Chief Michelle Ramlow, U.S. Navy (Retired) – Service When It Counts: Desert Storm, the Pentagon on 9/11, and Kuwait
The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, mark a defining moment in U.S. history. Many Americans remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the attacks. Yeoman Chief Petty Officer Michelle Ramlow, U.S. Navy (Retired), has had many such defining moments. Not only did she survive the September 11 attack on the Pentagon, but she also deployed on a ship as part of Operation Desert Storm and served in Kuwait during the Iraq War. Throughout these events, and at all times in between, Michelle served with distinction and proudly carried on her family’s tradition of military service.
Michelle was born and raised in Lincoln, Illinois, a small town located approximately 170 miles southwest of Chicago. Her mother was a hairdresser and her father a factory worker. More important to Michelle, her father was a veteran, having served as a Communications Yeoman in the Navy during the Vietnam War. Her paternal grandfather was also a veteran, as were several of his brothers, all having served in World War II.
Before Michelle could consider the military, she had to graduate from high school. She attended New Holland-Middletown High School with eighty-three other students in the top four grades. In addition to videotaping the school’s basketball games and running the scoreboard for the volleyball team, Michelle worked as a waitress at Pizza Hut to keep spending money in her pocket.
Michelle and the other thirteen members of her senior class graduated in the spring of 1988. Because she had a boyfriend at the time and wanted to stay local, Michelle continued to work at Pizza Hut after graduation, supplementing her income with earnings from a job at a local clothing store. When she and her boyfriend broke up, she began to think seriously about joining the military. Although she thought it important to continue her family’s tradition of military service, that was not the only factor influencing her decision. When she was in the eighth grade, she saw a photo of a woman running an Army obstacle course. Seeing the woman taking on the challenging course convinced Michelle she could do it, too, and now the memory of that photo inspired her once again.
Armed with her family heritage and inspired by an anonymous woman in a photo, Michelle set out to join the military. Because of the photo, her intention was to join the Army, but her father cautioned her not to act rashly. He recommended she research all four services to see which one’s benefits were most in line with her long-term goals. With her father’s advice in mind, Michelle visited the recruiting office in Lincoln in late 1988.
Michelle quickly whittled down her choices. The Air Force did not interest her, so she started with the Marines. As the recruiter did not appear overly receptive, she next looked to the Army and the Navy. Although the Army had the obstacle course photo on its side, Michelle’s father’s service and the Navy’s college benefits sealed the deal. In February 1989, Michelle signed the initial paperwork to enlist in the Navy.
In March, Michelle reported to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) in St. Louis. She intended to enlist in the Navy Reserve, but some very persuasive petty officers convinced her she should elect active duty instead. She agreed, and, after passing her final physical and taking the oath of enlistment, she became an official Navy recruit. She did not, however, immediately report to boot camp. Instead, she returned home until later in the month when she flew to Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando for boot camp.
Michelle arrived at NTC Orlando in the evening together with a number of other recruits. The first thing they had to do was take a urinalysis test to detect any illegal drug use. Afterwards, they were taken to their barracks and told to get some sleep. Michelle felt naïve and had no idea what to expect. She found out quickly at 5:00 a.m., when the recruit division commander started banging on a trash can lid and yelling at everyone to get out of bed.
Despite her naiveté, Michelle acclimated to boot camp quickly. Given that she weighed only ninety-six pounds when she arrived, she especially enjoyed the meals. Growing up in such a small town, she and her family rarely ate at restaurants. When they did, they never got to eat desserts because doing so was a luxury the family could not afford. At boot camp, Michelle could eat anything she wanted in the allotted fifteen-minute chow time. Accordingly, she started every meal with dessert.
The hardest part about boot camp for Michelle, as it was for many of the recruits, was being away from home for the first time. The separation from her family put an emotional strain on her, but she found solace in attending church services on Sunday mornings. Her time at church proved therapeutic, giving her the strength she needed to endure another week. Over time, she became stronger and more confident in her abilities, and she began to feel comfortable in her new role. She especially enjoyed meeting people from around the country and from all different walks of life, learning about their experiences and what brought them into the Navy.
