Pictured above: Pam Shields attained the rank of commander in the U.S. Navy.
Pamela Boyd Shields drew on more than two decades of experience in the U.S. Navy to help transform Pulaski County Republican Women from a “lunch group” to one that is highly active in the community.
A former teacher and commander in the U.S. Navy, Shields is president of the group, which now at least partially reflects her influence through its volunteer efforts in schools and with veterans. The group of almost 100 members fulfills its traditional responsibilities such as volunteering as poll watchers and poll workers, knocking on doors during campaign season and helping with the Pulaski County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, but the group’s reach expands beyond the county party.
PCRW assists and honors veterans through the Feed the Vets and Wreaths Across America programs. Each year, members lay wreaths on gravesites at Little Rock National Cemetery and deliver Christmas presents to vets at the Arkansas State Veterans Home in North Little Rock. PCRW also sponsors classes for those wanting to serve as poll watchers or poll workers and volunteers with Partners Against Trafficking Humans.
In 2018, following the passage of a state law requiring all Arkansas public schools to display “In God We Trust,” if materials were donated, the PCRW went to work. Shields said some principals met them with gritted teeth, but the group got posters distributed to all 146 public schools in the county. It was an important project, Shields said. After all, “In God We Trust” frames the PCRW logo at the top, with “Empower” and “Educate” at the bottom.
Shields grew up in Jacksonville, a child of retired military parents. Her upbringing influenced her outlook on life and helped lead to her own military career. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (and later, a master’s from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville) in 1979, Shields worked as a teacher at what was then Mabelvale Junior High School and at Hall High School, both in Little Rock. She taught American history and was one of the Little Rock School District’s first gifted education teachers, but she was soon to find her true calling.
A single mom, Shields wanted to set an example for her young son, Scott, and she decided to follow in her parents’ footsteps. Her father, Robert E. Boyd, was a navigator in the U.S. Air Force, and her mother, Retha Lohr Boyd, was a member of the Women’s Air Corps during World War II.
“I got in because I was a single mom and wanted my son to have patriotism in his life,” Shields said.
Plus, the Navy Reserve provided a little extra money and she got to travel each month.
Within 18 months of signing up for the Reserve, however, Shields was called to active duty and never returned to teaching — at least, in a traditional school setting.
“[Active duty] paid twice what I was made as a teacher at the time,” she said.
Shields retired from the Navy as a commander, the winner of multiple citations and awards. She was awarded the prestigious Defense Meritorious Service Medal, two Joint Service Commendation Medals, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, a Joint Service Achievement Medal, Navy and Marine Corp Achievement Medals, a National Defense Service Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Medal, an Armed Forces Reserve Medal, and for good measure, a Navy Expert Pistol Ribbon.
Her Navy service and education entailed anti-terrorism force protection, combating human trafficking, travel regulation, counterterrorism analysis, office leadership training and more. In 1997, she served as assistant director for war-gaming, exercises and simulation for the Commander, Navy Installations Command, at Camp H.M. Smith on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. She was hand-picked to serve as action officer for the flag-level strategic war game, Pacific Horizon, a Joint Forces strategic security exercise.
Her work in directing that exercise earned Shields the Defense Meritorious Service Medal.
Later, at Navy Air Facility Washington just outside the nation’s capital, Shields served as an assistant reserve programs director, an anti-terrorism officer and instructor, a berthing officer and a special projects officer. She chaired two policy boards, coordinated and supervised training activities and coordinated the first reserve-wide Navy and Marine Corps internet conference.
Her next stop, post-Navy, was the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., where she was an original member of the DIA’s J2 Joint Staff Intelligence Task Force created after 9/11. She worked in counterterrorism analysis and worked as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (the first stage of American operations in Afghanistan and the larger scale Global War on Terrorism).
Shields, left, with Alma Powell, wife of Colin Powell, former U.S. secretary of state, national security advisor and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In 2005, she was sent as part of DIA to Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, where she served as senior watch officer for a 24/7 operation tasked with the translation and exploitation of captured electronic media and documentation from Iraq. Her final role for DIA was back in Washington, D.C., where she served as senior staff officer for the Global Intelligence Operations Center. In this role, she worked on a 24/7 situational watch floor monitoring individuals suspected of being terrorists.
Obviously, Shields can’t reveal any classified information, but one memory that stuck out involved her arrival in Qatar.
“When we first got there, we slept in trailers piled on top of each other in columns,” she said.
Shields retired in 2011, moved back to central Arkansas and became active with the Pulaski County Republican Women in 2013.
A decade later, Shields said she looks at the political landscape on both sides of the aisle and laments the lost ideal of elected office as noble public service. She added that there are some Republicans in the Arkansas legislature who seem to vote out of self-interest.
Shields said she once questioned a GOP legislator about why he voted against his constituency on a certain issue. His response was that lawmakers’ votes do reflect constituents’ preferences, sometimes, but “when they don’t know the right answer, then we have to go in and do the right thing.”
“The thing I think we contend with now is a lot of state representatives who have no idea what the party platform is or what it means to be a Republican,” she said.
Shields noted how PCRW was behind the Pulaski County Republican Committee’s public criticism this past session of Gov. Sarah Sanders’ bill that would have weakened the state’s Freedom of Information law. Shields testified in committee against the proposal (she has also testified at the state Capitol in defense of gun rights.)
That lost ideal is antiquated today, she said, noting how so many politicians from both parties seem to grow their bank accounts while in office.
“I’m really big on term limits,” she said.
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