Twenty-five years after Tricia Dieringer first put on an Army uniform, her desire to serve has brought her to the command of the 11th District American Legion, which includes 54 posts and upwards of 14,000 members in Kane, McHenry, DuPage and Will counties.
Published in The Courier News / CopleyPress, May 25, 1997
By Dennis Robaugh
Simply put, she is American.
A pom pom girl and cheerleader as a teen-ager, she loved books and history. She spoke her mind - and still does - even questioning her schoolteacher's assumption about who was the greatest American.
She graduated from Elgin High School in troubling times.
Every night on television, at the dinner hour, the images of men dying half a world away were beamed into living rooms.
Her brother in law was drafted, plucked from his family by a government waging war in Vietnam ... a place so foreign many couldn't find it on a map ... a place that would someday come to be known as one of her country's darkest and most muddled endeavors.
This was, perhaps, the hardest of times for a nation riven by revolutions both cultural and political. And yet, against all this violence and uncertainty, that resolute girl chose tradition. She joined the Army.
Simply put, she "always had a desire to serve."
"We'd been taught that those men were the protectors," says Tricia Dieringer. "The men in uniform, on parade, they were America."
Twenty-five years after she first put on an Army uniform, her desire to serve has brought her to the command of the 11th District American Legion, which includes 54 posts and upwards of 14,000 members in Kane, McHenry, DuPage and Will counties.
American Legion. The words conjure images of elderly men in crisp blue hats marching in Memorial Day and Fourth of July parades.
World War II veterans, they fought the last "good war." They came of age in a time when everyone seemed to know, without question, what patriotism meant.
As a Vietnam-era veteran and a woman, Dieringer's rise in the Legion marks what will become the passing of a torch from one generation to another, from men shaped by tradition and a nation's greatest wartime triumph to veterans who don't remember "Welcome Home" parades because they didn't get any.
"World War II veterans were the last ones to win, but they weren't the last ones to die," Dieringer says.
"Korean war vets came home to almost a quiet despair. ... Those who fought in Vietnam brought back a real heartbreak."
She served in the Army as a translator and interpreter for military intelligence, a specialty she lucked into because of her ease in picking up foreign languages. Her military career spanned 11 years, eight of which were spent in Germany.
She was one of the last women to be trained in the Women's Army Corps, which was phased out in the '70s. And she was the first woman in her occupational specialty to earn the rank of warrant officer.
Tradition held that Dieringer give a silver dollar to the first person to salute her. Yet as she wandered the base, not a single hand snapped smartly to the rim of a cap in recognition of her rank.
"Finally, I grabbed a soldier and said, 'Private, you will salute me.' And then I handed him a silver dollar," she laughs. "I can just imagine him going back to his friends. 'There's a crazy woman out there giving dollars to anyone who will salute her.' "
The Elgin native spent her time in Europe traveling and learning about places she'd only known through books. In time, another calling — motherhood — compelled her to leave the military and return to her hometown.
"I had a son, and if the military wanted you to have one they would have issued one to you," she says.
As with most Vietnam-era veterans, the Legion held no attraction for her.
"When I got out, there was such a negativeness. I didn't want to be involved with any veterans groups. I wanted to be left alone," she recalls. "But I came to the Elgin post because I needed help with the GI Bill, to get my nursing degree."
She promptly became a member, and she went on to graduate from Elgin Community College's nursing program in 1986.
"In the beginning it was funny. They didn't know who I was. Was I going to stick around? Once they found I could carry a rifle in the parade, they knew," she says.
Dieringer held different elected positions in Elgin's Post 57, including commander, before being promoted for the commander's post of the 11th district.
"I have never viewed any of the positions I've had as a 'woman' being in the position," she's quick to explain, speaking firmly so that her point is not lost. "I've tried to be the best Legionnaire, and I hope more women can advance because of their merit."
The faces of the Legion may be changing, but it's mission is not.
The American Legion still lobbies on behalf of veterans and their families on a variety of issues, including the GI Bill, Agent Orange, the Gulf War syndrome and the state of VA hospitals. Its newest cause is the GI Bill of Health.
Locally, Legion work includes the sponsoring of scholarship programs and providing help to veterans in need, for example those who were devastated by recent flooding.
The Legion, open to all who served in the military during a time of war, above all tries ensure that those who fought and died under its banner are honored.
Too often the country forgets, Dieringer says, even on holidays dedicated to remembrance.
"We are almost an ungrateful nation. We expect so much, but we don't know how to say thank you. Somebody died so we could do whatever we want to do. Somebody had to think it was worth it."