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my Moran-Yannis tells of her strong commitment to family and patriotism when she talks about how the U.S. Army was “the single best decision I made” in shaping her life.
Moran-Yannis comes from a long line of patriots. Her father, mother, older brother, and brother-in-law all served. She has two sons still on active duty as well as a nephew she raised during his high school years.
Her father retired from the Air Force with 33 years of service. Moran-Yannis speaks proudly as she tells how he was the first PA (physician assistant) in the Air Force, climbing the ranks from enlisted to officer.
Her mother was also in the Air Force.
Moran-Yannis describes both as “very strong advocates for Americanism and patriotism,” an advocacy that created “a very deep sense of loyalty that I tried to emulate,” she said.
But her jump into the service was not immediate. She initially tried college right out of high school, but the fit just was not right.
She and her father talked and she made the decision to join up. But which branch? After all, the Air Force did run in the family’ blood.
Moran-Yannis compared each military branch, looking for the one where she was sure she would be placed in a career field where she could help people.
Going against the Air Force grain of her parents, she said, “I went rouge” and joined the Army. It was the only branch of the service that would give her the career choice she wanted in writing. She tells how she had the guarantee in writing in front of her before she “raised her right hand.”
She had originally decided she was going to be a veterinarian technician until the recruiter explained that meant her primary job would be inspecting meat as it came into the commissaries. The possibility of giving an officer’s dog an occasional shot was the only veterinary medicine she could expect to practice.
So she chose x-ray school, sticking to her desire to find a way to help people.
Moran-Yannis signed up on the delayed entry program in 1989 and reported for active duty in September 1990.
She was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for basic training, part of the last female company to be processed there.
The distinction for the females meant a lot of dignitaries were watching the training. There were four platoons of females training at the same time as their male counterparts. She remembers “a lot of stars” being a common sight. Why were they watching? Like so many things in the military, they never said why.
Basic training is not where most veterans have a favorite memory, but not so for Moran-Yannis.
The brass was watching as she was going through the obstacle course right after finishing the bayonet course. She ran toward the enemy dummy, struck it with the butt of her M-16 rifle, and broke its head off. She was afraid she would be in trouble, but heard drill instructors’ words of encouragement instead.
How could this be a favorite memory? “I was having fun,” she smiles.
When she later told her father what happened, he asked if there were some anger issues he should know about. “Not that I know of,” she shrugged with a grin.
Getting to shoot an M-60 for the first time during night fire training was another favorite memory, despite the bruises it left.
After the fun of basic training, she went to x-ray school at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. There she was immersed in a highly competitive field where the training would force you to “study hard and fast or get left behind,” Morales-Yannis said. She did succeed and was sent to Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, Colorado.
Dessert Storm was brewing at the time. She remembers days when she would do 200 to 300 chest x-rays for soldiers being mobilized and de-mobilized. It was like a “production line.”
She was transferred to the 10th Field Hospital, which was also based at Fort Carson. She remembers the most difficult part of the task was moving from one barracks to another.
The unit was mobilized and begin preparations to head to “the sand box.”
But there was a test before she could deploy and that test showed she was pregnant. The Army said she had to stay behind.
Moran-Yannis originally planned to stay in the Army, but she learned that six weeks after her baby was born she would be deployed as planned.
It was decision time. She chose family. “I couldn’t leave my six-week old son,” she said.
Moran-Yannis left the Army when she was eight months pregnant, just shy of the end of her four years.
She traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, to be near her family and had her son at the hospital on Nellis Air Force Base, the place her father was stationed when he retired.
It wasn’t long before she started a job as the
“graveyard” x-ray tech at St. Rose Hospital in Las Vegas.
By the end of her 30 year career there, she had climbed the ladder to be the senior director of Ancillary Services, overseeing radiology, respiratory and patient transport.
Moran-Yannis’ Army training played a big part in her success at St. Rose. “Leadership all started with being in the military,” she said. She had learned structure.
Though co-workers teased her about her structure and by-the-book approach, “everyone knew what was expected of them,” she said, and that’s what makes people succeed.
She credits her Army training that led her to her career at St. Rose for allowing her to experience “the more human side of playing a very, very small part in a patient’s healthcare journey. That’s my greatest honor,” she said.
Sometimes the thought crosses her mind of what her life might have been like with an Army career. But that thought disappears quickly because she knows, “God directed me as I was supposed to go.”
Moran-Yannis now wishes more females, and especially those of the younger generation, would serve in the military. It would give them “such a firm foundation to draw on experiences daily,” she says.
And military service would create more veterans. As a female veteran, she says she, “wishes there were more.”
Moran-Yannis is continuing to build on the foundation that started with her parents as she continues to serve. She is the new treasurer/adjutant for Chapter 28 of the Disabled American Veterans in Blue Ridge and the incoming historian for the American Legion, a duty she will assume July 1.
But at the end of the day, no matter the situation, she stands strongly with “Family first.”