By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
By BG Independent News
Despite her parents’ objections, Mary Hanna celebrated her 18th birthday by enlisting in the Air Force – during the Vietnam War.
Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” Hanna had been torn between entering the Peace Corps or the military.
She decided on the latter.
“It broke my mother’s heart,” she said.
As she sat on her home’s landing at night, she could hear her parents talking about the Vietnam War. They were afraid at least some of their four sons would be drafted. They didn’t expect that their daughter would be volunteering to serve.
Hanna chose the Air Force because it had more career opportunities open to women. To this day, she remembers talking to the enlisting officer.
“I asked if I enlisted in the Air Force, would any of my brothers have to go into service,” she said. The officer told her if she signed up, her brothers would not be called upon.
That was a lie.
But as it happened, two of her brothers were in the next round for the draft when the peace accord was reached.
“It was a tough situation, but it was what I wanted to do,” Hanna said. “My parents were always proud of me.”
Hanna served as a medical specialist stationed in the Philippines to handle wounded soldiers air evacuated from Vietnam. When she returned to the U.S., she never stopped serving.
Last week, Hanna was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame. She was one of 20 veterans chosen for the honor.
Hanna, who serves as the executive director of the Wood County Veterans Assistance Center, has not only served local veterans for more than four decades, but has also produced many “first-in-the-state” initiatives.
She was one of the first nationally accredited veterans service officers in Ohio and the first woman in the state named executive director. Under her leadership, the Wood County office was first to computerize, offer veterans photo ID cards, and pilot a Tele-Mental Health initiative.
As an appointee to the first Governor’s Advisory Committee on Women Veterans, she conducted public hearings across Ohio that revealed many women veterans were uninformed about their veteran status and the benefits they had earned.
She advised the Governor’s Office of Veterans Affairs, offering testimony in 1994 before the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives to remove gender-biased language from Ohio veterans’ laws, ensuring change in the Ohio Revised Code.
Hanna recalled the male-focused language before she fought for changes.
“It just jumped right out at me,” she said. “Everything was ‘he, he, he.’ It hit me that women veterans had basically been erased in this law. Women veterans weren’t being acknowledged in the law.”
Hanna served two terms on the Department of Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System Executive Quality Leadership Board. She currently serves on the VA National Task Force for Whole Health, which consults VA healthcare facilities.
“There was no doubt in my mind, this is what I was meant to do,” she said of her job heading the local veterans assistance center. “I knew from the first day that this was the job I wanted to retire from.”
“It has been my passion for all of these years, and it continues to be,” Hanna said.
When Hanna started in the veterans office in 1974, there were a few Spanish-American War veterans still living in Wood County. There were also surviving family members of Civil War veterans.
“World War I veterans were big at that time,” she recalled.
Now her office works with those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Every generation of veterans has different characteristics. Many of the recent returning warriors have suffered traumatic brain injuries and deal with PTSD.
“The way warfare is conducted is different,” Hanna said.
Hanna tries new ways to meet these new trends.
“I have always tried to manage to do a work-around if I had to,” she said. “If veterans come in and were truly in need – I found a way.”
Hanna insists that she has gained far more from the veterans than her office can provide for them.
“No matter how much I have helped the veterans and their families along, I could never do as much as they have done for me,” she said.
Hanna has also focused a great deal of energy into the country from where she once treated wounded soldiers – Vietnam.
She was the founding chairperson and managing director of The D.O.V.E. Fund (Development of Vietnam Endeavors) and helped the nonprofit raise more than $600,000 for projects in Quang Tri, Vietnam, including construction of schools, water wells and medical clinics. She received the Congressional Commendation for her efforts to reconcile the people of Vietnam and the United States.
“It was a real labor of love,” she said.
Even after all this, last week’s induction into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame left Hanna stunned.
“It was truly humbling, when I listened to all the stories being read on the stage,” she said. “It was overwhelming.”
