Kimberly Williams Mason

Seag:

This is Morgan Seag. Today is February 16, 2018. It’s my pleasure to be interviewing Kimberly Williams Mason, who served in Operation Deep Freeze from 1977 through 1979. Thank you so much for being here!

Mason:

Thank you! Thank you so much.

Seag:

So, let’s start at the beginning. What is your given name?

Mason:

So, when I was stationed down there in Operation Deep Freeze, my name was Kimberly Williams. I met my husband down there, on the plane flight down, actually, and then we struck up a conversation and kind of hit it off from there. So I got married later—actually, about seven years later—and now my name is Mason, Kimberly Mason.

Seag:

Where were you born?

Mason:

I was born in Orlando, Florida in 1958.

Seag:

What were your parents like?

Mason:

Well, I was from a divorced family, and my mom was a single parent, an RN, who worked at the hospital, Orange Memorial at the time. Now it’s called Orlando Regional. I was the youngest of three, only girl. When I was in high school I kind of…They had a recruiter come by and just kind of make a spiel. I always wanted to travel, and so it kind of struck me like it would be a good direction for me to go. So, I went ahead and joined the Navy when I was 18. I was sent down to Operation Deep Freeze right out of A school in July, so it was a few months after my birthday.

Seag:

Which birthday?

Mason:

My 19th birthday. Yeah. So, then I was deployed down to Christchurch, and then you kind of go through like an indoctrination, get your survival gear and your bunny boots and all that kind of stuff. They kind of give you a spiel, pros and cons, what to do, ambassador, you know, because you’re basically…To me it was basically slave labor for the National Science Foundation. We worked all the operations, so we were their support group. We were in charge of keeping the scientists going and the base running tip-top.

Seag:

Do you come from a military family?

Mason:

My dad was military. Yeah, my dad and my uncle were. He was Navy and my dad was Army, and he was in World War II.

Seag:

Were you raised primarily by your mother?

Mason:

My mom, yeah. Pretty much.

Seag:

What was your relationship like with your brothers?

Mason:

Well, I was the youngest, so I mean, I had to kind of like…You had to be tough, you know. My one brother was nine years older and my other brother was three, and so you kind of played army. You know, any dolls I had were usually killed or something, thrown in the lake or something. [Laughter] I didn’t have a lot of dolls. I usually had to play army or something like that. But I had a pretty good relationship with my brothers for the most part, yeah. I only have one living brother now, and he’s in his mid-sixties.

Seag:

Did either of them join the military?

Mason:

No. Oh, you know what? My brother did. My older brother was in the Air Force. He was stationed over in Crete and Philippines and at the time he did Morse code. They don’t do that now, but back in the Vietnam era they would do Morse code and that’s what he did over there.

Seag:

Did you feel that your family was supportive of you joining the military?

Mason:

Yeah, my family was totally supportive. You know, back in those days, women going in the military was kind of an iffy type thing. So back in the ‘70s, yeah, it was pretty much a little trail blazed for me, but my family was pretty supportive. Yeah, I have to say that, which was good.

Seag:

Yeah, and you said you joined because you wanted to see the world.

Mason:

I just wanted to travel. I wanted to travel and just see new things. We never had a car growing up, so it was really kind of like homebound. Unless you got out with friends, you didn’t really go too much…go many places. Back in those days it wasn’t really a super big deal, but you only had one phone hanging on the wall, so totally different growing up type thing than it is now with cell phones and everything like that. It was a slow pace, so I was ready for some adventure and I definitely got it. I got what I asked for. Yeah.

Seag:

What was the process of enlisting like?

Mason:

Well, back in those days you would go in. They have like an exam that you would take to kind of see where your skill level would be at and being 18, I didn’t really have a lot of skills. So, I took a test and of course, hanging out with my brothers, I did really well on the mechanic stuff. But I really didn’t want to get my hands too dirty, so I went into administration. I was kind of like, in a hurry to get in the military because I just wanted to go. So, you don’t really…You know, when you’re a kid, you just sign. “Let’s just go. I don’t really care what they do, what they give me.” So, I ended up being a postal clerk, which is a rate they don’t have anymore in the Navy. I ended up just going to A school out of boot camp, and it was like about a four- to six-week school to teach you about how to mail packages. You had to kind of be in sync with the USPS, so you had to learn all their type stuff. It was like a crash course, basically.

Seag:

Where was that?

Mason:

That was in—It was an Army base, Fort Ben Harrison in Indiana. Indianapolis, outside of there. I was kind of in with the Army guys. We had this little barracks that was kind of World War II, basically, and kind of rinky-dink. It wasn’t fancy at all. We had all the girls stay in the one barracks, so it wasn’t too bad. But it’s like roughing it a little bit.

Seag:

Can you tell us the story of how you ended up in Deep Freeze?

Mason:

Oh, I mean it’s just a fluke. It was like, your dream sheet you fill out—I think I told you this earlier—You fill out your dream sheet, and I wanted Europe, Spain, Italy…You know, anything in Europe was kind of where I wanted to go. But because Operation Deep Freeze was ongoing and they wanted to get more women on board, I happened to be in the A school when they were looking for someone in the postal to go down. I happened to be the only Navy one at that school at the time. They were all Army and other…There were a couple Marine girls there, too. So lucky me, I was kind of chosen to do that. So, when they called me in for this kind of like little mini-interview to tell me where I’m going, they said what a great privilege it was and everything. I basically almost started crying [laughs] because they told me it’s kind of isolated duty and kind of roughing it. You know, your number’s up; you’re going. So, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

Seag:

Where had you hoped to be going?

Mason:

I wanted to go to Spain. I wanted to go to Italy. I just always wanted to travel—that kind of travel versus this kind of rustic…To me, it was…I compare it to Alaska 1860 gold rush times. I mean the streets look pretty much the same. It was just kind of dirty, backward wooden shacks that you lived in, basically. They had numbered buildings that you would live in, and they kept the women separated, of course—at least that first year.

Seag:

Did you know anything about Operation Deep Freeze before you officially—

Mason:

Not a thing. I never heard a thing about it. Didn’t really know even military went down there at the time. You know, I’m just out of high school. They send you where they send you and you do what you’re told, and you do the best job you can. That was pretty much it. So, I got back to the barracks there and I was like…All these other girls were going to Hawaii; they’re going here and there. I’m going to Antarctica and, you know, I wasn’t really thrilled about it. But looking back, it was a real good experience and I’m glad I went, really.

Seag:

So, are you saying that you think that were selected in part because they were trying to find women?

Mason:

Well, what it was, the postal clerk that had gone there before, he had left, so they had to fill what they call a billet. So, they were going to look for a postal clerk billet, and because I was the only one in school in the Navy at that time—

Seag:

The only person, man or woman.

Mason:

I think so. I think I was the only…I think I was the only one at that time because they had classes that would go every few weeks, and I think I was the only one. If I wasn’t, there might have been another guy—because you know what? There was one guy, and he ended up going to Hawaii, because I remember when I got my orders…Hawaii…I had taken his place, and I remember him because I went to school with him. So, there were some guys there. But they were filling a woman’s spot, because they wanted more women to be infiltrated into the community, per se. So that’s kind of how they chose me. There wasn’t a lot at the time; there were a few, though.

Seag:

And I’ve heard you describe before that it was something of an experiment that the Navy was doing.

Mason:

That’s what I was told. It was kind of like, “How are the women going to handle it,” if they could handle it. And there was a lot of adjustment due to, they had to find a place to put us that was somewhat safe. Because you get some of these winter-overs that have been down there six months and some of them kind of go off the deep end a little bit. So, they ended up putting us in this hut the first year I was there, just a little wooden place. It looked over the Ross Ice Shelf there, right over the ocean, and that’s the first year we spent there, we spent it there in that hut.

Seag:

What was the training like before you landed on the continent?

Mason:

There was no training. There was no training at all. It was basically, get your survival gear and do what they tell you. They kind of went over some safety things about, like, the whiteouts. They would have a box of sea-rats that were in your area, so if you ever were in there for a few days you would have some food. They always had a box you had to keep close by. I never had to dish into that stuff. Because things were scarce down there, they had the barter system, which is a lot of…they do, really when things were short, you’d trade. “I’ll give you this; I’ll give you that.” A lot of that went on down there.

Seag:

So, what was it like arriving? How did you get there and what did you pack?

Mason:

Well, my first year we landed on Willy Field. It was right on the ocean, on a C-130 on skis. You know, you just basically get out of the plane and they kind of round you up to these things called “Texas Twisters,” is what we called them. You jump in those things and it’s a long little bumpy ride back to the base. It takes probably about…Oh, it took probably about 40 minutes or so, maybe a little longer.

You were only really allowed a sea bag for all your belongings for six months, and so you really had to pack really carefully. Like I was telling you, you had to carry all your female stuff with you, so it took up some area in your bag, you’d rather carry some other stuff. But like I said, the underwear didn’t last long down there. It disappeared fast my first couple weeks. So I think I was wearing men’s long johns for my whole time I was down there that first year. I learned my lesson.

