Memoir of a Woman Marine 1962 - 1964

When people ask me why ~ ~ why did I join the Marine Corps ~ ~ I give the usual pat answer. Wrong line at the post office or I got a guy pregnant. But then I give them the serious answer. I'd been patriotic even before my first Letter to the Editor, written when I was eleven years old. Tears welled up in my eyes at parades, I played Army with my boy cousin and his buddies, and dreamed about traveling around the world. Mt. Morris, NY, the town where I grew up, was a place without much opportunity after high school. College in 1961 was a goal for the more affluent. Driving to Rochester to work at something wasn't possible as I had neither a license nor a car. I often thought about the service. There was an old TV show on that featured a WAVE and I'd seen movies featuring women in the service. My thought was that they traveled and got to see a lot of places I'd probably never see and they served their country. I never gave much thought to the training even after finally talking to a Marine recruiter in the spring of 1962. Neither of the two Sergeants I dealt with emphasized the harshness of boot camp. I chose the Marine Corps because it was the most elite with the fewest women. I also chose it because of the WWII movies I'd seen featuring Marines. I already had an inkling of what Esprit de Corps meant. I took the test and passed; discussed it with my mother and with my father by long distance. They were in favor of it although they had their doubts about me sticking to it. They (nor I) didn't realize that once in, there was no way out. I was an only child and lacked discipline in a lot of ways. My parents were divorced when I was fifteen and I lived with my father in Florida for a while and was more or less my own boss from then on. Whatever their doubts, they supported my decision. A couple of weeks after my physical in Buffalo, I went back there, raised my right hand and left on a train with another recruit for Yemassee, SC. A bus picked us up and took us to Parris Island. Since we arrived in the middle of the night, we were shown to our bunks and had four hours of sleep before our lives changed forever.

The next days were a blur of activity filled with feelings of nausea, fear, excitement, bewilderment, regret, enthusiasm, more fear, desperation, and a feeling of being trapped with no way out. It took me longer to adjust. I did too well in my classes to convince them that I wasn't cut out for Marine Corps life. I did try to convey that in many ways. Dying shoes, sewing on name tags and domestic things like that were just not up my alley. I caught on to drilling and even PT. I adjusted to being yelled at. Although stories told by many Marines will tell of hearing the WM Sgt.'s and Cpl.'s swearing and cursing the recruits out, I never heard one curse word from them. Not to say they weren't mean and green. They were all of that. 1962 I'm sure was a lot different from later years. The training itself has become harder and harder and more like the male's training based on what other women who enlisted in the Corps have told me. We had no slack but a lot of our time was spent in the classroom preparing. Preparing not to fight, but to free men to fight. That was our role so there was no rifle range. We did go through the gas chamber, the high dive off the board with full combat gear on (sans a rifle), there were no long hikes or obstacle courses at that time for the women. Graduation day was the first day we had any freedom and we went main side where most of us had ice cream sundaes to celebrate. As I sat there I could hardly believe that I made it. I would miss the camaraderie and the girls I had gotten to know through these eight weeks. Only seven others were out-posting to Camp LeJeune. We had a ten day leave waiting for us the next day. As I sat there still thinking back on the training and trying to really believe I'd made it, I heard a man call my name. None of my family had come to the graduation. Hardly any parents were there. In 1962 traveling further than fifty miles was a major event. I turned to look and saw a boy from my hometown who I had gone to school with. He was in the band at Parris Island. I'd heard he'd enlisted but to run into him on the only day on the Island that I had a two hour window of freedom was a minor miracle. We talked for a few minutes and then I walked back to the barracks with my friends, standing tall and feeling prouder than I ever had in my eighteen some years. We sang Sentimental Journey that night after lights out and the next day we said good bye to PI. It was over but in reality it had only just begun.

