STARRS Podcast

What it's REALLY like living in a Communist country under Marxist ideology

• STARRS • Season 4 • Episode 31

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A voice that lived through Marxism can strip away illusions in seconds. STARRS & Stripes host Commander Al Palmer, USN ret, sits down with Mihaela Fletcher—born in Romania and grew up under communist dictatorship driven by Marxist ideology fully indoctrinated throughout the country.

Mihaela unpacks how grand promises of equality under communism curdled into scarcity, fear, and silence. From ration books and surveillance to Ceausescu’s cult of personality and a violent regime collapse, her story reveals what enforced ideology looks like on the ground.

Mihaela expected better when she became a Romanian diplomat at the UN, but found the same familiar communist patterns: a scandal-ridden aid machine that failed the people it claimed to serve. Declared persona non grata after getting engaged to a U.S. officer, she moved to America and started over—earning advanced nursing degrees and rediscovering freedom through competence, accountability, and service. That’s where our conversation turns homeward: school grade inflation, lowered admissions bars, and administrative policies that pressure faculty while pushing ideological litmus tests. In healthcare and the military, diluted standards aren’t abstract; they put patients and missions at risk.

We connect her lived experience to the stakes inside our armed forces. Integrity, service before self, and excellence are more than mottos when bullets fly. With a military veteran husband and a son at a service academy, she’s clear about what keeps warriors ready—merit, discipline, and truth. We talk about shielding academies from ideological capture, defending rigorous selection and training, and building environments where every cadet can grow in merit and excellence without demeaning quotas based on divisive identities. 

Too many young people today who never lived during the Cold War nor were taught about it have gravitated towards communist ideology (see NYC) out of ignorance and naivety. Share this episode with them and tell them about our nation's fight against Marxist ideology worldview during the Cold War and how to recognize the Marxist push to destroy our country.

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For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which works to eliminate the divisive Marxist-based CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Department of Defense and to promote the return to a warfighter ethos of meritocracy, lethality, readiness, accountability, standards and excellence in the military.

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Al Palmer:

Well, hello America. This is your host for STARRS and Stripes, Commander Al Palmer, United States Navy, retired. And as those of you who are regular viewers and listeners to our podcast, you'll know that we're the folks that stand up against racism and radicalization in the military services. That's what STARRS stands for and what we stand for. And very proudly. STARRS has been engaged for several years now in trying to reduce the effects of rack radical ideologies on our military services and the people who serve there. In addition to the families and the children and relatives of those who serve our country. So we're happy to be here again with this episode today. And I want to talk about something that we often have brought up but don't get into too deeply, and that is the radicalization that has affected not just our military services, but also our country. It's more evident today, and it's more in the open, , perhaps than has been for some time. And we're talking about the ideologies of Marxism and communism, , which we didn't expect to see very much of, but now seems to be in clear display. To talk about that today, I've got a very special guest. She is an American citizen who grew up in communism in Eastern Europe. She became a diplomat, a respected person who represented her country as a communist country, but then became an American citizen and hasn't had a disadvanced career teaching medicine, becoming a nurse practitioner, and in an absolute gym when it comes to helping our country recover from illnesses and addictions. So it's my pleasure today to have with us Mihaela Fletcher. Mihaela, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for spending a little bit of time with us today to tell us a little bit about how you came from the communist world and how you grew up there in a family that was part of that, and then somehow escaped and came here to pursue a new dream, which is something, of course, that all people who want to immigrate to our country do. But I think your story is very unique because you come from a little different way of understanding how those things affect people. So welcome to the show. It's good to have you with us.

Mihaela Fletcher:

Thank you for having me here. I'm glad to be here. So I am an immigrant and I live through the Marxist ideology, born and raised in one of the most oppressive governments in the world. my father was a member of the Communist Party, so I was indoctrinated since birth. I got a degree in economics during communism, was one of the most prestigious schools, so I was indoctrinated with Marxism there too. I went to a political science school, I got a political science degree, I became a diplomat in my country, and I eventually was selected to be a h anitarian observer for the United Nations in Iraq. , when I was in Iraq, I met an American coroner who was the director of weapons inspections in Iraq, and eventually we got engaged and I moved to the United States. not before I was declared persona nongrada by the Iraqi government and forced actually to leave Iraq at that time. So that was the best thing that happened to me, though. came to the United States, , I got my teacher, my daughter, with me. She was 11 years old at that time, and I started all over. I got a nursing degree, went to a historically black university in Louisiana, then I got a master's degree from Duke and then postmaster's from UNC at Chapel Hill, ECU and a doctoral degree from ECU in nursing. so I I'm a healthcare provider and I am a proud American. My husband, my first husband American colonel, died of a service-connected disability, was 100% service-connected veteran, and I eventually got remarried, , and my husband is a lieutenant colonel and he retired from the army. so my daughter became an American citizen too, she married a first-generation American, they are both successful, have own businesses, and my son is cadet at the US Air Force Academy. So I grew up, I studied, and I lived in a country there were no rights, and you talk about paradise, , what they were offered us, , were offered a lot of good things. they offered us free education for all, but the education was all indoctrination. We didn't have a lot of good books. I didn't even know what the Bible was. religion was also totally oppressed. We are not allowed to go to churches except for except for a few times, like there was a wedding or baptism, a funeral. A few times I've been to church a few times in my life there. so the education was mandatory, the Marxism education was mandatory. We became communist early in the second grade, we were pioneers, , and everything we taught was an exaggeration and h an rights abuse, everything. the state controlled everything. You talk about social housing, what kind of houses we had, , communal apartments with showers and restrooms outside. my father was in the Communist Party, so he was able to buy a decent house, and I was able to get an apartment too. but it took years, and basically we had to fake psychiatric diseases to get an extra room if we wanted more space. we we thought we had it all. We were totally brainwashed, indoctrinated. We're told that we had basic necessity, but everything was rationed. Food, electricity, there were power cuts, nothing in the grocery stores. I fainted so many times waiting online to buy to buy food. public transportation, what can I say? It was it wasn't free, but it was cheap, but it was a place where was sexual abuse, everybody was touching, robbing you. That was normal. everything was controlled. We had like two hours a day of TV, , and there was a lot of propaganda. We learned Russian, corruption, nepotism, black market was everywhere, there were crimes, and typically thieves would steal meat from our houses: meat, gasoline, radios from the cars. there was no freedom of movement. I we are not allowed to travel outside, except for some people in the communist country. minorities were all repressed. It's ironical that revolution, the Romanian revolution, started because a minority priest was his rights were violated and wanted to kick him out of the his country, and people protested. and of course, communism Marxism system requires enforcement. You have to indoctrinate everyone since birth or school, and then you have to put a lot of work on finding having a good police informants so people can live in trust and fear, so they would be afraid to say something. If you say something, you'd be publicly discredited, but we're basically encouraged to spy on others, to spy on my parents or my neighbors, that they got a phone call from somebody from the United States or Italy. It was all secondary gain. In fact, we got promoted if we would spy on someone. the healthcare was the worst because it was all bribery, corruption. , I had an aunt who died because she didn't have the money to pay her doctors and nurses, and she was told you either sell your cow, that was her only way of feeding her children, or you're not gonna have the surgery on time, and she chose the her family, not herself, and eventually died. we shared everything, we shared syringes. I'm lucky that I didn't get HIV or other diseases, transmittable diseases, because it was on order, depending on what your name was, ABC. we had the same syringe for everybody. little alcohol swap, but lots of people died and were got infections because of that. People were in orphanages because of that. , prenatal care was a joke. we basically went to the doctor very rarely. there was no anesthesia, nothing. childcare, we took care of each other. If we had grandparents, that was good. We had a key on our neck, , going on trams, on metro. many women died because of abortions, and it was it was illegal to have contraceptives. pro-natalist policy. the president wanted us to have at least five children, and women who could not feed their children resorted to having contraceptions and abortions illegally. some died, some made babies and they were placed in orphanages, but , there was no gender equality. Women were it's part of life to be treated like a sex object. It's like, what is sexual abuse? There's no word for that. Plus, you couldn't talk with anyone about anything that happened to you. We didn't have any sex education in school, women were just made to serve men and make children. so it was a civil responsibility for us to make children and to serve the man. In fact, getting married was for a woman was something that we should be very proud of. and those who would not make children or get married, they'd get a penalty like pay 10% of their salary. they talk about classless society. let's live in communist place, , Marxism when there's no , yeah, everybody is equal, everybody has the same, it's fair. that was not true. There were lots of classes, politicians, military, celebrities, professionals, the working class. my family was in the working class, I would say, because my father was in the Communist Party, we were a little bit above and we could go so far. So my parents wanted my brother and I to get a college degree, so we would become professionals, so we go a little farther, but there's so much that you can go. the lowest were the peasants in the villages, and that's what they were calling them, the peasants, and the minorities were absolutely the lowest, were treated very, very poorly. election, none. It was we had one party, one candidate, unqualified people, h an rights violation there extreme. again, if you are in the Communist Party, you had some advantages to buy a house faster, to get a better job, because you know everybody has a job, but what kind of jobs you had? in fact, living in the city at Bucharest was like you have a green card here in the United States. everybody wanted to go there. There were illegal marriages for that people to stay in the country in the city because they had more that in villages. So everybody had a job, but it wasn't the job you wanted, but the job that was determined for your for your party, for your class.