Seag:

Would you tell that story again?

Mason:

Well, it’s just we used to…because we did our laundry with distilled sea water. We would bag our laundry up in a mesh bag or a bag. It was separated by departments, and you would have your laundry washed—Mine would be washed like on Monday or Tuesday, and you’d use the same water, they use the same water all week. So, when it got down to like the mechanics and the hard laborers, they would have their laundry done last with the dirtiest water. So they always kind of smelled a little bit more greasy all the time.

But my underwear, that first couple times I put it in there—I just never got it back. No one knows what happened to it. They never…No one fessed up to anything, so it just disappeared. Come later you find out, the guys, they just use them as trophies or hang them up in their hut or something. I don’t know. So, you learn the first year. And because I was young, too, it was like, yeah, what do you do? All these stories. But yeah, they disappeared and so you end up wearing the long fly grungy military—what do you call them?—long johns with a fly and everything. So, you just kind of, whatever. But you’re all in the same boat, so you get used to it.

Seag:

Returning to your flight down, do you remember what it felt like exiting the plane for the first time?

Mason:

Well, you know, it’s scary because of the point of no return back in those days, I always got a little fearful. I was a little fearful of that, and when you look out the window, when you did get to go out and look—there was a window you could look out—you knew if you’re going down, you’re dead. It’s dead. No one’s going to come get you. There’s nowhere to land to come get you. So, it’s a scary thought that if you’re going down, it’s a done deal. Some of those military planes, they make a lot of noise and it’s not like flying Southwest or something. It’s a little scarier, a little creepier. That one time I was telling you, the panel of the plane, they were taking off to fix it and we had to turn back around to Christchurch. I was getting a little freaked out because we were over the ocean. I mean it’s just scary when things go wrong. You know, you think the military’s got it under control and then you wonder. [Laughs] You wonder. You’re hoping you’re going to make it, right? So, you get off the plane and the guys go, the first thing they do, they go to the club and they start drinking it up thinking they’re not going to make it. But you know, everybody handles things differently.

But yeah, I think at the time it was a 14-hour flight. I think it was 14 hours. And there’s no place really to use the bathroom, so you kind of hold it a lot. I told you about the bucket thing and the shower curtain.

Seag:

Can you tell that story again?

Mason:

Yeah. The one time I went down, I think it was a cargo flight, they had a bunch of cargo in there and we had some kind of like netting seats on the side for enlisted. You kind of strap yourself into the cargo nets or whatever, these seats, but then you’re on these flights and you can’t hear—you can’t talk to anybody because the plane is so loud—so you just sit there and read or do something. If you have to use the bathroom, the only thing they had was a shower curtain hung up by some kind of string and a bucket. That was it. So, I used that one time, but it was like the last time. I mean, it’s not a good situation. Plus, you have to undo all your many pockets, I mean all these clothes that you have on. Your feet are hanging out and your—[Laughs]—you know, the guys are over there and they’re all like doing their catcalls or whatever, making their comments. We’re all in the same boat, but it seemed like the women kind of always were watched more, you know?

But the food was fairly good. It was fairly good. We’d get the freshies from Christchurch they would fly down. We usually got the second pickings because the officers and—I called them the “Red Coats”—the scientists would get the good stuff. Then we got kind of like the last stuff. They called it…I used to drink this stuff called bug juice, and it was basically Kool-Aid. They called it bug juice because once you kind of clean those things out, it had all these bugs underneath the stuff. That’s why they would call it bug juice. But it was pretty good. You didn’t get fresh milk too often. Once in a while. It was powdered milk that we drank down there. The steaks were about ten years old. They were Kiwi steaks, and I think they were from the ‘60s that we were trying to finish up. That’s what they told us. We didn’t have plates to eat on. We ate out of…The whole time I was there, we ate out of paper plates.

Seag:

Do you know why that was?

Mason:

That was the water shortage. The water shortage. We never really ate on plates. Maybe the officers did; we didn’t. I don’t know.

Seag:

Can you describe the setting, what the station was like and the surroundings and what you thought of it?

Mason:

Well, there weren’t a lot of buildings. At least at that time, in the ‘70s, you had your barracks and buildings. We had a church—it was a yellow church that I heard since burned down. But you had the main building, and that’s where the chow hall was. You’d go in that, and they had the radio station. We had one radio station. All the entertainment we had was all those big giant movie things they would ship in, these canisters of movies and stuff, but that was pretty much it. That was pretty much it. You just kind of either read or most of the people that I knew, they’d go down to the club. They’d go down to the club for entertainment, especially when, like I was telling you earlier, beers were 25 cents. Top Shelf was 50 cents. So, I mean, you go down with $5 and just have a great time, you know? You didn’t have to really spend a lot of money.

But yeah, the base setting was small. Within four blocks, everything was there. Pretty much four or five blocks, everything was there. It was kind of spaced out a little bit, but public works was up on the hill, and a lot of the administration was in that main building. Then operations, like terminal ops, they had their own little kind of building, too. A lot of them, there were just all these little living huts around there. And cargo, cargo bay, which is where I worked. I worked in the cargo bay, in the little office. Hill Cargo is what they called it.

Seag:

What about the landscape? Were you struck by that at all or did you tend to stay more in the station?

Mason:

Yeah. I didn’t leave pretty much that base for the whole time. You were in that five-block area. There was nowhere to go, just nowhere to go. They don’t really encourage you just to wander off or anything, and there are really no hiking trails or anything. You’re just out there. The terrain basically just looked like volcanic dirt, rocks. It was all gray. The only wildlife we saw was skua gulls. We did have some rookeries that the scientists would bring in, and we got to go down there and take pictures of the…They were little Adélies. I think there were some either king penguins or emperors. They had a couple of those down there. I don’t know if they were doing experiments or what they were doing, but they were pretty cool. Then I got to go on that field trip that I was telling you about, too, which was a drawing that I won. That was probably the highlight of my trip down there, was that helicopter ride through the Dry Valleys, Shackleton’s hut, Scott’s hut. [Dogs barking] Those are my dogs. Sorry.

Seag:

We’ll pause it. [Pause] You were just mentioning the scientists. I’m curious about whether you had any interactions with the scientists.

Mason:

Well, they would do like little mini classes. I think they just did it for something to do. They would have little teaching classes and they’d talk about…The one I sat in was ice cores. They did some ice cores and stuff, which I thought was really interesting because I found out and realized that some of these ice cores have fauna and everything, which tells you that at one time it was a tropical area. So, land masses shifting or whatever it may be, they had a lot of different theories, but it was really interesting. It was a really interesting thing.

The terrain—like I say, we weren’t allowed to venture out. We weren’t supposed to. I know one of my first dates Ralph, [who] I ended up marrying, he took me on a date to this little type of ice cave out there near Willy Field, somewhere out there. We were popping off icicles and he said, “Well, this is like 10,000-year-old ice,” or something, and we put it in our drinks and stuff. So, it was kind of cool.

But yeah, the only time I really got to go out was when I was delivering mail to Willy Field, when they got their mail in. Either they would come and get theirs, or we sometimes would take it out to them. Because they would bring it all in on a big pallet, and my job was to drag the bags in with my second class. We’d drag all the mail in, and it might be anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of mail, boxes, everything on a manifest. We’d bring it in and dump it all out, and it would sometimes take two or three hours to sort it all. They’d be knocking at the door all the time. “Is the mail ready? Is the mail ready?” Then finally we would open the doors and they would sign for it through their departments, is how we got it out. Then we had all the scientists in their own little box and everything. So, we would get the mail out.

We would take a jeep down to Willy Field, and the heater never worked, I don’t think. It just never worked. It was always cold. You always had to bundle up. Real bouncy. Real bouncy. They never turned—At least then, they never turned the engines off of any of the vehicles. They were always left running if they were outside; they never turned them off. We’d go down there and dump the mail and then come back, so that was a little adventure we would take. But other than that…

Seag:

How long was the trip to Willy Field?

Mason:

It was like 45 minutes maybe. You’d go through the New Zealand base. Like I was telling you about, the little field trip I did get to go on is what my train of thought was, but…

Seag:

Can you tell that story, actually, from the beginning?

Mason:

Yeah. Well, they had some kind of drawing and the main prize was going to Vostok Station, which was like the Russian base. We were, like I was saying, ambassadors. At that time, blue jeans were like black market, so anybody that went down there, they always would take them blue jeans down there. They were paying big money for blue jeans, so I was thinking, “Oh yeah, I’m going to get rich and sell my Levis.” [Laughs] Anyway, I ended up winning this little drawing, and the officers, Lieutenant Drane said, “Well, you can’t go. You’re not going to be able to handle it.” The woman thing, and the bathrooms, no bathroom facilities. I said, “Well, I can just go out in a snow bank. It’s fine.” But they just basically didn’t want me to go.