Bootcamp lasted eight weeks. After graduation in May 1989, Michelle reported to Seaman Apprentice School, also at NTC Orlando, to learn the basic responsibilities of a sailor headed for duty in the fleet. At the school, she and other seaman recruits (E-1s) fresh from boot camp trained on the USS Blue Jacket, a landlocked and down-sized replica of a World War II era destroyer. The Blue Jacket provided a realistic platform on which to learn and practice the courtesies, routines, and duties Michelle needed to know for her first shipboard assignment.
Just as at boot camp, Michelle and the other female sailors trained alongside their male counterparts, although their living quarters were on separate floors within the barracks. Together they learned the art of marlinspike seamanship, which literally involved learning the ropes. As they all knew they would be assigned to the Deck Department on their first ship, marlinspike seamanship taught them how to tie knots, splice and store ropes, and use the marlinspike rope-working tool. Michelle also learned a valuable practical lesson at the school. When she found her chief petty officer’s nasty-looking coffee cup, she tried to be helpful and washed it for him. When he saw the squeaky-clean cup, he made it clear to her in no uncertain terms that coffee cups were never to be washed because the nastier they were, the better the coffee tasted. Put another way, “old salts” don’t use clean cups.
Michelle completed Seaman Apprentice School and reported to her first ship, the USS Cape Cod (AD-43), in June 1989. The ship was a destroyer tender—a floating repair shop for the Navy’s surface combatants—commissioned in 1982 and homeported in San Diego, California. She felt overwhelmed as she walked toward the 643-foot-long ship at Naval Station San Diego’s busy 32nd Street Piers, certain she would get lost and die and no one would ever find her. She arrived a day early on a Saturday and was assigned a bed (“rack” in Navy parlance) in a berthing space approximately fifty female sailors called home. However, because it was a weekend, many of the sailors were off the ship. With nothing else to do, Michelle stowed her gear, got something to eat at the McDonald’s at the end of the pier, and read books in her rack all weekend.
On Monday morning, Michelle reported to the ship’s Deck Department to begin work. She was assigned to the 1st Division, where she learned the art of deck preservation. This meant long hours of scraping old paint from the ship’s hull and superstructure and then coating the clean surfaces with a fresh coat of haze-gray paint. She also performed daily preventive maintenance to ensure the deck-related equipment was always in good working order. To determine what maintenance she needed to do, she consulted the ship’s periodic maintenance schedules and then performed the tasks identified for that day. She also conducted spot checks on equipment to make sure it functioned properly.
Three months into Michelle’s assignment, the Cape Cod deployed for six months to the western Pacific (WestPac). As a new sailor and one of the most junior members of the crew, this meant Michelle had to spend time “mess cranking”—working in the ship’s main galley to help feed the ship’s enlisted crew. Her duties included handing out trays to those waiting in line for chow, ensuring the condiment bottles remained full, and working in the scullery disposing of uneaten food and washing the serving trays, plates, cups, and silverware. Eventually, she gained enough experience to work in the chief petty officer’s mess, which was where the ship’s senior enlisted leaders ate. Not only was this a step up from the main galley, but it also helped expose Michelle to senior enlisted leaders from outside the Deck Department. When she wasn’t mess cranking, Michelle was back working in the 1st Division, conducting preventive maintenance and making sure the division’s spaces remained clean and operational.
Although the WestPac deployment meant a lot of hard work and long periods at sea, it also meant port calls in exotic places like Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. In addition to drinking and blowing off steam ashore, Michelle enjoyed taking the tours in each port arranged by the ship’s morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) team. Since Michelle had not strayed far from Lincoln, Illinois, growing up, these port calls opened her eyes to new cultures and life experiences.
