thedrifter
05-28-07, 06:46 PM
A woman who fell in love with the Corps
Sunday, May 27, 2007
By MARY ALICE ARNOLD ALTORFER
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD NEWS
China was a long way from New Jersey. You would never know it by my mother's pretty, smiling face in the 1947 passport photo. Barely a year old, I pressed against her neck and deadpanned the camera with a child's apprehensive instinct. Civil war raged in China and we were flying into a maelstrom of killing that my mother would witness and still reference today.
Mom was also pregnant with my brother as we left the confines of a very insular world of relatives and friends to join my father, who was stationed near Tsingtao. A few years earlier, she had shocked everyone in Bergenfield by joining the U.S. Marines in a similar tempest of patriotism and ardor.
Following boot camp at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Mildred "Stew" Stewart went to work at nearby Cherry Point, where a good-looking, wise-cracking, parachute rigger from Kentucky flirted with an intensity always seen in his long-lashed, blue eyes that now dominate my sister's face.
My parents had married in uniform at the base chapel in August 1945 and that December Mom was honorably discharged from the Corps. Stew's size 4 uniform hangs in my closet as respect to her duty-filled service and in reverence to her first love, the USMC.
Most of my early childhood pictures are in front of Quonset huts located in a compound outside Tsingtao or bundled up and waving from a rickshaw. My brother was born there on the hospital ship, USS Repose, which Mom revisited a couple of years ago when it docked in the Bay Area.
As the Communists advanced, my mother, brother and I were evacuated with little money and few possessions to island-hop our way home. Mom slowly navigated her little troop toward New Jersey. The flight from Honolulu to California was on the Caroline Mars, one of the huge "flying boats" originally designed for long-range ocean patrol. The last leg of the journey was a cross-country train trip to New York where anxious relatives scooped us up.
Like most military families, we followed my father's military career. Since he was an enlisted man, money was scarce and we were usually separated from extended family.
I won't say Mom struggled: she endured. Pop was gone a lot. The crumbling tenements otherwise known as base housing is where Mom waited for our father to come home. She was always anticipating his return. If it wasn't the Marines, it was the NCO club or local honky-tonk.
Mom hummed arias from the operas and went to Mass offered by the same priest that Pop had been out drinking with the night before. She stayed and prayed while Pop played and strayed.
The old Country Music legends and songwriters must have been peeking at my parents' marriage when they sang and wrote about true love and betrayal. Maybe that's why Pop loved it so much.
On what would have been their silver anniversary, Mom divorced Pop because of one particular betrayal. In retrospect, I underestimated their affection over the years. I also underestimated my mother's strength and survival skills. That pluck is evident today in her 86-year-old face.
Mom's left hand wears a wedding ring placed on it by a handsome, young Marine wearing dress blues who professed his love to her more than six decades ago. Those vows meant more to my mother than my father's infidelities. He has been gone for almost 20 years now, and the girlfriend, who became his wife, died three years ago.
Stew is still standing, albeit, with a walker. She never remarried, never even dated after their divorce and describes herself as a widow, Pop's widow. Emotionally, yes, but financially, no.
Everything my mother accumulated after their divorce, she earned herself. She was never allotted any of his military pension and benefits despite being married to him for 17 of his 20 years in the Corps.
Pop's second wife, who was never married to him during his military service, received them. According to the Marines, my parents' divorce and his remarriage terminated my mother's entitlement.
Mom is part of our country's "Greatest Generation" and deserves to be treated accordingly. She should not only receive her share of my father's military pension, it needs to be retroactive. Anything less is complete disrespect for her participation in his Marine Corps service.
My mother adored my father and still says joining the Marine Corps was the best thing she ever did. Tragically, it seems both of them discarded her for another woman.
Mary Alice Arnold Altorfer resides in New Braunfels, Texas.
Ellie
Sunday, May 27, 2007
By MARY ALICE ARNOLD ALTORFER
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD NEWS
China was a long way from New Jersey. You would never know it by my mother's pretty, smiling face in the 1947 passport photo. Barely a year old, I pressed against her neck and deadpanned the camera with a child's apprehensive instinct. Civil war raged in China and we were flying into a maelstrom of killing that my mother would witness and still reference today.
Mom was also pregnant with my brother as we left the confines of a very insular world of relatives and friends to join my father, who was stationed near Tsingtao. A few years earlier, she had shocked everyone in Bergenfield by joining the U.S. Marines in a similar tempest of patriotism and ardor.
Following boot camp at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Mildred "Stew" Stewart went to work at nearby Cherry Point, where a good-looking, wise-cracking, parachute rigger from Kentucky flirted with an intensity always seen in his long-lashed, blue eyes that now dominate my sister's face.
My parents had married in uniform at the base chapel in August 1945 and that December Mom was honorably discharged from the Corps. Stew's size 4 uniform hangs in my closet as respect to her duty-filled service and in reverence to her first love, the USMC.
Most of my early childhood pictures are in front of Quonset huts located in a compound outside Tsingtao or bundled up and waving from a rickshaw. My brother was born there on the hospital ship, USS Repose, which Mom revisited a couple of years ago when it docked in the Bay Area.
As the Communists advanced, my mother, brother and I were evacuated with little money and few possessions to island-hop our way home. Mom slowly navigated her little troop toward New Jersey. The flight from Honolulu to California was on the Caroline Mars, one of the huge "flying boats" originally designed for long-range ocean patrol. The last leg of the journey was a cross-country train trip to New York where anxious relatives scooped us up.
Like most military families, we followed my father's military career. Since he was an enlisted man, money was scarce and we were usually separated from extended family.
I won't say Mom struggled: she endured. Pop was gone a lot. The crumbling tenements otherwise known as base housing is where Mom waited for our father to come home. She was always anticipating his return. If it wasn't the Marines, it was the NCO club or local honky-tonk.
Mom hummed arias from the operas and went to Mass offered by the same priest that Pop had been out drinking with the night before. She stayed and prayed while Pop played and strayed.
The old Country Music legends and songwriters must have been peeking at my parents' marriage when they sang and wrote about true love and betrayal. Maybe that's why Pop loved it so much.
On what would have been their silver anniversary, Mom divorced Pop because of one particular betrayal. In retrospect, I underestimated their affection over the years. I also underestimated my mother's strength and survival skills. That pluck is evident today in her 86-year-old face.
Mom's left hand wears a wedding ring placed on it by a handsome, young Marine wearing dress blues who professed his love to her more than six decades ago. Those vows meant more to my mother than my father's infidelities. He has been gone for almost 20 years now, and the girlfriend, who became his wife, died three years ago.
Stew is still standing, albeit, with a walker. She never remarried, never even dated after their divorce and describes herself as a widow, Pop's widow. Emotionally, yes, but financially, no.
Everything my mother accumulated after their divorce, she earned herself. She was never allotted any of his military pension and benefits despite being married to him for 17 of his 20 years in the Corps.
Pop's second wife, who was never married to him during his military service, received them. According to the Marines, my parents' divorce and his remarriage terminated my mother's entitlement.
Mom is part of our country's "Greatest Generation" and deserves to be treated accordingly. She should not only receive her share of my father's military pension, it needs to be retroactive. Anything less is complete disrespect for her participation in his Marine Corps service.
My mother adored my father and still says joining the Marine Corps was the best thing she ever did. Tragically, it seems both of them discarded her for another woman.
Mary Alice Arnold Altorfer resides in New Braunfels, Texas.
Ellie