CLEVELAND, Ohio - If you've seen the 1980 movie "Private Benjamin," you've got a pretty good idea of Joan Kleinhenz Shackleton's initial reaction after joining the Army in 1974.

Shackleton wasn't quite the wealthy socialite, portrayed in the movie by Goldie Hawn, who got a rude awakening after enlisting and wailed, "I made a mistake, fine. I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I wanna wear my sandals. I wanna go out to lunch. I wanna be NORMAL again."

But the movie was a close approximation of her attitude, according to Shackleton.

"My recruiter, I'll never forget him. (He said) 'Oh, you're going to go camping. And you're going to be with all these girls.' And he really made it sound like it would be kind-of fun," Shackleton, 59, of Westlake recalled.

"So when I got in there, after like three weeks, I wrote him the nastiest letter. 'How dare you? You lied to me!' I was just like Private Benjamin," she added. "I wanted to go to lunch."

The Bay Village High School graduate had joined the Army at the encouragement of her parents. She later found out they suggested that option because they couldn't afford to send her to college and figured the GI Bill could cover the cost.

Eventually, she not only came to terms with military life, but eventually loved it, serving two years of active duty followed by 24 years in the Army Reserve.

There were, however, a few adjustments at first.

Shackleton remembered when her fellow WACs (Women's Army Corps) were taught how to fire an M16 rifle. To show how little recoil the weapon produced, an instructor had her place the butt of the rifle against her forehead while he pulled the trigger.

"Now their idea of no kick-back and mine were two different things. Oh my god, my head was killing me for like three days!" Shackleton said.

Then the women were shown films of the unfortunate and explosive results of improperly cleaning a rifle. "Then they told us to clean our rifles. And I'm petrified because I have no idea, I'm hoping I'm cleaning it right," she said. "I felt like I was playing Russian roulette."

During a gas-mask drill when recruits were required to remove the mask in a room filled with tear gas and recite their name before leaving, Shackleton said she laughed when told that some people in the test forget their name.

Then, "I go to take my gas mask off, and went Joa . . .? I could not remember my name," she said. "It was the real stuff, and I went tearing out of there."

She suspected that much of the field training was simply going through the motions for Army women who, at that time, would probably never serve on a battlefield. Her suspicion fit with the military's general lack of respect for women back then. "I think they thought we were like playing house," Shackleton said.

Sexism, too, was pervasive. When a woman officer told Shackleton that her skirt needed to be lengthened to the knees, Shackleton checked with her commanding officer and he told her not to worry about it. "You know now, looking back, I think he just liked having me in short skirts," Shackleton recalled.

Later, during her duty as a law clerk in the Reserve, she uncomfortably sat with male military attorneys through lunches at an officers club where topless women were dancing. "It was like not a big deal to them (the lawyers)," she said. "That's what they did back then."

But the Army did give her a career. She used her GI Bill to earn a Bachelors degree in business management from Dyke College, and go to court-reporting school, then earned a paralegal certificate when she joined the Reserve. She became the chief legal NCO of the Reserve's 9th Legal Operations Detachment of the Judge Advocate General law center in Columbus, and retired as a legal administrator with the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3.

During her service she trained recruits on court-reporting practices and techniques.

The Army also changed along the way, notably in its treatment of women, according to Shackleton.

"When I left, the culture had changed dramatically in terms of sexual harassment and making sure you didn't violate someone's rights," she said.

Women were no longer regarded as soldiers who needed placating, but as fellow team members and serious competitors, as the military playing field was leveled, Shackleton said.

Recent news that all military positions, including combat, would be open to women was a policy welcomed by Shackleton. "I think it's great that they can do that. Some of the women that I have served with, I probably would trust them more than some of the men I served with," she said.

The risks are not lost on her. A close friend died in 2003 after her helicopter was shot down by enemy fire in Iraq.

"You never know. You have to take it very seriously," she said of women serving in the military. "I was proud to have served my country and took it as such. It was a serious thing, and I took it seriously."

She said that when the Gulf War broke out, some women in the Reserve "felt they shouldn't have to get called up (to active duty) because they were parents.

"Well, I was a mother of two, myself, and my thoughts were, 'That's why you're in the Reserve. In case they need you. And if you don't feel that you can fulfill that obligation, you shouldn't be in the Reserve.'

"That's what you do. You serve your country and you be there, ready to do what you have to do."

Her own role in the military ended in 2002, after she got married to her second husband, Don. "The Iraq war was going on and there was a good chance I would be going over there,' Shackleton said. "And he said, 'I didn't marry you so you could get killed, so would you please retire?' So I did."

She now works as a paralegal for the Ulmer & Berne law firm in Cleveland.

When she looks back on her Army service, Shackleton said the military changed her, matured her. "I learned self-discipline. I learned tenacity," she said. "The things that were the most difficult for me to accomplish were through my military courses I took, and I felt the best about myself after I successfully completed them.

"I look back and say I'm so glad I did it, and I wouldn't give it up for anything," she added. "It was one of the things, one of the main things in my life that truly made me feel good, and made me realize I can do anything I put my mind to. That proved to me that I can."