 Welcome to another edition of Celebrate Life. Actually, this is a special edition of Celebrate Life. We're, again, blessed to have with us Roseanne Greco, and this is part two of Roseanne's life. So as if you have watched our first show, we ended with Roseanne's undergraduate school landlord suggesting when Roseanne mentioned that she would like to go to graduate school that one way to have it paid for would be to enlist in the service. And so we ran out of time after that first interview. So today we're gonna pick up her life from that point forward and great to have you here again, Roseanne, and thank you for being on the show. Well, thank you. This is episode two. Episode two. So take us from there. Yeah, so wow, God. You think I was in my hundreds by this life experience. So at this point in the story, friends, I did join the Air Force. I did, and I can't remember if we chatted last time, but when Mrs. Sussman mentioned the military pays for your advanced degrees, I wasn't aware that there were four branches of the military. So that's how unconnected I was with the military. And in those days, I opened up the yellow pages to find the recruiting office and I went down and I actually spoke with all four branches, Army, the Air Force and Marines. This was back in the early 70s. So things were quite different as far as how the services wanted or didn't want women in their ranks. So the Air Force was the one that offered more opportunities for women than the other services. I mean, the Marines were looking for a few good men, Navy, only if you were a nurse. And so it was between the Army and the Air Force and I picked the Air Force, which would be in a long-winded story, which I'm not gonna go into. But so I went down to officer training school. I think I may have mentioned this in the past. I didn't know that there was a difference between officer and enlisted. I was oblivious as to how the military operated because I had gotten my bachelor's, my recruiter. I think he must have had his quota of enlisted people because he said to him, well, you have a college degree. You know, you could go in as an officer. Didn't know what an officer was, but anyway. So I said, well, fine. And then I got into my specialty. There's a name for it. I won't go into the acronyms, which was intelligence. The late folks think of that as spy work, which it is. Because there were only three options I was given at the time. One was in the personnel field which I thought was more administrative, which it was. And the other was in education where we were teaching, which I was gonna be as a nun. I said, nah, I don't wanna do that. So I thought being a spy would be pretty cool. So that's how I went into intelligence. And so I was in San Antonio, Texas. That was where officer training school was. I don't remember. Did I tell you about the Playgirl episode? I don't think so. Okay, so as you recall in my earlier story, I ran a foul in the convent. All right, well, I also initially right in officer training school, which is 12 weeks. Sort of ran into a troubled area with the military for the opposite, well, not the opposite reason, but my flight commander and I only knew this because some of the guys came, there are very, very few women, by the way. Very few women. I think there were 20 of us in the class of hundreds, 20 women, but a friend came and said, the captain doesn't think that you will be suited for the military because he believes you're too holy. And the reason he thought that is that one of the first things we had to do was write a paper on our experiences with the first week or first few weeks of officer training school. And they had us do all kinds of stuff. I mean, cleaning and stuff like that, making our bed, I can make a very, very good bed to this day. But my paper was about how easy it was. And I said in that paper, because I had been in a convent and the stuff that happened that I had done in the convent, and I think I told you I was always doing toilets, cleaning toilets with toothbrushes. And so I made some sort of remark about, there's a piece of cake. And so that's how he learned I was in the convent. And that's how he came to the conclusion that because of that, I'd never make it in the military. So I had to somehow prove I was not good. And so what I did was in those days, there was a magazine called Play Girl. I do not know if it's still around. So I got a copy of Play Girl and I put it in my military textbooks. And we had a lot of classes where it was like an auditorium style. And I made sure the guys around me when I opened my textbook, saw the naked men and Play Girl in there so that they would think, well, she's not all that high, it was holy, holy. So I got through that hurdle. I didn't do anything until, I mean, it wasn't, but anyway, so I was commissioned a second lieutenant and then I was sent to Thailand, which was my first assignment, which was a incredible experience at the time I was, well, first time, well, I was out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, but because I had been to officer training school. But anyway, so, and then I had subsequent assignments. My intention was only to be in there for four years. That's the commitment an officer makes. I figured I could get my master's degree in that