KILLEEN — Myrna Malic-Banzon grew up living what was considered a privileged lifestyle in the Philippines and while four of her five brothers headed to the U.S. when they came of age, Myrna had no intention of following suit.
Her father, Dominador Malic, was a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army who died when she was 4 years old, and Myrna’s mother had definite plans for the kids when they graduated high school.
“My mom’s plans were … as we graduate high school, if we don’t want to go to college, she will send us to the United States,” said Myrna, who now lives in Killeen. “My brother came here and joined the Air Force. The second (brother) got in a really big accident – wrecked the (family) Jeep – and he ended up joining the Navy. The third one was a happy-go-lucky guy, and he wasn’t really going to school and he got caught, so he wound up in the Army. The fourth one is special needs. The fifth one finished college and then joined the Air Force and became a pilot.
“I did not want to come here. We were better off than the average Filipinos (and) I told my mom, ‘I have two maids and a chauffeur. Why would I want to leave?’”
Born and raised in Manila, Myrna dutifully headed to college after graduating high school in 1977. As the only girl in the family, she had been carefully chaperoned during the years after her father’s death, so when she got away from home, she found herself enjoying her newfound freedom a little bit too much.
“I started having the time of my life,” she said, “because I wasn’t being so heavily guarded (by her family). I still had somebody taking me to the university and picking me up, but now I can mingle and go from one building to another without somebody watching me. What I would do is schedule my classes so far out that I had time to do other stuff in between. Like, I would have four hours from one class until my next class, so I could go galivanting, have fun, and come back.”
She and mom soon decided a change of scenery might be a good idea for Myrna and help her to concentrate more on her studies. So after studying chemical engineering for a year, she switched to secretarial studies and changed schools, where she wound up meeting a fellow student who became her future husband.
“The Philippines has three major islands – Luzon (where Manila is located), Visayas, and Mindanao – and my husband is from Mindanao,” Myrna said. “I told my mom I wanted to go to Visayas. I don’t have a lot of friends there, so if I go to school there, maybe I can focus on going to school. My mom said, ‘OK, let me call your aunt. You can stay with her. Maybe that would be good for you.’”
The couple finished their respective educations, got married in 1981 in Manila, and headed to the U.S., where Myrna’s husband joined the U.S. Marine Corps and spent the first four years of his military career before getting out for a while and then joining the Army.
For Myrna, becoming a military spouse was “a big adjustment.”
“When we moved here, we moved to Travis Air Force Base, because that’s where my brother was. We lived with him for a month, then we moved into our own apartment. That’s when we signed up for the Marine Corps,” Myrna said. “I grew up in one place and never really moved, so at first, it was exciting to be able to move around to new places.
“The first Army base we went to was Fort Bliss. From there, we were sent to Germany. We came to central Texas when we were stationed at Fort Hood (Cavazos).”
Now married for 43 years, the mother of three children works as a mortgage loan officer. Over the years, she worked as a cashier for a department store, a drug store manager, clothing store manager, AAFES supervisor in Germany, a telephone company call center rep, and customer service manager. She also is no stranger to volunteer work with such organizations as LULAC and the CenTex Exchange Club of Copperas Cove, and she has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.
“I always tell everybody I don’t think I can retire,” Myrna said. “I cannot not do anything.”
Looking back on her life, leaving her beloved Philippines, and settling in central Texas, Myrna says she has no regrets. She is a self-described “workaholic,” but also enjoys traveling around the world.
“As a loan officer, I can take my laptop with me, so in 2022, I went to Portugal, Hungary, and Turkey. I’ve been to China, Spain, Italy, Morocco. I want to go to Machu Picchu (in) Peru.
“I like to travel outside the U.S. because I want to learn different cultures.
“I think I’ve had a very interesting life. I grew up in the Philippines. I met my husband in the Philippines. We got married in the Philippines. My daughter was born in the Philippines. The only reason we left the Philippines was because during the (Ferdinand) Marcos regime (1965-86), corruption was at an all-time high. We were thinking that a lot of people want to come to the States and here we are, all we need to do is get a passport and a ticket.
“I had five brothers, and back then I didn’t realize what I was missing from not having a father.
“I am very proud of my father, although he died when I was four, so I didn’t really get to know him. He is part of what they called the Planet Party that cleared the way in the Philippines for MacArthur to land. They did the espionage thing so that MacArthur would be safe when he landed in the Philippines.
“I was there when he had a heart attack. I was only four years old, but I can remember every detail like it was yesterday. We had a little shanty house on a big lot, and he had built a nicer house. In the Philippines, they always said, ‘If you build a house from the ground up, someone is going to pass.’
“We moved into the house – it was the biggest house in the neighborhood – and my mom was cleaning house and I was making a mess. I was playing retail store and I had leaves that I was selling. My dad came by and I asked him if he wanted to buy something. He kind of smacked me on the butt and said, ‘Your mom has been cleaning and you’re making a mess. Go play outside.’ So I went outside. We had kind of like a porch and he had a chair in the corner. He told my mom, ‘Stop cleaning. You’ve been cleaning all day. Why don’t you get out of here (and) go with your friends and do something.’
“She said, OK, and she left with our neighbor. We had a Jeep, and I loved to climb the windows. I was halfway (up) the window – my head was inside; my butt was outside – and my dad was reading the newspaper and watching me. All of a sudden, he started snoring. I turned around and looked at him, and I said, ‘You’re supposed to be watching me!’
“My brothers were outside playing, as well, and they ran and picked up my dad. That was the last thing I remember. They brought him inside and tried to figure out where my mom was. We had a family doctor on the next block, and one of my brothers ran over there and got him. My mom came running back, and by the time she got to the house, the doctor had already pronounced my dad, dead.
“On the first day of school – we had junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten, and then first grade – I was in junior kindergarten, and my mom dropped me off. When it was time to pick me up, I wasn’t there.
“They were panicking. They were looking for me everywhere, and all I remember is being home. I don’t remember how I got home. I remember the maids (saying), ‘Where have you been? Your mom is looking for you!’ They asked me how I got home. I told them, ‘My Papa picked me up.’
“I’m having goosebumps right now telling you that story. I have no recollection of how I got home.”