Boot leave was a short ten days but in a way, I could hardly wait to report to Camp LeJeune. We were asked to put down three choices as far as where we might like to be stationed (nothing was guaranteed). They tried to give us one of those choices. I chose those closest to my home, LeJeune was my third choice. HQMC was my first but at the time they had no need for a 2500 MOS. The sounds, smells and memories of Parris Island stayed with me during leave. I could hear the oscillating fans that were going day and night during the first four weeks I was there. The smell of the wax on the squad-bay floor, even the smell of the freshly ironed clothes hanging in the laundry room stayed with me. The sounds of cadence rung in my ears. Day to day routines were embedded in my brain. I remembered the eerie quietness of the base one night when I was sent to secure a classroom where the light had been left on. It was after lights out and I was alone, probably for the first time ever during training. I looked up at the sky brightly lit with stars and was absolutely in awe about where I was and what I was doing.......Parris Island, SC walking down a road with keys in my hand to unlock a building belonging to the United States Marine Corps. In less than two weeks I'd earn the title of Marine. Only a few short weeks ago I was a civilian on the road to nowhere. Now I had purpose and commitment. I loved the cleanliness; the orderliness of the Corps. Everything was squared away, and if for some reason it wasn't, it would be in short order.

Therein was the disappointment when reporting in at Camp LeJeune. Again, I arrived in the middle of the night for reasons only known to the fates. The Marine on watch took me to my bunk. I walked through the common area and saw disarray. Looking back now, it doesn't seem all that bad, but then? Right out of PI? I did sleep, albeit restlessly with this "concern" in the back of my mind. How could this be a Marine Corps barracks? They didn't prepare us for this at PI. So I had to find rhyme or reason to it. It didn't take long. I formally reported aboard, and found that, coincidentally, my bunk mate was the company clerk. She had introduced herself and welcomed me at reveille but I didn't know where on the base she worked. I think she withheld that to surprise me. Being the company clerk she picked me for her new bunkmate, I guess based on my last name or because she'd never met anyone from NY, I really don't know. She helped me immensely to adjust. I found out that the barracks did sparkle on field night once a week and was always left squared away before everyone left for work in the morning. I saw that when returning to my area. I can't say it was Parris Island caliber but it was much better than what I'd seen in the middle of the night. At the moment though I still wished I had been sent back to PI for permanent duty or to HQMC.

I found one girl from my platoon who was in my squad-bay and she was also a 2500. We reported in together to the Base Communications Center and soon became the best of friends. The Comm center was in the basement of Building #1, the headquarters for Marine Corps Base. During the day while in the uniform of the day, we entered through the front door. For watches that began at 1600 or 2330, wearing utility uniforms, we entered through a window and climbed down a ladder which went into the main room of the Comm center. I met other women who worked on one of four watches. Most of them were billeted in Upper Port whereas I was in Upper Starboard along with Evelyn, my friend from boot camp. Our squad-bay wasn't cut out for watch standers so we had to make many adjustments. We were excused from inspections when coming off of mid-watches so we had to find someplace else to sleep such as on the pool table at the club etc. I became close with most of the Comm girls, as we were called, and found most of us had the same experiences regarding life in the Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune.

On the way to the base, the night I arrived at LeJeune from J'ville, I was on a bus with around forty Marines. All male. By the time I got off the bus, several of those Marines had volunteered to show me around the base and nearby town. I thought it was so nice of them. This is another thing that they hadn't prepared us for at PI. The onslaught of men, especially when stationed at a remote base such as LeJeune. Women were few and far between. I was told at that time there were 40,000 men and 150 women stationed there. There were some women in J'ville and the surrounding area, but a city it wasn't. The other new arrivals experienced the same friendliness from the troops and there is no doubt that those first few weeks on base was a head turning time. There was a lot to learn work wise, barracks wise and socially. We were prepared for hard work and we were prepared for inspections and the military way of life. I even recall being talked to about our moral code so to speak. However, keeping in mind what we went through to become Marines wasn't emphasized. Maybe it shouldn't have had to have been. {In my opinion a full course of how to handle the attention would have been very helpful.} So far, I would say, the first two months aboard, the gung-ho feeling we'd been so high on at graduation took a back seat to our new celebrity status. It may not have happened to every woman to set foot at MCB CamLej, but the majority were definitely affected by the non stop attention. Most of us figured it out on our own in time to re-prioritize and regroup so to speak. It wasn't us as individuals that the men were interested in, it was just that we were of a different gender; plain and simple. The men who became an important part of our all around lives at LeJeune were the Marines we worked with day in and day out. We worked every other weekend twelve hours on; twelve hours off. We went on burn runs (an era before paper shredding) worked side by side night and day, field dayed the Comm center, and our friendships grew just as they did between men in the field or in a war. I saw very few women become career Marines. It may have been different at other bases or it may have been because two events had yet to occur and when they did, life as we knew it would cease.