Seag:

Because there were no women at Vostok at the time?

Mason:

There were no women at Vostok at all, plus they didn’t think it was accommodating. I told them that I would be fine, and I could figure it out, but they really didn’t want me going. So, they ended up doing a consolation kind of thing. I don’t know who actually went in my place, but they gave me this consolation thing where…It was kind of like…I think it was a VIP. This is what they would do with the VIPs. They would take you around on the helicopter, the VXE-6, and it was a little…I’m trying to think of the kind of helicopter it was. But they took you in there. It was a small one, about enough for maybe six people at the most. They took you around. We went to the ice caves. That wasn’t too far from McMurdo. I think you could actually hike there, but they wouldn’t let you unless you were a special party. The Dry Valleys was amazing. To me it was like looking into Arizona. There’s no snow in this valley. When they say…They were talking at that time about building a runway there that would…It never got snow, so it was ideal, but I think it would have been way too expensive. I think that was part of it. Then you flew around to these little…I call them little…They were like a couple scientists’ camp, two or three scientists, and they were doing experiments on their own with a little tiny trailer that we’d fly over. They were kind of waving to us. They were doing their own little experiments, and they had little bases, or little kind of like outposts. It was really primitive. Then we got to go…

Seag:

Did you touch down in the Dry Valleys?

Mason:

No. We didn’t touch down in Dry Valleys. The only time we touched down, we touched down at Shackleton’s hut, which was like a museum, and at that time it was. We weren’t even allowed to touch anything, but we got to go in and see how he lived. The dead seals outside, they’re still there, and the dog still tied up. The story behind their rescue—it was amazing.

Seag:

Did you know those stories before you went?

Mason:

Yeah. Once you’re down there, you start to kind of get a little bit immersed in the history of how the explorers came down and what they went through. So, to go through the hut was pretty amazing. I mean it was these little petri dishes and little stuff. It was so primitive, eating out of cans and stuff. And I do know that back in those days, the Shackleton days, when they first started making tin cans for food, there was a problem with getting sick—a certain kind of a metal. You couldn’t save them. It was like you could get really sick. Some things like that happened down there. They couldn’t save a lot of the food in the tin can because of the metal. They changed it; there’s a different kind of stuff now, but some people did get really sick down there with that. That’s what they told me, anyway. But they would eat seal meat and it was just…There was like a belly stove. There really wasn’t much there. It was just real primitive.

Seag:

Do you know when it was that you were there?

Mason:

At Shackleton’s hut?

Seag:

Mm-hmm [yes], this whole boondoggle.

Mason:

It was probably somewhere like in December or something like that.

Seag:

Of ‘77 or ‘78?

Mason:

That was ‘78. ‘78. Then the highlight was we landed on this…We landed on the ocean, but it was this thick ice. There was a crack in it, and in the crack you could see these killer whales and these rookeries of penguins—this rookery was like right nearby. So, we went to land the helicopter and he landed it. He hit it hard, hit the ice hard. Boom, boom, boom. He just kept on hitting it, and then finally we landed. He was like testing the ice to make sure we didn’t break through, and you’re kind of scared, just kind of scared. That’s scary! But he said, “Whatever you do, don’t get near the water edge because that’s how they get you. They come up and they crack the ice and you fall in water and you’re like dinner.”

Seag:

The whales?

Mason:

Yeah. So, we stayed about at least…Shoot, it was like at least 40 feet back.

Seag:

Who is “we”? Who else was with you?

Mason:

There were some other VIPs that were with us, and I really didn’t know any of them. I think they’re all VIPs. I was just kind of like in among them, but I was in my own zone because it was just so fascinating to see everything like this. Nature was just so beautiful and crisp. It was unreal. I wish…You know, the scientists had a really good view of the nature of it all. When you get back to the town, here we are in the gray, dingy town, but it was totally the highlight of my time down there, was that one day.

Seag:

Had you been interested in science or nature before going down?

Mason:

Yeah, I’ve always been a big science person and camping, things like that. But when you’re 19, you just don’t take it all in the same you do at my age now. To see that kind of stuff, I’m real appreciative I got the chance to go down there and experience that. People were pretty good. My roommates, the women I had the…Terry Reif, she was kind of like my big sister there. Kind of took me under her wing my first year, because there’s a lot you need to take in as far as just being safe down there. Because the guys were just, you know…With 25-cent beers and stuff, it can get a little bit rowdy, get a little bit crazy, so you kind of make sure you’ve got a buddy to hang with. That’s kind of how it was.

Seag:

Can you say more about what it was like being one of the first and only women on station?

Mason:

Well, you don’t think about it like that. You’re just kind of like, there. So you’re…You know, everybody’s a guy pretty much everywhere you go, and they want to talk to you. Some are real curious and some just want to talk to some female. They just haven’t seen anybody in a while, so they want to talk. “Let’s talk to the new girl. She’s over at the post office,” and they’re always coming about. You know, they’re checking you out and everything, and I was always real friendly and everything. But you kind of learn who your friends are, and I stayed pretty close to a small group, kind of like the big brother type. So that’s kind of how I kind of hung. I kind of hung with the big brothers, my big sister. It was kind of overwhelming because when you go in the club, everybody wants to buy you a drink. It’s like crazy! Just crazy, but there’s really nothing to do. You watch movies; you go to the club. You watch a movie and have another beer. You go home. You’re working seven days a week, and I worked 12-hour days. I think we got Christmas off. I think we got Christmas off and maybe Thanksgiving, but that was it.

Seag:

Do you think that the women felt welcome on station for the most part?

Mason:

Yeah. Yeah, I think we were all welcome. Some guys didn’t think we should be down there, but the majority thought it was good.

Seag:

Did you have a community of women? Did the women kind of band together?

Mason:

Oh, some of us did. You always had some kind…Like anywhere else, they’re a little bit out there or they really are more introverted, and they kind of hang with their own or they’re kind of by themselves. They had their own little clique, too, because everywhere you worked in a department, you kind of hung with your department clique. That’s kind of how it went. So, when we were together in the first hut, we were all pretty banded together. And like I said, the room I had was about 10×10 with like two bunk beds—just enough to stand up and change. That was my first room down there.

Seag:

And that was you and Terry Reif.

Mason:

Me and Terry and Pam Shryock and this operation girl. I’m trying to think of her name. She was married. Met a guy down there, and he would come visit sometimes. So, it was kind of like five of us in this little 10×10 room.

Seag:

Were all of you women attached to the Seabees or were some of you VXE-6?

Mason:

I think we were all Seabees, attached to the Seabee battalion. I think all of us were, pretty sure. Yeah, a couple of girls were operations and they would do like the flight information, that kind of stuff. Pam was in supply, so she kind of hung out with the supply people. She kind of had some people that she hung out that were safe to hang out with, and then I hung out with some admin and then some of my boyfriend’s public works group. They were a little rougher group. Hung out with them, but they were big and burly. I didn’t really worry about getting attacked or anything. You kind of hang out with your own little clique, but you all kind of banded together because you’re all in the same boat. But yeah, I think Pam and I hung out a little bit, but I usually just hung out with guys because I didn’t really see the girls. They worked across there. It was always cold and I didn’t want to go over there. [Laughs]

Then in my second year I was in the main building. I had a room in there with a girl from Special Services. She was a civilian, and that was the one that kind of got…I don’t know. She had a hard time adjusting down there.

We were allowed one shower a week. It was what they call a military shower—just soap up and rinse off. That was pretty much it. If you were caught showering on the side, you would get written up. The one girl—she was always kind of like a prima donna. I don’t know her name. She hung out in the officer’s club. Some how she got in there; I don’t know, but—

Seag:

Was she a roommate?

Mason:

No, this is another girl. She worked in operations, too. She hung out with some officer guys. She was real cute. She was, she was real cute and flamboyant. And she got caught taking a couple showers she wasn’t supposed to take, but it was a big deal because everybody was in the same boat. They had a cutoff on the showers from the men’s head to accommodate us, because they had to kind of do some revamping for us women. So, you could hear them in the next stall. Basically, there was this little drywall piece right between us, you know? So, we just took our little shower and that’s pretty much it. There was really nothing too much to do.

But we worked. Working like we worked, seven days a week, there wasn’t a lot of downtime. You know, there wasn’t. It was mainly just getting off work. You could get off work about like 7 and then you just go to the club, watch a movie, have a beer, and then go back to your bunk and do it all over again. That’s pretty much how it was.

Seag:

A lot of the women scientists and the women civilian support staff I’ve talked to have said they felt like they had to prove themselves as women because there hadn’t been many before, and because they were concerned about what opportunities would be available for women after them. Did you feel at all like you had to prove yourself?

