Shirley Tapia, oral interview with Zandalee Springs, Buena Park, California, March 17, 2015. Digital recording.

Shirley Tapia lives with her husband Richard in Buena Park, California. She has and continues to place a strong emphasis on family. She and her husband were married in 1966 and he was deployed to Vietnam in 1968.

Growing up Mrs. Tapia was eager to settle down and start creating a family. Richard was a family friend and they started courting in high school. After she met Richard, she wanted to quit school but her parents said that they could only get married if she promised to finish high school. She had other friends that had also gotten married before graduating but feels that she may have missed out on some experiences like prom and homecoming. She and Richard were married shortly before he went off to complete basic training and was deployed to Vietnam.

Mrs. Tapia recalls that it was difficult to not have him there, but that she and one of her girlfriends would get together and work on scrapbooks together. Mrs. Tapia closely followed the news and what was happening in Vietnam not only because Richard was over in Vietnam but because she also knew family friends who were deployed. While Richard was over in Vietnam, she wrote him a letter everyday.

 
She had a few comments about the war. Since she followed the war closely she witnessed the politics of the war change after the Tet Offensive. When Richard was in Vietnam, Mrs. Tapia stated in regard to politics of the war that,

“…he’d write letters and tell me things that were going on… I was very angry because I didn’t understand why we had to be fighting this war, when no one from here was living in Vietnam…. I used to envision [the official] saying ‘you go, you go, you go…”

However, the politics around the war wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Mrs. Tapia recounted that when Richard came back she didn’t recognize him. The first few years after the war were extremely difficult for their marriage. When Richard came back he would go out every Friday night and drink with his friends. She wasn’t allowed to ask what happened on those nights, but then on Saturdays he would take her out to dinner wherever she wanted. Dinner was also had to be on the table every night at 4:30. If it wasn’t he told her that he’d walk out. He only did this once. Today Richard isn’t like this and is more like “dinner whenever you want”. He doesn’t recall this period of time, which may be reflective of PTSD or other effects from the war.

She would have never have married him if she knew he was like this, but since she was married in the Church and her parents told her not to marry so young felt like divorce was not an option. When Richard came back, she tried to talk about it with him, but he blocked her out because he felt that she wasn’t there and couldn’t understand. Mrs. Tapia felt that she had been there with him, sending him letters and pictures. There was just a general disconnect between the two of them after he came back. Although they have talked about what happened over in Vietnam and she now understands some of his actions, she is unsure of whether this would have made a difference when they were going through difficult times.

During this time, she and Richard had two kids, Richie (’68) and Michael (’71). She loved being a mom and a homemaker. However when Richards’ company went on strike she had to work. Her mom helped and would watch Richie while she was working. She continued to work a few days a week but would always stop working when she was pregnant. At one point she was working part time and raising her two kids—for her this was the best of both worlds. Although Mrs. Tapia didn’t exactly enjoy the camping trips that they went on, she does recall some fond memories with neighbors and her boys.

Her oldest son, Richie got married when he was nineteen and so she has two grandchildren. Unfortunately when her granddaughter, Felicity, was ten years old, Richard was murdered. Mrs. Tapia and Richard took Felicity in and raised her as their own. They were incredibly close with Felicity but something happened, neither of them know what, and she hasn’t been in their lives since. This has been incredibly difficult for them, but Mrs. Tapia seems to have made some peace with it.

Her youngest son, Michael, was also murdered five years after Richie was. Although losing both her sons is and was incredibly difficult for her, she is heavily involved in an organization Families of Murdered Children. Both she and her husband have different coping strategies. Their experiences have brought them closer together, where for many couples, each experience could have torn them apart.