Al Palmer:

So so it sounds like that's a society that's built just like the old Soviet Union, actually, which came from Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks after the referent Russian Revolution. And and countries like Romania just seem to have adopted that as as part of the the spread of communism throughout Europe. They just duplicated it one place to another. Usually usually because they come into the country and say, We're gonna make things feel good for you. We're gonna give you utopia. You probably grew up that way, right?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yes, yeah, I don't know. Anything else.

Al Palmer:

But you don't know. But you know, since you don't know, you say, sure, we'll sign up for that, and that sounds great. We'll get all this great stuff, and then the stuff doesn't show up. So was there a time when you were a young girl and it started out looking attractive because everything was going to be even and maybe a little bit of utopia, and then it changed?

Mihaela Fletcher:

I I did not know that was better. I really did not know everything was so established, I just wanted to go to school, get a college degree, become a professional. Of course, my goal was I was a woman, was to marry a man that was like an officer or a doctor, so I would have a better life. But that was my goal in life at that time. There was we I never knew it was better, not even after communism and it was difficult. I actually found freedom in the United States, nowhere else. But we were just so abused, , vulnerable, vulnerable people who did not know were brainwashed, totally brainwashed.

Al Palmer:

So was it wasn't there also an issue with the Romanian people who existed before communism? Didn't you lose a lot of that history, that that family, if you will?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yeah, we lost everything. we did not know the history, we were taught just the communist history, and my father, my grandfather had property, had a pub and had land and gold, and he lost everything because of the communist, and then they were spying on him, they were coming looking at us to see if we do anything. he he lived in fear and he was even afraid to talk because if he would say something, my father would get upset that we'll all be sent to prison or somewhere else in the middle of nowhere, and he was shut off the entire life. So they they stole the the classless society is like it doesn't work, and they they stole everything from people who had. They got it all and they didn't really distribute it like the state had total control. they some people in charge had the control of everything, but the state had total control of everything. There was no we are just indoctrinated that we were all happy that we had equal distribution of wealth, but I just we are all poor. That's you know, wealth cannot be equal if you don't work and make but it's as far as you as much as you can work, can do, you can't go farther your class unless you have to do something. You have to, I don't know, have sex with someone, you are lucky, you are pretty, and you go farther. But there's there was there was no the only motivation was to get a little farther in class, but we didn't know better. We just didn't know what was good. We didn't have basic necessity, we didn't have food, we didn't have basic things.

Al Palmer:

And and and like most of the communist countries that have gone that way, you had somebody who was a leader at the time too, who probably was like a Stalin, who kind of dictated how things went. And and that was Nikolai Chaushescu, right?

Mihaela Fletcher:

In fact, he was worse than I would say he was worse than maybe not Stalin. Stalin did a lot of bad things, but he was worse than a lot of other people because he was more than just the that the the communist that he destroyed a country, but he he went to North Korea at one point and he realized the cult, the personality cult was there, and from that moment it was much worse on us. We became totally isolated from everyone. I would say that Romania was just like during communism was much worse than in we had a life much worse than in the Soviet Union or other communist countries. We were like in North Korea, that's what I think we are.