Mason:

I didn’t feel that way. I mean I did my job. I think I did my job as well as any guy down there, because hauling mail bags—I can lift 60-pound bags. They weren’t supposed to be heavier than that, but they were. But you just drag them, you know. I’m not going to be like Hulk-mania or anything, but you would just drag them in there and unload them. But I didn’t think I had to prove anything.

I didn’t feel that the guys were…Some guys didn’t think we belonged down there; there was no doubt. But they were way fewer than the others. The others liked us down there. They thought it was good to have the women down there because it was boring, you know? It was boring and it was nice to talk to the opposite sex. But yeah, I never felt I had to prove myself at all, ever. I never felt that at all.

Seag:

How did you keep in touch with people at home?

Mason:

Just by letters. They did have ham patch, and I did call home. I called home one time in two years, and it was basically…I don’t know if you know what a ham patch is, but it’s just a network of mainly—a lot of them were military and a lot of them were retired, a lot of them do it as a hobby—but it’s just like these waves that go out into space. You catch these waves and they would tune you into a phone number. I don’t really know exactly how it works, but the closest thing I can compare it to is that I remember as a kid, my mom let me stay up and watch the moon landing. I thought that was like the biggest thing. But you know how they’re all fuzzy? Like the voices are real fuzzy? It’s exactly like that, and you had to say, “Over.” So, you’d say, “Hey, Dad! How are you doing? Over,” and he would say…It would take a second and then, “Yeah, I’m doing good. How’s it going down there? Over.” So, you had that kind of stuff like that. They would connect you, and it was all volunteer. These guys would be in Alabama, or I don’t know where these people were, how they’d hook up. But they’d hook up onto some kind of sound wave frequency, and it was real staticky and snowy type language.

So, it would be nice to talk to someone at Christmastime. It was usually a holiday or birthday. They would do it as like a gift. You could get some people to do that for you down there. But yeah, I got to hook up with my dad, a phone call to Orlando one time, but that was the only time I really got on there. It was just hard. Sometimes you’d have to wait. There was a lot of in between waiting, trying to get the connection and everything, and they’d do a lot. It was really amazing. They still have people that do stuff like that as a hobby, as like a backup. You can do it as a backup if things were to go wrong. You can use a ham patch, and that’s what they would use. It was just a little snowy and sounded like you were on the moon. That’s about how far away we were. But yeah, that was the only time I got to really talk to anybody.

Seag:

Were you homesick?

Mason:

No, not really. Not really. I wasn’t homesick. I didn’t go home the whole time I was in the Navy. I didn’t go home…You know, you meet friends, your buddies, and you’re going to hang with your buddies. So, you’re with your buddies. Everything is okay, because there’s a really good network of camaraderie when you’re in the service, whether it be Army, Navy…You’re all in the same boat. You’re going through some similar circumstances. Everybody’s away from home, their loved ones, and you’re all sharing that together. So, I didn’t really feel that way. Some were, especially if they were married. These married guys down there I felt bad for, because you’re gone for six months, and that would be really tough. I didn’t really have strings like that, so it didn’t really affect me like that like it did some people, you know.

Seag:

So, your first season was six months, and then what did you do before deploying the second time? What happened during the northern summer?

Mason:

So, we went back to…We would land in Point Mugu and then they’d ship us up there to Ventura or Port Hueneme where the Seabee base was. I just lived in the barracks there my first year. I could walk to the command. It was about, I don’t know, a half mile. I’d walk it every morning. When we got back, it was kind of a slower type thing. They’d kind of lay off. You didn’t have to muster every day, but you show up for muster, clean up, do this and that, and then they’d pretty much let you go around noon. We did that for about a month and then things would start picking up again. You started getting ready for the next season, start preparing.

The second year I went Winfly, so I went in August—August to February. Winfly is the first flight in, is what they call it, the first flight in. I think I was one of the first women ever to go Winfly. I was a little bit nervous because the arrangements were a little more rustic, too. That’s the one I went on the cargo net and the plane. Everything was cargo. You’re flying down there, getting all this stuff down there. So, we were basically hooked onto cargo. It is a little scarier because it’s just starting to turn daylight. There’s a little bit of sunset still. The base is a little emptier; there are not as many people, you know. I don’t know I’m trying to think—I mean just a couple hundred people—just not a lot. So, it was kind of a ghost town there initially for that first month or so. Then when we’d have the Main-body come down, I think it was end of September, October. That’s when people started coming in.

So Winfly, it’s kind of like a ghost town, because you have all the winter-overs and then a small group of Winfly people that would come in. Then we would set up. Like my job was to set the post office up and get it ready for mail because when that last plane goes out, basically the post office shuts down. Everything’s locked up. So, I was in charge of opening it up, get things ready. Things like that were my job. It was pretty easy to do, but you sat there all day and you don’t get another plane for a while, right? So, it was really boring. There’s nothing to do. There’s just nothing to do, so you bring a couple good books and good friends to hang with, and it passes the time. But it’s a slow time. It’s a slow time.

Seag:

You mentioned some numbers and I realized I didn’t ask you. What was the ratio of men to women on station? Do you remember?

Mason:

It was all…I don’t know. It was probably…I’m trying to think how many were in the…I think it was only like maybe 500 on base at the time, so maybe 1 out 50.

Seag:

1 out of 50?

Mason:

Maybe something like that, I think.

Seag:

So that would be just a handful of you, total.

Mason:

It was just a handful of us. Just a handful. You mean Winfly or Mainbody?

Seag:

Either, or both.

Mason:

I think there were only two of us Winfly, so it was a little different. Mainbody—I think the base at that time was maybe 500, so if there were 10 of us, about 1 out of 50 or 60, something like that. But I never really got harassed too much. I really didn’t. Everybody was real nice. I never…I mean the transition, or the thought that we couldn’t handle it, was really absurd. But this was back when Antarctica was still pretty fresh and pretty wilderness. I mean, there was not a lot of backup there. If you’re stuck, you’re stuck. You don’t have a lot of backup.

Seag:

Do you think that the Navy thought it was a successful experiment?

Mason:

Well, I didn’t hear anything about it, really. I mean, we didn’t have any problems that first and second year, not that I knew of, as far as being attacked. I mean, we always had the drunkies that would run after you in the middle of the street. [Laughs] But I never had any problem with that. I did hear the year after I left, one of the rooms in—is it 151 or whatever building, the main building—

Seag:

155?

Mason:

155, that there was an incident where someone got attacked, but I really don’t know a lot about that. At the time, that second year, I don’t think they had really good locks on the doors—kind of rinky-dink. I mean there were locks, but if you wanted to get in, you could get in. I think they had to step it up a little bit, but not when I was there.

Seag:

It wasn’t a problem.

Mason:

Not at all. Not at all.

Seag:

How did your second year compare to your first year overall?

Mason:

Well, it was good because…It’s good that you asked that. My first year I was kind of winging it. You just wing it. I’ve got my big sister, I’ve got my big brothers over here. The second year I kind of knew exactly what to expect. Winfly was a little bit different, but once the Mainbody came in, I kind of knew what my role was and what I was supposed to do, where to go, and things like that. So definitely the second year was easier for me to adjust, because I knew what to expect. The first year, you’re just kind of flying by the seat of your pants. You hear all these stories, and this and that. You hear all these stories, so you’re packing for whatever. But then you realize it’s fine. It’s fine. I never really had to worry about…I didn’t run out of anything. I pretty much had everything I wanted, you know.

But the packages, I mean the mail, of course, is a big item there, so they’re not really going to mess with me because I deal with the mail. So, if someone’s going to mess with you, you don’t want to mess with the mail person. You just don’t. You just don’t do that—not that anything would happen, but it’s not a good idea to mess with the mail person. [Laughter] Not good. So, I never had any problem.

Seag:

Do you think that most of the people were happy to be there? Did they see it as a positive thing?

Mason:

No. Not at all. Not at all. No, not at all. There were curmudgeons all over the place, all over the place. They’d be saying, “55 days I’ll wake up and I’m out of this hellhole.” You’d get all sorts of stuff. There were some who look at it different, and there were some who look at just as a hellhole. Because the work—Some of the guys, I mean they work hard. I think I had it comparatively easy to some of their jobs. They had to keep the ice runway going. I mean, you’re out there in the elements, and you’re out there 12 hours on a dozer. It’s just not fun. It’s hard work. They worked hard. So, I was lucky in that aspect because I was inside. I had an inside job, mail, which is like I’m not going to get a lot of hassle. They only fly in mail at certain times, so I was only busy certain times of the day. We always had mail coming and going, dispatched and bagging it up. I only worked hard when the mail came in. It would be once a day; it could be twice a day; it could be once a week. When it came in once a week, if the weather was bad, they couldn’t fly in. So sometimes we wouldn’t get mail for a week, and then we’d have like 20,000 pounds of mail. It would take us like four or five hours to get it sorted out. That’s where, if they come in at 2 in the morning, you have to get up and be there for it. They would call you and say, “Mail’s in. Get up.”