time and then I would get out and be a, you know, what I thought was I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. And I did, so I went to night school because obviously I had a full-time job. And I did get my master's relatively quickly. But when I was at the point where my commitment was up, that's the time when they promote you and promotion to captain, I was a second lieutenant, first lieutenant is pretty automatic unless you do something really bad. And there's a huge pay increase. And so the money that was coming in, I thought, whoa, you know, I don't know, I don't have any source of income and no job to go to. So I thought I'd stay in, you know, while I was pursuing other, you know, seeing what I could do. So, and then I never intended to make it a military career ever. I was in it, within it for the money. I was in it for the, you know, so the Uncle Sam would pay for my education. Right. And at every point where I was thinking, okay, well now, you know, now's the time to get out, I either was dating somebody I really liked or I was in a location I really liked where I've just been promoted, which is like, what, promoting me? Yeah. And so 29 years, four months and four days later, I retire as a full colonel. Now, it was not easy. So I'm not going to try to, this was a better roses because it certainly was not because in the military in those days, it's, although I hear it's pretty bad for women now, it was not easy for a woman because mainly in those cases, because we were so new and there was so few of us. I think, I don't remember, but I think they were required to take women, you know, for some congressional reason or whatever. So it was a case of in almost, almost all, but almost all initially until I became more of a senior officer. I was, I was assigned to units that didn't want women. I mean, I was, I remember one of them after I, my first assignment after Thailand was in Omaha, Nebraska at strategic air command. And I remember the boss I was going to, he said, he told me right out, you've never had a woman here. I don't want you, but I got to take you. And so that, so I mean, but that was the kind of stuff. But even when I became a Lieutenant Colonel, which is right before a Colonel, the man I worked for who was a Marine Colonel, this was in the Pentagon, you have evaluations every year and so we went in for my face-to-face evaluation. It was closed door, he and I. And he said to me, I don't think women belong in the military. And I said, what do you think about, and I forget how we refer to him. I think we said blacks, I don't think African-Americans because we worked side-by-side with people of different colors and stuff. And he said, well, as long as there are men. So I'm telling you, those the kind of, the portals that went through, most of my career and I got promoted a Colonel. I was working for a guy who was to evaluate me and whether I was suitable. And that's how you got promoted through your evaluations. Gotcha. So it was, but now, so that was the stumbling area. I also, by the way, formed groups of women even when I was a second Lieutenant to band together because there were so few of us. And my like, I don't know, the non-infused sense of social justice or whatever always came to the forefront. And when I saw these things happening, I knew it was unjust. I knew we were treated differently. What we're doing, you know. I mean, there were quotas on how many of us could be promoted, et cetera. So I formed groups of women all along the way so that we could support each other and do push backs. You gotta be really careful in the military. Military is not democracy. And so, and also they can put you in jail too, really. So it's not like a regular employer and you can't quit. So that helped to have the support of other women. We're all experienced the same thing. Sexual harassment was prevalent. Oh my God, I've been hit upon and pounced upon and, but I had good, remember my first story way back when I was a child and all that. So I had developed skills. And I had a knowledge base of these kind of things. And at that point, I became very savvy on how to extricate myself through talking. I had a whole different lines, whether I had BD or, sometimes that's, I threw that out, I didn't, but, but I mean, there were ways I was, so I, so that was, yeah. So that was my military career. Now, let me tell you the great part of the military career. There were lots of great parts. It taught me so much stuff that I do to this day. It's sort of tied in with the training and the convent about putting others before yourself that you have the mission, you have a job to do. That's paramount. You are not important. The job is important. The mission is important. Do your best and you keep doing it. In the convent, it was perseverance and fortification and that you come last. And the military is very, very similar to that. Excellence in all we do, the mission before and everything else. And so that's probably, that formed who I am today and why I am so darn persistent when I do things and stick with them and try to do them well. I mean, I have some lessons in the military about what we call not doing your homework. Some pretty, I look back, geez. Where I was gonna have a presentation to the general and I hadn't