thedrifter
12-03-07, 08:16 AM
Women Blazed The Trails For Marine Corps Careers
By CHERYL BENTLEY, The Suncoast News
Published: December 3, 2007
WHO: Local Women Marines Association members
BACK IN DOLLIE'S DAY: Fresh out of high school in Chicago and only 18, Dollie Pobozny was in the first group of women trainees at Camp Lejeune. The Marines moved basic training for women to the base in North Carolina in 1943.
"They didn't know what to do with us half the time," the Hudson woman recalls of her boot camp instructors.
So the women were taught how to march. And march.
"All we did was train and march," Pobozny recalls.
"We marched everywhere we went," remembers Vivian Greene of Palm Harbor, who began her two-year hitch in 1944. "If someone needed a tube of toothpaste at the PX, the whole platoon had to march there."
The North Carolina heat was too much for some of the women, but not Pobozny, now 85. "I'm not the passing-out type," she says crisply.
LURING LADY LEATHERNECKS: Joanne Heidenreich joined the Corps in 1954. She and a high school friend were enticed by the recruiters' promises of leisure-time activities.
"They told us we would be able to do all kinds of things," Heidenreich says, "like horseback riding and tennis."
Did they? "No way," she replies, laughing. "Not during boot camp."
The only tennis courts she saw during that time were the ones the women were told to weed.
Boot camp was "a whole different world," she says, smiling. "It was nothing like home."
After basic training, Heidenreich was sent to San Francisco, where she was a clerk typist at an electronics supply depot. Heidenreich was told her job helped free up men for other work.
She later re-enlisted and was stationed at Camp H.M. Smith, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. There, she met her future husband, Bill, at a Marine Corps ball.
Like Heidenreich, Barbara De Guiseppe learned lots of life lessons while in the service from 1954 to 1957. "You go in as a baby," she says, "but you grow up."
Jeanette McKinnon got to see part of the world during her 20-year career, which ended in 1991, including Washington, D.C., San Diego, Panama and Norway.
In 1975, she and five other women were the first to learn drill instruction procedures formerly reserved for men.
JUST PLANE CRAZY: Greene enlisted because she was nuts about airplanes, and the Corps sent her to mechanics school at the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Norman, Okla. Women Marines and male sailors made up the class.
"It was the hottest summer of my life," she remembers. "Back then, there was no air conditioning."
Students would fall asleep during class, so Navy officials removed the chairs and made them stand up. Anyone caught dozing would be doused with water.
"A lot of times I would shut my eyes so they'd throw water on me," Greene says. "It was warm, but even so, it felt good."
Greene went on to Marine Corps Air Station Quantico in Virginia, where she inspected the birds before they took off.
Women were especially careful with those duties because they had to prove they were capable mechanics. "We girls knew if we made one mistake we would be off that flight line," says Greene, now 83.
The pilots appreciated such diligence, she notes. "They told us they'd rather see a woman's signature on the checklist."
After the war, Greene married, had three children and lived in Hatboro, Pa. She attended every Women Marines Association convention but two from 1970 to 2000 before her health kept her home in recent years.
But her Semper Fi spirit flourishes still.
FIND OUT MORE
WOMEN MARINES ASSOCIATION, P.O. Box 8405, Falls Church, VA 22041-8405; e-mail wma@womenmarines.org; Web site www.womenmarines org.
OTHER RESOURCES: leatherneck.com; www.grunt.com/ usmc-web/links/women.asp; www.marines.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/homepage?read form; marinecorps.com; www.wmvet.bravepages.com; www.lejeune.usmc.mil/mcb/index.asp; www.va.gov.
Ellie
By CHERYL BENTLEY, The Suncoast News
Published: December 3, 2007
WHO: Local Women Marines Association members
BACK IN DOLLIE'S DAY: Fresh out of high school in Chicago and only 18, Dollie Pobozny was in the first group of women trainees at Camp Lejeune. The Marines moved basic training for women to the base in North Carolina in 1943.
"They didn't know what to do with us half the time," the Hudson woman recalls of her boot camp instructors.
So the women were taught how to march. And march.
"All we did was train and march," Pobozny recalls.
"We marched everywhere we went," remembers Vivian Greene of Palm Harbor, who began her two-year hitch in 1944. "If someone needed a tube of toothpaste at the PX, the whole platoon had to march there."
The North Carolina heat was too much for some of the women, but not Pobozny, now 85. "I'm not the passing-out type," she says crisply.
LURING LADY LEATHERNECKS: Joanne Heidenreich joined the Corps in 1954. She and a high school friend were enticed by the recruiters' promises of leisure-time activities.
"They told us we would be able to do all kinds of things," Heidenreich says, "like horseback riding and tennis."
Did they? "No way," she replies, laughing. "Not during boot camp."
The only tennis courts she saw during that time were the ones the women were told to weed.
Boot camp was "a whole different world," she says, smiling. "It was nothing like home."
After basic training, Heidenreich was sent to San Francisco, where she was a clerk typist at an electronics supply depot. Heidenreich was told her job helped free up men for other work.
She later re-enlisted and was stationed at Camp H.M. Smith, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. There, she met her future husband, Bill, at a Marine Corps ball.
Like Heidenreich, Barbara De Guiseppe learned lots of life lessons while in the service from 1954 to 1957. "You go in as a baby," she says, "but you grow up."
Jeanette McKinnon got to see part of the world during her 20-year career, which ended in 1991, including Washington, D.C., San Diego, Panama and Norway.
In 1975, she and five other women were the first to learn drill instruction procedures formerly reserved for men.
JUST PLANE CRAZY: Greene enlisted because she was nuts about airplanes, and the Corps sent her to mechanics school at the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Norman, Okla. Women Marines and male sailors made up the class.
"It was the hottest summer of my life," she remembers. "Back then, there was no air conditioning."
Students would fall asleep during class, so Navy officials removed the chairs and made them stand up. Anyone caught dozing would be doused with water.
"A lot of times I would shut my eyes so they'd throw water on me," Greene says. "It was warm, but even so, it felt good."
Greene went on to Marine Corps Air Station Quantico in Virginia, where she inspected the birds before they took off.
Women were especially careful with those duties because they had to prove they were capable mechanics. "We girls knew if we made one mistake we would be off that flight line," says Greene, now 83.
The pilots appreciated such diligence, she notes. "They told us they'd rather see a woman's signature on the checklist."
After the war, Greene married, had three children and lived in Hatboro, Pa. She attended every Women Marines Association convention but two from 1970 to 2000 before her health kept her home in recent years.
But her Semper Fi spirit flourishes still.
FIND OUT MORE
WOMEN MARINES ASSOCIATION, P.O. Box 8405, Falls Church, VA 22041-8405; e-mail wma@womenmarines.org; Web site www.womenmarines org.
OTHER RESOURCES: leatherneck.com; www.grunt.com/ usmc-web/links/women.asp; www.marines.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/homepage?read form; marinecorps.com; www.wmvet.bravepages.com; www.lejeune.usmc.mil/mcb/index.asp; www.va.gov.
Ellie