Al Palmer:

I've heard that, yes. Well, and and and because I think he's as I've read, he started out kind of mild, and then like you say, he changed his character along the way and became much more brutal and much more forceful. So, what happened to him?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Well, he so I think he was , I'm not even sure if he was a shoemaker or he worked for a shoemaker, but he became in charge, he became a general eventually, and he had the cult. We were I remember when we were little kids in class, , we had his photos everywhere, and we were singing songs about him to the Supreme Leader, all the songs that we were singing, and he he just took advantage of everybody. So eventually, when the communism was ending in a lot of countries, Romania was one of the last countries who where communism ended, it became violent. He really saw that , see, people when they are told that they are good, they believe that they are good, just like what's happening today with DI, and I've seen people entitled parents and entitled students, they were told that they are good, they start believing they are really good and the people love them. And he really believed that he was good and he would not want to back off. And some people went against him, protest all over the country, and eventually the police security, his own police got against him, and he and his wife were publicly executed, they were just executed, it was violent, and Romania was the only place where the end of communism was violent because he was he was so horrible. I I can't even and you know we we don't like to see people die or anything, but the he he was just executed in he and his wife were exiled, they didn't wait. The the country had enough.

Al Palmer:

Well that shows you how bad it was, I guess. So so you grew up with that, suffered through it, but but tell us a little bit about how you went to the United Nations and how you escaped that to get here.

Mihaela Fletcher:

, so I like I said, I didn't know what freedom was. I had no idea. I was a woman who was just made there to serve men, and I was hoping to get better. so I eventually decided to go to school, , get a political science degree, and teachers there were important in the new government. so I made some connections, I applied for the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and for a diplomat, search secretary, and I was selected for that eventually later. One of the important persons there told me that I mean I was I had degrees, I had almost 4.0 GPA at that school, the political science degree. but I was told that I got the job mainly because I was pretty. He just liked me. so that was got me in that institution. so I worked for the United Nations, and it was still gender inequality, there was so violence against women, the trams, the metros are the same, women were abused, patriarchal culture, position of powers, and no accountability. So I decided to move away, to go away from the country, and the best way to do was the United Nations, and I found a job and I applied to be a h anitarian observer in Iraq, and I got a job, I moved there, and this is how I arrived at the United Nations. but when when I went there it was about the same. It was the same gender inequality, the same sexism, the women it was the same Marxism that I I saw it in there.

Al Palmer:

so you thought I was reading You thought going to the United Nations might solve that problem, but found out it existed there too. So the United Nations ended up with its own problems.

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yes, yes, and it was interesting when I met there and I met the person in charge of that organization in Iraq. The first thing he told me that I don't look like an observal, I look like a model. Now at that time sound like a compliment, but right now I wouldn't like someone to tell me I I know my rights right now. it was it was appropriate at that time because I didn't know better. I was a woman. but I eventually after I was declared persona non prata, non-desiber person, nobody told me what I did wrong. , if I did something, nobody talked with me. the only thing that I could see that I did wrong was that I was engaged to be married with the director of weapons inspections in Iraq, who was US Air Force coroner. So I do not see any other reason of doing something, but nobody told me I did anything wrong.

Al Palmer:

and how will we do it? That will probably take care of it, yeah.

Mihaela Fletcher:

So the UN simply kicked me out, you got to where do you want to go? So I moved to the United States, and then later I found out and I knew all the people. I knew the person in charge, and I know the one who was in charge of him, the chief of the UN All for Food program in Iraq. And it's interesting because the UN h anitarian coordinator in Iraq said that he resigned because he could not look at the genocide that was happening to Iraqi people. That was horrible. Iraqi people lived indeed, there was a genocide, they were not doing well, but the they were not doing well in fact because of what the United Nations did, what their own dictator did. eventually they discovered, and that's I looked in the news from reliable sources from the United States office, that there was mismanagement, there's corruption, fraud, abuse of power, and the person in charge was actually indicted for bribery and corruption, and the UN paid his legal fees, and then he just resigned and moved back to his country. And I know US tried to get him back, but the country would not get him back, so he got away. Probably he's getting a retirement right now. there's there was no no accountability. So whose genocide was? who made this genocide, making profit at the expense of vulnerable people. These people were really, I I witnessed so many h an rights violations in Iraq. People were really not doing well, and they were so afraid. And that's what our president, former president Ciao Chescu did for Romania. It wasn't just communism, he was a nationalist. He, the culture personality, that's what Saddam had. And it was actually Saddam's photo was in every person's house. and they own people they hated him. but so it was I met people from other countries, African countries, who it's the again, women who there was a girl who was a woman who had genital mutilation as a child, and she was taught, she was indoctrinated to believe that there was normal. I mean, how can you think about that? Be having genital mutilation is a normal. She was taught to believe that it was her, it was her responsibility to be mutilated, and who cares about health, social, , all the complications that these people had. Another one didn't even know she was genitally mutilated. She went to so many doctors and eventually found out, but again, her family told her that's part of our culture. It is normal. So I saw a lot of atrocity, but the corruption that goes together, it's like when you when you get to the Marxism, to the nationalism, you can't get out of that. It's impossible. And that's why I wanted to leave because I didn't have 50 years, I didn't have a hundred years to wait for the country to get better. My daughter was, I don't want my daughter to be sexually abused, she was pretty, she was a very pretty girl, she's a have a beautiful daughter. But that's what happens when you are beautiful, everybody takes advantage of him. I was reading in the news about the gymnast Nadia Komanet that everybody thought she got she she was great because she was important, she was a celebrity, but this woman, defected, she left the country because she was so important, she was so abused. Everybody took advantage of her. If you are pretty, if you are a celebrity, they take advantage of you. And then it's hard to get over. People get indoctrinated, they don't know what is right, and it's that's what when I see things happening in this country, I know that if it's gonna happen, it's gonna take centuries to get back to what it is, and it's scary because I've seen it, I've seen it happening, and it's like 1984. George Orwell is ignorance is strength. That's what they are counting on, that's what Marxists are counting on, keeping everybody ignorant so they would they would not know that they are abused. It's just and they have it's I I can't even think about the way they do, how they use the vulnerable population, how they find them, they segregate them into classes. We have white and blacks, we have transgenders, we have ethnicities, , women, men, they all segregate them. Income right now is income. I've seen at universities in North Carolina that people with lower income, , children with lower income have free they they have they go to college for free. So there's an inequality in in income. Right now, if you are if your parents make more money, you are penalized because it's this they found another group, the income group, they changed them, and then they victimize these people, and the people they don't even know that they are victimized. They are manipulated like me, they are exploited, , and then they make them poor. They they don't really realize this. You can support, you can feed everyone, you can have give free housing to everybody, you can get free jobs to everybody, free health care. So you you impoverish your population eventually, and then when they reach their political agenda, they just abandon them. And the people don't realize that they are right now their object, but , once the these Marxists will get their political agenda through their propaganda pushing their lies, they they're gonna get rid of everyone. It's just whoever they want. , it's such a violation, it's horrible.

Al Palmer:

Well, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, pretty soon you run out of other people's money. And when you do, you don't have those things you need to sustain the promises that are made that are based on continuing revenue. When you kill the business, you kill people's initiative, and there goes the money, and there goes the support. Is that kind of what you saw?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yeah, you kill the motivation, you kill everything. You kill you you you kill our desire to get better. We know what we can do. it's you you kill everything we had, everything. The equal opportunity is no opportunity at all. It's all these people they are so abused, they don't even realize how they it's they're gonna become all poor. You you can't support, you cannot have the the communism, is not, it did not work. It just showed it did not work. it's not possible economically, politically, is totally against, but it's it's like the people and I was reading about someone in the Cato Institute, a black guy who and I I agree with what he said, I've seen that too. They make them feel victims by telling them they are the group, the whites abuse you, the blacks, whatever they say.

Al Palmer:

they make you feel like a that's what communism is famous for. They'll come in and tell you whether it's South Africa or whether it's Eastern Europe, , they'll come in and say, Look, things are really tough here in town for you guys, but we're here to help you. Things are gonna be good. Just do what we say, right? Abandon all those other things that you've had, get rid of your history, get rid of all the things that you've done. , we're here to make things different. We're gonna fundamentally change you and your country for you. Is that the message that you saw?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yeah, and it's it's hard to see that some hardworking people are associated with groups like them because of their culture, income, race, gender, because those good people appear bad because of what the people in charge abuse the other ones. They get incompetent, the vulnerable ones, the ones that are ignorant and they don't know. They want them unqualified. They get the unqualified ones to get to their, if they can get to someone to their means if they have someone smart. So that person, the smart person, is gonna get it. So they want the unqualified people. They want us to become ignorant.

