thedrifter
04-01-08, 08:33 AM
Female Marines have come a long way in 90 years
By Savannah Morning News
Created 2008-03-31 23:30
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. - Jennifer Bailey is much friendlier than the poster makes her look. Back in 1999, when a Marine Corps photographer snapped the picture that made her famous, she was a drill instructor, a raspy, intense master of fear, her pointing finger just inches from the face of a flinching recruit.
"We don't promise you a rose garden, either," the poster says, and the scowling Bailey looks absolutely determined to prove the truth of that motto. Today, she's the smiling, outgoing civilian manager of Parris Island's bookstore. Few people make the connection. Few people understand that the woman stocking shelves with books about World War II once looked as though she could fight a war all by herself.
Occasionally, she gets asked to sign autographs. It happened Wednesday, actually, when she stopped by Parris Island's Alexander's Ship Store gift shop to get a copy of "her" poster.
The first female Marines joined up 90 years ago this year. For most of that time, they provided secretarial or behind-the-scenes services so male Marines could head to the front to fight. Times have changed. At least some of the recruits Bailey trained a decade ago have served in Iraq.
"I have absolutely no regrets," Bailey said. "The Marine Corps changed my life; it changed my direction; it gave me more confidence than I ever had before."
She even ran for, but ultimately lost, a campaign for a seat in the South Carolina State House in 2005. "Would I have done that otherwise? Most likely not," she said. "I would recommend a young girl - or a young man - to come into the service."
Family tradition
Bailey's father was in the Navy, a submariner based at King's Bay in Camden County, shortly after it opened. He told her the Navy was "no place for a woman."
So she became a Marine.
"I wanted to be in the service, and I thought the Marine Corps would be my biggest challenge, the hardest. I forced myself to go that route because I wanted to see if I could do it.
"It was really the hardest decision I ever made. And it was the hardest thing I ever did."
She joined in September 1992. She was 22, having first tested her interest in a civilian life by earning a two-year general-studies college degree.
Her Marine recruiter had warned her about how tough basic training would be, so she was prepared for the worst the Corps could offer physically.
"It wasn't so much the physical as it was the mental aspect that was the hardest, getting yelled at and shouted at and told to fix it and then fixing it and then getting yelled at some more. "Every day I thought, 'Am I going to make it through this?' "
She did, of course. Her first duty assignment was as a graphic illustrator, of all things, for the Marine Corps Institute in Washington, D.C., where she spent more than three years. (Today, she owns The Graphic Arts Center near the South Carolina base, so the Corps' training stuck with her.)
Marines switch duties periodically throughout their service careers, though, so Bailey thought her options over. She didn't want to be a recruiter. She considered being a Marine Security Guard, but gave that idea up, too. "Something told me, 'Jennifer, I think you ought to go to the drill field.' "
So it was back to the basics. Only this time, as a drill instructor, she had to be better than literally everyone.
Get beaten at anything by a recruit, look winded or out of breath, look tired, and a Marine recruit would no longer show the respect vital to successful training. That cannot happen. Bailey made sure it did not. She finished at the top of her male-dominated drill-instructor's class.
Fortunately, her husband had once been a drill instructor himself. He was the support she so badly needed at home. When she was able to go home. An average DI is at work 120 hours each week.
She shepherded five recruit platoons through basic training before leaving the Corps in 2001.
A poster's impact
So what about that poster? A Marine Corps photographer had taken her photo for the cover of Fourth Forum, the official magazine of the 4th Marine Corps Recruiting District. She collected a copy or two of the magazine and thought little more of it.
Years later, though, Charles Taliano, the grizzled drill instructor featured on the Marines' "We don't promise you a rose garden" campaign ads of the 1970s, got permission from the Corps to use that photo and make a female version of the poster.
The female motto: "We don't promise you a rose garden, either." The posters are for sale in Alexander's Ship Store, which Taliano manages.
"The tradition is the greatest part of the Corps, especially for the fact that you go back 90 years and women were only brought in to do secretarial and office work ... and now women are out there in the thick of things.