Seag:

And of course, the sun is up anyways.

Mason:

The sun is up all the time. It’s like Groundhog Day. It just depends on what’s going on, you know, it’s the same thing.

Seag:

So, there were a fair number of people who were unhappy with the deployment?

Mason:

A lot. A lot.

Seag:

How did it fit into people’s career progression? Was it a good opportunity in that sense?

Mason:

Well, of course some…You know, you’re in your rate down there. You’re not in an office in mainstream America, so down there you’re working in your rate, which is a good thing to do. You want to work, whether it be operations, terminal operations, you’re working in your rate, so you’re getting good training in that aspect of it. The thing about morale is that, I think the working seven days a week, there’s nowhere to go, and you’re away from home. So, morale is low there. Morale is low and drinking is high. Drinking is real high there. That was the way it was. I didn’t know any better; that’s just the way it was. But the families of the guys that were away from their kids and stuff, it had to have been really hard. I’m single, I’m 19 years old, that doesn’t bother me, but for them I’m sure it’s hard. As far as working in their rate, they got the experience that their job demanded, so they’re working like you would be on a ship. You’re working all the time.

Seag:

Does it count for the same number of points for a promotion that working on a ship would?

Mason:

Yeah. Well, yeah. You have your time. You’ve got your time and your rate and then, the thing about the military, of course you have to put your time in to be advanced, but you also have to pass a written test, which can be real difficult. There’s a lot of detail. I know the postal ones were real hard. They might have 200 people going up for second class, but they only have four billets for that advancement.

Seag:

Oh, wow.

Mason:

So, you’d better be scoring like a 99 percentile to get that test. I scored real well, 90 or so, but it wasn’t…I wouldn’t advance. They call it PNR…or PNA, promoted but not advanced, something like that. But yeah, that happened all the time. So, I would take the test. I’d pass it, but I wouldn’t advance, so you just have to keep doing it. You keep doing it and doing it. Then they ended up getting rid of the rate altogether, so we were in a…Postal was pretty much incorporated into supply, that was after I left. But yeah, they got to use their job down there. That was more like their sea duty, which is a little bit more…Yeah, they’re definitely working hard. They worked hard.

Seag:

My understanding is at the time, women weren’t allowed on ships—

Mason:

Right.

Seag:

—so, this was sort of a rare opportunity to get sea duty.

Mason:

Yeah. This was actually my sea duty. My sea duty was on land. They would call…Back in those days, the women, you would be shipped overseas on a base and that would be your sea duty at that time. Mine was definitely…Mine was isolated duty.

Seag:

Were there other opportunities for isolated duty for women at the time?

Mason:

I think that was the only place for isolated duty. Maybe Adak in Alaska. They had a base up there. I don’t know if it was isolated, but Adak was a base that was pretty out there. But I think I got 90 more cents a day for isolated duty in my paycheck, so it was a big bonus. But I was only getting paid maybe $350 a month, something like that, in those days for E-2 pay, whatever it was. But I didn’t buy anything down there; there was nothing to buy. You could buy a couple souvenirs, this or that, a hat, something like that. There was nothing to buy. They had a little store about the size of…smaller than a 7-11 for sure, and that was pretty…You could get a t-shirt for your kid or something like that. There was really nothing to spend your money on, so you would save, save, save, which was a good thing.

Seag:

Did they have any feminine products in the store?

Mason:

Not the first year. Not that first year, no. There was nothing down there. You had to take it all. The second year I think they did have some. I think they did. I think we kind of made a little spiel about that. Yeah, I think it was getting a little better that second year. The first year was a little rough. Thankfully, I took all my stuff, but you know, some of the girls, stuff disappears. What the heck? Yeah. It’s not good.

Seag:

What were the holidays like on station?

Mason:

Holidays were good. They always had the good—They’d try to get the freshies in, so we’d have fresh milk. They always did a good meal, always did something really good. It was super good. It was really good. They always had good food on the holiday. You have whatever you want, they had it pretty much out there. They just tried to get the freshies down there from New Zealand, and we usually had a good share of that. You’d hang out with your friends and just go to the club again, you know? [Laughs] There was nothing to do! They had something like you could do some classes. I don’t know if they had yoga or whatever. I don’t know what they were doing. They had basketball down there and stuff, but I didn’t feel real comfortable joining those groups because I’d be the only girl there. So, I didn’t really feel like, you know…I just hung with my big brothers for the most part, you know. But I worked all the time, so working every day, in your off time I just wanted to chill. It was crazy, but there were some good people down there, really good people. I was always treated really nice.

Seag:

So, I want to ask you about what came next, but before I do, are there any other memories or stories that you have from your time on the ice that you want to reflect on?

Mason:

Oh, just like the snow snakes. The snow snakes I mentioned to you. No one really knows what a snow snake is, but when you’re a FNG, which is a military term—it means fucking new guy. When you’re a FNG—my first year I was a FNG—of course, I hadn’t been down there yet, but I was 19 and they were always back in California saying, “Just when you’re down there watch out for the snow snakes.” So, I was like, “What is going on with these snow snakes? They’re always telling me, ‘Watch out for the snow snakes.’” Then they’d turn around, just like laughing [imitates them].

But when you get down there, the guys, they’d just pull it out and they’d just take a whiz anywhere they want. There was this one—EM club. The EM club was the worst club there because it was stinky, rustic. It was all…I’m telling you it was right out of the 1840s. It was just rustic and rough. And right outside was this mound of snow, right outside the front door. It was right out the front door. (The doors had these wooden handles on them you’d lift up, I don’t know if they still have those, these little wooden ones). This mound of snow was all yellow, just pure yellow brick of snow. That’s where they would just take their leak, you know, and that’s where the…If you saw a little snow bank or something with a little yellow thing in it, it was, “snow snake, snow snake.” [Laughs] But they were all over the place. I guess you don’t do that now, but back in those days, they just took a leak wherever because there were no women down there to worry about, right? So, then they had to kind of keep it zipped up a little bit more. But yeah, snow snakes all over the place. Your initiation—I think I told you about being packed is a big one down there, being packed in a snow bank or whatever if they like you.

Seag:

So, it was sort of an honor to be initiated.

Mason:

Kind of, but it’s always by surprise and always at a wrong time. But yeah, they just strip you down naked, throw you in the snow bank, and cover you up and sit on you for a while until you’re screaming. Then if they decide to let you out, they’ll let you out.

Seag:

Did that happen to you?

Mason:

It happened one time. One time. It took a few girls to get me out the door, but they did. But usually initiation, everybody got packed at least once down there. They usually would wait till you’re hammered there at the club and then they’d go, “Let’s get them! Let’s get them!” They would drag them out kicking and screaming and they’d just go out and pack them.

Seag:

Did you pack anybody?

Mason:

[Laughs] Yeah, I did pack a couple people.

Seag:

Guys or just girls?

Mason:

Whatever. If I knew somebody that needed packing and they subjected themselves to too much alcohol and if they got a little lippy, yeah, they got packed. But there was some good packing and there was bad packing, like hazing in today’s world. Pretty much innocent packing, but there were some that were a little bit…If you didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be good. It would not be good. It would not be good at all. I’ve heard some bad stories about some packing, but I didn’t see anything that was disciplined or anything. It was just kind of hush-hush and swept under the rug back then. They didn’t really have that kind of stuff like they do now.

Seag:

You told me an amazing story about a guy who went through the ice.

Mason:

Hawkman.

Seag:

Would you tell that story?

Mason:

Yeah. This story, I knew this guy. He worked public works. I think he was a dozer (equipment operator). He was probably at that time in his fifties, probably early fifties. Big old beard because most of the guys had big beards down there to keep warm. The ones that worked outside did. He was a bartender at the Acie Duecie, and he did that on the side for extra money or whatever. My first year, he always would call me like “little sister” or something, some name like that. My boyfriend knew him real well, because he was like more of the supervisor-type guy, so he knew him real well.

Well, when January comes, when they start making that ice pier for the Coasties to come in, he was out there. I think he was out there working on it. I don’t know if it was the end of January when things started getting a little bit warmer, but he was out there on the ice pier right off the base there. The story is that he went down. He went down with a dozer. I think it’s about, I don’t know, 30 or 40 feet deep, somewhere around like that in that little area there. Dozer went through the water. Luckily the cab was closed. There were some guys that were working with him on the ice there, on the ice pier. They saw him go down and they rushed over to the water edge. He went down, and they’re basically…” He’s a goner. He’s a goner.” He went down quite a ways. I don’t know how deep that pier area was, but it was pretty deep, at least 40 feet or more. It was down there a ways.

Seag:

And that water is below freezing.

Mason:

Oh heck, man. You’re dead. You’re dead.