Day to day work became the focus of my life. I had a passion for my work; arriving early and staying late was the norm. I eventually learned all aspects of what made the Comm center tick. If necessary, I could have been there alone, in an emergency of some sort, and been able to get the job done. That wasn't the aim in training us but I had a burning desire to know how everything operated, from the time messages came in from FMF Atlantic in Norfolk to when we delivered them to the office of the Commanding General of MCB. There were approximately twelve people on each of four watches and we generally worked eight hours on and twenty-four off. As mentioned before, every other weekend was a twelve hour on, twelve hour off watch. That meant that two weekends a month, if our watch fell at the right time, we had seventy-two hours off. A lot of my coworkers would break their necks getting home if it was feasible.  Watch standers didn't fall into the routine of Marines who worked normal hours. Because our time off was often in the daylight hours we became more familiar with J'ville than with the club. Although many women in the barracks soon found the NCO club more appealing than the WM club, not many ventured into town. During this time in the Corps, women were not allowed to wear slacks of any kind, not on or off the base. Girdles were required in uniform or while wearing civilian attire. These type of small potato regulations kept a lot of women from reenlisting. It also played a part in seeking the freedom of going to town rather than staying on the base where we were so obviously women in the Marine Corps. Town was just right for our schedules. There were two J'ville's; the day ville and the night ville. We knew both. The nights in J'ville were where we came into contact with the Marines from 2nd MarDiv that never ventured into our area on the base. We saw them sometimes at the PX but just from a distance. A lot of them, from a distance, would call us BAMs; hollering out "BAM, BAM when in a group of course.  A lot of the women thought of them as "animals"; it was a fairly common term. However, meeting them in town was a different scenario and they were no different from the men we worked with. Most were nice young boys from all over the country stuck on a base that left them very little opportunity to meet women. Hopefully some of their opinions of women in the Marine Corps improved after meeting some in person rather than falling for the far fetched stories that circulated. We'd heard a lot of things about ourselves. I can't defend all of it. Yes, there were women who by any standard were far from the "ideal" As far as the lesbian factor was concerned I can only comment on what I witnessed. They were sent home when found out at Parris Island. At CamLej when found out, they were isolated until given their discharge papers but no, they weren't all found out. I'd guess that out of the 150 women in our barracks including those NCO's in lower starboard, there were two to five percent who were still on board when my enlistment was up. Rumors heard around the base exaggerated this statistic just as it exaggerated the moral fiber of WM's in general. The only way to overcome the rumors was to be the best Marines we could be when meeting or being in close proximity to any and all Marines of the opposite sex.

The days turned into weeks and then into months. I was working on November 22, 1963. The news came in over the teletype and time stopped just as it did all over the country. The word circulated around the base like wild fire. Women and men alike were stunned into silence. Some crying uncontrollably, some just staring into space unable to absorb the fact that our Commander in Chief had been assassinated. We went topside to watch the ceremony of lowering the flag to half mast. A branding iron burned the date and the memories into our brains. Would anything ever be the same? President Kennedy was "our" president. Even though many of us were not yet old enough to vote, some of us had voted for the first time when he was elected. Regardless of political party, he was our leader and everyone was affected in one way or another. Marines all around the world were feeling what I was feeling. An uncertainness prevailed. It was hard to go on with daily routine as usual but that is what Marines do, no matter what goes on around us. The barracks was like a tomb when I finally got back there. One girl in a couple areas down from me was inconsolable. The Captain of our company came up and finally settled her down. She took a leave and went home to Missouri for a few days. There are days and unfortunately continue to be days in our history that we'll never forget. We won't forget where we were or what we felt.

