I was born in Richmond Virginia eighty-six years ago and grew up a proud American.
My ancestors came to Virginia in the early 1600s. They fought in all the wars, beginning with the Indian attacks in Virginia. Family members went to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. My nephew is a proud Marine and my beloved granddaughter is in the Air Force National Guard. I am an Air Force widow.
I moved to the state of Georgia in January of this year to live with my daughter because my vision is failing so badly I could no longer live alone.
It has taken me weeks to obtain an identification card in Georgia so that I can vote, obtain a library card, go to the municipal swimming pool and so forth.
I first went to the DMV with my expired Florida driver’s license and my military identification card. The clerk said they couldn’t accept my expired Florida Driver’s License, along with two letters addressed to me at my new address. They “tossed” my military ID back saying, ‘That’s no good.’
I was instructed to submit, in addition to my expired Florida Driver’s License my birth certificate and my marriage license. I have the originals. I was told they were no good. I had to obtain certified copies from the bureau of vital statistics. I obtained them at a cost of a little over one hundred dollars. A hit my pension did not need.
I went back to the Georgia DMV. I presented my two letters addressed to me at my present address along with certified copies of my birth certificate and my marriage license, my expired driver’s license, and my military ID.
The clerk again tossed back my military ID saying it was “no good,” refused to accept my other identification because I had been married before. So they again refused me an ID and I sent for my two previous marriage license at the cost of one hundred and twenty three dollars. Again, a hit my pension did not need.
Finally, equipped with certified copies of my birth certificate, all three marriage licenses, my old driver’s license, two letters received by me at my new address and my military ID they gave me my Georgia identification card and registered me to vote.
They scared me that day. They finally noticed I hyphenated my name. A practice that originated in an office at Moody Air Force Base when my husband and I went to register me as his wife.
The Air Force clerk then insisted that since I wanted to keep the name of my children and the name in which I earned a PhD, I should write it in the hyphenated form.
At the DMV we could hear the conversation the clerk had with someone else who suggested she should demand a copy of my tax return as proof of something, but finally permission was given and I obtained the little piece of paper at the cost of $35.00, they are to mail me my card someday, the little piece of paper says I am a citizen of the United States of American again. I am no longer an alien, a woman without a country with only a military identification card.
-Now I can vote.
Sincerely,
Anne Haw Holt