Cordova uniform is Cathy's, not Kathy's Cordova uniform is Cathy's, not Kathy's (July 08, 2005)

Police technician last wore it in 1969
by Jeb Bing

The smartly pressed Vietnam Special Services uniform we identified last week as belonging to our freelance writer Kathy Cordova was hardly hers. It actually belongs to another Cordova - Cathy Cordova, 59, who is an evidence technician with the Pleasanton Police Department. And, there's quite a story that goes with that uniform that's now on display at the "Those Who Wait" exhibit at the Museum On Main Street.

Cathy Cordova last wore the uniform when she came home on leave from serving in Vietnam in 1969, and before getting a new uniform when she headed back, this time to South Korea. The Vietnam service uniform went into the trash. After all, those were the years of national protests against the Vietnam War and the military suggested that troops returning to the States might find it wise to switch to civvies as soon as they got home.

Unknown to Cathy, her mother, now deceased, retrieved the uniform from the garbage can, cleaned it and pressed it, and stored it in the back of her closet in the family's Portola, Calif. home. It wasn't until her death that Cathy found the uniform and put it in her own closet.

The two Cathy/Kathy Cordovas have met, talked and Cathy has watched Kathy on her "In a Word" television program, read her books and greeted her at church. Although their names are similar, they have two different career paths, with Kathy as a freelance writer for the Pleasanton Weekly, and Cathy the Pleasanton Police Department's only evidence technician. Working behind closed and sometimes locked doors in the police station, she keeps her work and evidence to herself, seldom mingling in community events involving other police officers.

Actually, Cathy Cordova has quite a story to tell. A graduate of UC Davis with a major in sociology and psychology, she was recruited in 1968 to serve in the Army Special Services division, a little known specialty service that brought emotional relief to the fighting forces. When Cordova reached her assigned station near the Vietnam-Cambodian border, the war was intensifying there just as protests were growing here. Her sister Emily, who now lives in Pleasanton, was an anti-war activist at Chicago State and her parents, who lived in Portola, were the subject of anti-war chants from those who knew their daughter Cathy was serving in Vietnam.

"Those were very difficult years for my parents, but I didn't know it at the time," Cordova said. "We had no television or cell phone contacts back then, and mail often took three weeks to reach us. The Army didn't tell us anything about what was happening back in the States."

Cordova operated a Special Services club for more than a year in Vietnam, and then was reassigned to Korea. After three years, she was discharged in Huntsville, Ala., where she joined the local police force. Later she completed graduate work in Vermont, worked in Italy and then as the concierge at the Windows on the World restaurants atop the World Trade Center in New York. She moved to Pleasanton in 1989 to take the police department job, which she has held for the last 16 years.

As disillusioning as Vietnam was for those who served there, Cordova also found that her work in the Special Services counted for nothing in terms of veteran benefits. Although employed by the Army, she was not an uniformed soldier and was denied any military benefits. She joined the Women's Overseas Service League, a group that lobbied for recognition and benefits for civilian women who work in military installations. Last year she stepped down as national president of the organization. Her uniform, which she once threw away, she now proudly displays at The Museum on Main Street. It may be her best tribute to her long hours and dangerous duties in Vietnam.

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