Rumors had started about something going on in the far east. I'd heard of Laos and Vietnam from reading a book by Dr. Tom Dooley but just vaguely knew where they were. One Marine from the Comm center was all revved up that he had orders to go there. No one gave much thought to it. The messages coming in didn't have too much to do with the situation that was brewing. We didn't have much access to television and hardly ever saw a newspaper (other than the Camp LeJeune Globe of course). We had no idea of the life changing event that was about to affect so many of our Marines. No idea. All communications came into our Comm center first. We relayed them to 2nd MarDiv, Force Troops, MAS New River, 1st ITR and all of the smaller units. The messages earmarked for the General weren't delivered on the paper they came in on. They were typed up on an old Mill typewriter (all caps) on a carbon like paper where corrections were made with a razor blade. After that they were mimeographed on an antiquated machine and depending on the message, copies were delivered to the General's staff all over the building. I'm amazed as I think back at how amateur these communiqués looked, that they were acceptable to the officers. Crypto, where the classified messages were processed, wasn't in our building at first. What communications came in through them, I wasn't privy to so it could be that information about the dark clouds forming over our country were being relayed through that unit. None of us had any idea of what was in store for our Corps; for our country. Events were upcoming that would change lives and our whole viewpoint on life itself. President Kennedy's assassination had sobered us to the reality that something like that could happen in our beloved country but Vietnam became the seven letter word that wouldn't let go of us. Sometimes I go to The Wall website (http://thewall-usa.com/) and write tributes for those Marines who have nothing written for them because their friends and family have no access to the net. It is heart-wrenching to read "No entries have been made for this hero." As far as I know, I know no one on The Wall. My buddies were almost all Comm guys who, if they did get to Nam, made it back. When my enlistment was up, I got out. It was September of 1964. In time I went to work for Western Union thanks to my training. I eventually married and had a family. Yes, I might have married a Marine as did my three best friends but then again they are also all divorced. Getting back to civilian life took the loneliness out of the equation and things changed rather quickly. Somehow I had the foresight to see that marrying at that time of my life in the situation I was in wouldn't have been the best road to take. I've often regretted leaving but then I'd have to regret my three children so that doesn't really hold water. In June of 2000, a group of us from our Marine Corps forum gathered at Parris Island to meet for the first time. We are Marines from all eras who came to PI to not only finally meet but to see the place where it all began. The wives saw the camaraderie between us and when on base, saw the Espirit de Corps that permeated. The changes in the Corps for women are probably the greatest. From my era until now is like day and night. The women recruits now go through much tougher training all the way around. Physically they have a much more severe regime. I also believe that they are better prepared for what is in store for them when out from under the tutelage of their DI's. We enlisted at a naive time of our lives. The 50's had just come to an end and we were still in a bobby socks and saddle shoe mentality. I wouldn't be the woman I am had it not been for the Corps.

Social life on the base in the early 60's was confined to four options. A woman in the Corps could have a different date every night of the week and never run out of men. But what was a date at that time? Going to the Camp Theater (aka the movies), walking back to the barracks and kissing goodnight at the front door. That was it. Another date alternative was logging the guy into the WM club where you could drink beer, eat a burger and dance. The club closed at 2300 so that was that. Walk back to the barracks, kiss him goodnight and the night was over. The bars in town also closed at 2300 due to some kind of a way the long arm of the Corps stretched itself into J'ville. Although a date would hardly take you into town, if they did, it was home on the bus at 2300 and then walk back to the barracks and the night was over. Option four was the most rare. The Marine had a car. Very rare. That was where the limits of what you might do were lifted. Some women "looked" for Marines with cars. In the barracks there were cliques just as there are in any large group in high school or college. One clique grew their hair long; wore it up while in uniform and successfully passed inspection by concealing the pins holding their hair in place. On liberty they wore their hair down and dated mostly MP's or Marines with cars. This clique would often seek out officers which were verboten and go with them to the officers club. They weren't suspected of being Marines due to the length of their hair. They weren't at all gung ho but two of them worked at the Comm center and both were excellent workers. One clique were women who practically lived at the NCO club. They enjoyed dancing and would go there in a large group often leaving with one NCO or another. They hardly frequented the WM club and never went into town. There was a clique who hung around the barracks. They were either burned out from the male attention or they were not fond of the male gender. They sent out for food, made the common area "their space" and had something to say about everyone walking in or out.