He had the presence of mind to take everything off. When you’re taking stuff off, I mean there are a lot of clothes to take off. I mean, it takes time. Even those bunny boots aren’t easy to get on, let alone get off when you’re underwater below, right? So somehow when he went down there, I guess he had time to have that pressure once everything’s down there, so I don’t know if the cab was filling up and then he could open that thing up…So he was down there a while. He opened that door…[Break in recording] …five minutes, something like that. It was crazy. You would think he was dead. You could see bubbles coming up, right?

When they saw his hand come up, of course they rushed to him, grabbed him, got him out of the water, and said, “We’ve got to get you to the medic,” right? I mean they rushed him out. And it was serious. It was real serious. He got to the medic area, and there really wasn’t too much wrong with him—just shook up pretty bad, right? He said, “Well, we’ll keep you here for observation,” and he goes, “Fuck that shit.” He goes, “I’m going to the club.” I think he drank for like two days straight. He was all shook-up. He was all shook-up.

It’s a story that had gone around for a long time. That Hawkman was an amazing man. He was good at what he did. He was kind of crusty, though. He was a crusty guy, but he had a really good heart. Crusty. He looks kind of rough, like oh man, but he really was a softy. He kind of took a shine to me. He kind of took me under his wing. When I went into his club, he always took care of me and told me to “Watch out for that guy over there,” or something like that, “He’s had too much,” or “Get your little butt home,” or whatever. “Get your butt back to the barracks.”

But yeah, he was someone not to mess with. I know back in the home port I heard a story where, he had a Harley, and if any other bike than a Harley parked next to him, he would piss on it. That’s just the type of guy he was. “No one parks their bike next to me like that.” So, he had a reputation, rough guy.

If anyone could survive such a thing, he could do it. He was just amazing. But he was a big drinker. He was a big drinker and a rough guy, but someone down there, any other person probably wouldn’t have made it. They probably wouldn’t have made it. He was amazing. But that story’s gone on a long time, and no one messed with him. No one messed with him. He was kind of…He was enlisted. He was like an E-A [8?]. He was a chief or something. Even the officers had respect for him, you know. He was amazing. He could get the job done, no doubt. But yeah, he went down in a dozer and lived to tell about it, and there are not many who could do that. It was crazy.

Seag:

Do you remember his…I assume Hawkman is a nickname. Do you remember his given name?

Mason:

It was in that book [the Naval Support Force Antarctica yearbook]. I know it’s in the book, but we called him Hawkman.

Seag:

Okay. I’ll find it.

Mason:

Yeah, he’s crazy. He was crazy.

Seag:

Speaking of medical, I’m remembering now that one of the reasons the Navy said that they couldn’t send women to the ice was that male medical officers were not allowed to work on women. Do you remember what was happening by the time you were down there? Were there women medics?

Mason:

Yeah. Well, Terry Reif was a medic. So, we did have women in the place where they could help and all that. I think that’s why they sent her down, is they needed a female down there, right? Thankfully I never was sick down there. I never had any issues down there or anything like that. I never went to the dentist down there, nothing like that. So, I don’t really know that aspect of the medical. There’s a big need, but yeah. I do know she told me some of the girls were a little wimpy. They would come in and kind of wimp it up a little bit, but I never had that issue. But there were some that they wanted to go home or whatever, but there were a couple that were a little bit fragile that were sent down there. But you don’t know who you’re sending down, okay? They could be a little fragile or a little bit more sensitive. You know, I had brothers, so I was like, “Whatever. I’m good.”

Seag:

Were they unhappy because of the physical setting or because of the social setting?

Mason:

I think a lot of it. I think a mixture of both. You know, working seven days a week is already trying, and then you have you’re away from home. You know, you’re not in your element. You’re definitely not in your element. So, some of the girls got a little bit…maybe more so than I did. That would be interesting, because I know I didn’t have that issue, but I knew some of the girls did.

Seag:

Was seven days a week unique to [Operation] Deep Freeze?

Mason:

No. Not at all. Everybody did.

Seag:

That was the Navy.

Mason:

That was the way it was. Yeah, that was the way it was.

Seag:

So, you’ve described that plenty of people were unhappy there. How was your experience overall? Did you enjoy it? Did you not enjoy it?

Mason:

No, I didn’t enjoy it, because for one, there’s nowhere to go and you get to…You know, I’m a free spirit and there’s nowhere to go. Six months is a long time. It’s almost like you’re like, “There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing to do,” and you’re working seven days. It’s really trying. But everybody’s in the same boat. But I don’t think my experience would be any different than the guys. But yeah, it gets old. It gets old real fast. I mean the novelty of Antarctica wears off real quick. We weren’t in an aspect like the scientists were, to do things that were unique and exciting. You’re sorting mail while they’re doing experiments on rookeries and things that are exciting. I think it’s just, you’re labor. You’re labor and you’re filling in for—basically I just called it cheap labor for the National Science Foundation. We were basically their support system and that was basically our job. That was our job, our mission.

Seag:

Do you think that created a resentment between the enlisted and scientists?

Mason:

Oh, there’s no doubt about it. They’re the Red Coats. They were the Red Coats and every time you saw a Red Coat, they were all like, you know… “Those Red Coats, whatever, they’re eating all the freshies.” There’s definitely a caste system down there with the Red Coats. There’s always a caste system. You had your Red Coats. Then you had your officers, and then you had us guys.

Seag:

So, the Red Coats at the top, and then the officers, and then the enlisted?

Mason:

Well, you always had officers. They’re pretty much the same. They eat at the same chow hall and everything. But no, the Red Coats were always a little bit…I don’t know, a little snobby sometimes like, they had their red fluff on and stuff. The new ones—you could always tell the new ones that came in. They’re all clean and everything. [Laughs]

We were using the same water all week. By the time of my second month, anything I had white was brown. It was khaki. Nothing was white, and there was a smell down there in the clothes that you never could rid of. It’s like, everything I took back home I threw away. It was that smell. I couldn’t stand the smell. I think it was like motor oil. But there was a smell down there you couldn’t get rid of, and you had to wear it every day. It just smelled like grease. But yeah, nothing was white down there, so they’re all coming in with their white clothes and everything. It was like, “They’re new. They’re new.”

But yeah, there was a caste system down there, at least for the scientists. We just called them Red Coats. It could just be support for them; I don’t know. But they’re all Red Coats and we always—

Seag:

Because of the red coat that they wore?

Mason:

Well, they’re all civilians, so they all were a little like that. So, we kind of kept—We never really intermingled with them too much at all. We didn’t.

Seag:

So, what happened after Deep Freeze? How did you get out?

Mason:

Well, luckily there was a VIP Master Chief postal clerk that had come down there. I don’t know how he got down there, but he was a VIP. When he came down, it was just me and Reuben, the second class I worked with, Reuben Vasquez. We kind of showed him around the town and this and that, and he had some VIP stuff. We got talking at the chow hall or something and he goes, “Yeah, when your billet comes up for shore duty, I’ll make sure you get a good place.” It was like, “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, whatever.” I just thought he was blowing some smoke. So, when I did my two years, I was up for orders. My billet was up, and apparently he remembered my name.

Seag:

Was that the normal progression—first, sea duty (and yours was McMurdo), and then shore duty?

Mason:

At least at that time. It was time for me to do my shore duty. I could have probably extended there, but I didn’t want to stay and do that again. I’d done two years, and so I was up for orders and I was going…Well at first I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I was up for orders. Well, when we went back to home port that second year, I had this lieutenant that wasn’t…He didn’t really like me that well, and he kept on threatening me that I was going to PI, which for a girl to go to PI…

Seag:

What does that mean?

Mason:

Philippines. To go to PI wasn’t probably the best place for a 20- or 21-year-old.

Seag:

Because of safety for women?

Mason:

Safety. It’s just not probably the best place to go. I’d rather go to Spain or something like that, but PI is not quite the place to go. But I had just gotten really…Me and my boyfriend were living together at the time off base, and we were shipping off to PI. If I was going to PI, I’d never see him again. He wasn’t going to follow me there, because we were just living together at the time, and I don’t blame him. I don’t think I would go, either. So, I was a little bit upset about it, and he was kind of harassing me a little bit. Then at that time I had mentioned to you about the open-door policy. They had just implemented this thing they called open door policy, which was kind of like, to me, the beginning…If I was to look back on it, it was the beginning of women—and really anybody—getting a right to be heard who was being harassed, whether it be sexual or just any other kind of harassment. There was no word for it back then that I can remember. They just harassed you. It was just the way…You had to put up with it. It’s just the way it was.

Seag:

Was it because of your gender that he was harassing you?

Mason:

You know, I really don’t know why. I don’t know why, or if he had…I don’t know why he had anything against me, because I did my work. But you know, not everybody is going to like you or whatever, and I don’t think I did anything.

