by John Dowd
Deborah Strickland is a pillar for the local American Legion groups, and is very active in the community as a whole. However, few know her full story, as a female veteran and survivor of multiple abusive relationships, all while being a mother.
Strickland was raised in Hamilton, and was even born at the former Marcus Daly Hospital. She joined the U.S. Army in 1974. At the time, she had a two-year-old son. For her, the military always seemed to be the direction to go. Some of that influence came from her father, who was a Korean War veteran. However, she had challenges stacked in front of her that made it difficult to pursue that path.
She married out of high school, and found herself in an abusive relationship with a retired Vietnam Veteran. Unable to leave, her former husband often used her son against her, keeping him from her if she were to leave. After a stroke of fate, her first husband was in a terrible car accident, related to alcohol. This left him with brain damage, and allowed Strickland to nullify the marriage.
Strickland married again into a second marriage, which was also abusive. Strickland approached a recruiter for the U.S. Army. She would have to go through basic training first, before the army would allow her to get divorced. According to Strickland, at the time the army was not accepting single women with children. “There was a lot of stretching there,” said Strickland.
Her son, Dana, stayed with family and she went into service. Strickland’s recruiter went to bat for her, got her training and got her in, even with her child. She said she will be forever thankful for what he did.
She was first sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It was considered at the time a “male basic” training base. However, Strickland’s platoon was the first female platoon to go through basic training there. She said they did everything the men did.
During her time there, her eyes were opened to a lot of things, from racism to life in general. “I grew up pretty fast,” said Strickland. However, she also built lasting relationships and found an inner strength in discipline.
She gave the example of how they failed a barracks inspection. They got in trouble and had to do it over again.
“We all had weaknesses and strengths, and we capitalized on that,” said Strickland. She, and each of the members of her group, did what they were good at. One girl was able to make beds perfect enough to bounce a quarter off and Strickland could polish boots to a perfect shine. They passed their inspection with flying colors.
Strickland became an automotive repair parts specialist with the army. “I’m a mechanic’s daughter,” she said. Her father had a shop in Hamilton, and she learned a lot. “I was always tinkering with my dad,” and she helped her boyfriends work on their cars.
Strickland was then sent to Fort Lee in VA for quartermaster school and learned accounting, which would help her later in life. After all her trainings, she ended up at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, WA. She spent three years there, and had her son with her the whole time.
Scheduling was difficult, though it helped that one of her roommates was not in the service and was able to babysit Dana.
Strickland worked in the parts warehouse, which housed and distributed all the parts for the base. Her son went to work with her sometimes, when the babysitter was busy. She laughed when she told the story of the other men at the warehouse, and how they gave her son a number of parts to play with.
Strickland said no one wanted to “re-classify” the parts again (put them away),
so they sent her and her son home with the parts. Strickland said Dana ended up with a radio mic, an M16 firing pin and a machine gun bolt, among other things.
Strickland had formation at 4:30 p.m., and the babysitter took off at 4, so she or the other soldiers had to go pick her son up. That meant there were many times her son was in formation with them, at five years old. It happened so often that they joked about putting Dana in uniform and adding him to the headcount. The other guys often fought to go pick Dana up. “The men were fawning over him.”
When in formation, Strickland said Dana sat behind the platoon sergeant.
She was in the service from 1974 to 1977, near the end of the Vietnam War era. Strickland spent all her time stateside, and said, “I wish I could have stayed and did more.”
Right before she left the service, she met a guy from the infantry that she would marry. She said they met after she beat him drag racing, in her new ’76 Camaro, the first new car she ever bought.
They both used the G.I. Bill to go to college, where she studied sales management. This was another skill that would then come in handy later in life.
In ’82, she moved home to the valley, after another divorce. She then got a job with the U.S. Forest Service, on a saw crew. When she attended the interview, she was asked “Do you know how to run a chainsaw?” She answered, “No, but I can learn.” She did and she spent the next summer falling trees. With her military service and disability from medical complications, they had no choice but to hire her.
Eventually, a position opened up in Darby as a clerk/receptionist. Her accounting training gave her a step up. She worked up to become a purchasing agent in Hamilton, which was a permanent position. She did that for another 19 years. She went on to do a lot more, including work 42 years as a CPR/AED/First aid instructor, 30 years of government contracting, 12 years with the Ravalli County Search and Rescue, a lieutenant with the Ravalli County Reserve Deputy Association, Forest Service Level II Law Enforcement Officer for 20 years, Wildfire Investigator for 20 years and much more.
Strickland started with the American Legion in 2020, with Hamilton Post 47.
She had actually joined the legion in around the year 2000, but decided to step up and get more involved after her fathers funeral. There was a mess up at the funeral, where the honor guard never showed up. Other people filled those roles, but she felt it was such a huge disrespect to his memory that she vowed never to let that happen again. “Every veteran deserves an honor-guard,” said Strickland.
She is currently the district commander for American Legion District 5, over the Bitterroot Valley and Missoula. She is also finance officer of Hamilton Post 47.
Strickland said the organizational skills and structure she learned while in the service have made her who she is today. “I still fall back on what I learned in the army.” She added that it was all because “someone helped stretch the rules a bit to help me get in.”
“Everything that I’ve done as a commander, it’s been documented,” including records to help others fill those roles in the future and to keep everything organized.
“You don’t need to respect the person in the position, you respect the position.” Said Strickland. For her, that always meant a lot. She mentioned driving around in an officer’s vehicle which was saluted. She said they were not saluting her, they were saluting the position. That respect made all the difference in everything she was a part of.
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