"It's incredible. It's amazing the strides that women have made over the years."
Ellie
By Savannah Morning News
Created 2008-03-31 23:30
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. - Jennifer Bailey is much friendlier than the poster makes her look. Back in 1999, when a Marine Corps photographer snapped the picture that made her famous, she was a drill instructor, a raspy, intense master of fear, her pointing finger just inches from the face of a flinching recruit.
"We don't promise you a rose garden, either," the poster says, and the scowling Bailey looks absolutely determined to prove the truth of that motto. Today, she's the smiling, outgoing civilian manager of Parris Island's bookstore. Few people make the connection. Few people understand that the woman stocking shelves with books about World War II once looked as though she could fight a war all by herself.
Occasionally, she gets asked to sign autographs. It happened Wednesday, actually, when she stopped by Parris Island's Alexander's Ship Store gift shop to get a copy of "her" poster.
The first female Marines joined up 90 years ago this year. For most of that time, they provided secretarial or behind-the-scenes services so male Marines could head to the front to fight. Times have changed. At least some of the recruits Bailey trained a decade ago have served in Iraq.
"I have absolutely no regrets," Bailey said. "The Marine Corps changed my life; it changed my direction; it gave me more confidence than I ever had before."
She even ran for, but ultimately lost, a campaign for a seat in the South Carolina State House in 2005. "Would I have done that otherwise? Most likely not," she said. "I would recommend a young girl - or a young man - to come into the service."
Family tradition
Bailey's father was in the Navy, a submariner based at King's Bay in Camden County, shortly after it opened. He told her the Navy was "no place for a woman."
So she became a Marine.
"I wanted to be in the service, and I thought the Marine Corps would be my biggest challenge, the hardest. I forced myself to go that route because I wanted to see if I could do it.
"It was really the hardest decision I ever made. And it was the hardest thing I ever did."
She joined in September 1992. She was 22, having first tested her interest in a civilian life by earning a two-year general-studies college degree.
Her Marine recruiter had warned her about how tough basic training would be, so she was prepared for the worst the Corps could offer physically.
"It wasn't so much the physical as it was the mental aspect that was the hardest, getting yelled at and shouted at and told to fix it and then fixing it and then getting yelled at some more. "Every day I thought, 'Am I going to make it through this?' "
She did, of course. Her first duty assignment was as a graphic illustrator, of all things, for the Marine Corps Institute in Washington, D.C., where she spent more than three years. (Today, she owns The Graphic Arts Center near the South Carolina base, so the Corps' training stuck with her.)
Marines switch duties periodically throughout their service careers, though, so Bailey thought her options over. She didn't want to be a recruiter. She considered being a Marine Security Guard, but gave that idea up, too. "Something told me, 'Jennifer, I think you ought to go to the drill field.' "
So it was back to the basics. Only this time, as a drill instructor, she had to be better than literally everyone.
Get beaten at anything by a recruit, look winded or out of breath, look tired, and a Marine recruit would no longer show the respect vital to successful training. That cannot happen. Bailey made sure it did not. She finished at the top of her male-dominated drill-instructor's class.
Fortunately, her husband had once been a drill instructor himself. He was the support she so badly needed at home. When she was able to go home. An average DI is at work 120 hours each week.
She shepherded five recruit platoons through basic training before leaving the Corps in 2001.
A poster's impact
So what about that poster? A Marine Corps photographer had taken her photo for the cover of Fourth Forum, the official magazine of the 4th Marine Corps Recruiting District. She collected a copy or two of the magazine and thought little more of it.
Years later, though, Charles Taliano, the grizzled drill instructor featured on the Marines' "We don't promise you a rose garden" campaign ads of the 1970s, got permission from the Corps to use that photo and make a female version of the poster.
The female motto: "We don't promise you a rose garden, either." The posters are for sale in Alexander's Ship Store, which Taliano manages.
"The tradition is the greatest part of the Corps, especially for the fact that you go back 90 years and women were only brought in to do secretarial and office work ... and now women are out there in the thick of things.
"It's incredible. It's amazing the strides that women have made over the years."
Ellie