Sexually there were three distinct classes of Women Marines. Those who "did," those who "didn't" and those who weren't "interested" in men. Among the "those who didn't" may have been some who might have, if in a long term relationship but weren't out and out playgirls. We all knew who belonged in what group no matter what squad bay we lived in. Word spread and things were just known by osmosis. Morals in the early 60's were still in the 50's. Just purely as a guess, I'd say seventy percent of the girls in boot camp were inexperienced. Twenty percent were still inexperienced when they got out of the Corps due to their moral convictions, because of their religion or because even though they'd been on their own, they didn't want to disappoint their parents. One of my best friends was such a woman. She married a Marine who has subsequently died and she is now remarried. These were the only two men she'd ever known in the Biblical sense. She was the most well liked and most respected of any WM who worked in Comm.

{I oft’ times have heard parents (especially dads) say they'd never "let" their daughters go into the service. I have to pipe in of course. There is much more freedom on a college campus than on a military base. Now in 2002? Girls are more worldly at fourteen than we were at eighteen. I wonder what these parents think their daughters would do on a military base that they wouldn't do in their own apartments should they go to work and move away from mom and dad.}

After the first flush of dating a lot of different Marines, the average WM would usually fall in love and be in a relationship of some sort. When not on a "date" a few of us in Comm would hang with the Comm guys in town. At night we'd go to the places that had live entertainment. At that time places like Jazzland, The Band Box and Birdland would feature bands who played the current popular songs.  They were good; so good sometimes you'd think you were hearing the real band who made the song popular. We were usually the only women in these places. During the day we hung at The Pub which was a corner bar where everybody knew your name.

I went to KY one weekend with one of my best friends. We flew there to pick up her car and drove it back to base. We had such fun once she had the car. We visited places in the area from Wilmington to Raleigh. Went to the beaches and were like regular sightseers. Before that. we weren't at all familiar with what was in the surrounding area. We even went to a little country church outside of J'ville that was much like her church back in Halo, KY. A lot of the women took a 96 hour liberty pass whenever they could, to go home. I went to Jacksonville, FL a few times to visit my dad's girlfriend. He lived in the Bahamas by that time. If he came back to the states, he came to the base a couple of times.   Anyone's parents showing up was a big deal. When my mother and step father came down for a visit she brought fudge to share and at the club they were treated like royalty. We all missed family.

