinaigrette dressing has become a favorite with customers. Daughter Jade is an assistant manager, while youngest daughter Chloe, finishing her freshman year at a local high school, pitches in too. The Herrara’s

other daughters, Morgan and Madison, lend their support when visiting.

“I’m working more than I’ve ever worked, but I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” said Joe. “I love coming to work every day,. I love seeing the customers that we have, especially our military customers. I like introducing people to each other and seeing what happens after that. It’s almost like a ‘Cheers’ in here where everybody knows everyone, because eventually they are connected in some way. It’s a fun environment where our customers and staff want to be here. We try to make them feel like family, like guests in our house, not just customers.”

Chloez Café is located in the Fairfax Station Square shopping area at 5622 Ox Rd, Unit F, Fairfax Station, VA. The restaurant website is https://chloezcafe.com, telephone (703) 272-3029. The full menu is listed on the website. You can send an email to Carolyn at Carolyn@ChloezCafe.com to get added to their customer notification list. You’ll get alerts about live music performances, dinner specials and other café happenings.

OFF BASE

It took many steps to walk on the moon

Story and photos by Glenda C. Booth

An Apollo 11 astronaut

History chronicled in Richmond

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin walked on the moon approximately 820 feet in about two and a half hours on July 20, 1969. The three-man crew brought back to Earth 47.8 pounds of 3.7-billion-year-old igneous rocks and basalts, the first ever return of samples from another planetary body. The crew’s spacesuits were made from 21 different materials in 24 layers and each suit had a life support backpack.

These are just a few of the intriguing facts visitors learn at “Apollo: When We Went to the Moon,” an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond until Dec. 31, 2023. Apollo 11’s mission was to achieve the first manned lunar landing and then return to Earth. Mission accomplished.

Through videos, films, television newscasts, photographs, letters, newspapers, models and many authentic objects on loan, the exhibit tells the human, geopolitical, scientific, and engineering story of an endeavor that took 400,000 people, 100,000 at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and 300,000 contractors.

The command module sat atop a Saturn V rocket, the most powerful rocket ever to fly, which provided 7.5 million pounds of thrust and propelled them from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center into space and into history. Armstrong was the Commander; Aldrin, the Lunar Module Pilot; and

Michael Collins, the Command Module Pilot. From 500 to 600 million people worldwide watched Armstrong’s walk 250,000 miles away in another world. Streets went quiet in many U.S. cities. His ever-enduring announcement, when he put his left foot on the moon’s powdery surface, is forever cemented in the public mind: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

History unfolds in the exhibit, starting with the Cold War tensions of the 1950s, a post-World War II rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the beach-ball-size Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, which circled the Earth and NASA’s website says, “changed history.” In 1959, to test the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on people, NASA flew into space an eight-pound monkey named “Sam.” Sam withstood forces ten times his body weight (the G-force) and came back alive. In 1961, President John Kennedy announced to Congress that the nation would send an American safely to the moon before the end of the decade.

These are but a few of the chapters that the exhibit explores, steps that got the three Americans there, a story of determined human persistence and brilliant science and engineering.

Four days, six hours and 46 minutes after liftoff, the lunar module, called the “Eagle,” landed in the Sea of Tranquility, four miles away from

These casts were made of each astronaut’s hands to custom fit their gloves.

Legendary CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite, announced the 1969 moon walk, viewed by millions on grainy images on 1960s televisions.

Major Political Influences (1949-1968) during the Cold War. The blue symbolizes U.S. political influence, the red, Soviet Union political influence; and yellow, political upheaval.

the predicted touchdown point. “The Eagle Has Landed,” announced NASA’s mission control spokesman at 3:17 p.m. EDT on July 20. CBS broadcast journalist, the late Walter Cronkite, took off his glasses, stared into the camera, and breathed a great sigh of relief for the nation.

Military ties

Many of the nation’s astronauts were and are former Air Force and Navy test pilots. NASA rules specified in the 1960s that astronauts could be no taller than 5 feet 11 inches. NASA cast their space gloves to custom fit and with room at a premium in the capsule, engineers molded the module’s seats to precisely fit each body.

Military know-how was a backdrop to space technology. Dr. Werner von Braun, a German-born aerospace engineer and former Nazi, worked on missile and rocket technology for the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1960 and in 1960 became director of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The exhibit has models of various Saturn rockets that are “evolved versions of military weapons,” notes a sign.