fully vetted it and it fell apart. I mean, I think that's some reasons why I didn't get promoted to general because I got poor evaluations because I hadn't done my homework and I couldn't answer the questions that I had or the individual who was preparing it wasn't prepared. That didn't apply in the military. So those were things that I took away, I failed a lot. Oh my God, if I look like, well, I am successful. I was a full, I didn't get elected. I got elected city council, blah, blah, blah. But boy, the failures were monumental and many more than the successes. Did the military see failure as an opportunity to learn? No, no, no, no. They've come around now. No, no, in fact, it was usually one strike and you're out. I think they have realized they were losing a lot of good people because if you make a mistake once and then you kick them out, you lost all the investment because I'm very highly educated thanks to the military. No, it used to be if you had one negative thing on your evaluation, it could prevent you from being promoted in the military, it's up or out. If you do not get promoted, you are out. Oh, wow. And you don't leave the mill, even if you were in, once again, things may have changed, but you get zero, nothing, no money at all. If you don't make it to, in those days, it was a 20 years, all right? And they gave you a ticket to 18, you got something. But if you, and I saw them do this, kick out people right before they reached 18 years in service and they left with nothing. No retirement. Nothing, no retirement, nothing. Now the military did contribute to Social Security, but most of us, if after 18, you're not Social Security eligible at that age. So yes, it was, yeah, and I got some bad reports, which surprised the heck out of me when I was promoted, but actually I was one of the best ones at my job. I always knew more because I went way into the details that the guys didn't have, and the jobs I worked, looking back on it now, were incredible. At the time, of course, I didn't have any basis of comparison, but once again, I never planned. Once again, I choose to stay where I was because of who I was dating, or where I was. And so I was in the Washington, D.C. area. I was dating somebody, can't remember who, but I wanted to stay in the Washington, D.C. area. So I was looking for a job. I was at Andrews Air Force Base at the time, and I was in social actions, and that's when I was doing racial and sexual harassment complaints, anyway. And I wanted to stay in the area, and another woman, another female woman, she said, well, she knew somebody who they were looking for a woman because they'd never had a woman before, and they needed one to go into arms control. Didn't know anything about arms control. But anyway, I went in and I spoke to the guy who was a Navy commander, and they chose me, and I think it's, well, I don't know why they, well, I don't know, they chose me. Then I ended up not really paying attention to what the job was. Once again, I just wanted to stay in the area. I would have taken any job. Nope. I ended up on the start talks, the strategic arms reduction talks. Wow. And these were right after SALT, strategic arm limitations talks. That was under Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan was the president at the time, and he was renewing the nuclear weapons. And so I ended up in the office that ended, that was on the delegation with the Soviets, in those days we called them Soviets, introduce strategic nuclear weapons. Wow. And so I knew more about strategic nuclear weapons and I was actually toward the end called a recognized expert. And so I was on the delegation that went to Geneva, Switzerland multiple times to negotiate the reduction of nuclear weapons. Wow. And let me tell you, I get chills just talking about it because I wasn't a back room. I was at the table. I mean, I was, there was the ambassador, the US ambassador, the Soviet ambassador, all of the staff. And I was one of those people, have you ever seen meetings in the back chair where they turn around and they get in from you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember sitting there, the only woman in the room. Wow. Thinking, I'm from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yeah. And I am in Geneva, Switzerland. Negotiating arms. Soviet generals and ambassadors. Wow. And the other thing that was sort of humorous is because I was the only woman, I was always right there because the US side was sort of pushing me up, you know. We got lucky, we got a woman. The Soviets had no women whatsoever, but I was an oddity. And because we had a lot of social functions, you know, I was, you know, at social functions. Anyway. And I think, I don't know if I told you, I got more. Well, I'd better be careful what I say here. Anyway, the Soviets talked to me a lot. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All men. Interesting. I was in, anyway, so, so I was doing that. And then later on, I did other arms control negotiations. I was in Vienna, Austria. And that was to reduce conventional weapons in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which obviously, and then I was on another delegation and that was on anti-ballistic missiles. And that is the, we used to have them, I don't want to get into too much military stuff. We negotiated, we, the US negotiated with the Soviets about treaties that we have signed. And this was on the anti-ballistic missile treaty. So I had, and then afterwards I had a job at the UN. This is when I was working for Colin Powell, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon on humanitarian issues. And getting supplies to countries that were, you know, needed humanitarian assistance. So, there's more. Amazing. Amazing. Anyway, that's the story. Jose, a question for you. Did you ever supervise men in your years of... All the time. Yeah. Out of the go. Mostly men. There weren't anyway. Yeah. So yes, I, an officer is a supervisor right off. So I had, of course I worked for men. I'm trying to think I ever worked for a woman. Oh yes, I did. I did work for a woman early on. But anyway, yes. So I worked for men and for women, very, very few women. I worked obviously with men, very few women. And I supervised mostly men. And then later on, as more women came in the service, women. Women would often seek me out because especially when I became a senior officer as a mentor and advice. Yes, absolutely. How did that go? How did they respect you? Well, interesting. The women generally did. Yes. The men, it was, especially in the beginning, early on, I remember sometimes, I don't remember where I was. I was out walking with one of my sergeants and we walked and somebody didn't salute me. I mean, you have to salute right? He called him out. So I'm just giving you an example. There was sometimes, I had men that didn't like being supervised by women. I had men who were my subordinates who wanted to, who hit on me. So it was a vast array. Yeah, yeah. As women became more, as more of us came in the service, the men got to know women and they worked with them. And we always, the women, always thought the problem with some of the other services, especially the Marines, who didn't have very many women. They were notoriously adverse to having women. Yeah, yeah. They had bad, not good relationships with women. It's because they didn't work with them. They didn't know them. But I saw in the Air Force, the more we worked together as a team, the more we got to know each other and respect each other. We had women had to work, we had to rough, we had to prove ourselves every single time, every single job we transferred every three years. You go to a job, a new location, every three years with new people. And it was always starting from the premise that you don't know what you're doing. Whereas the men, it was default, of course they know. Interesting. Yeah, but the more we worked, the more of us that were in there and worked together, the more accepting the men are the women. Gotcha. So, okay, so 29 years, four months and four days, was that? Yes, that's what I get paid for, so I know. My retirement is based on 29 years, four months and four days. And then what, what was the next job? So the reason I didn't go to 30, which is the maximum amount, and I was up for general at that time. And let me tell you, I was still mouthing off and stating my concerns and issues, mostly about women's issues, but other things too. I'd pissed off some generals. Maybe I would have made general had I stayed in, but a defense contractor made me an offer I could not refuse. And it was, one, I was a senior officer, so I had a lot of connections. And I was very well respected. And from my knowledge and stuff, I don't know if people like me personally, but whatever. No, I think some people, mostly some people did, but so they may be an offer. And it was contingent on though, that I was hired before my security clearance would have lapsed, you have to renew your security, I had a very, very high security clearance. And every few years, you have to renew that or else it goes away. And it's tens of thousands of dollars to get somebody cleared. They do whole background investigations and stuff. And that's money to a defense contractor. And they offered me so much money, I almost fell off my chair and thought, do I wanna go another eight months? And then, and once again, I didn't know what I was gonna do. Right, right, right. I don't know what I qualified for. Oh, I can negotiate nuclear weapons. All right, is there somebody out there? So I didn't think I had the skills because I was content, I would do so much that specific work, but I didn't realize I had leadership skills and all that kind of stuff. So I took the defense contractor job and that's why it's only 29 years, not 30 years. And I did multiple things there, one of which was cybersecurity. And learned a lot, I can't talk about anything, but all of my jobs, almost all my jobs were top secret and compartmented information. So I did that for a few years until I met my beloved husband, my now husband at a dance. And taking ballroom dancing. So I stayed, I intended to only work there for a while, but then until I was vested, and then I got, I didn't even know about the stuff. They matched my, Ironman and stuff, and stop option stuff anyway. Anyway, now that's why I'm living this luxurious home. That's wonderful. Did you move to Vermont soon after that? Yes, as soon as my husband was able to retire from his job, he had to say, well, he was in food industry, a store called