Four women, including two from Lehighton, recounted their military service recently during a panel discussion sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Veterans Council at the Lehighton Legion.

The four who participated in the Nov. 22 event were Angie Schoenberger, Christine LeClair and Susan Snyder, all U.S. Army veterans, and Linda Handley, a U.S. Navy veteran.

“We have about 20 nonprofits that serve veterans and military members in our entire footprint in the community, so we’re really bringing that together with workforce and employment,” said Allison Pickel of the chamber.

Pickel said the chamber is committed to helping veterans in the community in a wide range of areas. She said anyone interested in joining one of several committees or helping in other ways to contact her at the chamber.

Panel discussion

LeClair, Carbon County Veterans Affairs director, was stationed all over the world, including Germany and Hungary.

“I was a door gunner and a helicopter medic and I was also encountered on convoys,” she told the audience. “We could see the trucks and we were going through a checkpoint and the Iraqi National Guard was there. They were the good guys who were training, so they liked checking out our equipment and our trucks. We we pulled out to the checkpoint. I have on a scarf and goggles and my helmet couldn’t really tell who was who.”

LeClair said a man came up to the top of the truck and she pulled out her mask to say hello but as soon as he saw she was a woman, he spit in her face.

“The other men were talking with me and were very upset by what had happened, but I told them don’t worry about it,” she said. “You know what comes around goes around, so we went on with our mission and did what we had to do. We were coming back and I spotted a little guard shack in the distance and I said to the first sergeant I needed to clear my machine gun,” she said.

When LeClair logged in, the Iraqi National Guard soldier she had encountered earlier was cowering under the table and she pulled down her mask and flashed a smile.

“It was one of those instances where I was able to say in our own way that we could take care of ourselves,” she said.

Family tradition

Schoenberger was born and raised in Lehighton and graduated from Lehighton High School in 1982.

She attended Albright College for one year before joining the U.S. Army in 1984.

Dropping out of college was not what her parents wanted, but Schoenberger was determined to join the military.

Her grandfather served in World War II and her dad served in Korea, Turkey and Vietnam.

“I wasn’t the first one out of my family to join the military. My parents were not pleased with me but all supportive eventually, but not pleased with that,” Schoenberger said.

“And my daughter told me that she was thinking about the Coast Guard Academy. So, I kind of think it runs in the blood.”

Schoenberger said if that’s the route her daughter takes, then she will be supportive.

“It was peace time when I served in the military police and as an undercover investigator in Germany, which was again a lot of fun,” she said.

She retired from the Army and took the test to become a state trooper, scoring third among 4,800 applicants, mostly men.

“Back in those days it was very hard for females to become a trooper,” Schoenberger said.

She said she shifted her life focus, married and had a son. She serves in her community running Peaceful Knights Homeless shelters in Carbon County and runs a successful realty company. She lives in Lehighton with her husband Harold.

College, then service

Snyder entered the Woman’s Army Corps out of college as a lieutenant during the Vietnam War.

After 25 weeks of training, she was assigned to Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore where she met and married Curt Snyder, an infantry officer.

She was assigned to Fort Benning in Georgia as the WAC Company Commander in Headquarters Command and her husband was assigned to a tour in Vietnam.

“It was a time of considerable uproar at Fort Benning with drug use, underground newspapers, in addition to the normal challenges of dealing with young women.” Snyder said.

Fort Benning was also a test post for the modern volunteer army, a precursor to today’s all volunteer Army. Women were also challenging the Army for ranks higher, namely as generals, according to Snyder.

At the end of the war, a reduction in force that affected both of them. The couple and their daughter decided to set up roots in Lehighton, Curt’s hometown.

“The five years I spent in the Army gave me the kind of experience that I do not think I would have gained otherwise,” she said.

A commander

Handley, who lives in Kunkletown, spent most of her career in San Diego and was on eight different ships, while her husband spent most of his career on submarines.

Handley, who is petite and probably stands a little over 5 feet, commanded some of the Navy’s largest ships and said it wasn’t easy to break the glass ceiling.

During her time in the Navy she was the first woman assigned as direct technical support for Aegis capable ships and Naval Research Development Center. She also was among the first women to see combat action.

On her last tour the ship was too large to go through the Panama Canal so it had to go around Peru.

“So that was kind of nice. I’d never been down there before,” Handley said. “What was unique about that was when we stopped in Peru, the Master Chief Petty Officer of Peru came to the show, only because there was a female Master Chief, and they couldn’t believe it. I served during Desert Storm, I got the opportunity to go over to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and then I was part of General (Norman) Schwarzkopf staff, and if I had to do it again, I would do it all over again,” she said.