The Comm center had a life of its own. Three watches a day worked it 24 hours a day. It was never closed. The day watch was the busiest, and the Captain was in his office M-F. The Gunny in charge of operations was there M-F also. The rest of us rotated watches. There was a Lt. on each watch and a Staff Sgt or E5 and a Cpl. under him in charge of the rest of us. The evening watch was called a Zig watch. I don't know why and never did. The watch from midnight to morning was the Mid watch. One of our jobs on mid watches was to field day the center before the day watch showed up. We played cards for four or five hours of that watch. Or we slept on file cabinets or chairs pulled together or with our heads lying down on the desk. Sometimes the Sgt would "secure" some of us to the barracks if it was a particularly slow night. In one room was an 82B1 which is a burster type of machine on which the incoming messages would come in. (See pictures of that room attached.) There was one desk in there with one person assigned to it but on mid watches he didn't have to stay in there. You could hear incoming messages no matter where in the Comm center you were. If it was a priority message coming in, bells would ring. The message had five carbons. All but one which stayed on the machine went to the relay desk with the tape attached. This is where the Sgt would decide how to handle it and who would get it relayed to them. The Cpl. was more in charge of outgoing messages that were brought down from topside to be sent out. We had six teletypes used for cutting tapes to relay out to FMF Atlantic. Even if a message was just going to 2nd MarDiv who we had a direct line to, it first had to go to Norfolk. The tapes we cut had to be perfect as far as the headings were concerned. The text could be corrected if a typo was made. Proofreading was done by either the Sgt. or the Cpl. I don't know what the Lt. did. Maybe he was there in case there was a question or problem. Zig watches were fairly busy and those of us who were conscientious never left until our work was cleaned up. The Captain and Gunny made up the schedules and implemented changes in operational procedures. Once every few weeks they'd play around with something that worked and make it into something that didn't. One time they had a watch leaving at 2359 and reporting back at 2400. They assigned at least two WM's to each watch and experimented with having an all WM watch during one of their more adventurous moments. We had a WM WO and a WM S/Sgt and a WM Cpl. I wasn't part of that watch because I was assigned at the time to a watch with a Sgt who disliked WM's and everything about them. The Gunny was desperate and "asked" me if I'd take a shot at converting him so I did. It took two or three weeks but I was successful. The problem, I think, was that the Marines on his watch were all very eligible, available and very friendly. Every time a WM was assigned on that watch, she'd end up more interested in one of the Marines than in the work. Bad news all around. You didn't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out what was going on. The gunny assigned the one WM to the file room where the messages were typed up for the staff topside and put me out on the floor to work with the Sgt. Since it was my practice to arrive early and stay late and finish any work I started before leaving, he came to have respect and realize that there were indeed women worth of the title Marine. I, too, became close to him and found that this was his first time ever in close proximity to female Marines. He had assumptions, as many of the males did, plus he'd only been aboard for three months and had had his assumptions borne out unfortunately. I did suggest to the Gunny that the next time they changed the watches around that he be sure to put the "worker bee" WM's on his watch. This tough Sgt. even carried my reel to reel tape recorder down the ladder for me and sang a little with the rest of the troops on mid watch one night. I still have that tape after thirty-nine years. Those were precious moments for sure. One Christmas Eve when I was assigned to a watch with almost all brown baggers (a watch most WM's would rather not be on) a benevolent Sgt had let most of them go home. There was no reason to think it was going to get busy but it did. We were slammed. When the next watch came in we stayed another two hours just to catch up with ourselves. There were only four of us there to handle a barrage of work on this twelve hour shift. The Lt. relieving our Lt. wrote us up for being out of uniform. Shirttails had come out of our utilities and I had my shoes off due to a blister from standing so long. Our Lt. set him straight and the log was adjusted. I suppose we did look like we were out in the field somewhere but we hardly had time to go to the head. I was at an advantage to have worked in all areas of the Comm center because it made me virtually indispensable, therefore I never was assigned to mess duty as were most of the other WM's in the barracks. Each time my name came up I was excused due to being essential to the operation. We ate mid-rats as they were called. Baloney sandwiches with cheese on dried up bread wrapped in wax paper. We stuck them on top of the coffee grounds in the big urn to soften them up. We trekked over to a nearby mess hall to get these gems and sometimes if a WM went, they'd hook us up with something good so we were urged to go as often as possible. There is no explaining the camaraderie. It must be the same for any unit in the Corps. Toward the end of my enlistment when my three closest friends had married and gotten out or moved out of the barracks, I hung out with four Comm guys continually for three months. In fact I couldn't date anyone because none of the men I'd go out with seemed to understand my friendship with my buddies. One of my friends who had married was living at Tarawa Terrace on Saipan Dr. Her husband bowled six nights a week so we hung around her house playing Pinochle and eating home cooked food. Because of our being watch standers we were there at all different times of day and night. Those were some of the best times for all of us.

Politics wasn’t discussed much. Two of our guys would get into debates once in a while. I had always hoped to catch them on tape sometime but it never happened that way. The discussions of Nam just weren't going on at that time and the feeling in the country as far as we could tell was still regret for having lost JFK. It may very well be that in other areas of the base where they may have been preparing for the inevitable there was more talk of Nam. Our concerns, as Marines? Getting our jobs done and talking about what we would do when we got out. Very few of the Comm personnel were lifers. It was always so many days and a wake up being said by someone. The hardest things to take was the transfers out once you had gotten so close to someone. We talked about our lives before, our families and friends back home, our mom's cooking; stuff like that. No one was really into government or theories on things or solutions to national problems.