Giant. And in his, he would not be eligible, well, he wouldn't get his pension unless he served his 30, well, served, worked for 30 years. And so after Higley and I became a couple, and decided we're going to get married, we needed to wait. So we lived in, we were living in Bowie, Maryland at the time. And as soon as his 30 years was up, then that's when we, well, I had already told Higley, I was moving to Vermont. If he wanted to stay with me, he had to come to Vermont. Poor guy, he wanted to retire in the Southern air. So as soon as Higley was able to retire is when we went to my dream state, the place I had dreamed about since I was a little girl. Is that right? Yes, yes. Okay. I'd never been to Vermont. I'd been to Vermont once for a day, back in the, gosh, 80s, I guess, on a trip to New Hampshire, actually, but we thought, let's see what Vermont is like. No, as a little girl, I saw pictures of Vermont in Pennsylvania. I thought that was the most beautiful place in the world. And so anyway, and as an adult, I learned more about Vermont and its liberal attitude and caring for each other, environmental, and that's a really, really droomy to the state is the stewardship of the environment and how it seemed to me that Vermont is really understood and cherished the environment and protected it. And I thought that's what I want to be, you know, so. Yep. So, yeah, so that's got us to Vermont. Yep, oh, wonderful. So you got here and the city council that you were a member of in South Burlington which seemed when I think of your life, in many ways brings together a lot of different parts of you, that the social justice, the leadership, caring about people. Tell me about running for office and choosing to run for office. That's a big step. That was another one of these didn't plan for it, didn't really think it through. If you've been listening to me, I don't really sometimes. A little tumbleweed, a human tumbleweed. So after I got here, remember I came here because of the environment and then I started looking around and I saw how they were building and it reminded me of most of the other places I've lived in particular, Maryland, the place I lived most recently. And I was getting a bit concerned because I thought this didn't fit with what I thought I knew of Vermont. So I was talking, once again, I'm pretty, through my life, I didn't know a lot but then I learned a lot and that's sort of what I realized. Yes. Military all the way up. So I thought I gotta learn how city government works because I don't know how this is happening. So I started going to city meetings. I didn't have any idea what a city council was. I should be embarrassed to say that publicly but I did not know what a city council was. I didn't know how cities were governed. So I started going to meetings and in the course of that I learned, right? But I also learned that most people don't go to city meetings. Very often I was the only one in the audience or maybe one or two other people or some people came to say things about their concern and then they would leave and I'd stay there because I wanted to hear everything. So some of the people, well, I was there all the time. So one of the city counselors at the time approached me and said, there's an opening on the city council, the individual who was in that seat is not running for it. She asked me, would I consider running for city council? And I remember once again, oh God, I said, how much time commitment is it? And she lied, no, she didn't lie. She said, well, she said it's two meetings a month and I thought to myself, well, I've been attending these city meetings, you know? I said, I can do two meetings a month, you know? Oh, gosh. Yeah, well, anyways, so I thought, okay, well, how do I do this? I learned you have to get signatures to be put on the ballot and I did that. And then I was hoping nobody would run against me but a man who had been here for, I guess 20 years, he was a small business man, he ran against me and I had decided early on that I was not gonna do the things that I saw. I was not gonna do any lawn signs, not gonna do any flyers because of the environmental impact. I always thought, oh, how do you do all that stuff? Flyers are everywhere. So I thought what I'll do is I'll try to get my message out by writing letters or maybe getting people who know me to write letters. This is a little bit before the social media is back in 2011. And people will read that. That will be good enough. It'll be the electronic transmission in New Zealand, who I am and what I stand for. And then there were candidate forums and stuff. I also didn't go door to door. Cause I don't think I'm good one-on-one with people. I don't know. But South Brunton is a big city but it's even bigger now. But I decided and I didn't spend any money. I didn't take any contributions. Some people didn't. Nope, nope. Very unconventional. Yeah, very unconventional. And so I took out, I think I took out three ads, three ads in the local newspaper, in the other paper, which I paid for, right? But the whole total thing came to $500 or something. I mean, we're not talking. Remember, I didn't have any lawns on the flyers. That was my only expense was those three ads. So, and I got elected. I couldn't believe it. And my vote was one, two, three, four. I