Not long after Michelle and the Cape Cod returned to San Diego in April 1990, they got underway to participate in Operation Desert Storm. Michelle was again assigned mess cranking duties, this time working in the officers’ wardroom. The wardroom atmosphere differed from the other two places she’d worked in that it was set up like a fancy restaurant with nice linens and place settings. Michelle had to set the tables, fold the napkins, serve the food, and remove the finished plates. Although her job was much like that of a glorified waitress, she enjoyed the assignment because, as in the chief’s mess, working in the wardroom gave her exposure to the officers leading all the ship’s departments and divisions. Not only did the officers see what a hard worker she was, but she also learned a lot by listening to their conversations and observing their interactions.
For part of the Desert Storm deployment, Cape Cod operated in the Persian Gulf in the vicinity of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. This allowed the ship to provide repair and logistical support to other Navy ships participating in the war. The weather was oppressively hot, so the captain permitted the ship’s sailors to turn their dungarees into shorts by cutting the legs off no more than six inches above the knees. Michelle and other sailors working outside took advantage of the opportunity, carrying out their duties wearing white t-shirts, blue dungaree cut-off shorts, and steel-toed black boots. Although Michelle knew it would never catch on as a fashion trend, the uniform modifications made the extreme heat more bearable.
Cape Cod’s proximity to Bahrain also allowed the ship to make a port call at Administrative Support Unit (ASU) Bahrain. Michelle and the other sailors from the ship were permitted to go ashore to the ten-acre U.S. facility, grab a few beers and a shawarma, lounge around a pool, listen to music, and dance. Although the visit was much too short, it provided a welcome respite and recharged the crew for its duties at sea in support of the ongoing war effort.
The Desert Storm deployment gave Michelle the opportunity to “strike for a rating,” which is Navy terminology for studying and qualifying for a new career field. Michelle took Navy correspondence courses to explore several job categories like Master-at-Arms and Legalman, but the Yeoman (YN) rating naturally drew her because her father had been a Communications Yeoman. To gain experience, she started working in the Deck Department’s administrative office doing paperwork and practicing her typing.
The shift from working as a roll-up-the-sleeves sailor to processing paperwork in the Deck Department’s administrative office had its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, Michelle intended to return to Illinois at the end of her enlistment and believed the administrative experience she would gain as a YN would help her find a civilian job. On the minus side, she missed the work she did as part of the 1st Division and the sense of accomplishment she felt seeing projects through from start to finish. In addition, the lieutenant in the Deck Department worked her hard, even after the deployment when the ship was in port. The lieutenant never hesitated to call her in to work on her day off or pull her out of a movie to get something done.
On one occasion, the lieutenant directed Michelle to tell a first class petty officer that the lieutenant wanted to see him. Michelle did as instructed, and the petty officer told Michelle to tell the lieutenant he would be right there. When Michelle reported back to the lieutenant, she told Michelle that was not good enough. She instructed Michelle, who was a seaman (E-3) at the time, to tell the first class petty officer (E-6) he needed to report immediately. She said Michelle was acting with her authority and needed to convey confidence when carrying out her directives. Although the experience was very difficult for Michelle because the first class petty officer significantly outranked her, it helped make her a better leader. She learned to carry herself with greater confidence and soon people began listening to what she had to say.
After Desert Storm, USS Cape Cod turned toward home. On the way, the ship detoured to assist with humanitarian efforts in the wake of Mount Pinatubo’s cataclysmic eruption in the Philippines. Once the ship and crew had done all they could, they finally returned to San Diego. There, Michelle took the YN exam and passed. When promotion time came, she was officially designated a YN. Just as important, she removed the three seaman stripes from her uniform and replaced them with the crow and chevron insignia of a petty officer third class (E-4). In recognition of her new rating, she also moved to the ship’s admin office, where she perfected her typing skills, learned the office tickler system, typed correspondence, and answered congressional inquiries.