Virginia’s role

NASA’s Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Va., is the birthplace of America’s space program, according to the exhibit. Many astronauts trained there, bouncing around in simulation units with

one-sixth of the Earth’s gravity. Among many other accomplishments, the exhibit highlights Langley’s efforts to develop a launcher and to test parachutes to bring capsules down. Langley’s human “computers” did the math for the engineers, portrayed in the film “Hidden Figures.” NASA’s first flight director, a Virginian, the late Chris Kraft, created mission control.

Museum-goers can climb into a lunar rover, used on subsequent Apollo missions, a dune-buggytype vehicle that enabled astronauts to cover more ground than the first “moon walkers” and collect real-time geology information. Three lunar rovers are still on the moon. Space suits, moon boots, and a Mercury capsule model on display all offer enticing fantasy material for aspiring moon travelers.

The Apollo 11 astronauts left behind an American flag and a plaque that reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”

Information

Visit https://virginiahistory.org/exhibitions/ apollo-when-we-went-moon. After Richmond, the exhibit will be in New York City from March 25 to September 2, 2024.

“How Did We Get to the Moon?” by the Institute of Physics, https://www.iop.org/ explore-physics/moon/how-did-we-get-to-themoon .

Andrew Talkov, the museum’s Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs, in a lunar roving vehicle designed by General Motors.

Left: The Apollo 11 astronauts’ space suit, which had 24 layers. Right:The Sokol SK-1 space suit worn by Yuri Gargarin, a Russian cosmonaut who in 1961 was the first human to travel into outer space. His suit had a life support system and inflatable rubber collar for a water landing.

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Mouth and throat toning for better sleep

Story by Charles S. Masarsky, D.C.

In a recent article by Samir Deshpande of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, we are reminded that sleep quality is an important factor in immune function, vigilance, reaction time, learning and mental acuity. While these factors can make the difference between success and failure on military missions, they are of great importance in ordinary civilian life as well.

Snoring and the resulting poor sleep quality is often caused by a lack of tone in the muscles of the mouth and throat. This same lack of tone can be a slippery slope towards a more serious problem — obstructive sleep apnea. In this condition, you briefly stop breathing in your sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea increases your risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and dementia.

Toning the mouth and throat muscles can dial down the intensity of your snoring, thereby improving the quality of your sleep. Recent research indicates that exercising these muscles can even reduce the severity of obstructive sleep apnea. These exercises can be helpful when used alone or in conjunction with CPAP or other interventions. Even if you do not have apnea and are not snoring, these exercises may improve your sleep quality.

Mouth-throat toning exercises Say “ah”

When an examining doctor looks into your mouth and asks you to say, “ah,” they look for elevation of the soft palate. The same vocalization can be used as an exercise to tone the soft palate. Say “ah” for 10-60 seconds, according to com-

fort. Alternate staccato vocalization (“Ah-ah-ah-ah…” etc.) with longer efforts of “holding the note” (“Ahhhhhhhh…”). Shoot for a total of at least 3 minutes per day.

Resisted tongue thrust (forward)

Press your lips together, and press your tongue forward against the resistance. Do this for 10-60 seconds according to comfort, shooting for a total of at least 3 minutes per day.

Tongue to the roof

Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Assist the pressure with suction, so your tongue is actually being sucked upward against your palate. Hold for 10-60 seconds according to comfort, shooting for a total of at least 3 minutes per day.

Tongue to the floor

With the tip of your tongue touching your lower teeth, press the rest of your tongue down against the floor of your mouth. Hold for 10-60 seconds according to comfort, shooting for a total of at least 3 minutes per day.

Tongue to the cheek

Press your tongue against your right cheek, with the tongue and cheek resisting each other. Hold for 10-60 seconds according to comfort, shooting for a total of at least 3 minutes per day. Repeat with your left cheek.

Back-lick

Pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth, move your tongue as far back as possible, licking the roof of your mouth from front to back. Then lick from back to front. Repeat for 10-60 seconds according to comfort, shooting for a total of at least 3 minutes per day.

What can you do in addition to mouth-tongue exercise?

If you are a smoker, quitting is probably the most important step you can take to improve your breathing, whether asleep or awake.

If you are overweight, weight loss will make a major difference in your breathing and sleep quality.

The muscles of the throat and mouth are controlled directly or influenced indirectly by nerves passing through the neck and upper back. These nerves also control many of the breathing muscles. Chiropractic adjustments help free these nerves from stress, thereby improving breathing. This benefit of adjustments can be augmented by

About the author While

breathing exercises.

If you have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, and the combination of oropharyngeal exercises, chiropractic adjustments and lifestyle changes does not bring sufficient improvement, please consult with your medical doctor about further steps.

For information on this article, or to make an appointment for care, call 703-938-6441. Also visit his practice’s website: www.neurologicalfitness. com, and You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEKVboDAUWH4YEJnfrlnPg.