But he was harassing me a little bit, not in a sexual way, but harassing. So, at that time—like I said, there really wasn’t a word for it back then that I can remember, but they did implement this open-door policy where if you had a gripe, you could go straight to the top. You didn’t have to go through the chain of command like you’re supposed to normally. Well, my chain of command would be to the lieutenant, so how is that going to benefit me?

So, I was thinking about it and thinking about it, and I decided one day I was going to go talk to the captain. I forget his name, but I knocked on…I went into the office of the secretary he had and asked if I could talk to him. So, she intercommed him and everything, and he goes, “Yeah, send her in,” and whatever. I was basically shaking, because he was totally a bigwig. I mean, he’s the biggest wig I’ve ever talked to in the military one-on-one, especially about a problem like this. So, I told him and I said, “Lieutenant Drane has been messing with me and telling me I’m going to PI, that they’re going to ship me out to PI. He’s putting me on all this—I call shit—detail,” because we were having the new girls taking my place. He wanted another female billet, so they had another girl that came in and took my place. So they kind of shoved me out of the way in training her, because I’m on my way out, which is fine, but I just kind of felt I was doing a lot of this trash duty and all sorts of stuff that I was like, “I’ve paid some dues here.”

So, I told him about how he was harassing me and teasing me. It was almost like teasing me about it. I told him that he hadn’t really treated me really, I don’t think, fairly in some ways on the ice. I kind of vented a little bit to him, and he seemed pretty cool. So, he said he would take care of it. He said, “I’ll take care of it, Kim. Don’t worry about it,” and I was like, “Oh, great. Now he’s going to talk to him. I’m really going to get it,” right? “I’m really going to be messed with now.” He’s going to talk to him and let him know about it, right? Well, I guess he had to, but I mean I’m thinking, “Oh, I’m going to get it now.” I’m thinking, “Shoot. I don’t know if I did the right thing or not.” But as I was walking out the door, he said, “Get Lieutenant Drane in here right now,” and you could tell by his voice it wasn’t good. I’m thinking, “Oh, man. I’m going to get it. I’m going to get it bad.”

So, I went back to social services where they were having me doing my slave labor, and about 15, 20 minutes later Lieutenant Drane comes back around and goes, “Oh, don’t you realize I was just teasing you?” I said, “Well, it didn’t sound like it to me. It sounded like you were enjoying teasing me and threatening me.” He downplayed it. So, I don’t know if…Anyway, I know it was taken care of because he never said a word to me after that, and the next thing I know, within a week I’m going to Hawaii for my shore duty. I know he was pissed off because I was telling everybody in my department, “I’m going to Hawaii. I’m going to Pearl Harbor,” and they were all like… [Laughter] “Whatever,” you know? So, it ended up okay. I know the Master Chief took care of me.

But yeah, the harassment thing. You know, being gay in the military back then was a big taboo. You couldn’t…I noticed there were a couple guys on the ice that were together. You’d kind of know they were together, but they had to play it super cool. Anyway, they ended up being shipped off. If they were caught down there doing inappropriate like that, they were shipped out right away and nothing was said.

Seag:

And this couple was caught and discharged?

Mason:

They were. They were. These two guys were caught and they were gone. They were gone.

Seag:

How did the community respond to that?

Mason:

Well, I didn’t see any problem with it. You know, no one really came out. It wasn’t something that was talked about openly like it is today. It was very hush-hush, under the table. You knew who they were, but it was just, kept low profile because if they were to find out, they would be immediately dishonorably discharged. At that time that’s how it went down, so everything was really under the table, hush-hush.

Stuff like that didn’t bother me any, but there were a lot of guys that were adamantly, you know…I mean there are two sides of that, pro and con big time. I just stayed neutral. Nothing bothered me that way. It was there, but a lot of it was hush-hush. A lot of things are totally different now, and it’s a positive thing. But yeah, it was something you kept—You would keep it totally private in your life. These guys kept to themselves. I mean…yeah. Pretty much everyone knew who they were. It was just unspoken.

Seag:

When they were sent home, do you remember whether there was any talk among the community about what had happened?

Mason:

Oh, yeah.

Seag:

And how people responded?

Mason:

Yeah, there was talk. There was talk going down. There was talk going down. I guess they were caught in some kind of compromising position or something like that, but there was talk about it. Like I said, there were pros to them, the people they were talking about, and there were cons to it. It was like well…I felt bad for the guys because I felt it was pretty harsh, but that was just the way it was back then. That’s the way it was. That’s the way the rules were played. You knew the rules, so you can’t play that game. So, it’s the way it was. Things have changed. Things have changed.

Seag:

Speaking of change, when you got to Hawaii, how was that? There are all these differences—

Mason:

Oh my god. I thought for sure I was in a dream. I was lying there on the beach and I’m thinking, “This can’t be real. This can’t be real.” It was like the best thing that ever happened to me. It was great, and I met some of my best friends there, I still keep in contact with. Yeah. Hawaii was great duty, great duty. It was almost night and day from the work I did. It was night and day.

Seag:

Was the work different?

Mason:

Oh, the work was different. Like there in Hawaii, at that time I did dockside delivery, so I drove 2.5-ton trucks, vans, stake-beds, these 5-ton beds…for all the ships, carriers can dump all of…I worked at the main post office. I worked off base. We would load the trucks up from the post office to go down to the shipyard and to the dockside. We’d go to each ship and we’d have a manifest and a thing they signed for it. You dump all the mail off and you go to the next one. Dump it all; go to the next one. I’d be done by noon, and unless I had duty, I just went home. So, I was done by…By 12:00 I was done for the day. It was almost like it was paradise. It was total paradise, and I didn’t even know how good I had it back then. But it was nice—nice duty.

Seag:

Were there more women on the Hawaiian base?

Mason:

Yeah. I went to naval station Pearl Harbor—yeah, a lot more women, a lot more women. And the dress code, see, when I was in Antarctica, I wore Seabee greens with my combat boots. Well, when I got down to Pearl Harbor, I had to wear my seafarer’s, my chambray shirt, you know. The dress code was a lot more strict in the naval station than it was in Antarctica. I could wear my earrings in Antarctica. It was kind of like MASH. You could just kind of…If you wanted to wear a scarf that wasn’t part of your uniform, fine. Whatever.

But you had to wear uniform code all the way when you were at the naval station. So, I remember when I was checking into my commander or whatever, and I remember I had these little gold balls on. They were little tiny ones. And he right away ripped me one about “Out of uniform,” blah, blah, blah. He ripped me one. I was like, “Man!” So, I right away got the notion I have to…strict dress code. So, earrings out, hair up. I could wear my hair down in Antarctica; no one cared. The military dress code down there was real slack. I could wear my hair down or whatever, but there it had to be up, no earrings, nothing like that.

Seag:

Did that strictness translate into other aspects of life on station, McMurdo compared to Pearl Harbor?

Mason:

Well, it was just new rules, you know. I was just really lax and now I have to play Navy.

Seag:

So, it was much stricter in general.

Mason:

Way more strict, yeah. But I worked off-base so I didn’t get a lot of that hassle, pretty much. I just worked out of a truck and I went back to the post office and went home. So, I was only on base for a couple hours, and then I’d go back and be free again. So, it wasn’t too bad, but it was a lot more-strict. Yeah, a lot more-strict, and you’ve got to play by the rules. You’ve got to play by the rules.

Seag:

How did the environment for women in Hawaii, or at Pearl Harbor, compare to the environment for women at McMurdo?

Mason:

Well, the women…you know, they’re just doing their job, whether it be admin or wherever they’re working at. Of course, there were no women on the ships then, so it was all male. It was more what I call traditional Navy, but I never really interacted with a lot of them because I worked off base. So, I don’t really know that aspect of it, really. I was still kind of like freelancing it off base, so I was still kind of out there. But I was expected to muster and dress appropriately. You can’t forget your hat. I remember one of the girls who came in after me, she forgot her cover (her hat). She lived in ‘Ewa Beach, which is about 30 miles away. I had this little Filipino Senior Chief. He might have been 5’4”, a little guy. He was getting short on time. He was almost out. He’d done his 20 years or whatever, so he didn’t have a lot of patience. He goes to Sue [imitating his accent], “You forget your cover, you go back and get. You forget your gun? You forget your gun?” He was talking, and he was saying, it was like forgetting your gun! You’ve got to have your hat, right? So, he made us drive all the way back to get that damn hat and come all the way. She never forgot it again, never forgot it again.

But there were sometimes I got—One time I got in trouble because the piers are real narrow, and you have to maneuver this 2.5-ton truck. We had one of the girls, Laura, my buddy. Either you’re going to drive or you’re going to deliver, okay? You’re in the front or you’re in the back. So, this one time I said, “Okay, I’ll drive.” So, she’s pulling the mail out. She was in the back, and she just hits on the side. “Okay, next one. We’re going to the next ship.”