Barracks life before my friends got out was bearable but after they left I was there as little as possible, staying off base at my married friend's place at Tarawa Terrace. They changed the way the racks and lockers were arranged every now and then but it didn't change the fact that you had no place that was private. Showers were taken in a shower room right off the head where there were five open shower stalls. There was a TV room that hardly anyone used. The Cpl's and E5's had their own quarters but I was never in there to see what it was like. I don't think it was all that great. More women might have stayed in had they had different living conditions. To be transferred you had to ship over for four years and not many wanted to make that much of a commitment. It might have been a good incentive to have a yearly pilgrimage back to PI to re-instill in us our Espirit de Corps. Or even to have been able to go on a hike to Onslow Beach, sleep in tents and get away from the daily routine. I don't know of any WM's that liked barracks life. We could not even sit out on the steps of the men's barracks across the street. It was where our Comm guys lived. One of them took me in there one night and it looked just the same as ours did. The Provost Marshall's office was right behind their barracks so it was a stealth mission. Speaking of MP's and who wasn't. I lost my PFC stripe trying to keep one MP from arresting another. Long story, but I missed two hours of a mid watch due to a fracas in town. I had been up for L/Cpl but instead ended up a Private. The MP was a lifer though and it would have ruined his career. I hadn't planned on staying in anyway but I was disappointed that the Lt. on my watch didn’t cover for me, after having jumped through hoops to never be a slacker, even when too tired to keep my eyes open.  Two hours after I was supposed to be at work I called to say I was on my way but the Lt. already had me in the books. I didn't bother going to work and stood Battalion office hours. I had had company office hours a year before the incident because of a delay in getting back from Norfolk or some such thing. I didn't lose my stripe over that. I was more upset over the lack of support than I was the stripe. The Mickey Mouse aspect of the Corps is why there weren't more lifers at that time. Especially in Comm where we worked such bizarre hours. Most of us liked the work very much. We were patriotic enough but it was the pitiful small stuff that got everyone down.

There was also the matter of pay. What exactly can you do on $85 a month? After buying the essentials of life and any clothing one might need, paying for dry cleaning, shoe repair etc. what was left didn't go very far. We walked a lot. All around the base or at least where we were allowed. None of us were going to venture over to 2nd MarDiv. I walked out to the Comm Radio Station sometimes. It was out on the road down by the Catholic chapel. Very peaceful down that way. We'd go to the PX of course and to the Sandwich Shop over there. This was before the day of the Sub. We'd cash our checks at the PX and for a treat have a sandwich. Big time spenders. The selections were on a board by numbers. Some would walk over to the Steak house on base. One side was a steak house and the other a Chinese restaurant. As far as I can remember it was somewhere near the Commissary. In town it would either be Luigi's next to Jazzland or the Shangri-La. Wolfie's and the Duchess, near the bus station were 24 hour diners. If in a vehicle The It drive in restaurant on the Blvd. was a popular place. Our favorite place was called Buddy's drive in. These ventures were not run of the mill because of the money. It wasn't fair to ask a guy to pay although often they'd insist but they were living on the same meager pay as we were. On a date, OK, yes, they did treat but among buddies? No. We usually pooled our money and if it was just before payday we'd be fortunate to buy one piece of pie for five of us. My tape recorder was in and out of the pawn shop many times. The jeweler in the store next to the pawn shop knew me by name. He'd be out on the sidewalk hawking his wares like at a carnival and see me a couple of times a month lugging that heavy thing into the shop. Everyone had something or other to hock. My Marine Corps ring got me $10. The recorder $30. Maybe hard times make for good memories. But if worse came to worse we could always eat in the mess hall which we did most of the time. Our Comm guys shared the same hall with us so we could sit together. There is no denying lack of money kept us from seeing a lot of North Carolina and nearby states. Other than going on leave we didn't go all that far. I had hoped to get up to DC to see some sights or to Charleston or Savannah but even though traveling on train or plane in uniform was cheap enough, staying anywhere overnight wasn't. None of us had a lot of civilian clothes since we couldn't wear the slacks we had worn before enlisting. A little shop in a nearby plaza let WM's set up charge accounts there. It was the first time I'd ever charged anything. They got all of our business. The fashions at the PX were not as modern as those at the "Glamour Shop." We also had the expense of having our hair cut quite often and permed if necessary. All and all we were poor but the roof was over our heads and we had access to food so there wasn't much to complain about. Music was allowed in the barracks if kept low because it would be like a Chinese fire-drill if everyone had their music blasting. We weren't allowed to have an electric percolator but somehow one found its way into our area and it was hard to disguise the smell of the coffee brewing. I learned to drink black coffee in the Corps. I did have some of those good times on tape but the quality has diminished so they are hard to hear. When all four of us were bunking in the same area we laughed ourselves sick. Our window looked out on the Force Troops Headquarters building and sometimes, when we'd just be going to bed after a mid watch, we would watch the colors being raised in a ceremony with music. It was one of those times that really brought it home that you were a part of something very special. The same type of feeling you'd get from looking out over the base from the second floor of building #1. Special moments; a special place and time of our lives.