got 1,234 votes. No kidding. Wow. I got 800 something. But anyway, so that was another surprise. Like I got promoted in the military was, really? So then I became a city councilor. There were five, there still are five city councilors in South, in South Burlington. And doggone it, wouldn't you know that right after I got on the city council, well, the first thing I did in the city council was piss a lot of people off because I start speaking about the environment and about the destruction of the natural world through developments, housing developments and how I'm seeing what's happening, seeing happening in Vermont, what I've seen in this other states that I've lived in. Sure. And how detrimental it was. And at that time, I was not even thinking about climate change. I was more thinking about the benefits of nature. You know, well, the beauty and... Right, right. I mean, for our soul, I have now become much more informed that a tree is magnificent and beautiful. And I always looked at it as from the aesthetics of that. But now I realize it's way beyond beauty. We will not be alive if we cut all our trees down and pave over our meadows and our forests because they are the ones that are keeping us alive. I just had a fun fact. I just learned that a mature tree, about 50 years old, provides enough oxygen for four human beings for an entire year. Wow. We get our oxygen, but anyway. So I start talking about, we got to stop this development. We got a, and somebody said, oh, what you need is interim zoning. Didn't know what interim zoning was. I do now, but I think it was a pause to try to see how we are going forward as a city. The idea was, I had been a strategic, among other jobs, a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the military. So I understood planning, and I saw what South Bronton was not planning. We were just doing without an end goal. And if you don't know what your end goal is, then you'll never know when if you achieved it or if you're not meeting it or whatever. So I thought this was a time to plan, to look around, assess, which is what we did. All right, so that pissed off a lot of people. Wow. I bet. Mostly developers, real estate, the business community that are very lying. They, well, I don't think they like me, but whatever. And so that mired the city, well, mired in controversy that I caused, but a lot of good came out of it, but anyway. And then going into the next year, 2012, is when they elected me the Chair of the City Council after having been on the Council for one year. I had just been elected the Chair of the City Council when the Air Force came up with their environmental impact statement on the F-35. Right. I did not know anything about the F-35. When I retired the military, I retired. And I never wore my uniform again, except for two occasions. One, when I was in Washington, they were dedicating the Air Force Memorial. And two, when I ran for Adjutant General a few years ago, related to the F-35, that's the only time I've worn my uniform since I retired. And I'm allowed to wear my uniform, but that's no provision on that. Right. But I hung, I said, no more military. I have done that. I wanna focus on other aspects, primarily the environment. And the other counselors came to be and said, but you're the only one with military background. I understand the terminology. I mean, I understand the military. Right. And it needs sense. Yeah, yeah. For somebody else to take on the F-35. But so that started, I don't know, what year is it now? That was 2012 and we're still doing it. 10 years, yeah. That started my efforts reluctantly at first to address the F-35 issue. And just as I did in every other thing I did, I read that entire report. Yeah, very thorough. I knew early on, early on, I bet I knew more about the F-35 than the people at the guard. Yeah. I bet you I did. Yeah. I knew more than most people because I did my homework and I read the link. And it was instant, if you read it, well, nobody will, but it was about 6,000 pages. Wow. And it was clear, if you look at the facts, and this is where a lot of my frustration still comes to this day, is I look at facts. That's what I've been trained to do. If your emotions out of it, you get your subjective opinions, you don't deal with that in the military. You look at the facts and you make decisions based on the facts. And I naively thought, of course, they're not gonna put this here. Look at what the facts say about the impact. It was overwhelming. It wasn't a nuance. Wow. I naively thought the facts would matter. I still naively, well, I'm not naive anymore. I also think the facts about climate change should matter. Of the facts that we should do this and not do this should matter. They don't. So, I came out against the F-35, the city of South Burlington came out against the F-35. Then we had to change a council primarily because I think, well, primarily me, and interim zoning and my stance on the F-35 until the council was overturned, my seat wasn't up, so I was not defeated. When my term was up, my sentence, I chose not to run because I realized at the time, and I still think this, I could do more on the outside. Because city council work is a lot of work. But anyway, and after I left the city council, I sorta de facto became