Al Palmer:

So let's let's talk for just a second about that qualification merit. that's how you escaped and came here and then went into education, , went into nursing, , a very technical and very challenging profession. but to do that, you had to be very good at what you were doing, right? You couldn't use DEI and get ahead just because of some other external factor. and and you saw that directly coming from a place where that was done. How did that feel for you?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Yeah, well, I saw it at the beginning when I got a job at as a diploma and when I got a job at the United States Nations, the way I was treated, now it makes me think. I know I was intelligent, I know I hard, I studied hard, but was it because of the way I look, because I'm pretty, because somebody sexually harassed me? Is this why I'm in the position? So it makes me actually, it puts my self-esteem down, although I know that I'm smart. Then I'm trying to think about did the other people who got in this position got in there because they were pretty, because they had sex with someone. and the same happened with here, with the nursing. I've seen people who were who got got over the the grading on the curve, like when I went to school. some people I remember I had a guy one time, a colleague, he asked me to help him at chemistry and said, okay, I was good, I had a grade grade, so teach me chemistry. What do I need to do? And then I tried to explain to him chemistry, but the guy did not know basic maths, he didn't know what two plus two was. This is a guy who was in college. So, how can I teach someone who doesn't know maths how to do a chemical equation? It was impossible. I could not do it, and then my grades were high, and I was they made me. I remember I had one time I had to take a clap test to get out because my grade was inflating the others, I was doing too well in there, and and it's not that I was doing so. That makes me think was I was good or other people were bad. Was I good? I couldn't, it makes me question my intelligence again because of what I've seen. But before in the school, eventually they had issues with passing the accreditation because students were not capable to get the 80% score to pass the national examination, and then eventually were allowed to get it, even so, to continue the school and put these nurses into practice, and then the nurses take care of you. And , who wants a pretty nurse or a nurse who is diverse? We want to have a good nurse. , I want a nurse who can take care of me, I want a doctor who can take care of me. I don't care how they look, , whether income or religion or ethnicity or races. That's not , and then the same with when I went when I became instructor, I saw the same. I saw somebody who was totally unqualified, with a criminal record actually, who had a license suspended for fraud, who got in charge because I and I was discriminated. and I it's hard to believe for me that someone who was not having doing well in school and didn't have anything could get to that position and the way they did it with like no election, get everybody away. So I've seen discrimination, I've seen the Marxist practice of one candidate election at public universities. I see it right now. It's happening, and they lower the hiring standard, they lower the admission standards, people hardly pass. , I had they and then they just make sure there's just one person and they choose a certain person. And they don't it's it's it's on the it's now diversity strengths in nurses, it strengths in medicine, but not at the expense of people. We again we all want good nurses, we want good doctors, we want good military, we want good cadets.

Al Palmer:

So so a lot of that does center around you know education and and education, you know, post-high school. so when you get into college, used to be you went there for the ability to learn and to debate and to be able to have a discussion about the way things were. Today it seems to be very ideological. So is as that's the case, , who's doing that? Is it the professors?

Mihaela Fletcher:

You gotta do it.

Al Palmer:

Is it the professors though?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Well, when I went to so when I first time when I went in school when I was a student, everybody was passing. It was all right. Right now, what they want us to do is everybody to get like before when I was well working before for a public university, they wanted everyone to get 100%, to give somebody a 98%, god forbid they are gonna come and comment. I had one time a colleague who gave a student 99.5%, and that student made so much of a fuss that that eventual that teacher was kicked away and the student was moved to me because that professor gave him gave the student a 99.5. So it's the many, it's the the leaders, it's it's the the ones in charge that who are doing the professors are told to do from the leaders, from their deans, from their department heads. these are the ones that that's not, and we should not, and that's the problem. We go after the wrong people, we go after the the ones who do it, it's the ones who orchestrate, the ones who have an agenda to get to their whatever they want.

Al Palmer:

Yeah, that was kind of the the purpose and the question is everybody thinks it's the professors that are indoctrinating, brainwashing the students, but it turns out that may be partly true, but it's the administrative people who do that. Often the campus volunteers or others that do some of the grunt work, like assigning you know rooms and helping them with choosing classes. Those are the people who seem to be moving people in a direction that's kind of brainwashing them and getting them to swallow all of the ideology. We have to do the same.