Making memories that last a

Lt. Col. (Rev.) Paul McCullough, U.S. Army retired, is president of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Penn & Franklin-Greater Philadelphia Chapter and an Army Reserve Ambassador from Pennsylvania. He served 20 years in the Army, retiring in 2018 as deputy director for supplier operations, Defense Logistics Agency. He deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005, and in 2017 as commander of the DLA Support Team-Kuwait. He holds a doctorate in business administration from Walden University.

In the last few months, I’ve traveled by air, land and sea in celebrating two very special dates in our family — 1 April and 23 May. April 1, commonly known as April Fool’s Day, is the day I met my wife and proposed to her exactly two years later in 1997. We got married on May 23, 1998, and precisely ten years later, my daughter had the audacity to be born on the exact same day. So, from that moment on, my wife and I have always celebrated our anniversary on the day we met, in order to properly honor my daughter on her birthday.

This year, my wife and I hit a major milestone of 25 years of marriage, so we decided to go to Aruba to celebrate. The mantra for my life has always been “Go big or go home,” so we decided to fly first class both ways, rent a luxury 4x4, and stay in a romantic villa that sits on the Atlantic Ocean. Our villa, which was nearly as big as our home in New Jersey, had a cutout through which you could go canoeing or snorkeling in the Atlantic Ocean directly from your room, as well as a glass floor that enabled you to see the ocean under your feet! During our trip, we rode on a submarine that explored the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. It submerged for about an hour, diving to approximately 120 ft below sea level. With the vehicle we rented, we had the opportunity to drive all across the island of Aruba and see a

special cave I had seen videos of previously, as well as spend some time at Aruba’s world-famous beaches and eat at a couple of spectacular restaurants.

Fast forward about six weeks, I decided to take my family to the Pocono’s in celebration of my daughter’s birthday over Memorial Day weekend, per her request. We selected a resort we had stayed at several years ago, departing early on Friday morning. Like her father, my daughter is a planner and had developed a full itinerary for each day of our vacation, which we followed closely. Although we engaged in almost all the same activities we had done the last time we came, something had changed. The dynamic was different, since my son and daughter were no longer little kids. Yet, we made the most of our time and grew closer together.

I share these stories of our family vacations with you to emphasize one point — life is short, so we must cherish the time we have with our loved ones. All too often, people live in the same house together for decades, but never take the time to truly develop relationships with each other, especially in military families that experience frequent deployments and PCS moves. If you are a parent or a spouse, I’d encourage you to utilize our great transportation systems and find creative ways to go on trips with your family. You’ll make memories that last for a lifetime.

They served in Vietnam Now telling their story

Story by Glenda C. Booth

Photos by Suzanne Fiegley and Laura Hatcher

The Vietnam War was mud, monsoons, malaria and maturation. In an exhibit at Richmond’s Virginia War Memorial, 50 Virginians who served in the Vietnam War relate their mixed experiences. The exhibit, titled “50 Years Beyond: The Vietnam Veterans Experience,” coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords which ended the war in 1973. The first U.S. soldiers were killed in South Vietnam in 1959.

Through photographs, videos and personal stories, these veterans, most of whom were young when deployed to this southeast Asia country in the 1960s, candidly describe some of their memories and sentiments — the good, bad, sad and ugly. The Vietnam War was one of the most divisive for Americans, most his-

torians contend. Many draftees and those who signed up voluntarily became torn about the war’s goals and they questioned government officials’ justifications for the war. Anti-war protests erupted at home in the mid- to late-1960s.

Growing up

Many men and women who served had never been out of the United States before going to Vietnam.

“Vietnam was largely a green smudge on the map,” said Christopher Knaggs from Michigan in the exhibit.

Alexandrian Bill Cleveland, an Army veteran recalled, “The first week I just sat down and cried. As the helicopters were coming in, they were bringing in the wounded and the dead. We had to separate the wounded from the dead. We had to separate their clothes. Those kinds of things get to you .

Similarly, Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen, from Charles City County, explained, “I wasn’t prepared for what I was going into. You never knew what you were going to do from one day to the next. There was a lot of homesickness because I’d

never been away so far, so long away from home . . . You grew up fast in Vietnam, but you didn’t mature. So, I had my ups and downs, but that’s part of growing up . . .” He was an Army radio operator in Vietnam’s mountains. After suffering serious burn injuries, he healed in several military hospitals, the first in Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam.

Alvin Hockaday

Charles Wood

Eddie Swink

Jim Perlmutter

Charles Major

Poignant, mixed memories

The veterans’ comments accompanying the photographs pointedly convey the mélange of emotions and memories that can get all tangled up in military service, combat, and especially that war, which for some left a legacy of questions and doubts. For each service member, the exhibit displays a photo of the individual today and one from his or her time in Vietnam.