Once Michelle mastered basic YN skills, she transferred again, this time to the Supply Department’s admin office, where the job required more independent action. The supply officer made it clear to Michelle during her in-call that she could be bribed with chocolate. Michelle took full advantage of that knowledge. Whenever she needed something special, she gave the supply officer M&Ms and usually got what she wanted. She also enjoyed working with the officers and chiefs leading the department and learned a lot about its operations. In particular, she mastered preparing the eight o’clock reports, which the department used to make others aware of any ongoing issues. Michelle also helped prepare and process what seemed like a never-ending stream of evaluations for every member of the department and worked on anything else required.
In January 1993, Michelle did one more six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf with the Cape Cod. This deployment was the most challenging for the crew because a number of shipmates were lost under tragic circumstances. Two sailors died by suicide: one two days before the ship left San Diego and the other after the ship got underway. Two more attempted suicide but survived. Then a first class petty officer died from a heart attack after exercising ashore when the ship was in Bahrain. Compounding the toll, another ship sent Cape Cod the body of a sailor who had died. Cape Cod had to store the sailor’s remains until the they could be transferred to the United States. The deaths put a pall over the cruise, and everyone was glad when the ship returned to San Diego in June.
The months immediately after the deployment were decision time for Michelle. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resulting peace dividend years meant the Navy needed to “right size,” with fewer ships and fewer people. Michelle’s position was especially precarious because the YN rating was overmanned, so she was not permitted to reenlist. She put in a waiver to allow her to remain on active duty providing full-time support to the reserves, but the detailer would not work with her on where she might be assigned. Frustrated, Michelle decided to get out of the Navy and return to civilian life. She received her honorable discharge in August 1993.
Once out of the Navy, Michelle stayed in San Diego and began working for a networking company. Eventually, she affiliated with a Navy Reserve squadron, the VR-57 “Conquistadors,” which flew the Navy’s version of the DC-9 civilian airliner. She drilled with the squadron one weekend each month and two weeks during the year performing typical YN administrative functions. However, she was sexually harassed at the squadron, as she had been on the Cape Cod, so she left the squadron and returned to Illinois where she worked for a temporary agency.
By 1996, Michelle missed the camaraderie she had in the Navy and enlisted in the Navy Reserve as a third class petty officer (E-4). She did her weekend and annual drills at the Navy Reserve Center in Decatur, Illinois, until an opportunity arose for her to work with the Navy Seabees at Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 26 Detachment 1326, which also drilled in Decatur. When others recommended she not make the switch because it would be difficult, it motivated her that much more. She stayed with the Seabees, drilling both in Decatur and at NMCB 26 headquarters in Selfridge, Michigan, where she served as the battalion commanding officer’s YN. She promoted to petty officer second class (E-5) while there.
In June 2000, Michelle took the first of a series of active duty for special work (ADSW) assignments, meaning although she remained a reservist, she came on active duty for a specified time to assist a command that needed her expertise. Her first stint was with the Recruit Training Command at Naval Station Great Lakes, where she worked from June through October as the reserve liaison YN. In that role, she helped reservists reporting for training get to their assignments and processed awards, evaluations, and transfer packages. At the conclusion of her orders, she returned to drilling with NMCB 26 Detachment 1326 in Decatur.
In June 2001, another ADSW opportunity arose, this time on the fifth floor of the A-Ring of the Pentagon. Michelle reported on June 4 and began working as the flag writer for the deputy of the Expeditionary Warfare Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, referred to as OPNAV N75. It was a plum assignment because Michelle worked directly for a one-star admiral, handling his correspondence and providing him with whatever administrative support he required.
All went well until the admiral and most of the N75 staff went to a conference in September, leaving Michelle and three others behind. On September 11, they heard an airplane had flown into one of the towers at the World Trade Center in New York and turned on the television just in time to see another plane crash into the second tower. One of the others left behind, a corporal, said, “This is not the building I want to be in right now.” Before Michelle could respond, they felt an impact. Thinking it might have been a bomb exploding somewhere, they evacuated their spaces and headed for the outdoor courtyard at the center of the Pentagon known as “ground zero.”