Mihaela Fletcher:

We can. We we do the best. I did my due diligence. I complain, I report it to the Department of Education, I report it to the next level, they did meetings, but if the same people are in charge, it's like I can do more. I've I've done I've done what I was supposed to do. I do I did my duty to report that that individual is writing in the new in the in his research articles about retaining some certain students and faculty, and then he puts growing your own, creating your own intentional pathway, do, and then he's putting his research into practice, and then we see obviously that somebody there totally unqualified is in that position, and we we do the best, we report, but it's it's it's not that individual who is not capable that is n ber one that needs to go, is the one who makes that possible, is whoever makes it possible. And it's it's a lot of bureaucracy and the department of education, to somebody that equal opportunity commission, for instance, told me, Oh, it's too late, it's been over six months, there's nothing we can do. The Department of Justice is not our business, something like that. That's the way they do it now. I, when I apply for the job, I had veteran preference. My husband has a hundred percent service connected disability. I had so many credentials and certification, I was working for that school. So not being being blacklisted for all the jobs I applied after I complained about discrimination, it was clear to me. But I mean, I have a job, I don't care. I can, I can, I'm happy where I am, but it's the people that the who's suffering? The students, the the patients, the safety, it's the safety. The students are suffering because they were promised quality quality education, and they didn't get that. They are not getting that. I heard people are failing their their national exam. But there's as much as we can do. I did everything I could. I forgot.

Al Palmer:

Well, that's what you have to do, and and thank you so much for being a part of that effort. it really makes a difference. So the other thing that happened to you, though, was not only did you get back, you got into education here as a new citizen, but you also got back into the military marrying an army lieutenant colonel and a doctor too, is that right? Yes. So so how did that how did that change your life being a a military wife and a mother of children now working in the military, sort of? Because after all, families in the military are a part of the military, right?

Mihaela Fletcher:

Well, I I lived in communism, so I raised my son to love this country. So that's n ber one, to take to not take anything for granted, to be to do it, marry to be competent. So I taught my son, so yes, I married military men and I I saw I saw integrity, I saw service before self, I saw excellence, and I see that going away, and it's it's caring. So but it is it is very scary because I know I lived with what my what my my husband's the integrity that he has, my son's integrity, is they are they are to the highest. I I am an in I have a lot of integrity, but I can say I'm at the same level as my husband and my my son. I'm questioning sometimes if I have somebody a student and I know she is not he or she is not doing well, I'm questioning. If I would ask this question to my husband and my son, they would respond to me. What is to think about? There's nothing to think about, you do it, you cannot let. It's your obligation to report. You see something not right, it's your duty to do it. so , and that was another thing when my son was in high school, he he learned in high school about a civil movement, systemic racism, all of this. And then he came to the US Air Force Academy and he learned the real history and he just loves it. And I know he's gonna come out of this class as a better person, and he's gonna learn the truth about the history. He's learning about burning conflict and containment and a lot of things that he did not know. So I'm so happy with the education he he chose, and I really don't want that Marx's infiltration. It should not go into the military, it should not go into the academies in the military because we want a good nurse, we want a good doctor, but we want a good officer, we want a good soldier to defend us. We don't want somebody who's pretty or of a different race or income. We want somebody who can defend us and defend and we talk about the women, the sexism and gender inequality in Romania and the United Nations. it's not about, it's about if a woman is capable, , the woman should go as far as possible, but we should put married first regardless of the race, the how we look, married and integrity. We have to be to have integrity to report our duty. So I'm very, very proud, and it should not go DI in education meant passing unqualified students and giving them a sense of entitlement. And I was looking on Facebook, one of the parents posted something in there about her child and says that the child would need to what can she do for the child to switch classes because of an instructor not having the ability to teach? That was so so inappropriate. and people were responding to that individual. And how is it how appropriate it is to say to ass e that the an instructor of a service of a service academy doesn't have the ability to teach? These people are qualified, these people are excellent, that's why they are there, they are the best. And how can you say something? And all I'm thinking is the entitlement. Somebody gave her child just a hundred percent, and now she expects that she didn't get a hundred percent, and that's cool. to there's something wrong with the teacher. We have to look back, it's not a teacher, it's probably the student. We need to look what it is, and we have to look at things individually. , and we we should not talk before we know more. And the DI critical race theory had just resulting in lower standards of employment, undergraduate, graduate admission, lower performance, lower readiness, it should not happen in the military. We talk about protecting our country, that's unacceptable.

