A Vet’s Story – Margaret Mary Hartnett

Retired but always Navy

She does not know what it’s like to hear bombs explode in the distance or listen to echoing gunfire from a Vietnamese beach of white sand. She does not know what it’s like to see live flares or flashes of light from fighting nearby, and she does not know what it’s like to serve in a combat zone and fear capture or attack.

In fact, she does not even know what it’s like to serve aboard a ship, and yet YNCS Margaret Mary Hartnett, USNR-Ret., has served in the United States Navy for nearly 27 years, including during the Vietnam era. Since then, Hartnett has preserved and passed on her experience by sharing stories about the times she enjoyed and the lessons she learned with others.

Margaret Mary’s Lesson 1: When Hartnett talks to reporters, it is important that they learn the correct spelling and meaning of her name and title. In fact, she will even take the pen of a reporter, write her name out and explain: The YNCS means senior chief yeoman, (yeoman means helper), and USNR (Ret.) means that she is retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve. All together, it looks like this, she’ll say: YNCS Margaret Mary Hartnett, USNR (Ret.).

Like many women in the Navy during the Vietnam War, Hartnett assumed a variety of positions at home, which helped release more men from their naval duties and allowed them to fight abroad. She served two periods of active duty, and even though she was not sent overseas on either one, she loved each minute of it. She loved each minute of it and though her military career diverged from the typical image of soldiers on ships and at war, it certainly did not diverge from an eventful, enjoyable and meaningful time in the service.

Hartnett entered the Navy in October 1969. She was 18 years old and had graduated from high school a few months earlier. Since the time when she first saw a TV commercial for the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), an entire year earlier, her heart had been set on joining the Navy. However, her career in the military was inspired by much more than one TV commercial.

Hartnett’s mother, Anne Devenney Hartnett, was a U.S. Army nurse during World War II and her father, Francis “Bud” Hartnett, was a lieutenant in the infantry. In fact, the two had met in Europe in a scene similar to something from the movies; “Bud” was wounded, Anne nursed him back to health and years later, following the end of the war, they caught up with each other in Marseilles, France, and married. Several of her uncles, as well as one aunt, served in the U.S. Army as well, and one other member of the family, John Hartnett, served in the Navy, like Hartnett. Regardless, each relative shared war stories of passion and grievance with Hartnett as she grew up, which intrigued her as a young girl.

“The blood was there and I really loved listening to the stories that my family would tell. And then, when I saw that commercial on TV, I just said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do,’” she said.

It should be no surprise that Hartnett’s ex-husband served in the Navy as well. And today, her daughter, Kathleen Koviski, is aboard the USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, stationed in the Arabian Gulf. Koviski will return from the Gulf in February, and is scheduled for shore duty in San Diego, where Hartnett plans to visit her.

Margaret Mary’s Lesson 2: The men and women in the Navy are assigned and rotate between shore duty, which is when they serve on land, and ship duty, which is when they serve aboard a ship overseas. The Navy used to exercise a ship-shore-ship-shore rotation, but they changed it to ship-ship-shore.

Following Hartnett’s decision to join the Navy, she attended boot camp and was stationed at the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT) in Norfolk, Va., during her first active duty. According to its handbook, SACLANT is a NATO command required to preserve the peace, security and territorial integrity of Alliance member states. An officer from each NATO country is stationed at the base; Hartnett worked for a Canadian captain in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Still a teenager, and from the Pocono Mountains hidden in Pennsylvania, Hartnett felt complete awe and admiration for the two-star, three-star and four-star generals working with her at SACLANT. In addition to the high-ranking naval officers, she felt most impressed when they celebrated the national day of each member state. On those days, such as the Fourth of July for the United States, everyone at the headquarters would wear their full military dress for the day, which created an extraordinarily imposing site, especially for a girl as young as Hartnett.

Margaret Mary’s Lesson 3: Whenever you see the suffix ‘LANT,’ it means Atlantic and whenever you see the suffix ‘PAC,’ it means Pacific.

Following her time in Norfolk, Hartnett completed her three-year period of active duty at a naval air station in Lakehurst, N.J., in August 1972. After that, she spent two years in Philadelphia and one at Bloomsburg College in Pennsylvania. In 1975, Hartnett went back on active duty and was stationed in Washington D.C., where she worked for the oceanographer of the Navy. When her second period of active duty ended, Hartnett completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in business education from Bloomsburg and joined the Naval Reserve.

While in the Reserves, Hartnett spent her time in administration in a number of different places. She was first assigned to a unit called Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, which was a shore patrol unit in Maryland. Two years later, she was transferred to a Naval Investigation Service Unit in Philadelphia and then to a Naval Control of Shipping Office where officers and enlisted men in the unit boarded cargo ships and screened the cargo for contraband. In May 1994, Hartnett was transferred to the Naval-Marine Corps Reserve Center in Allentown where she became the officer in charge of Personnel Support Detachment, Europe, and where she retired as a senior chief yeoman in April 1999.

“There is a lot of tradition and ceremony when a petty officer makes chief,” said Hartnett. “There is also an intense initiation and let’s just say that it’s a day of hell and back,” she said, “but you feel so proud when you get pinned with anchors. You wear a khaki uniform and it’s like you’ve just stepped into a new community.”

Margaret Mary’s Lesson 4: A senior chief is the second command from the top. Men and women enter the Navy as seaman recruits and can work their way through the ranks including: seaman apprentice, seaman, petty officer third class, petty officer second class, petty officer first class, chief petty officer, senior chief petty officer, master chief petty officer and master chief petty officer of the Navy.

When Hartnett entered the Navy in 1969 she was an eager and impressionable teenager. Though no longer quite as impressionable, Hartnett remains just as zealous and faithful to the Navy as she did 34 years ago. Today, she works as a Lehigh County Drug and Alcohol administrator and belongs to the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Naval Enlisted Reserve Association, where she served as vice president and president for a short time. Hartnett even receives the Navy Times once a week, “just to keep up with everything that’s happening in the Navy.”

A love for the Navy was in Hartnett’s blood as a young girl and has not faded since; it stays with her through the stories she shares and the lessons she passes on to others.

Cara E. Skola is a junior at Lehigh University. Her hometown is Wall Township, N.J.