the leader of the opposition for the F-35. As the years went on, as people dropped off of the fight, we were hugely successful, hugely successful. Most people don't think that, but we were. We convinced the Air Force not to put the F-35 here. I know that for two reasons. One, I had a whistleblower that called me early on to tell me what was happening behind the scenes. I tried to make that information public. I was, the governor made fun of me. Who is this? You tell us who told you this kind of stuff. And I can't say, no worry about who said it. This is what they said, once you focus on the facts and you can verify it, but anyway. So it wasn't until we sued the Air Force years later and they had to release their documentation on what they did as they selected South Burlington that we read in that documentation that the Air Force had in fact realized for a number of reasons. One, from their own findings. From the facts I read, that Burlington was not the place for the F-35. And then you put on the 1,000 emails, letters that they got from the people, especially the people who lived in the area that were against, overwhelmingly against it, 88% or so. They put that together and they also looked at operational things. I'm not gonna go into the details. And they came to the conclusion that Burlington was not the place. They also realized they made a mistake. And that's the thing I was trying to make known early on, the Air Force made a mistake in how they scored the bases. Burlington was given a false high number. And that was, so anyway. So all of that convinced the Air Force not to base it here and then Senator Leahy called the head of the Air Force, the chief of staff of the Air Force and said he wanted the F-35 in Vermont and we had the F-35 in Vermont. Wow. A few years after they made the basing decision, we learned that the F-35 has been designated by the Pentagon as a nuclear weapons delivery vehicle. It's gonna, in fact, they're building a brand new nuclear bomb just for the F-35. And when we learned that, which they never told us in the EIS, the environmental impact statement, to me, it was, holy crap, this was my business in the military. I know nuclear weapons. I know nuclear war. I know what happened. I know how you target. We try to make that known. That's, hence, when I ran for adjutant general to try to get that information out. And Senator Bernie Sanders sabotaged that. He came back and wrote a letter to the, to Mount Pylir, because we were trying to get the house and the Senate and Mount Pylir to ban the basing of delivery vehicles, nuclear weapons delivery vehicles in Vermont. The House, the Senate passed it. The House did not, mainly because Senator Sanders said, what, it was back to, don't listen to, he didn't use my name. Don't listen to what they're saying. You know? They're not gonna, you know, and so of course if a Senator does that. And so Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Patle, he are the reasons that we have the F-35 and the reasons they continue to be here and they do not need to be here. They can go, lots of other places. So. Did they, was there a suggestion by the Air Force where it should go? Yeah, actually they selected, not a suggestion. They wrote the decision. It's called the record of decision. They wrote the record of decision for South Carolina. Wow. McIntyre, Air Guard Base, South Carolina. Yep, that's- Wow. Yep. So I mean, you can read it. I knew that before because the whistleblower told me that. But then the court documents that the Air Force had to release because the judge told them to release it. You read it in there. So it's not hyper, I mean, I'm not making this up. Right. But anyway, so. You know. Another great success and a great failure because you have to be here and people are suffering because of it. And Roseanne, a couple of times in the last few minutes you mentioned that because of you various things, you know, the interim zoning that, you know, but there's a lot of people that were right behind you supporting you. I mean, you weren't doing this alone in a back room. Of course not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want you to understand. Yeah. To appreciate that there's a lot of folks that you were speaking for. Oh, absolutely. What I find, what I learned in the military was leadership. What I find lacking in a lot of places is leadership. And it's because we don't realize we have power. In our voices. Right. And I think you have to, well, I believe, you have to have somebody that leads other people to find their voices, to speak up. We have huge amounts of power. I've seen this throughout. I remember when I was going to those city meetings early on, when I was the only one in the audience, they were talking about something. It was population, I think, which is a few other issues. And I was the only one in the audience. And I raised my hand and I said, but you're freezing it this way. What if you phrased it this way? And they go, oh, yeah. And they changed it. And I thought, holy crap, they made a change to one of our city documents based on something I just said. If I didn't know it before, it was indicative that the right voice at the right time and is very powerful, but it becomes more powerful when you have a lot of voices at the