Army veteran Mike Danner from Montpelier said it was a “very confusing time,” that he “definitely had mixed memories” from his 15 months there.

Shirley Cheek from Richmond was an Army nurse.

“I saw a lot of things in that military hospital that I would have never seen in civilian nursing,” she said. “I saw a lot of brave young men. I never heard a single young man complain. Never.”

At some point, many who went on chemical missions learned that the herbicide Agent Orange used to defoliate forests and other vegetation was harmful to human health, despite being told at the time that it was safe. One soldier carried in his wallet for 50 years a list of men killed in his unit.

The positives

For some, their service brought a great sense of camaraderie and purpose.

“My experience in the Army changed my life for the better. The Army gave me a sense of confidence

in my ability to do things,” Richmonder Stuart Blankenship said.

Francisco Mejia added, “The good memories were the contacts with people. You might be in a swamp, at an airbase, at a USO center. Those were the good times, to be around your peers and have a moment to act like humans. The bad or horrific side is when you give up that humanity and turn into an animal. That’s combat . . .”

Jay Hanger from Staunton went to Fort Bliss, a Texas Army base, where he learned to speak Vietnamese to help decision-makers better understand what the enemy, the Viet Cong, was doing. The Viet Cong was a guerrilla force that fought against South Vietnam with the support of the communist North Vietnamese Army.

Coming home

Some comments convey the agony of returning to the United States amid controversial headlines. Several did not discuss their service for years or even tell people they had served in Vietnam.

“The culture changed when we returned,” said Danner.

Navy veteran Richard Tunstall from Montvale added, “The first 40 years after Vietnam, you didn’t tell anybody. But in the last 10 years . . . even the state of Virginia said, ‘Let’s put it on your driver’s license.’ But before that, you wouldn’t even tell anybody you were in Vietnam.”

Hope for lessons learned

Several veterans expressed their hope that lessons were learned.

Robert Archer: “If asked to go by my country, I would do it again. I would hope that the country learned a lot from that experience. I would hope that nobody has to go to war, and if the country decides to, then I would hope it’s for the right reasons.”

Carl Darby, from Fairfax Station, who served in an Army cavalry regiment, was blunt: “War is insanity; it is a human failing. I haven’t moved from that feeling from the time it formed in me in Vietnam until now.”

Brian Stafford, an Army veteran from Vienna, said, “Vietnam wasn’t an enjoyable experience. It changed my perspective. You come home with a different perspective and an appreciation for life.”

And that appreciation for life and for those who serve our country comes through loud and clear in the exhibit.

How the exhibit was developed

Virginia War Memorial staff reached out across the state asking Vietnam veterans to share stories and photographs. They received over 1,000 submissions, from which they chose 50 men and women.

Exhibit managers partnered with Laura Hatcher, a Navy veteran and professional photographer, and Pamela Vines, an Army veteran and videographer and held photo and recording sessions in Richmond, Hampton Roads, Roanoke, and Northern Virginia. The stories and pictures include veterans from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

The exhibit will close in mid-summer 2024. The Virginia War Memorial is at 601 South Belvidere Street, Richmond, VA 23220, https://vawarmemorial.org/.

Jerry Davis

Diana Kupchella

Ed Savedge

Stuart Blankenship

Right: Laura Hatcher and Pamela Vines

This project has been extremely rewarding thus far and is quite possibly one of the most rewarding endeavors I’ve ever personally been a part of. As the son of a Vietnam veteran, I know the importance of preserving the history of those who served during the Vietnam War. I did not expect, however, to be so moved by the stories I have heard and the memories shared. I have laughed, shed tears, and everything in between.

Personal stories sought

The Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond is preparing an exhibition titled “Virginia and the Vietnam War” and seeks people who experienced the war in any fashion – veterans, activists for and against the war, Vietnamese-American refugees, military family members, and members of the general public. The museum will archive recorded interviews in their oral history collection. The exhibit will be open November 23, 2024, to April 17, 2025, and “will explore the long-term impacts of the war on Virginia’s people, politics, and culture and facilitate a greater understanding of this tumultuous time in American history,” says the press release. Visit https://virginiahistory.org/exhibitions/virginia-and-vietnam-war.

Editor’s note: The quotations in this article are displayed in the exhibit.

Margaret Gillaspie

Michael Brookman

Powhatan Red Cloud-Owen

—Dr.ClayMountcastle,Director, VirginiaWarMemorial

Photo by Christian Lilakos

the 62-year-old body-