Al Palmer:

Well, and and it's different in the military because unlike working for IBM or Amazon, you don't go to work every day and come home knowing that you're gonna be doing the same thing every day, right? When the bullets start flying and the missiles are in the air and there's chaos around you, you need people who have the qualities of leadership and character, and as you say, integrity to be able to stay the course, do the job, and see it through. That's not something the average person actually ever experiences in in life in a lot of places. And so that's why that's why STARS has been busy trying to to do this exactly as you described, is to keep the merit high, keep the integrity there, keep accountability centered on this too. Because people have to be responsible for what they do in order to be effective leaders. So I'm happy to see that your son is there at the Air Force Academy. I know he's gonna have the challenge of his life, , and I know you probably know that too by now, but it's an important thing to do, and we're very grateful for you sharing him with the rest of us to do that. So in and in s mary here, Mahaila, the the journey that you've had represents an extreme case of people going from one culture, one way of doing business to another. And and as you know, the challenge of assimilating into that new society can be a challenge. I've had a lot of people I've sponsored to be new citizens go through that. And I know it's a difficult thing to do sometimes, to leave the old world behind and to pick up the new. But it sounds like you've done an amazingly good job of that. And we're here.

Mihaela Fletcher:

Is caring, is really is it's really bad to see that happens here. Something that I ran away from that country to get away from all of this thing. I ran away to get freedom and to have h an rights and to see that the freedom and all the equality of opportunities going away and see people incompetent, ignorant in charge. And we should not celebrate incompetence and poor performance and lack of integrity at the expense of our education, health, people. the people at the our country, like for the Service Academy, they need an environment where our students, cadets can grow, can learn, can develop without prejudice, without exclusivity, without racism, regardless of how they look, what race they are, what it's not political, it's not racist, it's nothing. It's just the it's the it's everybody's right. We should we should live we should we should live in freedom and have rights.

Al Palmer:

Yes, and and and we have had a reputation of that for a long time. I'm I'm personally glad to see us returning to that and the warrior ethos and getting people to understand what it's like, you know, to have to take care of a country. So we're doing that here at SARS. Well, the other thing is that I know that you live in North Carolina now, and we're we're busy here in STARS, kind of lining people up to help us out from time to time, and it's great to have you here with us to talk about ideologies and communism particularly. But there's something else that you can do, I think, in North Carolina. Turns out we've actually got a vacancy there for the head of one of our state leaders in North Carolina. And I've talked with our leadership and stars, and they'd like to actually offer you that job if you'd like to take it. It's a volunteer job, being ahead of things in North Carolina, if you'd like to do that.

Mihaela Fletcher:

That would be that would be great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I just I just want everything to be the way it used to be in this country again.

Al Palmer:

We just Well, you got an awful lot of people there with the same attitude, Mahela. and we're all kind of linking arms together to make it happen. So we really appreciate your help in doing that. And I'd like to thank you for being a part of this today, sharing your life with us, which is a great life story, and also that of your husband and your son and daughter. we're happy to have them as new citizens. I'm particularly pleased about your son going to the Air Force Academy. Because I've got a little bit of Air Force in me, too. , so that all works.

Mihaela Fletcher:

We are all united. All the military brands, we are all united. We should live in unity. There's a lot of people.

Al Palmer:

Well, we are, and and listen, I hope that things go well for you, and thank you again for being a nurse practitioner. My daughter's one of those as well. , so I know how important that is and how much work it takes to get to that level of health care. So thanks again. And to our audience, , thank you for being a part of what we've done here today to explore a little bit about what it's like to live in a communist country, come from it, and succeed and do well here. , it just shows that merit and achievement and talent work here where it's ignored in other places, especially in communist countries. We have a challenge to still face there, , and we'll be happy to have you here listening to us talk about it. So thank you again for being here with us. We'll look forward to seeing you for our next episode of Stars and Stripes.

Mihaela Fletcher:

Thank you.