Once in the courtyard crowded with people leaving the building, Michelle saw smoke billowing from the direction of her office. The officer in charge of the N75 office while the rest of the staff was in San Diego told Michelle and the corporal to drive together to the Marine Corps base at Quantico, where they could call N75 leadership in San Diego and tell them they were all okay. Rattled but now with a mission to help them stay focused, Michelle and the corporal did as instructed and made the call.
Michelle and the other members of the N75 staff were extremely lucky on that fateful day. Although they worked in the Pentagon’s Navy wing—the wing that took the direct hit by the terrorist-directed plane, they were all in their office on the Pentagon’s innermost ring at the time of impact. Moreover, the Navy wing had just been renovated, hardening it to better withstand attack. When the plane struck the E-Ring—the outermost of the Pentagon’s five rings of offices—it penetrated only to the C-Ring, leaving Michelle and the others in their A-Ring office unharmed. While their office did sustain water and smoke damage, they all survived.
After the attack, OPNAV N75 moved its offices to nearby Crystal City. Michelle continued working as the admiral’s flag writer and promoted to petty officer first class (E-6) in September 2002. After a short temporary assignment with NMCB 23 in Gulfport, Mississippi, in October, Michelle detached from OPNAV N75 in December and began working as an administrative YN for OPNAV’s Surface Warfare Division, known as N76. She continued there through September 2003, when she finally returned to Illinois to resume her drilling reservist status.
Michelle drilled with several reserve commands, providing administrative support consistent with her significant experience as a YN. These commands included Naval Reserve Naval Station Pearl Harbor drilling in Peoria (2003-2004); Recruit Training Command Great Lakes Detachment 1367 drilling in Peoria (2004-2007), where Michelle promoted to chief petty officer (E-7) in 2006; and Naval Reserve FCC Joint Task Force (JTF) Detachment 400 drilling at Naval Station Great Lakes (2006-2008). At the last command, not only did Michelle provide YN administrative support, but she also served as the senior enlisted advisor (SEA) to the commanding officer, sharing her insight and advice regarding the command’s enlisted sailors.
In September 2008, Michelle deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, as part of Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group (NAVELSG) Forward INDIA, replacing NAVELSG Forward HOTEL, which rotated back to the United States. Once the unit settled in, Michelle worked in the admin office as the leading chief petty officer (LCPO) and served as the sexual assault victim advocate. This deployment proved very difficult because the commander and his deputy created a toxic work environment. In particular, they discounted the significant civilian and military experience many of the reservists brought to the unit’s mission. After the deployment, they were held accountable for actions identified in numerous inspector general complaints filed against them.
Michelle arrived back in Illinois on July 18, 2009. She resumed her drilling reservist status with Naval Reserve FCC JTF Detachment 400 until September 2009. She then transferred to Naval Reserve Navy Personnel Command Detachment Great Lakes for a few months in 2010 until she returned to NMCB 27 in October. She served as the admin chief and LCPO there until she retired from the Navy Reserve in July 2012.
Although Michelle’s retirement signified the end of her Navy career, it did not end her service. In her civilian capacity, she worked as a human resources assistant for the Army ROTC unit at Illinois State University from 2007-2017. After a short hiatus working for a nonprofit, she returned to the military working for the Illinois National Guard at Camp Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, where she currently works.
Beyond her employment, Michelle continues to support those who serve or have served in the military. She became very active in Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 1756 in Lincoln, Illinois, serving for many years as its first female commander. She then went on to become the first female commander for VFW District 10 in the state of Illinois. She remains an active member of her Lincoln VFW Post.
Voices to Veterans is proud to salute Yeoman Chief Petty Officer Michelle Ramlow, U.S. Navy (Retired), for her decades of dedicated service. From working onboard USS Cape Cod during Operation Desert Storm, to deploying to Kuwait in the Iraq War, to surviving the September 11 attack on the Pentagon, she has always answered our country’s call. She exemplifies what it means to be a reservist, bringing capability and experience to every mission assigned. For all she has done, and for her continued service to our military and veterans, we wish her fair winds and following seas.
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