As I said, I had three best friends. Evelyn, who went to boot camp with me and worked in Comm was my bunkie after my original one transferred to Hawaii. Evelyn's boyfriend was in the Navy stationed in Alaska and she enlisted in the Corps hoping to somehow be stationed near him. She didn't even get the West Coast. You could hear her screaming when the list of out postings went up at PI. She soon got over it though when she met and fell in love with a guy named Willie from Sheboygan, WI. When he was transferred along with my boyfriend to Camp Elmore in Norfolk she tried to keep up the relationship but soon had met the next love of her life and eventually, after thirteen trips to SC to marry him, married him. (They divorced within two years.)

Shelby was from Portsmouth, Ohio and had been married and divorced. She worked at the commissary in I don't know what MOS. She loved to dance, dated many Marines but then met and married a Sgt and moved to Tarawa Terrace. I don't recall if she had the option of staying in the Corps. I think she did, but declined. Her marriage lasted not much longer than Evelyn's.

Judy was from Halo, Kentucky and worked in Comm. I've mentioned her before as the most well liked and respected WM in the Comm center. Her laugh was infectious and any room she was in would light up. I met her family on two occasions; one of them when I stood up at her wedding. They'd never met a Yankee and I'd never been in Kentucky. Her marriage did last much longer than Evelyn's or Shelby's.

I didn't know the other women in the barracks very well. Mainly because of being a watch stander I suppose or because you can only have so many best friends. There was a WM in lower port who became quite well known around the country. Her name was Anita Humes and she, along with three male Marines called The Essex made a record that became a number 1 hit. The song was "Easier Said than Done." Willie Linton wrote it.  He was a Comm guy. On the original record it was just his name under the song title but recently I saw the record and there was another name with his. Rudy Johnson, also a Comm guy sang on the record as one of the Essex. Anita played the record over the barracks PA system when she got the first pressing. When they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show we all went to the TV room to watch them. We were very proud. The group only had that one huge hit and a couple of smaller hits, but they are found on the web.

There may have been women living in the barracks who went on to make the Marine Corps their career. I'm sure there was a library on base but I never had time to take a look at it even though I'm an avid reader. Opportunities are everywhere. Had we wanted to I don't know if we could have taken jobs moonlighting to make more money. Probably not. Watch-standers would have had a hard time trying to juggle that. I only kept track of Shelby but in 1993 I did find Evelyn and went to Baton Rouge to see her. She subsequently died three years later. In 1999 I found Judy by writing to her family address in Kentucky on the off chance they were still around. We've visited back and forth now three times. 

The cultural differences were many, comparing then and now. Racially, the barracks was integrated but as far as who hung around with who? No, I believe it was totally segregated. I logged one of the Comm guys into the club one Saturday afternoon to complete a foursome for Hearts. I was tapped on the shoulder by the security at the door about a half hour later and told to report to the OD in our barracks. I did that and was told that CMC frowned on interracial dating. Explaining that there was no date, the Lt. advised that I not go back but it wasn't an order so she said. I went back and finished the game. I believe the Marine knew what had happened. He watched me casually date two or three of our Comm guys and he eventually asked me if there was any chance I would go out with him but there wasn't and I told him why. He gave me an Our Lady of the Highway medal that he had always worn around his neck. Yes, there was a wide gap. There was also a huge double standard and "loose" women were horribly looked down upon. I knew one girl who pulled it off. She reminded me of Goldie Hawn and maybe because she had no guilt about it, it didn't show on her, but she got around and made no apologies for it. The guilt of others who were promiscuous could be seen on their faces when they would lower their eyes when around "regular" WM's. Morals were stressed and bringing shame to the uniform was something that wasn't appreciated. They used the mail room to confine anyone caught stealing, behaving in a disorderly way or making unwanted advances (rare) toward another WM. The music from that era will pull up memories more than anything else but looking back it all seems as though it went on in an isolated period of history. I imagine that is the way it is for Marines looking back on the wars they fought whether it be WWII, Korea, Nam or the Gulf. It was in another time and we were different people. We evolve every day so who knows who we will be tomorrow? What we do know is that we were, are and always will be Marines.

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