So, we were going to this next ship and we were moving around all these pallets and everything. It was getting really close. Man, I could drive that thing pretty good, but I got close to the bow, the bridge of the ship where it has a bridge that goes from the dock to the ship. Apparently, I was getting over—I think it was my last year—Apparently, I got too close and I hit the bridge of the ship. It shook it a little bit and there was an officer on it. I guess he was shaken up a little bit, and I guess I just kept going. [Laughs] So, he took the truck number and they found me out. I didn’t think it was that bad, but I guess he was all twisted that I left the scene and he was like holding on or whatever. He reported me and I had to do kind of like this driver safety course or something they made me do. [Laughs] It was just really kind of ghetto stuff, but I had to take this remedial driver safety course. It’s like, “Okay. I’ve only got like 60 days left in the military and they’re…” But that’s stuff they would do. But yeah, I shook them up a little bit. That’s the only trouble I think I ever got into. I think he was pretty shook-up, though, but I think it was mainly because I left. “He’s okay; just keep on going.” [Laughing] So, that’s pretty much the only trouble I got in.

Seag:

What happened after Hawaii? What did you do next?

Mason:

Oh, I just ended up…My boyfriend and I decided—because we had been there about three years—I extended duty there, so I was there about three years. The island was getting a little small at the time, so we decided to go back to the mainland. So, his family is in…His mom lived here in Denver at the time, and we ended up coming out here. So, we did like a…I saved up enough cash from Antarctica to buy a truck, cash, so we packed that truck up and we drove it to Florida and we drove it back. We took a long, like a three-month road trip, camped, you know, and saw a lot of the US and then came back to Denver and that’s kind of where I’ve been ever since.

Seag:

And you started a family here?

Mason:

Yeah. We’ve got two kids and one and a half grandkids; I’ve got one on the way. So yeah, it’s been good. I’ve been here since…I’ve been living here in this place since I was 28. I’ve been here in this townhome a long time, and it’s served us good. Yeah, it’s been a good journey.

The time I had in the military, I really look back and appreciate, because there’s nothing like the military for camaraderie. These people, you’re side by side every day and it’s a kind of a bond that no other job has, because you’re stuck in the same place, in the same job. And being that you’re like shore duty, it might not be…It might seem like a job, but when you’re on the ice or some kind of I guess combat area where you’re with these people and you know their life, you know what they’re going through, there’s a bond there that’s hard to break. I’ve really missed that part of the military more than anything, is that camaraderie. The buddies that you make that you are with that—you can’t get that bond anywhere else. It’s really special. It’s special, and it’s like something that I think only someone maybe who has been long-term military can understand. I don’t know if you were from a military family yourself, but it’s a bond that is just there. Even on the outside—I call it “outside”—but when you’re on the outside and you’re a civilian again, if you know people that are veterans, you almost kind of gravitate to these people because they know what things are about. So, it’s a good thing to have these people that are invisible, but yet they’ve been there, too, and they still are there, you know? It’s kind of like an unspoken type thing.

Seag:

And that goes for both your experience in Hawaii and at McMurdo.

Mason:

I think so, yeah, but more so the isolated duty, or even someone on a ship or someone who’s been in combat. I mean there’s a special bond being in the trenches. I call it kind of the “trenches” of work that you build a bond with that you can’t…Only people who have been there really understand, you know? And it’s a good thing. I think it’s a good family to be from.

Seag:

I’m not from a military family, but I spent two seasons at McMurdo and I think I understand a bit of what you’re talking about.

Mason:

Yeah. I think it’s a good thing for travel, whether it be a woman venturing out, finding her own way, and I think it’s a good thing to do today. Even back when I was younger—it wasn’t my idea of the military, I had a totally different idea, but that’s where it led me. That’s where I had to figure things out, and it was a good journey for me. I’m thankful that I got to experience it. I know it’s a different ballgame there now, but I think the women that follow me are going to have a lot more opportunity that wasn’t there when I had it, and I think it’s great. I think it’s great. They should be able to do anything they want to down there or anywhere else, really. But I can’t say I was held back or anything like that. I felt I was treated equal. People treated me good. I didn’t really have a lot of negativity around me. It was just like, we’re all in the same boat. We’re just waiting to go home. That’s pretty much where it was at.

Seag:

Have you stayed in touch with anybody from McMurdo?

Mason:

Well, my ex-husband, but—[Laughs] Um…I wish. I did have somebody I met, I found online who was a cook down there who found me, but he was kind of a weird guy, so I never really pursued that. But no, I haven’t. No, I haven’t. I wish I had kept better records and contact, but like I said, when the women’s names change, it’s hard for me to find these people. That’s the one—Like Terry is the one I’d really like to find. She’s got to be near 70 anyway now, so I wish I could find her. But I can’t find her.

Seag:

You know, what’s funny is I’ve come across a Robin Reif with the same last name and a Roberta Reif, but I haven’t found Terry. I’ll tell you if I do.

Mason:

Yeah, I’d love to know what happened to her. She’s awesome. She would have way more stories than I would, way more stories. She did medical, so she had all the dirt from the people coming in, you know, saying…Yeah, a lot of dirt. She had a lot of dirt.

Seag:

Well, before we wrap up, is there anything that I should have asked you about that I haven’t?

Mason:

Not that I can think of. Like I said…I’ll mention to you about the dump, though, because that might be interesting for archives or whatever. Back when I was there, the huts that were…They had electricity, because it was almost like one of those old towns, there were just wires all above everywhere and everything, but I don’t think they had running water in some of them. Some were real primitive. And like I said, they would get these 55-gallon drums, and as you entered like the foyer, if you call it…If you enter the hut, they would have this 55-gallon drum right off the bat right there with a funnel on it. That was the head for the guys. That was what they would use. They’d fill that baby up to the brim. They’d cap the thing, they’d take it out, put another one there, and then dump that out in the ocean.

All the trash, our hut my first year was off by the trash. You could see the trash pile there. What would happen, the ice would melt that part, and a lot of it was just carried out to sea. That’s just the way it was back then. It was a big dump. All the skua gulls hung out that way. But yeah, everything…Like all that paper we used for our plates and everything, all that stuff would end up there. Everything ended up in the dump. So, I know it’s a different thing now, but back in the ‘70s it was just a big dump out there. They would dump all the stuff out. The bathroom facilities were always compromised, but we always got through that okay.

Seag:

Where were the women’s heads?

Mason:

155 had a bathroom in there, the one room I was in, and then the officer had one in her room. We could use that if we asked permission.

Seag:

Was she in a different building than you?

Mason:

She was in 155. She was one of the officers.

Seag:

But she had her own room.

Mason:

She had her own room and everything. Yeah, she had her private room. She didn’t have to share with five other people in a 10×10 or whatever.

Seag:

Do you remember her name or her position?

Mason:

I think it was Diane. She was operations. She worked in Ops. She worked for the planes and stuff. I think her name was Diane. She was an ensign. She was just like a FNG. She was kind of a FNG, too. She was young. She was real young.

As far as…Let’s see what else you might want to know. The church was a big deal, though. You know, a lot of the church people would go there on Sunday. The church was a big deal. I know it burned down, but it was a real nice little church at the time.

Seag:

And it was interdenominational?

Mason:

Multidenominational. He’d have different services for like the Jewish—and yeah, he would do all that. Yeah, he was real good, real nice guy.

Let me think what else. That’s pretty much it. They didn’t have…One of the scientists’ experiments down there was a big deal. The one experiment down there was the common cold. It was a big deal. They were trying to…They would collect volunteers to come in and do this cold type stuff, and there were a lot of them. They would come in. This scientist was trying to cure the common cold, but I don’t think it ever happened.

Seag:

Did you participate in the study?

Mason:

No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t do that stuff. But yeah, he collected samples. I don’t know what all he was doing, but yeah, it was a big deal back then. The scientists would make it a little bit fun because they did those little classes I think just to pass the time.

Seag:

Were they popular?

Mason:

Yeah, they were actually. They were. They were popular. He’d have a full…It was pretty full. Like at least 30 would show up to check it out. But other than that, my experience is pretty unique. But I know each woman that was down there had their own story and their own experience. It would be good to find these people. Just let me know. Use that book [the cruise book] as long as you need it, and then you can send it to me.

Seag:

Thank you.

Mason:

But some of the women I know are still around. I know I was one of the younger ones, but they’ve got to be in their sixties, seventies. If you can find them, I know they have great stories. They have their own unique stories that would be probably even more compromising than some of mine. But yeah, it would be good to find out about some of them, too. But I don’t know. A lot of them didn’t get to go on some of the trips I did (I mean that field trip.) A lot of them just stayed there the whole time and that was it. And Pam Shryock, she was real soft-spoken. She would be one who would be really interesting to talk to nowadays. She was probably in her twenties back then, so she’s probably in her mid-sixties. But hopefully you can find some people. Let me know. It would be great.

Seag:

I will. Thank you so much.

Mason:

Thank you. Thanks. It’s been nice, it’s been nice. Thank you.

[End of recording]