right time. Speaking of, remember the whole convent, perseverance, persistence, you can't just speak up once and you have to keep doing it. Even when you think you're redundant or they're gonna dismiss you, you've got to keep doing it because no social change has ever happened without the people and persistence. So yeah, no, my gosh, of course I didn't do it by myself, but I often come up with the ideas. And often enough, I get to work the ideas. I come up with them. So here you are today. What's the next chapter that Roseanne correct goes like? Okay, so I've been involved in lots of organizations, mostly environmentally focused and social justice focused. And I came to the conclusion of a few months back that I can't do it all, you know? Yeah, I totally, I gotta tell you this motto, one of my models, you know, I told you the one about if you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. The second motto is that, and it's not for me, you know, it goes back, is that I can't do everything, but I can do something. And I won't let what I can't do stop me from doing what I can. And I find that I was involved in so many things and giving it little pieces. I was jumping from jump to cots to the food shelf to the, you know, all right. I decided, you know, in the remaining years of my life, which I'm hoping is 21 years, no, 31 years if I do my math, because 104 is when I intend to die. I've got some time. Okay, so how do I wanna spend that time? And I decided the thing, and this goes back to, you know, growing up as a little girl in the rural areas of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is that the environment and nature is part, well, we are nature, you know, but that is my passion. That has been my passion for a long time. That's what prompted me to run for city council. The F-35 interjected itself and I was diverted, you know, for many years, but I decided that's where I'm gonna focus my attention. And the more, and I'm really, really informed as I always am on environmental impacts, is in particular how we use or abuse our land that has survival consequences for the human species. And so that's where I'm going to focus my attention. That is right here in South Burlington, you know, think local, act local. I can't do anything about the war in Ukraine or the forest fires, the tree cutting in the Amazon. And thinking about those and worrying it doesn't do a darn good thing, it doesn't do anything. But I can do something here in South Burlington where I live. And by the way, changes are easier at a lower level, at a municipal level. So I'm focused on saving the land in South Burlington. That's my focus. That's what I intend to debate the rest of my life for. That's wonderful, Rosanne. What an arc of life that, you know, from your father who was the coal miner, speaking of the environment. Yes, possible. All the way to where you are today. That's beautiful, yeah. And I also do my own personal stuff too, by the way. You know, I, you know, we have taken personal actions in our way of living and our houses net positive, not just net zero, net positive. I have the, you know, through the thank goodness for, you know, the military and the retirement income. I had the ability to have solar panels and heat pumps and so forth. I made a plug-in car, you know, no gas powered utilities and stuff. So I've done, you know, That's wonderful. And it's not an either or by the way, you know, sometimes they make it seem, you know, the big corporations have to do it. Change in a light bulb, you know, it's both of us. If we both, if individuals don't do it and if big corporations and national levels don't do it, we're not going to, our children and grandchildren are not going to survive. And so anyway, yeah. Well, thank you. So we're at towards the end of our interview here. Is there anything that about your life about you that you would like to share with the audience that we haven't touched on yet? Well, you know, my two models are, you know, that I, let me reiterate that because that sort of sums it up, you know? And one other thing, and that is, you know, if you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. And, you know, I can't do everything, but I can do something. I won't let what I can't do stop me from doing what I can. And the other thing that I think is, as I'm adding on to that is we have power. Individuals have power. We should not give up because we think we have, our voice is too small. We're just one person, you know? I mean, think about the just one persons in the world. Yeah. What would just one person, one person, they don't do it by themselves, of course. Right, right. But if we only will grasp our power and use it, and use, and what I'm saying is our voices. Yeah. That can transform the world. Like firmly believe it, think big, act bold, you know? Yep, good for you. Well, you've done, and you've done some amazing things. I admire your work and your life, Rosanne. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Gary, for giving me this opportunity. It's caused me to think about my life and what comes next. You know, not over. Please, God, no. We look forward to that. All right. Well, again, thank you very much for being with us. And see you around the corner. Thanks, Gary. All right, yep, bye-bye.