SGM Evelyn Mayoral Oral History

title:

SGM Evelyn Mayoral Oral History

creator:

Mayoral, Evelyn (1984 May 5 -

subject:

Army | Cultural Support Team (CST)

description:

Born on May 5, 1984 in Los Angeles, California, Evelyn Mayoral's parents were first generation immigrants to the United States from Mexico, and she was the only one of her siblings to join the military. She joined because, although she got accepted into college, she and her family could not pay for it on their own. She joined the Army in 2002 because that was the first recruiter that got to her. Her plan was to serve for three years and get out, but she ended up staying in for twenty. Because she had been doing cadet training with LAPD before joining the military, she found basic training quite easy. She first became a cook and was deployed to Baghdad in 2003, and very soon after getting there she mostly worked as a driver on resupply routes rather than cooking. While she rarely felt like she wasn't sure why she was in Iraq, she does remember one night having to run to the bunker while in the middle of a shower when their base was getting mortared, and in that moment she did question what she was doing there. After that deployment, Evelyn reenlisted for five years and changed her MOS to be a military intelligence analyst. She deployed a second time with JSOC in 2006 for a year, then was extended for 3 more months back with her unit. This deployment took her to three locations in Iraq: Balad, Tikrit, and Sulaymaniyah. On this deployment, her mission set was quite different, and she worked with a quite small team supporting their missions. She was in Iraq for a year on this deployment. Her third deployment was with a combat engineering unit to Iraq in 2008-09. Her job changed once again, and was much more intel focused, doing some of their lethal targeting. Things were much less kinetic on this deployment than the previous two. Her next deployment was as a platoon sergeant in Afghanistan, and was similar to her third deployment in terms of her work. On her fifth deployment, she was part of the Cultural Support Team (CST) in Afghanistan from 2011-2012. She joined because she had already deployed with special forces and saw the CST as a special opportunity that not many women get. She graduated in the top 10 percent of the class and they initially wanted her to go into Direct Action with the Rangers, but she instead chose Village Stability Operations because she preferred the face-to-face interactions. In VSO, she had a partner from CST as well as a couple of interpreters who she worked directly with. She remembers one day having to provide emergency medical care to a woman who had a pressure cooker explode in her face, and although she and the other CST weren't formally trained as medics, they were the only two that her husband would let work on her since they were the only women available. She remembers not initially being accepted by the men they worked with, but that being professional and showing one's dedication to the job would break down any of the hesitation men initially felt. Evelyn believes her service has humbled her and has made her appreciative for what she has and how her upbringing prepared her for her service. As of the interview, Evelyn had reached the rank of Sergeant Major in the Army. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Gill, Dennis

date:

2022-10-07

type:

Moving Image

format:

Born Digital

identifier:

1366; 2022.1365

source:

CST - FTP

language:

English

relation:

765421

coverage:

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)—2001-2014 | Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq)—2003-2011 | 2002-Present

rights:

Unrestricted