Sgt Annette Elyane Fobbs Oral History

title:

Sgt Annette Elyane Fobbs Oral History

creator:

Fobbs, Annette Elyane (1968 January 20 -

subject:

Marine Corps | Marine Corps Reserve

description:

Annette Fobbs was born in the Bronx, New York on January 20, 1968. She got in to Pace University, but before starting officially she and a friend went to a recruitment office and she decided to enlist in the US Marine Corps in July of 1987. Basic training was tough for her, partially because she, unknowingly at the time, had a spatial disorder that made things like marching hard to do in time. She became a radio operator for the Corps, went to radio school at 29 Palms, California, and then was sent to the naval gunfire school at Okinawa, Japan. She was the first woman sent there and she was sent by mistake, but by the time she arrived at the school after getting to Okinawa, it would've taken a four-star general to get her removed. When she signed up, she hadn't realized that all of these jobs had just been opened up to women, and although there were officers that didn't like having women present they tended to at least accept that it was an order they had to follow. She says being a woman in that space required walking a fine line to feel safe and accepted. After a year and a half of being the only woman, another was sent to the same base as Annette. Her primary job there was to teach radio communications for naval gunfire to ensure Navy and Marine folks were able to effectively communicate with each other. She was in Okinawa teaching naval gunfire until June 1989. After leaving active duty, she got a degree in medical office management and went back into the reserves in 1992, which she was allowed to do despite being at the cutoff time after being gone for three years because she had been so successful while on active duty. She was sent to a combat unit, another thing women weren't normally allowed to do, and was a platoon sergeant at Garden City, New York. She was in this position on 9/11, and as soon as she knew what was happening, she packed a bag in anticipation of being called in right away. She and her husband made a deal that whoever got called up first would go, and the other would have to leave the service to take care of their very young child. Part of the reason she joined the Marine Corps was to help take care of her mother, who was struggling with addiction at the time, because she was given the option to either go to Pace University on a scholarship or to cash in that scholarship and join the Marines. She cashed it in to help her mother pay rent, but she was still evicted, so Annette had to rely even more on the Marine Corps as she had nowhere else to go. Although she was assaulted while on active duty, her time in the Marine Corps left her with a more positive view of men than she went in with, as most of the men she served with were always kind and encouraging, treating her like family just like they did other men. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Gill, Dennis

date:

2021-08-28

type:

Moving Image

format:

Born Digital

identifier:

1343; 2021.008

source:

Voices of Freedom Project - SWTA

language:

English

relation:

NR

coverage:

Operation Desert Storm—1990-1991 | 1987-1990, 1992-2006

rights:

Unrestricted